“The most influential member of the editorial board of your publishing company is the literary agent.”

It seems like a century since I wrote that. In fact, it was a century ago. I wrote it in the twentieth. Is it still true in the twenty-first?

Literary agents stand at a crossroads, and the vista in every direction is cloudy. On the one hand, publishers – the buyers – are fewer and more selective. On the other, many authors – the sellers -  expect more attention and service from their agents to fill the vacuum left by a shrinking publishing industry.  And some authors are choosing options that don’t include agents at all. Boyle’s Law seems to be at work here: the more pressure exerted on publishers and authors by a compressing marketplace, the more heat they generate, and a lot of it is focused on their agents.

Like brokers in every other field of endeavor, agents are supposed to add value to the relationship between buyer and seller in order to justify their commissions. I could write volumes about all the things agents do and have done to make publishing a better place for both parties (actually, I have written volumes***). Does that matter as much as it used to?

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: agents are intermediaries in a rapidly disintermediating world. The pitiless march of digitization that has eroded, and in some cases destroyed, so many other go-betweens now menaces the agency profession like a siege army outside bastions that have stood for a century. As in so many other fields where digital technology is squeezing middlemen out of the middle, agents have become vulnerable.

Is there any reason to believe that agents are exempt from the cruel laws of the marketplace? Given my vested interest in the answer, it’s hard to render an opinion that sounds like anything other than wishful thinking. But if one can try to be objective, one does have to wonder why book agents in the age of Smashwords and Kindle are more fit to survive than travel agents in the age of Orbitz and Expedia. Tomorrow, in the second part of this article, we’ll look at ways that agents are adapting and reinventing themselves to meet these challenges.

What are the factors forcing middlemen and women out of the middle?

Buyers. The pool of viable buyers – big, established trade publishers with nationwide bookstore distribution – is shrinking like a lake in a drought, and so is their wealth. It was only a few decades ago that they numbered one thousand or so. Today it is closer to a few dozen.

Though the top six or eight are well heeled enough to pay giant advances for blockbuster novels and celebrity tell-alls, they have almost nothing to spare for the platformless newcomers and midlist authors who have traditionally been a staple of the publishing industry and a nursery for talent. If an agent doesn’t represent household-name writers and has no place to go with garden variety ones, the options are nasty, brutish, and poor. The collapse of Borders and the struggles of Barnes & Noble have eroded the marketplace even further, reducing the pool of markets and money to spread around.

Sellers. Given this contraction, the author community has understandably become disenchanted with the allure of traditional publishing. Even big-name authors – indeed, some shockingly big-name authors -  are disgusted and have begun exploring self-publication options, options that are seldom commissionable by their agents. And they are finding a host of compelling options that only serve to accelerate the centrifugal disintegration of what, not very long ago, was a dynamic, agentcentric industry.

A decade ago authors dissatisfied with their agents sought new representation, and there is still intense competition for seats at the grand table. But there are fewer of them, and authors who can’t find one have begun seeking alternate ways to get their books discovered, published, distributed and publicized. Unfortunately, their agents don’t always have the technical skill set necessary to be of assistance, and reports of fabulously successful self-published newcomers only add to the sense of futility with the establishment.

As a result, many agents are struggling to find significant ways to add value to the work of their clients in the emerging digital paradigm, where self-publication has become a lure that for many writers is intriguing and, for some, irresistible. Editing, formatting and uploading books, managing content and promoting oneself have become so easy that authors are not as reliant on traditional agent services as they once were. New authors who once desperately pursued agents as the key to a professional writing career now put their books directly into Kindle, Sony, iPad and Nook, even issue them as print on demand paperbacks, and manage their own marketing and publicity.

The dream of being discovered by a major house or attracting an agent is so remote for new authors that many no longer bother. Even elite, privileged, and affluent authors have begun to sell their work directly to their fans, leaving their agents bewildered, helpless and – commissionless. Where are tomorrow’s agents going to find clients?

