The Future of Literary Agents in a Digital World
From Amanda Luedeke, an agent with MacGregor Literary:
All this talk about hybrid authors and self-publishing, and there’s one question that is bound to surface:
Are agents a dying breed?
Maybe. I mean some freakish thing could happen that changes everything and puts the final set of nails in the Literary Agent coffin, but the way things are shaping up, my answer would be “no.” We aren’t a dying breed, and here’s why…
. . . .
The typewriter, and later email, made it ridiculously easy for any schmuck to pound out a terrible novel and send it to the best editors the industry had to offer. Those terrible novels would fill up the queue, thus suffocating the really great publishable novels. Editors, whose time is valuable and limited…and who also have a tendency to spend much more time analyzing a manuscript than an agent does…eventually turned to agents to help weed through the bad and find the good.
While we tend to think that indie and small houses are there for the unagented, the fact of the matter is that these publishers are more than willing to work with agents. In fact, they many times welcome it. They love when someone else has vetted the material before they even have to give it a look. And consequently, an agent can many times get a faster response from them than your typical unagented author. Why? Because there is a sense of professional responsibility. The small house is usually thrilled that the agent considered them, and they want to respond in kind by offering a speedy decision.
. . . .
Every contract that I’ve seen that has been analyzed by a separately paid lawyer comes to us with not much changed except the wording. Nothing is ready to be negotiated. Clauses aren’t flagged and suggestions aren’t made. Nope. Instead, the lawyer has focused his/her time on striking out words and phrases here and there and occasionally adding in a few new ones. They approach is as if the contract will one day need to hold up in court, and they want the terms to be either ridiculously clear or very vague. Agents, on the other hand, approach it as if the contract is the author’s livelihood, and we need to get him/her the best deal possible. We don’t worry about the specific words used so much as we worry about what the author will come away with. See? There’s a difference.
. . . .
Many feel that the self-pub business model is the one that needs agents the least. But I wholly disagree.
There are a number of successful indie authors out there, telling everyone else that indie publishing is the best and that they should go it alone and forego agents and professionals altogether. But I’d like to offer a reality check…
Being a self-published indie author is like running a business. You’re in charge of accounting and marketing and publicity and packaging and design and editing and writing and formatting and sales and EVERYTHING. Ask any successful indie author how they spend their time, and they’re likely to tell you that managing their business takes up a majority of their day. Writing, then, is done at night or squeezed into the wee hours of the morning. It’s exhausting. But moreover, there’s a big piece of truth here that the overly anti-agent folks fail to tell you…
It requires an entrepreneurial mind and attitude to make something like this work. And most authors don’t have that. Most authors are creatives, who can’t tell you the first thing about marketing and publicity and bookkeeping and managing and … taxes. They just want to create. And when it comes to figuring everything else out, they need help.
Link to the rest at MacGregor Literary and thanks to David for the tip.
PG observes that agents may not be much better at selecting attorneys to help them than they are in attempting to act as attorneys themselves when negotiating contracts that won’t hold up in court.
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases. 
“We don’t worry about the specific words used so much as we worry about what the author will come away with. See? There’s a difference.”
What a head-smackingly ignorant thing to say about “words” when one is dealing with AUTHORS and LAWYERS.
Words matter. Words make the book, the article, the creation.
Words make the contract. Words make it bad or good or whatever–depending on your position and bargaining power.
If you “don’t worry” about words, you do so at your professional and legal peril.
That was the part that really made me laugh. In the Byronic sense. Lady, do you have any idea how ignorant, how pathetic, you just made yourself sound?
One article.
So much condescension, arrogance and pretentiousness towards all the lost little puppy writer’s of the world.
And fail.
Isn’t changing the wording the *point* of contract negotiations? Why does she say it like it’s a bad thing?
Edit: Marc, I just read your comment over there, that was great. I think the color is definitely the most important thing for a lawyer to change.
(I blatantly stole PG’s comment and commented on her blog, btw.)
What she means is that the cheap (likely non-IP specialist) attorneys she’s picked out of the back of the Yellow Pages didn’t turn ten pages of clear legal language into thirty pages of flowery prose that makes sense to English majors. Like what literary agents do to them. You know, like they helped out Jean Craighead George a while back.
Yep, sounds like a brilliant idea. Maybe I should go to a literary agent for all my legal needs. /s
I was about to comment on that very statement. I am absolutely astounded at the sheer cluelessness. I would never sign with an agent who had this attitude toward a contract. Never, ever, ever.
I am an attorney, but my area of expertise is not in IP or licensing contracts, and I would never trust my own ability to negotatiate a contract with a major publishing company. And she’s trying to convince me she’s more capable. What? Really? I can’t even…
One single word can change the entire meaning of a contract.
Just ask Jean Craighead Geroge’s estate whether they’re happy her agent didn’t “worry about the specific words.”
I made it that far and had to skip to the comments. LOL I mean what????????????? My first big belly laugh of the day!
Did she really criticize lawyers who write contracts with the intent that the contracts are enforceable in court???
I mean, of all the things to criticize lawyers for, that would be last on my list.
Ho-lee ****.
I realize that people have already addressed this, but that might literally be the worst thing an agent could say about a publishing contract.
Dan, I just read your comment over there and nearly wet myself at this:
“So, in your view, most authors are idiot savants who will only get halfway through breakfast before they realize that they’re trying to eat a rock. On a good day.”
Thank you for the belly laugh!
Anytime, B.
She doesn’t care about the wording in the contract. She cares about the size of the advance (what the author walks away with).
Unbelievable.
Well, I’m sure nobody will do a sneaky rights-grab later down the line. Publishers never do that. /s
And so soon after the HarperCollins / OpenRoad slugfest detailed in a previous post. Baaaad timing.
Come on, Bill, that had nothing to do with the actual wording in the contract.
*snurt!*
I have, more than once, had the following exchange:
Me: If you leave X in the contract, Y could happen, and that’s not acceptable.
Counterparty: You know me, Marc, you know I’d never do that.
Me: I know that, Counterparty, and I have complete confidence that you would never do that. But this is a life-of-copyright license and you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I have to look out for my client and my client’s kids.
Counterparty: Fine.
“She cares about the size of the advance (what the author walks away with)”
Remember–she’s going to take 15% of that advance.
And since the odds are good the book will never earn out, as far as she’s concerned that’s all the money she’ll ever see. Amongst her many conflicts of interest is that she has incentive to maximize advance against any other advantageous term.
“Words make the contract. Words make it bad or good or whatever–depending on your position and bargaining power.
If you “don’t worry” about words, you do so at your professional and legal peril.”
INDEED. The whole Harper v. Open Road lawsuit, which took two years and who knows how much money to litigate, rested on WORDING in the contract. Not what people were thinking about when they signed it in 1971, but on the WORDS that are in the contract, which is what can be referred to and evaluated 43 years later. And it rested on just a few words. As discussed just the other day, the publisher prevailed over the author because of BAD WORDING which her AGENT =introduced= into the contract.
So he and this MacGregor agent both seem to be acorns of the same doomed tree, in their belief that tinkering with words doesn’t really matter in a contract.
(FACEPALM)
Wait.
No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
“You are a creative person. Therefore, you are too incompetent to speak intelligently to first readers and business professionals such as cover artists, copy editors and formatting experts. In addition, you absolutely can’t be trusted to manage your own checkbook, because everyone knows that creative people can’t do math. Clearly, you NEED me to do all that for you.”
The use of the word “creative” as a noun is quickly becoming my main pet peeve.
I am not a “creative”. I am a writer.
And strangely enough, before I sold any novels, I was able to do my taxes as a freelance copy editor and proofreader–without hiring someone so I wouldn’t have to worry my pretty little head about the business aspects of, you know, life.
