Apart from the previous answers, all genuine and accurate, there is the incestuousness of the trade to consider. Media is one activity where who you know matters more than what, and publishers employ this incestuousness with agents to cast their net as wide as possible for budding new writers. It is frustrating as a writer to discover and suffer this, but it is today the nature of the game, so it's your choice whether you play or not.
I've always believed, if you don't like the game, rather than leave it in a huff it's better to read the rules and bend them your way. This actually works quite often.
If a publishing company was an accident and emergency department, without those triage nurses/literary agents, the medical/publishing staff would be inundated with people pitching up with a sore throat or a couple of spots and the person having a heart attack/ writing a masterpiece would be languishing in a queue. They might die/corrupt on a hard drive before anybody treated/read them.
Kate,
Your illustration or equation as to why publishers chose agents first for me is not a good comparison.
Example, books that are self published is very easy to evaluate.
Authors/writers have their work for publishers to look at and evaluate while sickness is invisible that you cannot see.
Jemma Huq/Jimmy Hollis I Dickson,
Jemma and Jimmy I do understand what you meant well.
The way the world is governed in today’s market.
Thank you all for your valuable inputs.
John
Apart from the previous answers, all genuine and accurate, there is the incestuousness of the trade to consider. Media is one activity where who you know matters more than what, and publishers employ this incestuousness with agents to cast their net as wide as possible for budding new writers. It is frustrating as a writer to discover and suffer this, but it is today the nature of the game, so it's your choice whether you play or not.
I've always believed, if you don't like the game, rather than leave it in a huff it's better to read the rules and bend them your way. This actually works quite often.
If a publishing company was an accident and emergency department, without those triage nurses/literary agents, the medical/publishing staff would be inundated with people pitching up with a sore throat or a couple of spots and the person having a heart attack/ writing a masterpiece would be languishing in a queue. They might die/corrupt on a hard drive before anybody treated/read them.