Said by someone who hates his editor, but doesn't understand marketing, error-czeching, the ability to take something that was silver and turn it into gold, and would otherwise die in poverty or working at The Stranger, if they succeeded in removing editors.

And who can't manage their finances enough to make sure they meet the publication and review deadlines.

Agents want more for doing less. Not that the great Publishing houses were all that great, but ...

What's an agent?

@1, are you accusing Paul Constant of missing deadlines? Or the Stranger of failing to manage its finances? Because those are pretty serious allegations, and pretty stupid ones too.

@3 I'm talking about real writers, not the journalistic hacks you're used to, Fnarf.

Yeah, there are several valid points in that post. But maybe the model should switch to something of a 2-person effort; rather than an Agency filled with agents, you have Agents and Editors matched up to manage groups of authors. This team now draws from all their expertise to negotiate/shepherd the author's book with a 'managing Editor' at a large publishing house.
But the elephant in the room, in that post, is the fact that editors are being overridden by acquisitions and marketing departments, who have no idea of a book's worth. In this age of mega-corporations owning a publisher, these houses constantly feel the pressure of having to hit unreasonable profits over what the traditional system had.

@5,

It seems like the only thing they do know is a book's "worth." That is, agents, marketing departments, and acquisitions only give a damn about how well a book will sell and not one whit about how good it is.

@5 now, see, that might work. Redesigning publishing houses so they are aligned to current work flow, rather than outdated work flow.

Most authors think hardcover sales of their books are important, or forget that spinoffs are where you make the cash.

Or they listen to Fnarf and think they'll get rich off of eBook sales, when that's just another added sunk cost of time and cash with very little return.

Speaking of sunk costs, keshmeshi, of course agents think about how well a book will sell. That's their JOB. But many of them care deeply about whether it's schlock or not, while they're busy caring deeply about how to pay the bills. It takes a substantial amount of time to prep a project for submission, all of which is a sunk cost if the project doesn't sell.

So basically agent-editors? Or editors hired by agencies or authors instead of publishing houses? Or editors learning to become agents themselves? Hardly the death of editors, just a different place in the relationship, it sounds like.