I could not help but notice that, while most of the comments about agents were negative, the comments arguing their value came mostly from people who used them, particularly in non-fiction areas. I also asked a few friends of mine what they thought, and while there was a split, most of our book-writing colleagues have recommended that we use one. In may ways, they see it just like dealing with a lawyer--everyone hates lawyers, but most of us find we need one from time-to-time to protect us from maing really big mistakes.
Today, I spoke with, Neil J. Salkind, an agent from Studio B. Neil was sent our way by Jeremy Wright, who has been very helpful to Robert and me, even though he is also writing a book on blogging from a different angle. Jeremy strongly recommended Neil. I found Neil, to be knowledgeable and honest. He made clear what he could and could not do for Robert and me. It was a good first conversation.
To summarize, Neil is something of a combination of a lawyer and our outbound marketing guy. He's like a lawyer because what he seems to know best is the fine print portions of publisher's contracts, and just by the little he pointed out, there is some trickery that Robert and I might easily miss. Neil has a passion for the negotiation and told me the difference between contracts that O'Reilly, one publisher we've spoken with, might offer and Wiley, the other publisher who has voiced interest in. He also seems like a born pitchman, and just in case our vision of a parade of publishers come to this site waving increasingly large wads of money in our faces, Neil seems like the kind of guy who would do this part well for us.
That, of course is the upside. The down is that for any and all writing parts of The Red Couch project, Neil gets 15%. This impacts me, more than Robert, because the upfront money comes to me, with Robert making it up on the back end--if the book does well.
At this point, we want to speak to more agents. If you know one, please send them to this site and if they are still interested, please send him or her to us, either by email or by posting on this site.
We don't need to decide on whether to go with an agent or not, and then which agent to go with until mid-January, when our proposal gets closer to what we consider a finishing point.
Keep those cards and letters coming in.
