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“Imagine a young Isaac Newton time-travelling from 1670s England to teach Harvard undergrads in 2017. After the time-jump, Newton still has an obsessive, paranoid personality, with Asperger’s syndrome, a bad stutter, unstable moods, and episodes of psychotic mania and depression. But now he’s subject to Harvard’s speech codes that prohibit any “disrespect for the dignity of othersâ€�; any violations will get him in trouble with Harvard’s Inquisition (the ‘Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusionâ€�). Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can’t get a decent book deal until Newton builds his ‘author platformâ€� to include at least 20k Twitter followers â€� without provoking any backlash for airing his eccentric views on ancient Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse.

Newton wouldn’t last long as a ‘public intellectualâ€� in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensiveâ€� things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he’d drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn’t have Newton’s Laws of Motion.”
― Geoffrey Miller

“Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.”
― Frank Sinatra

“When I finally find that one willing agent, I'll have found my prize in the Cracker Jack box.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich

“The tides wash up the Pearl of Great Price; I see it clearly. There it is: the secret so secret that even Indiana Jones has yet to discover it. But it’s mine.
It’s a style pointer, a favorite agent, a best avenue for publication. It’s a sure-fire fire-starter, a league of extraordinary information.
Shall we gather at the river and share? No. I found it. It’s mine!”
― Chila Woychik, On Being a Rat and Other Observations

“Literary Agent: “I meant manuscript wise.â€�
Tina: “Ohh. Um, yes. I’ve brought a few with me, just some rough drafts. (shuffle, shuffle) You might say something of an experiment.”
― Christina Engela, Innocent Minds

“First they told me: “build a following and the industry will follow.â€�

So I spent my entire 20s building a following on zero budget, getting by on donations.

Then they told me: “You need a literary agent. But a literary agent wants to see you have a following and something big going on.�

So I started my own small press and self published 5 books and spent day and night connecting with my people until I’d sold over 35,000 copies in 35 different countries
and now they tell me: “no agent wants to work with a self published author.�

Sometimes I feel like I was doomed from the very start, the very day I sat my food on that plane to London 12 years ago. Like the whole world keeps saying “you can fight all you want but we won’t let you in.�

But I do have freedom and I do have my following and I have vulnerable souls writing to me on Friday nights, about loss and hope and how my books or music or words played a small part in something they went through and sometimes I think I would throw all that away just to have a literary agent and a management and the contracts and headlinesâ€� because I’m tired.. of always fighting uphill.. but then I get that message, on a Monday night, and I take my computer to a bar close to where I live in Berlin, high above the city, and I write like never before because I have my people and vulnerable souls to find and I have so many books in me and time is not endless, time is crucial, and lately I’ve felt it running out, some nights, so I’m writing another book that won’t be noticed by the agents but I have my people and that’s all I will care about from now on. My people and my freedom, with time running out. That’s what I will focus on.”
― Charlotte Eriksson