In the second installment of this article we’ll see what agents are doing, or trying to do, to maintain their relevance in this rapidly evolving paradigm called Digital Publishing.

Richard Curtis

*** See What I Have Done for You Lately

One day, I got a phone call from an agitated editor. His voice was trembling and he could scarcely contain his emotion. The emotion was fear.

It seems that a hotheaded client of mine had gotten so upset over some editorial work done on his book that he’d threatened in a loud voice, during a visit to the editor’s office, to pulp his face. Some of his colleagues had interceded and ushered the distraught author out of the building. Of course, beating up your editor is a time-honored writer’s fantasy, but my client had taken it further than most authors do. Pulping an editor’s face is a serious breach of etiquette. “What can I do to help?” I offered.
“Restrain him,” the editor said.
“You mean, physically?”
“Yes, if need be.”
I could not suppress an ill-timed laugh.
“What the hell is so funny?” he demanded.
“Well,” I said, “I’ve done everything else, I might as well be a bodyguard for an editor, too.”

After settling the dispute by eliciting promises of good behavior from my client and assurances of more thoughtful blue-penciling from the editor, I reflected on some of the unusual things that agents are called upon to do in the course of their careers. I am often asked to speak to groups of aspiring writers and to explain just what literary agents do. I wonder how the audience would react if I told them that among other things, literary agents babysit for their clients’ kids, paint their clients’ houses, and bail their clients out of jail. They even fall in love with their clients and marry them. In fact, I have done all these things and more.

Years ago, before it merged with another agents’ organization to form the Association of Authors’ Representatives, the Society of Authors’ Representatives issued a brochure describing some functions that authors should not expect their agents to perform. Most of my colleagues would lose half their clients overnight if they took these guidelines seriously, however. For instance, the brochure advised that you shouldn’t expect your agent to edit your book. But most agents I know would consider themselves remiss if they did not do some light, and sometimes heavy, editing to improve a book’s chances of acceptance, help the author modify a manuscript for magazine serialization, or simply make it the best book it can be.

Here are some other things the brochure mentioned:

• The agent cannot solve authors’ personal problems. As a writer myself, and a friend or agent of many writers, I can testify to how tightly interconnected the personal, financial, and creative elements of an author’s life are. Trouble in one area almost invariably indicates trouble in the others. The agent who turns his back on an author’s personal problems may well be diminishing that author’s earning power. So for reasons of self-interest if not compassion, an agent may find himself playing psychiatrist to a client, sticking his nose into an author’s marital disputes, or taking a depressed author to a baseball game.
• The agent cannot lend authors money. Ha! In this age of glacial cash flow, agents are being asked more and more frequently to play banker. I’m not sure authors always appreciate that the agent who advances them money lends it interest-free, or that the agent’s total advances to clients at any given time may come to tens of thousands of dollars. But I don’t know too many agents who can gaze unflinchingly into the eyes of a desperate client and say, “If you need a loan, go to a bank.”
• The agent cannot be available outside office hours except by appointment. Many business and personal crises arise for authors at times that, inconveniently, do not correspond to regular business hours. Book negotiations can carry over into the evening, and global time differentials put Hollywood three hours behind New York, New York at least five hours behind Europe, and Japan half a day away. An agent’s day is not the same as a civil servant’s.
Many of my clients have my home phone number. I only ask them to use it sparingly.
• The agent cannot be a press agent, social secretary, or travel agent. A lot of agents I know take on these functions to supplement the author’s or publisher’s efforts. Literary agenting is a service business, and anything within reason that an agent can do to free a client from care should be given thoughtful consideration. Rare is the agent who has not driven clients to the airport or booked them into hotels, arranged business or social appointments, or helped them secure tickets to a hot Broadway show.

Like my colleagues I have a large quiver full of sales techniques ranging from sweet talk to harangues. But I wonder how many agents have donned costumes and performed burlesque routines to sell books? It happened. Some clients of mine had written a satire of the best-selling book The One Minute Manager. Theirs was called The One Minute Relationship, demonstrating how you could meet, fall in love, marry, and divorce within sixty seconds of the first heartthrob. It was to be published by Pinnacle, but about a week before Pinnacle’s sales conference, the editor-in-chief called me. “I’m thinking of something different for presenting this book to the sales staff. Could your clients cook up a cute skit?”

