Friday, August 04, 2006
Literary agencies

I was talking to an author this morning who changed his literary agent. The one he dumped was, apparently, very good at extracting large advances from publishers but he didn't show enough care in commenting on the author's work as he completed it.

This reminded of a long-held ambition of mine to start a new-look literary agency. The concept is twofold.

First, every author is different and is looking for different things from an agent. Some want love. Some want money. Some want accounting help, some don't. Some want an auctioneer, others simply want someone to negotiate fair terms with an existing publisher.

The second part of the concept is not to charge a percentage commission (on all sales until 70 years after the author's death in the UK) but to charge a fee in the same way that other professional advisers charge (lawyers, accountants etc).

Whenever I've discussed this idea with an agent it has been dismissed on the grounds that all authors want everything all the time and that I'd never be able to charge enough to cover my expenses without the cross-subsidy from easy money rolling in from the 'backlist' authors. They are probably right but I've had fun drawing up a draft a la carte menu for authors signing up with the imaginary new firm.

Opening file (cover charge) £100 (compulsory)

Reading manuscript and giving opinion £100 per hour

Reading manuscript and giving brutally frank opinion £500 per hour (but normally this only takes 15 minutes)

Phoning author to reassure £200 per hour subject to a minimum annual payment of £2000

Submitting an unknown author to appropriate publishers £500

Submitting a well-known author to publishers and conducting an auction £5000

Submitting a well-known author to her existing publisher £500

Drawing up contract and negotiating small print with publisher £200 per page of contract

Checking royalty statements and arguing with publisher £100 per hour

Complaining about sales and promotion on behalf of the author £100 per hour

Avoiding repayment of advance when author fails to deliver £500 per hour

Tendering legal advice £500 per hour plus direct outgoings and the cost of indemnity insurance

Transferring files to new agency £5000.

Please feel free to amend or add to these. I was also thinking of creating a menu touristique which gave a basic all-round (but not very good) service for £200 per annum.

I've had a lot of flak about running the Google ads. The next step in my learning is working out how to cancel it. I'll keep you informed.

#    |  Comments [13]  | 
8/4/2006 3:14:00 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I can't quite decide if this post displays a complete contempt for agents, a complete contempt for publishers, a complete contempt for authors, or a complete contempt for all three. Quite funny though.
Derek
8/4/2006 3:56:49 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I need a personal agent who will deal fairly with publishers.
I need one whose firm will deal promptly and efficently with all the accounting.
I need one who will make a good effort to sell my books to foreign publishers.
I need an agent who is on my side.
I do not need to have my hand held or to be told that I am wonderful or that my books are wonderful.
I have an agent who fulfils the first four - and holds my hand anyway.
She is worth her weight in gold. And her back-up in the firm is perfectly efficient
SUSAN HILL
8/4/2006 8:38:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Richard

Thank you again for your supportive comments about the work on public libraries. I didn't pick them up because two days after the blog was hacked to pieces, my house was broken into and all my computers which contain library data (and some other valuable nick nacks) were stolen. So my own laptop with its bookmarks to all our favourite blogs was not available and tonight is the first time I've had time to go hunting.

I may be spending too much time in the company of crime writers but I'm not reassured that the hack and the robbery aren't connected. Try telling a Camden policeman that kind of thing. They are too busy arresting cabinet ministers and getting their photo in the paper.

I like your idea about agents- an Easy agency is a good idea- just like your new writers imprint is a good idea. We are slightly locked in a world where you have to be a celebrity at something else to be a celebrity at books and we need ways to break out of that. Have a good time in France.

Alan Kellog will have noticed that the library at the centre of my blog has a cat called Perkins. Commercial libraries have very difficult economics, I've been round that one, if anyone wants the detail- but don't start one. Tim
Tim Coates
8/7/2006 7:04:14 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
The problem with this idea is that it only allows writers who make a great deal of money, or writers who already have (old) money, to become a writer.

Publishing is already seen as an area of rife in neoptisiam, would you want to lose a potential work of genius or even just a bloody good read simply because the writer cannot afford the entry requirements (or didn’t go to the right school)?

That would be a shame, I am sure you would agree.

