Agents as Publishers

Dean Wesley Smith pointed out a blog post by literary agent Peter Cox.  In that post, Mr. Cox advises his fellow agents to NOT become publishers for their clients.  And he does so for all the same reasons we’ve talked about before: conflict of interest being the biggest one.  Gee, who would have thought that would be an issue!

Hmmm…let me count the people: Dean, The Passive Guy, Stackpole, Kris Rusch, a bunch of others…but not, apparently, Konrath and Eisler.

Well, I’m sure this will shock people, but I’m coming down on the same side as Dean et al on this issue.  Seriously, guys, let’s think about this.  How could this possibly be a good idea, from an ethical standpoint?  It’s good to see at least one agent standing athwart this little piece of history and yelling “Stop!”  We’ll see if it does any good.