I promised to see what I could do, and called my clients. They came to my home and we brainstormed a skit over take-out Chinese food. The shtick we came up with featured an Indian swami who has developed the One Minute Technique. He has to wear a white robe and a turban with a jewel in it. The “jewel” in this case was a thick slice of kosher salami, and we called it the Star of Deli. My clients and I fell on the floor laughing. Then they suggested that since I had the robe, the turban, and the salami, and did a passing fair imitation of a Hindu fakir, I should perform the starring role in front of the Pinnacle salespeople. It took several bottles of Chinese beer to make me agree, but at length I went along, reasoning that these days, whatever it takes to sell books is okay by me. The skit went over well, climaxed of course by my gleefully stuffing the Star of Deli into my mouth. Pinnacle loved it so much they took our show on the road, videotaping our performance and featuring it at the American Booksellers Association convention.

Agents are not the tight-lipped stiffs that some have made us out to be. Like Shylock, we bleed if you prick us and laugh if you tickle us. I have cried with and for my authors when misfortune strikes, and rejoiced with them at their weddings and the births of their children.

I have also had some great laughs, not a few at the expense of clients and colleagues, for I am an inveterate practical joker. A client and good friend bought himself a telephone answering machine, and was so anxious about missing important calls that whenever he was away for any length of time he called home every fifteen minutes to get his messages by means of a remote control signal. He worried that machine to death. If he returned to find no messages, he would examine the phone and the answering machine for malfunctions.

One day, I decided to indulge his worst paranoid fantasy, and left the following message on his answering machine: “. . . Studios. If you don’t return my call by five P.M. we will assume you’re not interested and we will withdraw our offer.” The poor fellow spent an hour phoning movie studio executives on both coasts explaining that his phone machine had malfunctioned in the middle of a message, and asking if they happened to be the people who left an offer on his machine that day.

Most people do not think of literary agents as leading adventurous lives, and that is largely true. Most of the time our conduct is as tightly circumscribed as that of businesspeople in any other profession. Our greatest thrill is grappling in close combat with an editor during a six-figure negotiation, or stalking a check through the treacherous thickets of a publisher’s bookkeeping system. Accounts of such adventures make for exciting listening only if you happen to be another literary agent, but somehow they don’t carry the same weight as the tales of mountainous seas and mutinous tribes, challenging mountains and charging rhinos, that you can routinely hear at any meeting of the Explorers Club.

Nevertheless, because our profession brings us into contact with unusual characters, we do occasionally find ourselves carried far from the stereotypical role of submitting manuscripts in the morning, collecting checks in the afternoon, and going to lunch for three hours in between.
In 1966 I was in London setting up the English office of Scott Meredith’s literary agency. Novelist Evan Hunter and his wife were passing through London on their way to the Cotswolds, and we spent a delightful afternoon dining al fresco at my boss’s expense. I bade them good-bye and wished them a pleasant journey, and figured that was that. About a week later, however, I got a call from Evan in Southampton. They were about to embark on a ship for America when his wife realized she had left her jewelry in a safe in the Ligon Arms Hotel in the Cotswold town of Broadway. “I’m going to ask an important favor of you,” Evan said. “I want you to take a train out there and get the jewels back. Bring them to London and we’ll arrange for them to be shipped home.”

