A recent guest post, by Melissa Foster, on Jane Friedman’s blog offered some interesting insights on agent-assisted self-publishing and Amazon’s White Glove Program:
With independent author success on the rise, the role of agents has taken a precarious turn for the unknown. Many agents are seeing fewer sales and lower advances (which equates to lower income), and are looking for ways to keep their heads above water. One path that some have taken is agent-assisted self-publishing.”Read more.
Agent-assisted means different things to different agents. Some agents help an author self-publish, literally. This means they format the files for publication and upload them, and take 15% of the sales revenue. Those scenarios may still call for the author to pay for editing, cover design, marketing, etc. Some authors think that the agent bond they create, by paying that 15%, will make their path to traditional publication easier, while other authors simply don’t understand how easy it is to self-publish.
Having your book repped by an agent means nothing unless the writing is good enough for a publisher to purchase it in the first place—and if that were the case, you probably wouldn’t be considering the agent-assisted option. That’s the harsh reality
And an explanation of Amazon’s White Glove Program:
Another agent-assisted self-publishing option now being pushed by Amazon KDP is the White Glove Program. Amazon KDP’s need for exclusivity is the driving force behind the White Glove Program (WGP), but they’re being smart about it. The program is only available to agented authors—their gatekeepers for quality assurance—and offers a modicum of promotion to represented authors.
The entire post is worth the time for a careful read.
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The complete industry is changing. You can truly self published like KDP (select or not) smashwords, Pubit etc. Then you have the publisher/self-publisher like bookbaby or Lucky Bat that are pay as they do stuff. Then you have the ‘agents’ or whatever else they are named that charge for things like ebook conversion/cover design and other independent issues. Then the traditional agent that represents your book to the traditional publishers. You can put your book in ebook format, POD, or hard cover. So many options, the industry is exciting and confusing all at once.