Robert and I love Hugh MacLeod's artwork and we both feel strongly that our book needs an illustrator like him. In the spirit of transparency, he posted a blog today saying essentially he'd love to work with us, but we should speak to his agent.
We understand, and we really had no plans of asking him to work for free in this commercial endeavor. We thought the way it would work is we would get a publisher and urge the publisher to invest in either Hugh or other artists who have approached us.
So that started me thinking. Do Robert and I need an agent as well? I mean, there's a little irony here, don't you think? Here we are writing a book, that explains how blogging disintermediates the disintermediators of the corporation, and now we are being referred to the agencts of trusted colleages. My experience in business is that when the other part calls in a lawyer, you either walk away--or get yourseld a lawyer. Should we hire an agent, then have our agent call his agent? Do we need an agent to deal with publishers?
I know some of the people reading this have experience in this area. We'd love to hear your input on how agents add value, in return for their slice of the pie.