At that time I was in my twenties and, beyond getting stuck in an elevator for two hours and having my tonsils taken out, I had never been at hazard in many “real life situations.” This sounded like an opportunity to experience the kind of peril that confronted the Burtons, Spekes, and Hilarys through whom I’d lived vicariously.
“They’re not just going to hand the jewels over to me,” I protested.
“Of course not,” said Evan. “There’ll be a password.”
“A password?”
“When you get to the hotel, go to the desk and tell the lady you’re there to recover our jewelry. Then say the password.”
A password! This was a scheme worthy of Evan Hunter, who under the pen name of Ed McBain had created my favorite police procedural series, “The 87th Precinct.”
“And what is the password?” I asked.
There was a long pause and I sensed that Evan was looking furtively around for eavesdroppers. He uttered a phrase in a voce so sotto I had to ask him to say it again. “‘Phoenix Rising’,” he said. “Repeat it.”
“‘Phoenix Rising’,” I said. “Heavy!”
That afternoon I caught a British Railways train to Evesham, the station closest to Broadway. The taxi driver I hired to take me to Broadway looked like Central Casting’s notion of a Dickensian cutpurse, including addressing me as “Guv’nor.” When he asked me, just being friendly, my business in Broadway, I told him, “Just touring.” He arched an eyebrow. I wore a three-piece English-cut suit and a tense smile and didn’t look remotely like a tourist. I looked like a man trying not to look like a man who was soon to bear tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry on his person.
The Ligon Arms Hotel had been built in an era when Englishmen were four feet tall, as I quickly discovered when I grazed my skull on a lintel. I wobbled to the desk and found a diminutive woman peering at me who looked as if she would crumble into powder if I spoke too loudly. I cleared my throat and murmured, “Phoenix Rising.” She gazed owlishly at me and my heart sank. Something had gone wrong. Evan had not told her the password. He had told her the wrong password. She had not heard it correctly. She had stolen the jewels.
“Phoenix Rising. Phoenix Rising,” she muttered, searching at least ninety years of memory for an association with this mysterious phrase. Then the light of recognition kindled in her eyes. Her hand leaped to her mouth. “Phoenix Rising! You’re Phoenix Rising! EVERYONE, IT’S PHOENIX RISING! HE’S HERE, HE’S HERE!” Whereupon bellhops, maids, cooks, and guests poured into the lobby to see The Bearer of the Password. I doubt if anything quite like this had happened here since the Norman Invasion.
We crowded around the safe as the jewels, rolled in a pocketed length of embroidered velvet, were set before me. Delicately, my friend untied a drawstring, making certain not to touch the jewelry itself. I stared at a handsome collection of baubles. There was a hurried conference when we realized I had no inventory of what was supposed to be there, and I was required to sign a receipt itemizing each piece. The staff gathered at the entrance to bid adieu to Alias Phoenix Rising. “Quick tour, Guv’nor,” my driver observed as I stepped back into the taxi. “Saw what I came to see,” I replied tersely, clutching the pouch in a death grip.

Obviously, these days authors don’t merely ask their agents what they’ve done for them lately, but rather, what else they’ve done for them lately, and I guess just about anything goes.

Richard Curtis

From time to time we bring back some of the more popular articles and blogs posted on E-Reads. This one is from December 2009.

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Few authors realize it, but one of the most important reasons for hiring agents is that they have a superior sense of timing. “Timing is everything” might almost be called the agent’s motto (“Patience is everything else” might be considered the agent’s second motto). The most successful agents are those who understand that there is a season to push and a season to ease up, a season to fight and a season to turn the back, a season to watch and wait and a season to strike. Sometimes the moment presents itself on a platter; sometimes it has to be worked with brute force like steel on a smithy’s anvil. And there are times when, for all an agent’s scheming, for all his exertions, for all his manipulations, he simply cannot make the thing happen. (That’s usually a signal for me to go shopping.)

To understand timing – and test your instincts against your agent’s – click here.

Richard Curtis

A few weeks ago, a writer named Jeff Tohline emailed me asking a simple question: “What is the single biggest mistake writers make when querying you?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Meets“, I fired back at him. “As in The DaVinci Code Meets Genesis. As in Crime and Punishment Meets The Shining. As in Buffy Meets Dracula.” “Send me a ‘Meets‘ and you’re deleted,” I said. Perhaps I was a bit arbitrary, but that phrase, derived from Hollywood pitch lines that were clever in their day (the 20th century) but have become a stale convention in ours. So – writers beware.