How freaking condescending can you get?
Agree with you on the pet peeve. I went to Art School and that term still rankles me. Don’t put me in your box, lady. I can out-math you…and paint a mural while I’m doing it.
Hah! While getting my architecture degree, I took two calculus classes and a grad-level projective geometry class for mere fun and relaxation – something to dilute the intensity of the design studio classes. Still love math. Don’t give me this “creative people are incompetent and math-illiterate” stuff.
Most agents are math-illiterate. They can only calculate 15 percent of any number!
Zingo!
Even funnier, my dad, who considered himself quite the tax expert, demanded one year that I run my taxes past him. I told him that he didn’t understand self-employment taxes and that I had spent hours reading the IRS-provided books as well as sitting with an IRS agent (in the good old days, when you could simply walk in during working hours and get help) learning what to do.
Dad gave up after an hour.
But hey, I need an agent, because the business side of writing is just too hard.
Excuse me, I have to go put two checks to my freelancers in the mail.
The biggest problem I have with using “creative” as a noun is that it is almost always used in a derogatory way.
It’s like “talent.” As Dave Barry once observed, production crew refer to the people in front of the camera as “talent,” which is production-person-ish for “Moron.”
“Wait.
No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
(snarf!)
Oops. Messy coffee moment here.
Haha sorry – I was wondering if anyone would see through their rage to what I did there.
Through my blinding rage, I caught it. Loved it, Inigo. Thank you.
And most authors are incapable of learning anything new in their lives, ever. /s
And what the hell was it about pen and paper that stopped the truly horrid writers from writing a story?
I have seen attorneys who just redlined stuff and offered no comments or suggestions.
I haven’t seen very many, and I haven’t seen any who I’d hire to work for me.
Hell, the counterparty counsel in the Very Large Licensing Agreement I’m doing now adds helpful comments and suggestions, and he’s on the other side. Admittedly, he’s probably trying to provide helpful comments and suggestions which result in language he prefers, but they are still objectively helpful comments and suggestions. (“We can’t do X. Here’s why. We would suggest doing Y. Here’s why.”)
Trivial tangent: The aforementioned VLLA has, at last count, 1196 revisions, including 291 insertions, 166 deletions, 2 moves (actually there’s way more moves but most of those got accepted) 711 formatting changes, and 26 comments.
But all we do is change words, so most of that is probably pretty inconsequential.
Many creatives who are successful (especially non-authors) *can* tell you the first thing about branding, marketing, publicity, accounting, project management, investing and taxes. They may hire others to take care of elements of some or all of those categories, but creatives that do well know the business side well enough to evaluate their staff, track their ROI, position themselves in the marketplace, etc. And this is true even for those who work in academia or the non-profit world.
Very few creatives can build a life-long career (and have enough assets to retire) without having an entrepreneurial mind and attitude.
Way to insult the people you’re trying to win over. Even if I did want an agent, I doubt I’d go with her after reading that screed.
I direct a small press. I prefer to work directly with authors.
It’s nice to see literary agents becoming so much more candid about their feelings with regard to authors. First Maass’ “freight class,” and now we’re “schmucks.”
Oddly, no mention of how ridiculously easy it is to become a literary agent. No vetting process, no credentials, no study of business or law required . . .
Huh. I guess any schmuck could do it.
This.
I need a like button.
LOL!
“Huh. I guess any schmuck could do it.”
Double like! See my comment on the source site. I couldn’t resist anymore.
I have said this before but sometimes it bears repeating: for an author who is self-employed, the average work week is probably 50 hours (the avg any business owner puts in vs an employee). I am sure there are some writers who can and do put all 50 hours to writing. I am not capable of that. I have 4-6 writing hours in me per day, leaving about half my time free to do the “businessy” things. It’s plenty of time. So agent, be honest: remind us that you’re offering the lazy writers and those who don’t have 50 hours a week a shortcut. Don’t suggest we can’t do it.
Exactly. And many traditional/agented authors have a day job that takes up as much or more than the time needed for marketing/publishing. I work 40 hours per week at a day job to pay the bills and spend twenty-five per week writing. I am really looking forward to devoting that day-job time to the business side of my bliss.
The typewriter, and later email, made it ridiculously easy for any schmuck to pound out a terrible novel and send it to the best editors the industry had to offer.
Wow.
This is obviously a person of vast knowledge, experience and wisdom. Breathtaking really.
I’m actually wondering how email enabled anyone to write a novel. Perhaps she meant word processing programs? It’s a broken analogy as well as being insulting.
Email makes it possible for we schucks to *send* the terribad novels, I think is what she meant.
Terribad! I like it!
Meryl, you say that as if WORDS MATTER, and the agent has just explained that they don’t.
Many feel that the self-pub business model is the one that needs agents the least. But I wholly disagree.
Hahhahahahha.
WHAT.
There are a number of successful indie authors out there, telling everyone else that indie publishing is the best and that they should go it alone and forego agents and professionals altogether.
Yes. But not. You can forego agents if you don’t see the value in working with them (and they don’t add value to a whole lot of authors’ businesses. Some agents do, for some authors’ businesses, but many do not.)
Don’t forego professionals. Nobody is saying that. Whatever you can’t do well on your own, contract out to freelance professionals who don’t charge 15% of everything for eternity.
Being a self-published indie author is like running a business.
It’s not LIKE running a business. It IS running a business. Waah! Why on earth do so many agents and other publishing pundits trot this out as if it should scare writers away? And yet they always fail to mention that for the huge majority of authors who end up working with a publisher, they’ll be doing most of that time-consuming business stuff like promotion anyway, except they won’t have any control over the aspects of the business that really matter for success: price, cover, keywords, etc.
So if you don’t self-publish, chances are very high that you’ll do virtually all the work of running a business, but with a small enough paycheck that you’ll probably never be able to quit your day job, so you’ll be working full-time and running a business on the side, and juggling writing with all of that. AND your hands will be tied in making vital business decisions such as when to change prices or covers.
SIGN ME UP; sounds like the deal of a lifetime. Boy, so glad I never self-published so I have all this leisure time to write more books!
You’re in charge of accounting and marketing and publicity and packaging and design and editing and writing and formatting and sales and EVERYTHING.
Yes. And it’s really not that difficult, once you get the hang of it. It’s certainly not “Gee, this is so hard I’d gladly give up 15% of what I make to NOT have to do it anymore”-level difficult for the majority of self-published authors.
Ask any successful indie author how they spend their time, and they’re likely to tell you that managing their business takes up a majority of their day. Writing, then, is done at night or squeezed into the wee hours of the morning. It’s exhausting.
I fail to see how this is different from the life of a traditionally published author, particularly one who’s paid so poorly that she’s never able to quit her day job and has to squeeze in all the promotion and writing around 40 hours per week sitting in a cubicle, and commuting on top of it.
But moreover, there’s a big piece of truth here that the overly anti-agent folks fail to tell you…
It requires an entrepreneurial mind and attitude to make something like this work.
Yep.
And most authors don’t have that.
I disagree. Most authors really, really want to write full-time, and once they realize that it is possible, most of them are willing to take the reins and get the job done.
Most authors are creatives, who can’t tell you the first thing about marketing and publicity and bookkeeping and managing and … taxes.
Most authors have a much better understanding of what their readers will buy than most publishers, and certainly most agents, have. Publishers and agents see bookstores as the end consumer. Authors know this isn’t true.
As for taxes, when was the last time an agent ever did taxes? Hire an accountant. They’re cheaper than agents.
They just want to create.
