It wasn’t my intent to use gatekeeper in a pejorative sense, or to cast any particular aspersions on agents.
My personal preference is to go the traditional “get an agent, find a publisher” route.
Nor do I wish to heap all of the “blame” on the editors, who to an extent are bound by the same limitations as the agents.
In the current, traditional model, publishers make a fairly substantial upfront investment when they agree to publish a (real) paper book, and thus have a tendency to stay within certain conservative parameters, playing it safe by only publishing what sells really well, what fits the currently common mold, etc.
Agents are just like anyone else, they have bills to pay and families to feed, and they do so by representing us and our stories, and submitting them to the (more or less) above described publishers.
So, by extension, the agents have to know what the publishers do and don’t want, and so have a natural tendency to only pick up authors who are delivering those things. And who can really blame them.
My hope is that if the traditional publishing houses embrace the e-book model, they will be willing to take a few more risks, and go a little more outside the established norms, since the e-books will not have those big, upfront costs.
That might in turn allow agents to also “open things up” a bit more, and still be able to put food on their tables.