Tohline’s query was sent to some 100 of my agent colleagues and the comments by the 50 who responded are well worth every aspiring writer’s time. I didn’t find anyone else who complained about “meets” but I did discover that…

Three agents complained about “Go to my website for a sample of my work…”, four about pitching their book’s sequel, five about unproofread queries, nine about queries addressed to “Dear Agent”, and fourteen about authors who have no clue what the agency handles or what its submission guidelines are.

Many agents amplified on their peeves.

Michael Murphy of Max & Co.: “The answer to your question is an easy one. The single biggest mistake writers make when querying me is sending manuscripts for areas I do not represent. On my website, in all my interviews, and I believe in most websites that list areas of interest for each agent, it is quite clearly stated that I do not represent YA, prescription (How To) nonfiction, nor genre fiction (SF, fantasy, romance, thrillers). Yet almost half the queries I receive are for these very categories.”

Gina Panettieri: “Don’t try to cut corners by simply referring agents to your website rather than writing a well-prepared query. It’s great to let us know about your website and we can check it out to get more info about you and your book, but we’ll only do that IF you’ve intrigued us with your knock-out query!”

Pam Ahearn: “‘This will be a bestseller and make you very rich.’ Let’s start with getting the agent to read 5 pages before you start thinking about the fortune you’re going to help them make!”

Heather Mitchell: “It all comes down to the writing. An agent’s first peek at the quality of the writing comes from the query letter. You would be amazed at the number of authors who write long, drawn out, messy queries. A query letter should be a tease – a taste for more to come. Don’t give it all away on the first date, and please, show up clean and polished.”

Want to know why your submissions come back from agents faster than a tennis serve? Read The Biggest Mistakes Writers Make When Querying Literary Agents.

Richard Curtis

Years ago I described the elaborate courtship ritual between agents and editors known as lunch dates, from the ringing of the phone (which automatically makes agents salivate) to the final, discreet burp. (See Let’s Have Lunch).  Many aspects of this ceremony have changed since those halcyon days. In particular, publishers are broke and now expect agents to pay for the meal or at least go dutch. (See End of the World Is at Hand!)  However, the fundamental object of the game remains immutable: the agent pitches his authors and projects and if the gods smile the enterprise, the editor makes an offer.  All in the civilized context of a splendid luncheon in a many-star dining emporium.

The introduction of the iPad puts a new twist on this ritual. Agents are now bringing iPads with them to lunch to demonstrate authors and projects right at the table. Tell me about the author? No problem. A few swipes of the screen produce the author’s website.  Is the author a good promoter? Another swipe and there’s a video of the author delivering a mesmerizing speech. Can I read an excerpt? Sure, just don’t get cheesecake on the screen.

Is this just a gimmick?  Read how the use of an iPad at a restaurant has substantially boosted wine purchases by customers. “Since their debut six weeks ago,” writes Kevin Sack in the New York Times, “the gadgets have enthralled the (mostly male) customers at Bone’s. And to the astonishment of the restaurant’s owners, wine purchases shot up overnight — they were nearly 11 percent higher per diner in the first two weeks compared with the previous three weeks, with no obvious alternative explanation.”

Can there be any question that screen color and interactivity can be compellingly persuasive?  The iPad may turn out to be the agent’s best friend.

Choosing Wines at the Touch of a Screen by Kevin Sack.

Richard Curtis

Agent Andrew Wylie, whose business practices have been described as so unprincipled he has been nicknamed “The Jackal”, has been skewered in a wicked comic strip illustrated by Dan Goldman.  Wylie recently met his comeuppance in a failed challenge to Random House (see Did Jackal Screw Amazon?)

The pictures are worth a thousand words and we’ll spend no more of them other than to invite you to view The Life of Wylie by Boris Kachka here.

