AGENTS AGAIN - AND WHY YOU REALLY DO HAVE TO LOVE THEM

What a good idea and I just wish it was mine. We all like a good moan and sometimes we like it too much. But praise and good news are more uplifting and often more useful. So, those of you who over-indulged in the opportunity on Bookends to off-load about agents should make a return trip back to a new Bookends piece here and see all the very excellently positive things that people also say about their agents.

And remember that when you are feeling aggrieved that someone who isn't your agent and therefore owes you nothing doesn't drop everything to reply to you fully and immediately, it's because a lot of the time they are quite rightly and inevitably working for their existing clients.

Understanding a) what good agents do and b) the commercial reality of earning a living as either writer or agent, is an essential step in the process towards becoming a professional writer, because a professional writer is not just someone who can write but someone who can work intelligently and knowledgably within a very difficult market. My blog aims to help you understand the market from lots of different angles, and here endeth the lesson on agents.

Now I will put my soap-box away and ATTEMPT to make a decision about who has won my Worst Query Competition. You would not believe how difficult this is proving, and just how much Green and Black's I have had to consume in the course of duty.