A change of agent

Six or seven years ago, I left my literary agent because she only handled children's writing and I wanted to branch out into steamy women's novels. Steamy novels for women, I mean... though if my readers get steamy while reading them, so much the better!

It was a big mistake because the new agent worked in a different way to my previous one. With my first agent, she would ring me and tell me that such and such a publisher was looking for a certain type of book and I would have a go. I could send her ideas and get feedback as to whether they were commercial or not. But the new agent never got back to me when I sent him ideas and when I asked him to let me know what was selling at the moment, he told me off, saying I had the wrong attitude and was approaching novel writing like a journalist (my previous career) rather than a true writer; according to him, a 'true writer' sat in the garret bashing out masterpieces with no thought as to their commercial viability, but at least they were writing with their heart and soul rather than their head. This made me realise that the agent and I were coming from different places and he was more in tune with literary fiction than the kind of potboilers I wanted to write.

For six whole years I begged my previous agent to take me back. At last she has consented. Hooray! I think she was both upset and insulted when I left and now she feels I have served my time in the literary wilderness. Of course, the fact that Love Cheat has been reissued and is on sale in Waterstones probably helped a little. (I neglected to tell my other agent that, and he agreed to release me from my contract as from yesterday.)

I have already sent a new idea for a series of books for 8-11 year old girls to my old agent, and am meeting up with her in a fortnight. However, as far as writing for the adult market is concerned, I am still in limbo. Though I did get an email from a self-publishing lot this morning, whose rates sound very reasonable. Last resort?