Revolutions produce unlikely heroes, and the Digital Revolution has produced a very unlikely one in the form of a man that many believe is so wanting in ethical principles that he is nicknamed The Jackal. Yet it is on literary agent Andrew Wylie’s fangs and claws that the populist dream of a fair e-book royalty rests as he dares the world’s highest profile trade book publisher to do something about the slap he has administered to its face.

The smart money is on The Jackal, and to understand why you have to think like a jackal.  While pundits debate contract law and publishing ethics, the real war is being conducted on a less visible battlefield. But it is one on which Wylie holds the high ground.

To understand Random House’s reluctance to protect its rights from Wylie and other marauders you need to understand a number of not so obvious factors.  The most salient of them is this: Publishers are loath to sue authors (or the widows and children of authors).

Let’s see how these factors play out in the power struggle unfolding before our eyes.

Random House not confident of its legal position

In 2001 Random House sued Rosetta, an e-book startup that acquired directly from authors the digital rights to books by such Random House lions as Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Robert B. Parker and William Styron, books that were still in print in paper format under Random House imprints. Random had published them before there was such a thing as e-books, but nevertheless considered a book is a book is a book whether in tangible or digital form. The courts however rejected Random’s position, denying their request for an injunction against Rosetta. Random filed an appeal and the court turned it down. A second appeal was rejected too, forcing Random to work out a settlement with Rosetta. The critical issue – what is a book? – remained unlitigated and left Random uncertain about its legal position.

Random Backs off from Open Road Threat

When publishing superstar Jane Friedman launched her Open Road e-book venture she declared her intention to start with several works by Styron including Sophie’s Choice and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Confessions of Nat Turner. The problem was, Random House claimed it owned those rights (presumably having recovered them from Rosetta as part of the settlement) and it issued a stern warning to all “third parties” without naming Friedman specifically. Authors, stated CEO Marcus Dohle, are “precluded from granting publishing rights to third parties that would compromise the rights for which Random House has bargained.” By drawing a line in the sand, Random expected Friedman and other potential interlopers to back off or face the full wrath of the publisher’s litigators. (see Random House Serves Notice on Would-Be E-Interlopers)

It is  a fundamental business principle that you don’t make threats you aren’t prepared to act on. And that is why we were flabbergasted four months later to learn that Random House had released e-rights to the Styron estate (See Random Returns Sabre to Scabbard in Styron E-Book Standoff). What was that about?

“The decision of the Styron estate is an exception,” Random executive Stuart Applebaum explained. “Our understanding is that this is a unique family situation.”

Why, after rattling its saber so truculently, did Random give in? In our estimation it’s because ultimately, to make good on their threat, they would have had to sue Styron’s widow and children. And that would be a public relations disaster.

Whether Styron was truly an exception or Random blinked, one thing was clear to publishing professionals: sooner or later there would be further tests of the publisher’s determination. How would Random react the next time?

We’re about to find out.

Don’t Bother Suing Agents

Claiming that he hates the low e-book royalties paid by traditional publishers (see Random House Changes E-Book Royalty Policy), agent Wylie, representing hundreds of distinguished authors such as Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and the late John Updike, announced that he is starting his own e-book publishing venture and intends to launch it with books published by Random House and other trade book publishers.

Does he have the right to do that? Wylie says he does: “The fact remains that backlist digital rights were not conveyed to publishers, and so there’s an opportunity to do something with those rights,” he declares.

Despite what happened with Open Road, some industry observers expected Random House to threaten to sue Wylie’s ass into pebble-sized pieces. But Wylie knows they won’t, because, generally speaking, agents are not legally liable for breaches of contract committed by their clients. A lawsuit against Wylie would in all likelihood be thrown out of court, and the judge would tell Random that if they have a beef it’s with Wylie’s authors, they’ll have to sue Wylie’s authors. Which brings us back to our thesis: Publishers are loath to sue authors (or the widows and children of authors).

So? How does Random intend to punish Wylie? “Regrettably,” Applebaum declared, “Random House on a worldwide basis will not be entering into any new English-language business agreements with the Wylie Agency until this situation is resolved.”