I also just want to buy a three thousand dollar chair from Crate and Barrel and sit in it all day long smoking a cigar and drinking whiskey while I think about how awesome my life is. Unfortunately, bills have to get paid or I’ll never afford that three thousand dollar chair.
We all want to “just” do fun stuff. Adults realize that’s not always possible and they work when necessary.
I think agents have been posting these “But you’re a creative type; you just want to create!” articles lately because they see how many authors are choosing to do a little bit more, learn how to acquire a few more business skills, and keep way more money. The “Let us do all the HARD work for you!” line will only keep working for a year or two longer.
Eventually the majority of authors will be self-published, and the majority of agents — those who never figured out how to stop blowing smoke up authors’ b-holes and work for the authors’ genuine interests — will go the way of the dinosaur.
And when it comes to figuring everything else out, they need help.
That’s what Google’s for. It’s not effing rocket science.
Wow, my ranty reply was way longer than I thought it’d be. Sorry.
P.s., as far as agents knowing what will sell a book and what won’t, my first agent told me that “The Sekhmet Bed” was a book-murdering title because it sounded too foreign and would scare away all potential readers and the book would be a huge flop with a title like that.
As an indie book, The Sekhmet Bed has sold 30,000 copies and given away about 20,000…combined, that’s nearly five times greater than the average historical fiction print run from a Big Five imprint, and the sales alone are three times greater. So I guess authors aren’t as bad at understanding what will sell as many agents seem to think.
This is why my eyes always roll straight out of my head and shoot across the room and make little P-TEWWW! richochet sound effects whenever I see an agent talk about how much more they know about what makes a book appealing than authors know.
Thanks for highlighting this, Libbie. I missed it on first reading, but I think it’s so demonstrative of the mindset.
I’ve never seen any author–indie or otherwise–that going indie is best and that they should forego professionals.
What I have seen is a lot of indie authors who talk about how to do things like format, use KDP, and hire out cover designs for authors who want to do those things. There’s an empowering tone to so much of it.
Because this is what we can do.
What I’ve also seen is a lot of “hybrid” authors claiming that authors should explore all options (sure), and that ultimately it’s a choice–as though one could simply write to Ms. Leudeke and write “Congratulations. I’ve chosen you to represent me. Here’s my novel. I’ll look forward to hearing the results of your submissions.”
Those people seem aligned with Leudeke’s mindset when she wrote this post. Any agent who’s asking herself whether agents are a dying breed is likely already on the defensive.
I think it’s great for authors to be empowered and to have all the information they need to make educated choices when those choices are available to them. I don’t think we can pretend all choices are always available to all authors, though, and I think that’s what Leudeke et al. seem to imply.
You’re right, and it’s one of the things that annoys me the most about these persistent articles and blog posts. Working with an agent/publisher isn’t a readily available option for everybody, so stop pretending it is, folks.
It’s right up there on my Annoyance Scale with the perpetuation of the very mythological myth that authors who work with publishers get to just write, and do nothing else. LIES.
^^THIS!^^ YES! YES!
PG, link isn’t in the article. I’d like to click through and read the whole thing.
I just searched the agency’s name. It shows up at the top of the search results, and they have a link to the blog on the home page.
Thanks for pointing out my oversight, Meryl.
Yes, but be careful what you wish for… now I’m sorry I read the whole thing.
I laughed way too much while reading this. It’s so full of wrong.
P.S. It *is* running a business. There is no like.
Authors just want to create. Agents just want to be necessary to authors (and pocket that 15%).
But as the Prophet Jagger once said: You can’t always get what you want.
TL;DR: “Of course agents will stick around, Snowflake, ‘cus this is too hard for you to do alone. Now sign here and let me take care of all that nasty money and those mean lawyers for you.”
ETA: see the previous post about Tina Seskis, as some just don’t want to DO all that stuff anyway, so yeah, there will be a seat at the (smaller) table for agents for a long time.
1. I saw Ms. Luedeke on a panel at WorldCon and I think she’s pretty cool.
2. There’s not much in this article to convince me I need an agent.
Being a self-published indie author is like running a business. You’re in charge of accounting and marketing and publicity and packaging and design and editing and writing and formatting and sales and EVERYTHING.
This is FUN!
She’s right. I don’t know the first thing about marketing, publicity, packaging, or design. I’m going to have to make mistakes and learn stuff. And learning stuff is FUN!
I’ve already learned how to write a novel, edit a novel, be an art director, build an ebook, typeset a pbook, and publish it all online. My book is available in Finland! (No one’s buying it in Finland, but give them time.)
I don’t get this, though:
Being a self-published indie author is like running a business.
If you are writing for a living you ARE running a business, whether you are publishing yourself or working with Random Penguin.
“If you are writing for a living you ARE running a business, whether you are publishing yourself or working with Random Penguin.”
That was the very comment I was going to make. A writer, unless they work full time on someone’s payroll doing corporate writing, is running a business. Who’s publishing their writing doesn’t change the fact that they are running a business. The question is whether you need to hire an agent to be a “business manager” and pay them 15% of your gross. More and more writers are finding they can use their non-writing hours, once their creativity needs to take a break (as someone mentioned above), to manage their own business.
If you are an author submitting to TPH, you are a vendor, same as the guy who provides the rental plants. And yes, you are a businessperson. Contractors and employees: that’s pretty much all there is.
Beggars.
Beggars are selling an intangible – guilt-assuasion. Or, depending on the beggar, a reduced chance you’ll be assaulted.
Also, ObLitReference:
“Consider the beggars in Spain…”
>>”Being a self-published indie author is like running a business. You’re in charge of accounting and marketing and publicity and packaging and design and editing and writing and formatting and sales and EVERYTHING. Ask any successful indie author how they spend their time, and they’re likely to tell you that managing their business takes up a majority of their day. Writing, then, is done at night or squeezed into the wee hours of the morning. It’s exhausting. But moreover, there’s a big piece of truth here that the overly anti-agent folks fail to tell you…”<<
Riiiight. Because we indie authors didn't already know that. If you don't know something, you learn about it and figure it out. That's what most of us are doing. What's wrong with this woman?
She sees an inevitable career change in the offing, and thinks she can forestall that by convincing everybody else that all literary agents are still de facto relevant. That’s what’s wrong with her.
The thing that gets me is that agents CAN still be genuinely, actually useful to indie authors. Agents like Kristin Nelson do a great job of REALLY advocating for their clients and actually bringing serious value to the partnership. Those agents aren’t doing this floofy-woo smoke-blowing blog talk about how creative types just want to create! They’re teaming up with their authors to secure revolutionary contracts that favor the author. They’re going after crazy-cool subsidiary rights. They’re leaving the stuff in the hands of the authors that they know the authors can do best.
There’s just no reason to continue to cling to the old model of agenting when you’ve got role models like that. I can’t figure out why all these defensive agents don’t get proactive and start finding ways to be more like Nelson and offer some REAL value to indie authors. I think indie authors would welcome more agents of that type in the world, instead of getting eye-rolly and walking away from agents in record numbers, as we are all doing now.
Of course, finding ways to innovate and bring value to a business partnership is an awful lot like *gasp* running a business. Maybe some agents don’t want to do the hard work. Perhaps they need agents for their agenting business, so they can just sit back and to the fun stuff and not worry about the actual work.
Sure, there’s a learning curve to editing and formatting (manuscripts for agents and publishing houses) or books, but you have to learn these even if you have an agent.
Sure, there’s a learning curve to hiring (which is what I do)/creating covers but once you have that skill you get better and faster at doing these steps.
Social media/marketing? Except for a few outliers, trade authors have to do this too, if they want their next book contract.
She’s assuming anyone who wants an agent can get one. Maybe she’s right (not), but not all agented authors or books get contracts.
