Mike C

Good to have you on board, Chris. A recent influx of more experienced members - Lin, SeattleCPA, Joe Moore and yourself particularly, have added a new and interesting dimension to the forum; I hope you stick around.

Your thoughts on self-promotion would be particularly useful, methinks. Maybe you should start a thread?

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Mike C

On finding agents - this is great - http://www.querytracker.net/

particularly interesting is the 'who represents who' list, plus a listing of over 1000 agents.

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lin

Oh, I thought it was whore presents. Is my face red

ChrisF

Mike C: I was just wondering if you could tell me the costs associated with agents. My understanding is that they take between a 10 and 15 per cent cut of the advance. Do they take the same percentage post advance? Also, is that cut out of the AUTHOR'S profits, or the gross profit made by the publisher (seems it would make a big difference).

Is anyone successful without an agent nowadays, and what do they actually do for you? (Apart from sell your book in to a publisher). I presume they sometimes offer some kind of editing service (since it's obviously in their interest for the book to be as strong as possible), but considering everything above, doesn't it just make sense to use an agent for, say, the first book in a series or genre that you're writing, and then work off your own back after that once you've been introduced to the publisher?

Cheers,

C

Mike C

Agents' fees are generally (feel free everyone to shout me down and humiliate me if I'm wrong 15% in the US, 10% in the UK.

The agent takes that percentage of everything the publisher pays you. Publisher sends a check to your agent, (s)he deducts the percentage, forwards you the balance.

An agent will get you a better deal with a bigger publisher than you can do for yourself, and will often also take care of TV/film rights, foreign translations, etc.

The agent does the business of doing business while you do the business of writing the next book.

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ChrisF

Great, thanks for that Mike. If you're a moderately successful (i.e. have another job as well to pay the bills) or very successful author (i.e. are making so much money it doesn't really matter and you can probably negotiate a lower agent fee anyway) I guess it's a foregone decision as to whether to keep an agent.

If you're in the mid level though, where you're writing full time but aren't
making a fortune, what's the general consensus on continuing to employ an agent? You'll have a good enough reputation to keep publishers sweet, and I would presume most people would prefer to negotiate TV rights and translations themselves considering the relative hit to their disposable income. Just wondering what people think.

Cheers,

C

Mike C

With whom? Agents network, they know the right people. You don't.

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ChrisF

I suppose. I guess it just depends on who you have access to, or what networks you can develop re opportunities for your material additional to the initial published tome. I think 10 to 15 per cent of all the money you earn is quite a lot for paying for someone's networking services (after the initial book is published: I accept that it would be foolish to use an agent prior to that point). Having said that though perhaps I'm totally wrong - even not knowing anything about the internal mechanics of the industry I would presume (as I stated above) that using an agent makes the most sense when you have low or high book sales. I was just questioning the logic in between...

lin

Do some math. Let's say you negotiate a 40K advance from a publisher. You hire a lawyer to check the contract, of course. But let's say your agent is good enough to get you 50,000 advance instead. Not a big bump. The agent's 15% will be 7500. You clear 2500 bucks right there.

This is to say nothing of the fact that they can sell easier than you can and while they are selling you are writing.

It also ignores intangibles like, if you take a smaller advance the pubco will have less incentive to promote you. One way to read big promo campaigns is as: they're throwing money at it hoping to hell they recover their huge advance.

Re-negotiate? Well you can try, but I am not crazy about the idea of being pushed by somebody who is disgruntled or who they will get less money from if they make the sale.

But the main thing is, it's gotten just about impossible to get a book read by a pubco without it coming from an agent. Sure, some presses do. But how long does it take Daw or Tor or Harlequien to get to you in the slush pile. One site that tracks these things reports of more than a year.

SeattleCPA

Regarding the agent or no agent question, I think it varies by publishing category... E.g., I never used an agent for computer books and am pretty dang sure that I never suffered for it. (Actually, I know I only saved money... A few drinks with your agented buddies, a fine cigar, and contract terms are openly discussed.)