This is known as the We’ll Cut Off Our Nose to Spite Your Face ploy, and it will avail Random nothing. Wylie’s clients are so coveted by Random’s rivals that if Random made good on its threat you’d see the greatest migration since the Aleuts crossed the Bering Land Bridge.  Jackals are standing by!

Buyer? Seller?

Though legal threats won’t faze Andrew Wylie, handling the challenge of being both an agent and an e-book publisher might. A number of knowledgeable people like Macmillan’s John Sargent have not only deplored Wylie’s decision to put all his authors’ eggs in Amazon’s basket but have questioned whether it’s in the best interests of his authors. There is arguably more money to be made selling not just to Amazon but to Sony, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and other retailers.

Navigating the shoals of conflict of interest between buyer and seller is another daunting task. Even if he is able to build a “Chinese wall” insulating the two functions from short-circuiting each other, Wylie’s own clients will reasonably want to know how it’s going to work: “If my agent is now my publisher, who am I supposed hire to negotiate with him?”

Will Wylie’s stratagem succeed in forcing publishers to raise their royalty rate?  Not a chance.  E-book royalties will eventually go up, but it will be no thanks to Crusader Wylie. But we thank him for articulating the dissatisfaction of authors and agents with low royalty rates and for so fearlessly acting on his convictions.

Richard Curtis

A fierce debate about the role of literary agents has burst into flames. Agent Victoria Strauss has summed it up in a posting in Writer Beware entitled Are agents underpaid?

Those who are sympathetic towards the agents’ plight point out that “agents’ job descriptions have expanded over the past couple of decades, and that they must now do much more for the same 15% they earned twenty years ago.” writes Strauss. “They also get no payment at all for a good portion of what they do on a regular basis–reading queries and manuscripts, editing, submitting books that never sell. In a highly competitive environment, with shrinking advances (at the midlist level, anyway) and cautious publishers, it’s getting harder and harder to make a living.” (That’s putting it mildly.  See What Your Agent Has Done for You Lately.”)

A variety of remedies for suffering agents is being promulgated. One is to shift their compensation from a contingency basis to charging for billable hours the way lawyers do.  Another is charging for specific services that are now freely offered, such as editing, lecture and tour arrangements, marketing, promotional activities, website management, and social networking. Still others are setting up publication programs for clients who contemplate self-publication. Another answer is for agents to raise their commissions. About this option Strauss reminds us that “During the 1980s and 1990s, US agents raised their commissions from 10% to 15%; it seems to me that an increase to 20% could be undertaken with relatively minimal pain on all sides. This would acknowledge the ways in which agenting has changed and expanded, but wouldn’t unfairly burden writers.” (Strauss does not seem to have confirmed that with any authors.)

These are all viable alternatives, and some of them are being implemented as agents urgently strive to redefine themselves. Many of them will work. But will agents still be defined as agents as we know them today? Or are we witnessing the birth of a new species?

Years ago, in anticipation of the changing identity of authors in a digital paradigm, I asked the question “Author?  What’s an Author?” Implied in that question was another question: “Agent? What’s an Agent?” As the nature of authorship evolves, so will the nature of agentship. But a day will come when agents are unrecognizably transformed from the fearsome breed that tramped the Earth in the late 20th century. Which leads me to wonder if we’re asking the wrong question. It’s not “Are agents underpaid?” but rather, Are agents doomed?

The inescapable fact is that agents are intermediaries in a disintermediating world, and digital technology is remorseless in its dissolution of those who stand between buyer and seller. The chasm between writers and publishers, for so long occupied by literary agents, has narrowed as authors realize that they are but one touch of their Send key away from their readers.

That depressing but inescapable truth should be borne in mind as you read Strauss’s Are Agents Underpaid? and the equally thought-provoking response by Jane Friedman, Director of Content & Community Development at Writer’s Digest, entitled Agents Need to Develop Alternative Models.