So what are Ms Luedeke’s credentials to run MY business?
Does she have a law degree that makes her qualified to negotiate contracts?
A bookkeeper’s certificate or accounting degree so she’s qualified to manage my money?
Is she bonded? Insured? Does she adhere to a code of ethics issued by a governing body that ENFORCES infractions or lapses or malpractice?
What does she know about marketing? Does she have a portfolio or list of happy clients I can query? Does she have numbers to prove she can increase my sales? Does she have a marketing plan?
Show me the numbers that prove her involvement/efforts have measurably enriched her clients. (and no, selling out authors for a crappy contract that essentially leaves their ENTIRE career in the hands of beancounters at a BPH does not count.)
Not impressed with this agent, at all.
It’s pretty common to hear about defense lawyers who hung around in the courthouse for years, representing people on the fly, and many of whom actually did a pretty good job… except they didn’t actually have a law license or degree.
Doesn’t matter if they have a 100% clearance record, it’s still the unauthorized practice of law.
“What does she know about marketing? Does she have a portfolio or list of happy clients I can query? Does she have numbers to prove she can increase my sales? Does she have a marketing plan?”
I love this. Now, in fairness, there are many writer’s who praise their agents. Folks who work hard to get great deals, so I’m no agent hater.
But whenever I hear a screed from an agent, like this one, on how clueless and helpless all us “schmuck” writer’s are at crucial things like marketing or promo, I have to ask…
“What the hell do YOU know?”
I’ve NEVER heard a writer say, “Wow, my agents complex, targeted, multi-faceted, marketing and promo plan shot me from obscurity to mega-sales, all while I sat at home on the couch. Thank god for my agent!”
But whenever you see a self-serving agent piece, “M&P” is always thrown in their, along with every other pub buzz word, for the sake of creating value add. Or attempt thereof, I should say.
I had a conversation with an agent who had no idea there was a novel titled Ivanhoe written by Sir Walter Scott. Familiar with English lit? Not so much.
He’s a graduate of Famous Agents School!
Plus, Ivanhoe is out of copyright. No 15 percent to be made there.
What Jaye said.
Also, if this person worked for me, we would be having a “this will never happen again as long as you work for me” conversation. I believe in second chances, but only for people who can learn from their mistakes. There are so many things in this article that are simply gratuitous and wrong.
1. No sideswipes at other professionals. If you want to argue against lawyers for authors, that better be the focus of the article and you need to have a thoughtful case (not to mention understanding why our potential clients might want a lawyer). Better yet, show how we add value to what a lawyer can do.
2. Don’t insult our potential clients. You better be able to make the case for our services without assuming incompetence, ignorance, or inability for the people we serve. It’s their choice to engage us. It’s ok to acknowledge that some potential clients don’t need us (even if we think they do, they don’t and we don’t need to make enemies for no reason).
3. Never treat making the case for our services as a burden that doesn’t deserve your full attention (“I’m knocking this out as I’m waiting for a flight”). It’s unprofessional and suggests all the worst things authors think about agents.
Yes. That thought crossed my mind as well. If I were a senior partner at her agency, I would be very unhappy with the content of her post and the impression which it gave of my agency.
I’m reminded of the saying, “First class managers hire first class people. Second class managers hire third class people.”
And third-class managers lay off all the first-class people, and expect the remaining headcount to do the same amount of work.
Come to think of it, this explains a lot about publishing mergers, doesn’t it?
Well, Mr. McGregor has deigned to explain to us what she really meant. It isn’t that lawyers are incompetent and useless, it’s that we’re dishonest. He seems to think that this is somehow an improvement.
And happily for Amanda, she won’t be getting the “as long as you work for me” speech (ISWYDT,BTW.) since if anything her boss has just doubled down.
Before I read all the comments here, I commented on her blog. Here’s what I wrote:
This is hilarious: “Every contract that I’ve seen that has been analyzed separately by a paid lawyer comes back to us with not much changed except the wording.”
If you don’t understand why this is hilarious, I’m afraid you don’t understand the importance of wording in a contract.
Legal distinctions often seem unimportant to those not trained in the law, but words which have common meanings in regular usage have important distinctions in the law.
To take an easy example, “kill” and “murder” are often used as synonyms, but there is an important legal distinction.
What appears to you to be an unimportant change in the wording may make an enormous difference to the meaning of the clause.
I am a writer who hires a literary attorney to negotiate my contracts. All she does is change the wording. I am also a lawyer, so I understand what she is doing and why.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is, after all, the difference between lightening and a lightening bug. The difference between the right word and the almost right word in a contract can make an enormous difference.
Once I stopped working through agents, my career took off
“Every contract that I’ve seen that has been analyzed separately by a paid lawyer comes back to us with not much changed except the wording.”
Hence the danger of extrapolating solely from your own experience. David Morrell told this story about his novel “First Blood” (copied from Maul of America blog):
“According to an old Playboy interview, while negotiating the movie deal for his book, Morrell’s attorney proudly informed him that he got the author a percentage of the First Blood sequels as well as a piece of the merchandising. A dispirited Morrell, who had used his last $500 to pay this lawyer, loudly complained that there was NOT going to be a sequel because Rambo dies at the end of the novel. Furthermore, who the hell would want a “Rambo” lunch box?
“Of course, the rest is history and Morrell considers that the best five-hundred bucks he ever spent.”
(Morrell also tells the story in his book “Successful Novelist: A Lifetime of Lessons about Writing and Publishing” if you want to check it out. Try searching for it on Google Books, using “five hundred dollars” as your search term.)
Love this story about Morrell. I have to go back and read it again.
“…who the hell would want a “Rambo” lunch box?”
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/331011587275?lpid=82
In entertainment property licensing, sequels and derivatives are ALWAYS a very high priority to a lawyer of any competence whatsoever.
TV shows have sold a lot of toys. A lot of toys have been turned into successful TV shows. And I don’t care if the book ends with the destruction of the Universe, if it’s popular and the author is willing, there is a way to make a sequel. Or a prequel. Or a while-that-was-going-on (I’ve written two books that take place *during* the storyline of the original book.) It’s all mine, gimmie gimmie gimmie.
On her site, I left a comment replying to yours that advises all writers that if they insist on having an agent, it should not be one who thinks words are just a collection of syllables*.
I don’t know that it’s worth the time to engage Luedeke, but I do think it’s a good deed to give innocent writers another point of view. They may realize how harmful agents like her can be for their careers.
*shamelessly stolen from Terry Pratchett. Isn’t he just awesome?
Speaking of words, I think you meant “lightning” and “lightning bug”. But I agree with you, wording in a contract is extremely important.
I just read the whole post, and it comes across really sleazy. I wouldn’t ever consider this agent.
HOLD ON…HOLD ON…
Here’s the best part: she’s self published!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Extroverted-Writer-Marketing-ebook/dp/B00BT5SW78/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364491137&sr=8-1&keywords=the+extroverted+writer
“I just read the whole post, and it comes across really sleazy. I wouldn’t ever consider this agent.”
Oh, but you should! According to her book page, she works at the “#1 agency in the country”.
I guess I missed that PW article.
No, here’s the best part.
She wrote a whole article about how writers are barely intelligent enough to avoid breakfast rocks, and this is in her bio:
“Amanda was a 2006 graduate of the acclaimed Professional Writing program at Taylor University Fort Wayne. Since college, she’s made her living as a writer, working as a freelancer for local newspapers and marketing companies, while operating her own writing business.”
Do as she says, not as she does, because she is Smart and you are, um, Creative.
Mmmmm … sugar-frosted breakfast rocks.
