The fact that I was having problems finding an agent drew one comment among my reviews here from a visitor. 'Why not contact ten best selling authors and ask them to help?'.
Tim you suggested I should just ask selling writers who they have for representation. First that isn't done. As my mother once said to me, an agent-writer relationship is a lot like marriage. You don't ask a married man who he thinks is right for you, though his wife will sometimes throw them at you until someone finally drags you to the altar; but agents won't.
If you read my profile diatribe, you see how an unpublished writer sees the problem. I did e mail one selling author after reading his SW book to merely ask what his suggestion was on how to get an agent's interest. I will not tell you the name of either author or book, since I had loathed his SW book because of his premise of what the Jedi would do.
His reply was A:) 'You're not good enough to sell, that's why they ignore you'. (See the Profile for what most agents judge your merits by); or B:) 'if you're going to try anyway, sell short stories until one decides to offer their patronage'. I was not hurt by the reply, if you wonder why just read on.
A lot of publications these days, and most of the mainstream publishers themselves, have the attitude that if you don't have an agent, why are we bothering to read this crap you sent us? If I had sent this off to the publishers of the Baen's Honorverse they would have read the cover letter as far as 'I don't have an agent' and probably returned it without reading further.
Besides, When you suggested that, I pictured four of my favorite authors of the last two decades; Lynsey Sands, Laurell K Hamilton, John Ringo, and David Weber. if you're writing your latest work, do you spend time answering every 'I'm a writer and I was hoping you could tell me who your agent is? It would only take a minute...' letter? There aren't enough minutes in a day to 'only take a minute' to give that answer to everyone who asks! So when I got that (Imitating WC Fields) 'go away my boy, you bother me' reply, I understood at least part of what fueled his frustration with me
A writer wants to write, and as I pointed out, they are selling, so every minute they spend answering that letter is one they won't spend making money. Add to that you have aspiring authors asking you to read their work (Who sometime later turn around and claim you 'stole their idea' or claim you're brushing them off because they are so much better than you), so the writer will just hand that all off to a secretary, or dump it in the trash themselves. I know the secretary would without even telling them. So getting a direct reply was actually an honor.
Worse yet, for the last eight years I have been the critic over at Lucasforums and Star Wars Knights. I have reviewed work from LF, the Galactic Senate, Kotofanmedia and here. So what I say next is not a condemnation of everyone, just the rare few...
In one of my own works, I commented that the problem with Karaoke is that once they've had a few drinks, everyone thinks they can sing, and most of them are dead wrong. There have been some I reviewed in those years that made me wish I could rip out my eyes afterward, and they are the ones who give me the most grief about how 'good' they are, and I'm just jealous. The same ones would follow your advice, then send a scathing diatribe when the overworked writer replies, 'listen, I'm busy. Read the LMP (Literary Market Place) or go to Predators and Editors. Good luck'. Everyone of those writers would take your suggestion as Gospel.
As much as you might think I just don't want to rock the boat, in a book about the Star Trek phenomenon, especially the books, the author (I think it was Litchenberg) made a list of the ideas people came up with to sell that they just 'knew' Star Trek Books were waiting for. Everything from Kirk and Spock being gay (After all a mind meld is so close... of course they'd be willing to add that to the relationship) to the 'real' woman who teaches Spock what love is. If you read them in the order that they were published, there are a number of the early Star Trek books that are just that bad.
So I'll keep writing, hoping and not bothering people who make their livings with words.