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Agents are essential, because publishers will not read unsolicited manuscripts.

Publishers, editors, agents all have one thing in common, aside from their love of cocktail parties. It's an incredible taste and an ability to find and nurture authors.

Having a literary agent makes a huge difference in submitting work. My agent has access and tremendous passion.

No agent/publisher is in a position to create across a spectrum of media and distribution what major publishers can accomplish for authors.

But if I worried too much about publishers' expectations, I'd probably paralyze myself and not be able to write anything.

Writers are essential. Readers are essential. Publishers are not.

Forget market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own experience, those are the stories of mine people have wanted to read.

I want my writing to reach people. I don't write for a market. I write from my heart, something that appeals to me. The marketing, segmenting etc., can be done by your publisher, not you.

Agents are deal makers, and they're really, really good at making deals. But they're also exceptionally helpful after the deal is made - agents act as a good intermediary between authors and publishers whenever disagreements come up.

Writers want publicity all the time, and they are always nagging their agents and publishers to give them more publicity, but, when you get it, it's kind of soul-destroying.