*crunch crunch*
Marc
Yeah, I caught that too. BUT, you forgot to add that she also worked with The Facebook and The Youtube and other social media. Y’know, all that new marketing stuff that’s far beyond the comprehension of us writer’s.
But my reference to her book had two points. One, to point out that she’s an indie. And two, to highlight the fact that she, obviously, couldn’t get a deal for her own book.
Which I thought was, how should I say, very ironic and telling.
“…highlight the fact that she, obviously, couldn’t get a deal for her own book.”
Yes, the Extroverted Writer Marketing Book. Is it just me, or did she maybe not target the largest niche there?
I’ve actually read and reviewed the book. There were possible nuggets of wisdom, but it was nothing more than a compilation of blog posts – which I’d already read.
If you care, you can read my review: http://christianediting.co.nz/review-the-extroverted-writer-by-amanda-luedeke/
This reminds me of the old SNL commercial parody about “Quarry Breakfast Cereal” that’s spot on.
Excuse me? WTF, excuse my French! The wording is everything, Ms. Luedeke. The wording is what determines “what the author will come away with.”
This is crazy!
Instead, the lawyer has focused his/her time on striking out words and phrases here and there and occasionally adding in a few new ones. They approach it as if the contract will one day need to hold up in court…
They approach it as if the contract will one day need to hold up in court.
Which is exactly what you hired them to do.
Duh.
If an agent can write such an article as this and it actually persuades intelligent, thoughtful writers to use her services, her premise is right. Agents will be around just about forever.
She sounds like a ‘savvy’ real estate agent. To paraphrase: The lawyers want to mess around with the contract. Me, on the other hand, I just want you to get what you want.
So, how exactly does the author get what she wants if the contract’s terms aren’t changed? The working assumption is probably “You want to be published at any cost, so stop screwing around and just sign the damn thing.”
Part of the problem is that the author’s interests and the agent’s are not fully aligned. Regardless of the terms of the final agreement, the agent gets a fixed percentage. The author meanwhile has lots of wiggle room to negotiate all types of rights. Most of the concessions an author may win from a publisher do nothing for the agent.
The attorney, on the other hand, is suggesting possibilities and pointing out pitfalls from the author’s point of view.
Disclosure: I’m not an attorney.
Oh, the poor widdle authors can’t deal with all this hard business stuff. They’re just idiot children who make up stories. That’s why they need to give all the money to someone else to do the important stuff for them. Because having control over your creative production, career and finances is so hard!
Or maybe they’re just catching on that greater income potential forever, absolute say in how the work gets marketed and distributed, and no lunatic non-compete clauses are actually a very good thing- and fun!
Who would hire this person who does not understand that the wording of a contract is critical? But- but- don’t all publisher and agents put in conditions that benefit the author more than themselves?
In five years, we’ll still be writing and publishing. She will have found other work… hopefully something more suited to her talents.
Seriously Dale, you should go read her bio. She graduated from a creative writing program and did all kinds of social media stuff before becoming an “agent”. Clearly, she’s super qualified to lecture on the principles of law and business.
Self delusuan us prevalent in many occupations, including literary agents in 2014.
There is just so much wrong with this article, the biggest issue being that it reads as if it were written by a high school mean girl, that I’m almost positive PG is punking us.
Admit it, PG, it’s Friday and you’re feeling frisky. Right?
I’ve been toying with the idea that she accidentally left her blogging account open and her archrival is joyriding in it to make her look bad
No – this is pretty typical for her style.
Maybe Amanda has frisky Fridays, but I usually don’t, Barbra.
It’s great that agents are exposing their opinions and their ignorance about contracts so openly and in public. Now, I only wish that all writers would be able to see what agents are so willingly exposing, not read through the articles with their blinds on.
I read Bob Mayer’s “13 Harsh Truths” post the other day. I think some of this one applies here:
4. Listen to those who have skin in the game. I make my living selling stories to readers. If you want to make a living selling stories to readers focus on listening to those people. Those who make their money in ancillary ways off of the book business? Listen to them but also understand their motives are different than yours. Many of them want to make their money off you. Caveat emptor.
That sounds great. Looked it up…here’s the link for those who haven’t seen it yet (like me.)
Thanks, Libbie. That just goes to show which of us is the more thoughtful. Kind of reminds me of weekend mornings, when all too often my wife only realizes breakfast is ready because she hears me eating at my desk. (I’ve once again forgotten to tell her.)
I’m a treat to live with.
Good stuff! Thanks Michael and Libbie. Loved the last “truth.”
I just have one word for this: wow.
…any schmuck with a typewriter….terrible novel
I might need an agent but not you.
PG, your comment is admirably restrained.
I knew everybody else would do a better job of deconstruction than I could, Pete.
I’m confused. Did she say that as a self-published author I still need an agent? Who is she going to negotiate with? Amazon? Smashwords?
She thinks you need her to tell you whether to submit to trad pub or whether to go indie with any given project. Because SHE knows and you don’t. Ick!
Let me make it simple for all her future clients, then: indie. Done. Problem solved. You’re welcome.
No, she wants you to sign up with the vanity press division of her agency.
Oh, golly! Does it have one?
If not, it will, and if not hers, some other agent’s. Bottom line, keep writers barefoot and pregnant, even if somebody else gets to screw ‘em, because otherwise they’ll all get uppity.
But, if I decide to pursue this amazing future publishing opportunity, after I pay the agency to publish me, do I also cut a check for an extra 15% of that total to her…or does the agency charge me an additional 15% of the total to pay her with?
Sorry for the silly question, but I’m just a writer who hasn’t done a single thing my entire life except write, and all these numbers and symbols associated with business like stuff makes the thing between my ears hurt.
No, but her boss has endorsed a vanity press – one of the ones that doesn’t make you pay for anything, pays royalties (except on the copies you buy for yourself) … and makes you buy 1000 paper copies of your book.
Um… I’m the boss you’re speaking about, Iola, and that’s bullshit. I’ve not endorsed any vanity presses. I’ve not encouraged anyone to buy 1000 paper copies of their book. Ever. The closest I’ve ever come to a vanity press was helping put one scam operation out of business (though we have sometimes worked with CreateSpace, if that’s what you mean). I’m not defending everything Amanda said on the blog, but this is a classic example of people going online to make powerful statements, only to be caught without any actual facts.
In January 2014, Chip wrote a blog post titled “The Last Word on Winepress Publishing” (the vanity press he refers to above). The post is here:
http://www.chipmacgregor.com/current-affairs/last-word-winepress-publishing/
In the comments, I asked: “Their [the WinePress] website is now directing people to Deep River, another vanity press. Any thoughts on that?”
Chip replied “I talked to the folks at Deep River. They have no connection to WinePress, and didn’t even know the people at WinePress were going to put their info on the website. Bill Carmichael is a good guy, in my opinion.”
I’m not a lawyer, so can only offer a layperson’s opinion on what sounds like an endorsement. While Chip’s statement might not be a ringing endorsement of Deep River, it certainly sounds like an endorsement of Bill Carmichael, the co-founder of Deep River. A naive author, or a new author who is following the literary agency blogs because they’re seeking publishing tips and advice from industry experts, could interpret Chip’s words as an endorsement of Deep River.
No, Chip didn’t specifically recommend Deep River as a publishing option. But nor did he tell his readers to stay away from Deep River, which was what I was expecting.
I never said Chip encouraged an author to buy 1,000 copies of their book. But Deep River DOES require authors to purchase 1,000 copies of their books, as is clearly seen on their FAQ page:
http://www.deepriverbooks.com/about-deepriver-books/partner-publishing/faq.html#2
They pay royalties on “all books we sell through the retail trade”, which reads like it excludes the copies the author is required to purchase.
