Which is better to try for, an agent or publishing

[Laura H]

I'm not sure if this fits into his forum..I hope I don't offend anyone but I was curious to wot writers like more...submitting to a publishing house or trying to submit to an agent?

[Karen Dionne]

Here's Jeff Kleinman's answer to your question, Laura, from an interview he did on fictionaddiction (http://interviews.fictionaddiction.n...fkleinman.html):

FA: Does every author need an agent?

JK: Nope. Not at all. The first thing you need to do is to figure out if your book is something that should go to a larger, more commercial press - as opposed to a smaller, more regional press.

If the former, it really helps to have an agent (although it may not be necessary, depending on the press; but usually most larger publishers require that you have an agent); if the latter, you certainly don't need an agent - although having a lawyer, or someone knowledgeable in publishing law, is certainly a very good idea.

[jill]

Why would your question offend us? The spelling error offended me much more than the question.

Your question, as best I could tell, was what do writers prefer, submitting to agents or publishers. It depends on the kind of writing you do. Publishing children's stories, poetry, that kind of thing should be submitted directly to publishers simply because there is almost no money in it and it's not worth agent's time to work with it.

Agents aren't more "fun" to submit to, but it's more likely that a large/medium sized publisher will read your novel or non-fiction book if it comes from an agent - as Karen Dionne quoted Jeff Kleinman.

Good luck.

[Daphne]

What?