By Nicholas Sansbury Smith
In 2018 I spoke to a crowd of hundreds of indie authors at the 50 Books conference and started by saying, “it has never been a better time in history to be a writer.” A lot has changed since then, even more since I started publishing back in 2013, but I still believe those words to be true. Much of that has to do with Amazon. They opened the floodgates to tens of thousands of writers like myself when they launched Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). No longer were writers bound to the old laws of publishing that required an agent to get a book deal with a major publisher. There was no querying and waiting for responses. The long process of looking for a publisher after writing and toiling over a manuscript was reduced to the hours it took to upload that manuscript to KDP. Authors became far more than writers, transcending to publishers themselves. Those that learned how to market had a huge advantage, many of them building brands and reaching readers on their own.
I became one of those authors, and I hit the ground running with a viral self-published hit. But there were still doors closed to me back then. I had no idea what to do about the audio offers, or queries from big publishers about buying this new bestseller. I decided to pursue an agent that worked in my genre, to do the things I couldn’t do on my own. To be my voice and sell my work to the contacts in the industry that make the decisions on big deals. That is the main reason to get an agent, to have someone to fight for you and find your story a home.
Ask yourself this: Do you want to take the time to find the right agent that will represent your book during the sale, and after the sale of your book to a publisher to maximize your reach? Or do you just care about getting your book online and in your hand, and don’t care about sales?
If the answer is the latter, you probably don’t need an agent, but if you want your book displayed in Barnes and Noble, then the traditional route is still the best option.
You could also do both, like myself. I’m lucky to have found an amazing agent that has supported my work for a decade. During those ten years, I’ve enjoyed the freedom of self-publishing some books, while pursuing big publishers on other books. In 2014, I had just left my job at Iowa Homeland Security and was working on multiple series. One of which had ended up with Simon and Schuster, and the other I was self-publishing on Amazon with the audio being done by Blackstone Publishing.
During the work day I wrote those stories, and at night and on the weekends I worked on a book that was a ‘big idea’. A story that I thought could reach a large audience and was meant to be a standalone. That book was Hell Divers, and ten years later Blackstone Publishing is about to release the 12th concluding novel to the main storyline. Millions of sales later, two times on the NYT bestseller list, multiple foreign translations, and several movie options later, and I’m so glad I went down the route of finding an agent and having them pitch that manuscript wide.
I’ve heard indies call agents dinosaurs, a thing of the past. Well, when you look at what Amazon
has done for publishing, I can see why some of these indies might say that. Many of those authors have become major publishers themselves, pumping out books each week with co-authors/ghost writers, and becoming content creators with an army of people involved. Others have established gigantic brands with tens of thousands of readers waiting for their next release. Then there are indies that do this for the love it and don’t care about making money—they just want their books out there, digitally or in print, it doesn’t matter. They don’t want to go through the process of finding an agent, or might have already tried and decided it wasn’t worth the time or heartache. I have friends in each of these situations. Everyone is different.
At the end of the day, the decision is a personal one, and you must consider your goals when making it. Look at the entire picture to decide if pursuing an agent is right for you. When things get tough, and they most likely will, keep writing. If something doesn’t sell, keep writing. I promise, hard work in this industry pays off. You just have to find what works for you. There are always options. It still has never been a better time to be a writer.
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Nicholas Sansbury Smith is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than
forty novels with two million copies sold. Before his writing career, he served at Iowa Homeland
Security and Emergency Management, a background that inspired many of his story concepts. A
two-time Ironman triathlete, he enjoys running, biking, and hiking. Nicholas also loves traveling,
especially to his cabin in Northern Minnesota where he weaves his tales. He lives in Iowa with
his wonderful wife and their son and daughter.
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