Richard Curtis

Alleging that another agent tried to poach one of her agency’s clients, ICM mega-agent Esther Newberg lit into rival Andrew Wylie in a public denunciation aired at the recent Book Expo of America in New York’s Javits Center. The author in question was not named.

Wylie’s reputation for raiding literary chicken coops is so well known in the agency field that he is nicknamed “The Jackal”. “The British press,” reports the New York Post, “is usually credited with tagging Wylie with the Jackal nickname back in 1995, when he obtained a $750,000 advance for [Martin] Amis after persuading the British writer to dump his longtime agent, Pat Kavanagh, even though she was the wife of Julian Barnes, a best friend of Amis’ at the time.”

Newberg declared war on Wylie, vowing “I am just lying in wait for the moment when I can get back at him.”

Client-stealing is not uncommon in the literary agency profession, but it is usually conducted with more finesse than the Newberg-Wylie fracas.  As I pointed out in Are Literary Agents Friends or Rivals? “Antagonism between agents flares up over the interpretation of just how loudly, sweetly, and aggressively an agent sings his firm’s praises to an author represented by another agent. You might think of it as the Smoking Gun theory of client-stealing: if the author walks in the door of another agency in a state of uncertainty but walks out clutching a signed agreement with his new agent, it can be inferred that something considerably more than a soft-sell occurred behind that door.”

Though agents can gain a certain degree of protection by issuing client contracts, it’s hard to keep an unhappy author against his or her will.

Every agent has been the recipient of a “Dear John” letter citing “differences in philosophy” and similar nonsensical explanations that are really thinly disguised pretexts for the fact that another agency filched the author. One agent told me he’d been informed that his former client had decided to go with a big bicoastal agency because it had movie clout. What kind of books did this author write that were perfect vehicles for major motion pictures?  Regency romances! Though a gentleman, the exasperated agent told this author, “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

You can read all the gory details in Secret agent clash by Keith J. Kelly, Jennifer Gould Keil and Michael Gray.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New York Post.

Asked to free-associate with the name “Bowker” most publishing people think of such publishing services as ISBN book-identification numbers and similar tedious but essential data.  But, in a surprising announcement emailed to publishing professionals, Bowker today announced a service for authors, and one guaranteed to raise some eyebrows.

“I am writing to inform you of the exciting release of Bowker Manuscript Submissions,” writes Natalie Piccotti. “a new online service allowing authors to submit their manuscript ideas to a number of publishing houses from one central location.

“BowkerManuscriptSubmissions.com will be featured at Book Expo America in May 2010, and will officially launch in June 2010.”

The initiative is designed to “streamline the process of sorting through an overwhelming volume of unsolicited manuscripts publishers receive. Built off the success of Christian Manuscript Submissions, Bowker will now provide a similar service to the trade and higher education publishing communities.”

For an annual fee of $295 the program will…

* Sort by subject of choice and submission date
* Search by keywords in title, description and topic
* Identify proposals that have been professionally edited
* Cut down on wasted time – our system remembers your last date of entry so you do not read previously reviewed manuscripts
* Contact the writer directly
* Find proposals by author’s name
* Review an author’s publishing history, book summary, and writing style in one step

Before literary agents’ noses go out of joint, the announcement reassures them that the submission program will enable them to promote their services and match their clients’ ideas to the best possible publisher.

Our nose remains in place (though permanently deviated 5 degrees by a football injury), but we suspect many an agent will wonder if the program can substitute for or even supplement a lifetime of knowledge and wisdom, experience and cultivation of relationships.  Will Bowker Submissions know if the science fiction list of Publisher A is inventoried, or the romance editor of Publisher B just jumped to Publisher C, or if Publisher D just acquired the same idea from another author six months ago?  Will Bowker Submissions buy us lunch? Will it hold an author’s hand when her idea has been shot down at ten houses?

These mean-spirited observations aside, we welcome the program as an interesting attempt to offer vital information for authors and agents.  And here’s the best part – if Bowker makes a match between an author and a publisher, it won’t ask the agent to split a commission.

Richard Curtis