Barbara Rogan Replies:

Yes, and I would never say it's necessary to take classes or work with an editor to get published; I myself didn't do either of those. But writers do need to work seriously on their craft before they can hope to be published these days. I'm afraid that the days of pros recognizing "raw talent" and developing are gone, if they ever really existed. It's the economics of the thing. Time is an agent's most precious commodity, and there's never enough of it. Are they better off spending that time working with and selling first-class writers with a track record, or working with a writer whose work shows some promise but who hasn't yet shown that he can write a publishable novel? Talent is just a part of the equation: an essential part, but a relatively small one.