The requirement to purchase books is a possible reason why Deep River isn’t included as a Recognized Publisher by American Christian Fiction Writers.
http://www.acfw.com/about/recognized_publishers
I specifically called Deep River a vanity press in my comment. Chip didn’t disagree. Some people may interpret this omission to mean he knows Deep River is a vanity press, yet didn’t mention the fact because Bill is a “nice guy” (which I don’t dispute. I don’t know Bill. But a “nice guy” can still manage a vanity press).
I’m glad to hear that Chip has stated that he has not, and will not, endorse vanity presses. I appreciate his clarification of this issue, and I hope he will consider adding this information in a comment on the WinePress post on his blog.
Not only did she say you need an agent, but she said that you need an agent even more than any other kind of writer.
No, it doesn’t make any sense.
To match #Queryfail, we now present #Blogfail. I can’t even…
*Going back to editing the novel I finished Easter Sunday*
It stops giving bad advice to authors, or it gets the hose again!
Sorry, couldn’t help it…
If you are foolish enough to sell your book to a publisher, you need an agent who will negotiate between you and the publisher. Lawyers don’t do that. You also need an agent to save your subsidiary rights and market them. Marketing subsidiary rights isn’t easy for an author.
However, if you are self-published, the agent can only be helpful in finding you cover artists, foreign publishers, and that sort of thing. At 15 % that’s a bargain over going with an independent publisher who takes 30 % or more for those services and probably doesn’t have the experience and connections.
I didn’t have time to read all the comments above, but they were probably all anti-agent. Most self-published authors hate agents more than they do publishers. Why?
Mainly because they write articles like this.
At any rate, why should an agent get 15% of profits forever for finding contractors that I could find on my own? How is that in any way a bargain?
Because the agent knows the business and you don’t. As for subsidiary rights: only someone dealing with subsidiary rights all the time knows how to negotiate them. Writers do not know that stuff. They don’t have time to wheel and deal with those folks. Do you know how to sell your book to a foreign publisher? Or to an American film producer? And if you get an offer, do you know if it’s a good offer?
I’ll agree to this. Hugh once went into some details regarding his dozens of foreign deals and how his agent got them.
What publishers in Denmark/Thailand/Brazil/Romania have reputations for shafting foreign writer’s, knowing their native courts won’t care, or for whatever reason, and which ones will actually deliver? How do you know? Because their website says great things about themselves? Becoming proficient in SP and book promo is one thing but how many years do you want to spend trying to become an expert in dozens of foreign markets, their media, their pub business, and its players?
But, I would only consider someone who had a reputation for this kind of work, like Kristin Nelson, and not someone behind a buzz-word laden screed on why helpless writer’s still need agents. Any agent.
I’m impressed by your ability to make assumptions about what I actually care to do right now. At this point in my young-ish career, I couldn’t give a rip about foreign (or domestic, for that matter) print rights or film rights.
On the off chance that I get an unsolicited offer, I’ll bring someone in. But I can already tell you one agency I won’t consider.
Made no assumptions about you Dan, merely agreed with I.J. and posed a hypothetical.
I was replying to IJ.
If you are foolish enough to sell your book to a publisher, you need an agent who will negotiate between you and the publisher. Lawyers don’t do that.
I’d be delighted to do that, actually, if I were taking clients, which I’m not. And there are other attorneys who actively do do that. Publishers would much rather negotiate with agents, since agents really work for them, but that is a separate question. I’ve negotiated licenses for many independent creators and/or small creative agencies with manufacturers of all sizes. This is what transactional lawyers do.
As far as repping the rights, you’re right, that is one thing of value that agents can bring to the table, but I don’t know that it’s all that good a bet, or worth 15% of worldwide rights forever.
As far as why we hate agents, it’s because they all snubbed us at book conventions.
Yes, well, I sort of guessed that. I went the ordinary route of contacting a reputable and experienced New York agent and was lucky in that she loved my books. She was an excellent agent, particularly for subsidiary rights and still represents me for those. And that’s more than worth the 15 % to me.
I negotiate with publishers all the time. I also help agents with contract negotiations. I also have lots of clients who are contacted by foreign publishers and license their rights after their indie books sell well in the US and UK.
And I also help clients negotiate agency agreements and get out of agency agreements. That involves negotiating with agents, most of whom are far from the best negotiators I’ve dealt with in a variety of different businesses.
“If you are foolish enough to sell your book to a publisher, you need an agent who will negotiate between you and the publisher. Lawyers don’t do that. You also need an agent to save your subsidiary rights and market them. Marketing subsidiary rights isn’t easy for an author.”
I’ve been making my full-time living as a writer for about 26 years, mostly via licensing rights to publishers, mostly major houses. (I’ve been self-publishing my backlist for 3 years.)
And you are wrong about all of the above.
Not typical of the average author.
If I were faced with such a situation for some reason, I’d tell the publisher they can negotiate with my lawyer or not negotiate at all, and I’ll keep on doing my self-publishing thing.
Even if publishers had a policy of only negotiating with agents and never lawyers (which isn’t the case), they’d change their tune if they didn’t have an option other than to negotiate with authors’ attorneys. They surely have legal departments, so they’re perfectly capable of dealing directly with an attorney instead of with an agent.
Most self-published authors hate agents more than they do publishers. Why?
I wouldn’t say I hate agents, but I certainly am of the opinion that many of them (maybe even most of them) are not worth the 15% they charge.
As to why, it’s because I’ve worked with two in the past and found the experience to be distinctly underwhelming.
I’m sure you’d like to believe that all these vocal rabble-rousing indies just don’t know their butts from a hole in the wall and truly have no idea about the industry, what they’re talking about, or what they’re giving up. But a good many of us have been around various publishing-industry blocks a few times and have formed our impressions of it all via direct experience, not via popular opinion. Some have been around not only a few blocks, but the whole damn neighborhood.
“As far as repping the rights, you’re right, that is one thing of value that agents can bring to the table, but I don’t know that it’s all that good a bet, or worth 15% of worldwide rights forever.”
Well, if the agent can get a foreign print deal (or something similar for a sub right) in an overseas market you know nothing about, and then get said commission off of revenue that didn’t exist before, then sure. Why not.
That’s what I think the successful agents of the future will so. They’ll go out in a variety of foreign print and media markets, hustle and actually SELL STUFF to earn commissions. Y’know, like real sales professionals do, vice shooting it down the street to NYC BPH house X to see who bites.
It’s so hard to choose, but I think THIS was my favorite part of the article: “And this is also where the role of an agent will change. Some agents may take on the role of bookkeeper and project manager. Others may take on stronger admin roles or marketing roles. Some may be in charge of getting the manuscripts in shape and typeset and uploaded.”
Call me crazy (CRAZY!), but if I need a bookkeeper, I’d go to a professional bookkeeper, not hire an unqualified literary agent to do my bookkeeping.
If I want to “get a manuscript in shape,” I’d go to an experienced, reputable freelance editor–of which there are by now quite a few, thanks to publishers laying off so many of them in recent years.
Formatting and uploading are not exactly Herculean tasks. But for a writer who doesn’t want to do them, there are now plenty of reputable services that do these tasks, as well as interior design, packaging, proofreading, etc. The majority of them go it on a flat-fee basis and have experience. Why would anyone go to a literary agent for any of these services, pay 15% forever instead of a one-time flat-fee, or google “literary agent”when in need of these services?
As for”marketing…” What experience do any literary agents have in marketing books to readers? While the current marketing problem of publishers is that they mostly know how to market to bookstores and distributors, not readers, the problem of agents is even further removed from the author’s target, since the agent’s experience is in marketing books to publishers (and most agents aren’t even good at -that-, as it happens).