I also happily used them for non-computer books.

I think it would be really tough in some categories to get read without an agent. And many authors are so clueless about the business aspect of writing and publishing that even if all an agent does is prevent mistakes, the agent still makes them money.

I always thought that an agent was especially valuable in two areas:

1. Knowing which two contract terms you should always refuse. (Er, here they are: (1) Cross accounting and (2) Option fo next work.)
2. Knowing when you could ask for better deals (and when you couldn't).

One other random comment: If you're planning (hoping for?) an auction, you can't do that without an agent IMHO. You need someone, your agent, to function as the auctioneer.

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Truth-Teller

15%?!!!

Naw, naww, naw--fuck agents. Those theiving whoremonglers. Leeching off another writer's sucess, how fucking lazy is that? How do I become my own agent?

lin

Nothing to it. But it might be more lucrative to become your own dentist.

lin

Good tips, Seattle.

And then of course, an agent worth having can call up publishers and say, "Hey, Stan, I've got something you oughta see. Wanna look?"

And most writer's can't do that. Or they wouldn't be asking about agents.

ChrisF

That's fair enough, but as I understand it, that percentage continues to operate post advance. So depending on your cut of each book sale there will be a certain sweet spot after which an agent costs you money. I agree that use of an agent makes a lot of sense for initially building a relationship with a publisher, but I was just wondering if anyone had successfully negotiated directedly with a publisher on subsequent material. It seems to me that most of the benefit an agent brings is in the initial pitch, but I do accept that I have no practical knowledge of the industry...

SeattleCPA

Yeah, that's right.

Two follow-up examples of this from my experience...

1. When I was publishing books (and I only did, like 30 or 35), I liked to use an agent. He or she basically functioned as an acquisitions editor for me. I could call Matt Wagner (who was with Waterside Productions at the time but now has his own agency, Fresh books) and say, "Hey. Matt. Have anybody who can do a book about X?" I was actually pretty happy to throw at extra chunk ontop of the regular deal to pay for Matt. E.g., I kept things simple and just paid 10% on sales and 50% of net licensing proceeds. But I would give Matt's clients 12%.

2. Again using Matt as the example, he was always very tight with the big publishers. He was, e.g., going to industry conferences, putting on conferences, etc. So he knew quite a bit about many of the publishers plans, programs, etc. With that advance knowledge, I know he was able not so much to get his clients better deals but rather more deals. This is a tricky concept if you're not careful but using my own example above, Matt's clients after the 15% to Matt might get basically the same 'net of agent's commission' amount as someone who comes in without an agent. But Matt would be able to sign more deals... and deals that might produce better sales. Example: Matt was the guy, I'm pretty sure, who signed Dan Gookin's DOS for Dummies deal (which created the whole Dummies thing and become a huge authoring goldmine for a bunch of people). And Matt also agented Andy Rathbone who did Windows for Dummies which probably used to sell a couple of million copies a year. And I think Matt may have agented John and Margy Levine for Internet for Dummies which was another huge book. (All of these authors were clients at the time of Waterside Productions so Bill Gladstone, the owner of Waterside was, I'm sure, involved, too.) But my point is that even if the royalty rates weren't better or the advances higher, Matt (or Matt and Bill) were able to get their authors in on the ground floor for the Dummies franchise. (Er, I came along a few months later with Quicken for Dummies... and I only got to write the two really good Dummies books that I picked up because I'd already written a best-selling book on Quicken and I had really strong professional credentials: CPA, MBA in finance, etc.)

Summing up: I understand how some authors look at agents and think, wow, I did the work of writing... why should they get 15%. Maybe they shouldn't. And, frankly, I have rarely used an agent. But I honestly think most writers get huge value from an agent (even if looking at one particular deal, the agent doesn't seem to pay for him or herself).

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