Do you want to hire a book Agent?
I have a number of author friends who have taken the route of working with a publishing agent. This is truly a double edge sword!
One friend in San Diego sent his book proposal to more than 200 agents, posting each rejection letter to the walls of his office. No matter how you look at it, that is a bucket load of rejection to be surrounding yourself with on a daily basis!
When he finally got accepted, he was ecstatic! Rightfully so, until he got the contract. Being a first time author, he was offered $10,000 as an advance, his agent received 20% of that and the publisher set aside $1,000 for marketing costs. That isn’t even enough to cover even one small decent ad in a related trade magazine.
Then the big surprise: he had to arrange all of his book signings and get himself booked on radio talk shows, without their help.
Now, here’s where the big rub is, when he would travel all over the country to promote his book he would earn seventy-six cents per book! Imagine traveling 100 miles to show up at a book signing, be thrilled to have 50 people show up and ecstatic when you sell 25 books.
Then you do the numbers and you’ve spent 6 hours driving and speaking to earn $19!
No matter how you look at it, you can’t justify selling books this way!