Paul Ekert
8/7/2006 12:15:24 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I agree with Paul's comments. In a world where so many are told "don't give up the day job", how many new authors can afford to find a fixed fee (or set of fees) up front?

The chances of making some money in the future, with the agent taking a slice appears more favourable. I suspect any new writer would be extremely grateful to their agent for all their hard work and see 10% or 15% as a worthwhile expense when the money starts to flow. (But at 20%, the agent is pushing it!)
crimeficreader
8/7/2006 7:59:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I wonder how many works of genius really slip through the net? And I don't believe that the existing agent system is immune from the old boy (or girl) network just because the agents charge commission rather than fees.
Richard Charkin
8/7/2006 8:41:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
The existing agent and publishing system is not immune to the odd "work of genius" slipping through. No model of sale and distribution is or could be.

But the existing mode fits in with the "agency" model as we know it and accept it in the wider world. All agencies take a fee based on successful "placement", be they literary, recruitment, property or other.

If you are seriously thinking of retiring someday soon and becoming a literary agent, Richard, I'd recommend staying with the status quo.

Anyone who chooses to take your "Table D'Hote" lit fee option of £200 will be the person who has cash to burn and little expectation.

The existing system may not be ideal, but it's a part of the bell curve. Going to an extreme may not make it "easy"...
crimeficreader
8/8/2006 7:08:49 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Business models are proven by success not by theory. The agency model has worked for a long time for many people. But the world and business of writing creativvely is changing. An agent may well know the publishing world but does s/he know the film world as well. Perhaps an author would rather have dofferent agents handling different sectors - and then how is the percentage split. I really do think the fee-based system will work for some authors (and not for others). Why should there be one model? And what it makes it more 'proper' for an agent to receive a percentage of an authors income for typically 100 years rather than a fee for negotiating a contract on a one-off basis? You wouldn't expect to pay the lawyer who conveyanced the purchase of your house a share of any capital gain you made on selling it. Anyway I have no intention of retiring.
Richard Charkin
8/8/2006 7:15:10 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I agree with Crime Reader. The system is not perfect; works that should be published are sometimes not and visa versa. However, as the system currently stands, anyone of any race, creed, colour, and more importantly, of any class status, can write with the expectation of being read.

A somewhat naive expectation I know as I remember reading a confession from a slush pile reader where she stated that while working as a nanny for a literary agent, she was offered some extra money to read and report on some Slush entries... Bless... A year or more of hard work and the much loved novel is read by someone being paid by the kilo and with an eye on the clock...

But, at least the writers who submit to agents with a slap dash attitude to writers ("you're not famous and you've never been published, I don't have time for this...") don't have to pay for the privilege of being scorned...
Paul Ekert
8/8/2006 7:24:55 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I agree with you there Richard. There should not just be a single business model, but your model will only attract one type of person. Someone with money.

Be honest, how many writers, at the start of their career, had the sort of money you are talking about here, which is hundreds, possibly thousands of pounds spare? How many had this sort of money after their first book was published, or indeed their first three? If they are members of the Dragons Tail, bringing up the rear to the big gun writers, then I would say precious few.

Your business model would suit a write like Rowling, but then if you had a writer like Rowling in your stable, selling millions of books, would you want to charge her commission or a flat fee?

Paul Ekert
8/10/2006 6:24:13 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I'd rather charge Rowling a commission not a fee. That isn't the question. The question is would Rowling be better and more efficiently served by a commission or a fee? And the answer is clear.

And on the question of new authors, it probably wouldn't work for them unless they could afford it. Some could. some couldn't.
Richard Charkin
8/11/2006 7:25:13 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
From the new authors you have worked with, who could?

Yes clearly some writers would benefit from your system, if I ever become a rich and famous writer, you can expect my call demanding the services you "Promised" in this Blog ;)

But on the whole, writers are poor people, although you wouldn't know it from looking at the publishing industries current obsession with celebrities...! A romance novel from Jordan? Seriously???

Paul Ekert
8/12/2006 9:39:19 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
On the whole authors are neither rich nor poor. They are people. And people differ (thank goodness). There's no point theorising about all this. Nobody runs an agency the way I proposed probably for sound reasons. But I think there's a legitimate question here.
Richard Charkin