This reminds me very much of a blog Joe Konrath posted about a week ago, in which his advice to a struggling agent who wrote to him was, go find another line of work.
All these functions that Luedeke is talking about already exist… and they’re Other Lines of Work (such as bookkeeping, marketing, editing, formatting and packaging books), and there are reputable, experienced people with client lists and competitive pricing already doing them. These aren’t empty gaps waiting to be filled by struggling agents who can’t live off their 15% of publisher deals anymore.
And if i need admin and have the income from writing to pay for it, i’m going to find a personal assistant who knows his/her income depends on my doing well, ME, not me and/or one of 20 other clients.
Good point. Her more vague job-title ideas (such as “project manager” or “admin” role) are already being fulfilled by virtual assistants and personal assistants for a number of writers I know. For a flat fee rather than for 15% of their income.
Posted in the wrong spot again!
Best line ever: “Every contract that I’ve seen that has been analyzed by a separately paid lawyer comes to us with not much changed except the wording.”
PolyWogg
Luedeke has now published a half-baked apology, yet reiterating some of her earlier statements.
The post has also attracted comments from James Scott Bell and Hugh Howe. JSB asked her some direct questions … which she’s ignored.
She did comment and said that she didn’t mean it like that, you know. I guess with that everything is again well and full of sunshine in her world and all those (pesky) authors’ ruffled feathers are now smoothed down.
Sarcasm aside, I don’t think she gets it why those schmucks were making such a fuss over her little innocent article. I also don’t believe that she is able to answer those direct questions, or answer them in a way they would show her in a positive light.
And, in another post, her boss defended her, saying “my friend Amanda is being raked over the coals for daring to reveal the dirty secret that some lawyers pad their numbers when working on book contracts….”
Which, oddly enough, is one thing she didn’t say. Although, in her comments to me, she did stand by her assertion that most authors have no idea what they’re doing without an agent’s guiding light.
Dan wins the contest for best response with:
“If you’d taken as much care with your initial post as you are with the backpedaling responses, you would’ve been fine.”
Dear Chip
Your “friend” Amanda isn’t being “raked over the coals for daring to reveal the dirty secret that some lawyers pad their numbers when working on book contracts.”
Your *employee* Amanda is being raked over the coals by people more intelligent and more experienced than her, based on her uninformed assertion that all lawyers do is change a few words while agents are much cleverer than that.
But I do like your bad poetry contest.
I love the smell of revisionism in the evening.
It smells like… victory.
And desperation. But mostly victory.
You guys have got to go to Chip’s post for the comments. He’s like a villain, only with no powers.
Edited to add: And then, he made a long-winded post in which he said I was a wannabe tough guy, and that I was only mad because I’ve been rejected by agents so long. After I took his post apart point by point, he deleted it like a pansy.
Edit two: And then he called me a dick and deleted that, but apparently he forgot all about email notifications. Look for a blog post soon!
Hey, Marc, in case you missed it, The Chipper called us both “tough guys.” Then he deleted his posts. But I win on tiebreakers, because he called me a “dick.” Then deleted his posts.
You may see a theme developing.
Coming in a close second to you is no disgrace, sir.
Actually did a quick search of TPV to see where Chip might have seen Marc’s rabid-agent-hate-because-they-snubbed-him-at-a-convention speech but I came up empty.
Marc, should Chip report you to the pre-crime division? I’d hate to hear that a lawyer has run amok in the middle of a writer’s convention and climbed the Chrysler Building.
It’s like twenty comments up, 2May at 2:47 pm.
See? It all makes sense now!
Chip’s fantastic. He wrote a comment to me (the “you’re a dick” one), in which he said that his response to Marc was him “being nice.”
I see. That explains the crowd standing at the bottom of the Chrysler Building, I suppose.
Chip ran back to his blog with that one and painted Marc as the one nobody wanted to dance with, the guy who desperately wanted an agent and couldn’t get one.
I’m assuming he understands the tongue in cheek nature of the comment, seeing as he didn’t provide his readers with a link so they could see just how desperate our poor Mr. Cabot is…
Mark, come down from there. The biplanes are on their way…
Okay, Passive Guy, let me offer some perspective… My name is on the blog. I’ve spent my life in publishing — years as a writer, years as an editor, a former Associate Publisher with Time Warner, and now an agent for the past dozen or so years. Apparently I know something about this business, since I’ve done pretty well at it.
Amanda (who is a friend of mine, Iola, as well as a co-worker), wrote something fast, while sitting in an airport terminal. She put it up, then later it was pointed out (by Marc and others) that it made her sound bad. She realized the mistake she had made, and went back to make amends. (This would be what Iola referred to as a “half baked apology,” as though going back to make amends is not enough.) I wasn’t around to read the post that day, having gone in to have the doctors treat me. Has no one here ever posted something and later been told it needed clarity or revision? Marc, you’ve never said something and later realized it didn’t come out the way you meant it? What’s wrong with going back to clear up something that was said?
People jumped all over Amanda’s words. Marc made good points, and I respect several of the things he said. Would I have written that post? Nope — but I also don’t feel I need to tell everyone how to say things. If you’d try reading more of Amanda’s past works, you’d find she’s smart, with good marketing experience, and has shared a lot of good with authors. She’s also very supportive of helping authors self-publish. So don’t judge her solely on one post that she’s trying to correct.
Dan, on the other hand, wants to be a tough guy, which I’ve noticed often happens in these types of discussions. There’s always an element online that wants to act tough and say things they’d never actually say in person. They’ve forgotten about civility because they want to sound like tough guys online. Dan wants to come onto the site and argue, but you’re simply mean-spirited and boring, so I deleted your comment. I know you look gleefully on this discussion, thinking there are new cracks to make. But, yeah, you’re acting like a dick. The issue is no longer the post, but what witty put-downs you can share. You’re just sort of sad.
On the other hand, I generally like Passive Voice, and have often encouraged writers to visit. Lots of good information here. And if you’re really interested in writing and publishing, you should check out my blog sometime and not base your entire evaluation around one piece you heard about. Writers send in questions, and we talk about them. Writers Digest has named us one of the 101 best writing websites several times. Appreciate you letting me come on and chat, Passive Voice. -Chip MacGregor
Good news, Chip. I know you were having a problem with comments disappearing, so I managed to get all of them on screencaps. I’ll do a blog post and link it at TPV so they can see the discussion in its entirety. They’ll see that I attacked Amanda’s post, not her. No yelling, no anger, a healthy dose of sarcasm. My arguments to her were no more severe than anyone else’s, and a lot less severe than some. And, this may be important, she agreed with my criticisms of her post.
They’ll see that the only person who got personal was you. Not only did you call me a “dick” and a “tough guy,” but that you called Marc a “tough guy,” as well (before you, naturally, deleted that). You stated that the only reason I was so mad is because a long list of rejections by agents and publishers. You said a lot of stuff. Then, after I took you apart point by point (again, without ever resorting to name-calling or personal attacks), you took your ball and went home. So who’s sad?
I know you thought you could come in here and bad mouth me, spin some lies, and I’d have no proof that it was actually the opposite, but did you know that if you hit F5 and are ready with screencap, you can catch all of the edits? I discovered that quite by accident, but it came in pretty handy. You sure represent your agency well. Super professional.
But happy birthday!
Mr. MacGregor, the thing is that the original article was displayed on the official webpage of your agency, which serves as a advertising board, so to speak, which for me means that with everything they write there, they are representing their employer – the agency. Can the
really serve as an excuse? Because not just the article in question, but the above quote makes me wonder if your employers are so negligent with their and your agency’s reputation that they are uploading on the agency’s official webpage articles that were written fast and while sitting in an airport terminal and which display their lack of professionalism so openly (and with from what you have written here, with your approval), are they able to show more diligence while dealing with the reputation and livelihood of the agency’s clients?
