I’ve had three literary agents, all of whom died on me. I haven’t sought out a fourth agent because I don’t want to be responsible.
My last agent, the late and much-missed Dan Hooker, sent my novels around to every important fantasy publisher in New York. The responses we got back were uniform: “Wonderful writer, strong prose style, fascinating characters, beautiful sense of place, cutting-edge fantasy concepts and, eh, this isn’t a fit for us.” One editor held onto Seven God Limit for a year-and-a-half before finally passing on it (“But we still might want it for our paperback line!”). Since all those high-end New York professionals said my work was so damn good, I decided to publish myself.