by CARLA KING [Mediashift] – With big publishing buying only the crème de la crème of books, and more authors turning to self-publishing, many literary agents are getting squeezed right out of the middle.
But some savvy agents are acting as literary consultants to help their authors self-publish, a role that offers up new opportunities and challenges for everybody in the industry…
Ted Weinstein, a San Francisco-based agent who represents non-fiction authors, said that self-publishing “has added one more serious option for my clients when we are looking at all their possible opportunities.” He’s currently working with authors he has successfully placed with traditional publishers “to launch additional mid-length material and backlisted books using new self-publishing tools.” These tools include Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing, Barnes & Noble’s PubIt, Smashwords, and more.
Big publishing is simply not set up to publish anything but books. Mid-length materials, worksheets, and other writing that might be downloaded from Amazon or directly from the author’s site are not in their repertoire. Neither do they help the author develop unpublished chapters into articles for placement in magazines. Though these kinds of supplemental materials help the author — and publisher — get attention and sales, the responsibility to create, distribute and publicize them lies with authors, many of whom turn to their agent.
Weinstein has long been interested in the struggle between traditional and self-publishing, and is fond of saying, “All publishing is self-publishing.”
Continued at Mediashift | More Chronicle & Notices.