The other thing is, as T.K. Already mentioned:
There was only one comment from Amanda when I made the “half-baked apology” comment above. She let that stand alone for around 12 hours before coming back with responses to individual posts (which do make her apology appear more sincere. Better late than never, I suppose).
If I could edit my comment, I would. I’d also change the spelling mistake. Sorry, Mr Howey.
Thanks for the birthday wishes, sincere or not. And you can be scheming like this if you want, but I won’t let it get me down because I just got GREAT NEWS a moment ago, Dan… My biopsies all came back negative, so NO CANCER! YAY! A nice way to celebrate my birthday this week, I figure.
Okay, go to it. Enjoy your time online. :o)
A) Not scheming, responding to your extraordinarily creative account of happenings.
B) I’m genuinely glad to hear about your great health news.
Thanks!
It looks to me like Amanda’s apologies are all sincere.
The issue for me, however, is professional competence, which has nothing at all to do with sincerity.
Beginning writers who read Amanda’s post may get the feeling she is saying, “You don’t need a lawyer. They charge a lot of money and don’t do much. I am familiar with publishing contracts and legalese, so I can do everything they can do, but cheaper and better.”
Better be careful. It’s called unauthorized practice of law, and it’s illegal. In some places, it’s considered a form of fraud.
http://da.co.la.ca.us/pdf/UPLpublic.pdf
I know, I know. All agents do it. But that doesn’t make it right.
My experiences are identical to Laura’s. I had agents negotiate my first few publishing contracts and it was a joke. Since firing my last agent and hiring a lawyer, I get much better legal service for a lot less money. My advances are large enough so that 15% for the life of a contract is much more than a flat hourly rate.
Plus I get someone who studied contracts in law school and passed the bar exam, instead of an English major with some familiarity with contracts and legalese.
I learned the hard way that you don’t need an agent to sell a book to a major publisher. I sell my own books (last one to a Big 5 publisher.) Laura sells her own books. See Dean Wesley Smith.
So while Amanda was very sincere, she hasn’t convinced me that she is a better lawyer than a lawyer, or a better bookkeeper than a bookkeeper, or better at selling books than people who haven’t decided to call themselves agents.
At the risk of inviting flame attacks, and noting up front that I disagree with most of what the original article said, I do think she had a hidden point buried in the stuff about lawyer’s word-smithing.
Having a publishing agent look at your contract is a lot like having your real estate agent look at your house sale. They’ve seen lots of them, they’ve reviewed lots of them, they know the common things to look out for, and to a limited extent, they can probably give you a level of review that’s slightly above a layman. But you don’t settle for that, you hand it off to your lawyer and say, “Here, review this, see if it’s okay”. And the lawyer comes back with clause revisions, or maybe an opinion to say they suggest careful reading of clauses 4,5, and 7b. Because you didn’t use the lawyer throughout the process, their review may be limited to just a textual reading of things that could screw you. But suppose that you told the real estate agent in every house you visited, “I’m scared to death of ghosts, I can’t live in any house where there’s ever been a murder, etc.” And in the “warrants” section of the contract about what they know, there’s no clause about murders. The lawyer won’t catch it because it might be an unusual thing to warrant on — but the real estate agent might know to pointedly ask for that to be warranted in the disclosure. Probably not enforceable, but because the agent knew what you wanted and you discussed your dreams, your desires, your needs with them, what you were looking for, the agent knows to ask for it; the lawyer who is hired for their hourly wage, may not, simply because you didn’t tell them. There are tons of malpractice complaints that are dismissed because the client didn’t share all the info with the lawyer, so the lawyer didn’t catch something the client thought was important.
Which is what I think Amanda was trying to get at — that if you rely on a lawyer only, and the lawyer isn’t versed in what you’re trying to do with your career because you treated them as a gun-for-hire rather than a partner in your endeavour, they might not notice that you’re giving up rights to your poetry in Scotland even though you’ve always dreamed of a separate Scottish translation for your grandmother.
Do I believe that an agent can review as well as a lawyer? Nope. But I do think that if you have a good one, and you’ve shared with them some key objectives and goals, maybe they’ll see something the lawyer doesn’t, particularly if you happen to use the lawyer like an editor instead of a legal advisor on your real goals.
Personally, I think anyone is delusional who thinks that “possible partnership review” is a deciding factor to have an agent, or even a reason not to use a lawyer, but everyone has the right to be delusional, and hand over 15% of their earnings for life if they think they’re getting service for value.
PW
Isn’t this the reason why we hear so much emphasise on: “when you are hiring a lawyer, you have to hire an IP lawyer who has experience in negotiating with publishing houses?”
Paul, when my lawyer negotiated my last contract, she talked to me about what is important to me.
Now I’m wondering about literary agents who are also lawyers, or agencies who have in-house counsel.
Everyone assumes this solves the problem because you have both. But I think a lawyer who did both would be committing lots of ethical violations.
(1) Lawyers are not supposed to negotiate contracts if they benefit from the contract. That would be like a lawyer writing a will in which he is a beneficiary. So for a lawyer to negotiate a publishing contract and get paid from the contract would be an ethical violation (right PG and other lawyers?)
An agent’s interest is to maximize the advance. Most trad pubbed authors I know who are agented have horrific options clauses. So a lawyer/ agent who barters for a larger advance in exchange for, say, a restrictive options clause would be committing an ethical violation.
(2) Agents have to keep the publishers and editors happy if they want to sell other books to that house. In fact, agents brag about how they have “contacts” in the industry and good relationships with editors. If a lawyer negotiates a contract for a client, but has an ongoing relationship with the opposing party to the contract, and a professional need to please the opposing party, that lawyer would be committing an ethical violation.
There are other conflicts of interest as well. No point listing them all.
So I don’t think having an agent-lawyer solves the problem. Seems to me an agent has to bring a lot of value to the table to earn 15% for the life of the contract if the writer is also paying a lawyer. I’m sure some bring that much value. Mine never did.
It’s ethical, under certain circumstances, for a lawyer to get some kind of participation in a deal or a lawsuit or what have you. (I myself have never done this, but under the right circumstances, I would.) But you’re dead on that lawyer-as-literary-agent has a pretty whopping grand set of conflicts, especially when they are expected to have an ongoing multi-pathed relationship with other clients and the counterparty.
Agreed, Marc.
I am going to comment again — although I think most people have wandered away by now
It strikes me that an agent can do one of two things:
(1) Seek as clients beginners, and “teach” them about the industry and nurture them.
(2) Seek as clients writers who are already having some success, and help the writer have more success.
I think this whole fracas happened because Amanda and Chip have an agency geared to beginners. The group here, by and large, are not beginners, and if they are, they generally don’t want to pay 15% for the life of their contract in exchange for nurturing and instruction about the industry.
At this stage in my career I ask: What value does an agent bring to justify 15% for the life of the contract?
The comparison to real estate agents doesn’t work because real estate agents are licensed and regulated. The regulations are there because agents do shady things. At least when a real estate agent does something shady (like privately reveal to the seller’s agent just how high their buyer clients will go) they know they are doing something wrong.
It seems like literary agents genuinely don’t understand the conflicts inherent in their profession.
It also seems to me a problem is in the term “agent.” Agents targeting beginners are not “agents” in the true sense of the word, although the present themselves that way. As Smith said, agents who target beginners are outsourced slush readers. Here’s the kicker — they work for the editor as first readers (Amanda said as much) but the writer pays them. What a deal for publishers.