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I've sent my manuscript to tens of literary agents. Strangely enough, I received no positive response.
My question: Can I hire a literary agent? If yes, how much it costs?
Are there other ways (except of vanity presses) to publish and widely distribute my religious book?
I may probably get a grant for publishing this book (instead of my own expenses). But I don't even know how much to ask, because I don't know how much I need to pay for publishing.
You can hire a literary agent if you have an offer from a publisher and need someone to negotiate the contract. But for that it's cheaper to hire a literary lawyer.
First question: Why do you want to hire an agent? You have already published your book. It's available for free on your website.
Do you want to make money with your book? Then why have you published it for free? Why should an agent (or a publisher) be interested wasting their time with a book which is available for free? Religious books do not have a big market anyway. So giving it away for free diminishes the possibilities to make money with it tremendously.
Now, because you have already self-published, I advise you to go further on this route. You can publish it on Amazon and other sites, you can publish it as POD. For details search this site and have a look at Dean W. Smith's publishing series.
All agents are hired - they take a percentage of whatever contracts they get you (or which they negotiate for you). You're asking if you can pay extra for an agent to represent an author or an MS which they'd otherwise turn down.
Here's the thing: an agent represents what s/he thinks s/he can sell. If they don't want to take on a book, that means they don't think they can sell it (or, maybe they could sell it, but not for enough money to make the percentage worth the agent's effort). Why would you want to hire somebody who straight-out doubts they'll be able to sell your book?
Taking a percentage works in the author's favor - it means the author doesn't pay if the agent doesn't make the sale. For this reason, agents taking anything other than a percentage are usually extremely suspicious - and there are a lot of fake, malicious, or simply unprofessional agents who will take your money but do nothing to advance you towards publication.
Another point is that an agent's reputation is much of his/her livelihood. A good agent can't take on a manuscript s/he considers to be poor quality, because it will make future pitches for other clients much more suspect.
Other options you might pursue could include e-publishing, which is quite accessible and produces a final product that can be quite widespread, or simply approaching publishers directly yourself, which is still quite doable. Be sure to target publishers with lines of books that are appropriate for the manuscript you'd like to sell!
In response to your question, the answer generally is "no". You can attempt to hire an agent to represent you, but the agent has the right to refuse if they don't feel you have anything they can actually sell. Your first priority, therefore, would be to make sure you have something to sell.
I can appreciate the fact that you have gone to the trouble to self-publish your book through CreateSpace and Lulu but haven't seen any sales. My question would be to ask what you are doing to promote your book and let people know it is out there? If you are promoting your book, even if it means driving them to the free version on your web site, then in time you should start seeing some sales (assuming the book is of interest and is written well). The main thing is to be patient, because unless you are doing a ton of promotion, it is highly unlikely anyone will even know about your book or be able to find it.
Another option you might consider is to use the Kindle Select program. If you publish your book as an e-book through Kindle (Amazon), they will offer you the option to join the Kindle Select program. This means you can have your book made available through the power of Amazon advertising, and they will let you choose five days on which to make your book free. I know several people who have done this to generate interest, and then once the book was no longer free, they had enough momentum and word of mouth to start seeing some actual sales.
The downside of this program is that they ask you to remove all other avenues for purchasing your book while you are in their program. That means you can't sell your POD versions and you won't be able to offer it for free on your Web site. Personally, I sell more books through B&N, so this option doesn't work for me. However, a new writer with their first book might be able to use it to their advantage.
