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Agents of Imagination
Fantasy author Stephen Hunt plays literary ringmaster to a panel that includes Andrew Zack, Lucienne Diver, Shawna McCarthy, Donald Maass, Joshua Bilmes, Jack Byrne, Eleanor Wood and Nanci McCloskey.
SH: In your experience, has the market for SFF fiction been contracting or expanding of late? Lucienne Diver: Everything is cyclical. A few years ago, when all of the mergers were taking place, we saw a contraction of the market - some of the science fiction and fantasy lines shut down or scaled back. Recently, there's been an expansion. A couple of major publishers who didn't have SFF lines have started them. Several small presses have begun reissuing older science fiction and fantasy as well as new titles. It's an exciting time. Shawna McCarthy: I think it's certainly been contracting - mid list is getting squeezed out and lots of promising writers are going unpublished or getting cut after their first or second novel. Don Maass: The number of titles published annually in the U.S. has been roughly the same for a long time now. What has changed is how many unit sales, on average, each of those titles achieves. Sales per title are way down, especially for science fiction. That has to do with changes in the paperback distribution business but also, I think, with changing consumer tastes. For various reasons, our sense of wonder over science and space has diminished. Our appetite for escapist fantasy has increased. Andrew Zack: Clearly contracting. Most SF&F houses have cut their lists. Eleanor Wood: When I conducted a survey of SF publishers
about a year ago, which included exactly this question, most SF
publishers replied that their science fiction and fantasy lists
remained the same and one publisher (Tor Books) indicated that the
number of titles was expanding, if you include their new YA fantasy
and SF line. For most authors, it definitely feels Joshua Bilmes: The market for science fiction, at least in terms of numbers of publishers, has been pretty stable for the past several years after a period in the late '80s and early '90s when it seemed to be under a lot of pressure. There's some pressure on the number of titles each imprint is doing, and there are all of the rumors now about AOL's book division, which includes Aspect in the US and Orbit in the UK, being on the block. Jack Byrne: I feel the market is relatively healthy and has been growing, slowly but steadily. That said, I must also say that it appears to me as if some of the larger houses are waffling on decisions more than usual, perhaps because of the current world political climate. Nanci McCloskey: As with the rest of publishing the conglomeration
of genre publishing through mergers has gone far toward killing
the concept of the midlist. With more of the established houses
being taken over by faceless corporations, the look to the bottom
line has been stronger than ever. However, I see this being balanced
out by the slow but steady emergence of small, specialty presses.
Also, with the increase in technologies, there is a small burgeoning
and growth of alternative "publication." It's a case of publishing
still being healthy but changing direction. SH: Over the last two years, has the number of SFF manuscript submission numbers you've been receiving gone up or down? Lucienne Diver: I haven't noticed a change in the number of SFF queries (we don't accept full manuscripts unless requested). Submissions in general have been up, primarily because Spectrum has begun representing romance in addition to science fiction, fantasy, mystery and suspense. Shawna McCarthy: I'd say it's held pretty steady. Don Maass: It's the same. My agency is one of the handful that dominate SFF sales in the US, so we always get a lot of submissions. Andrew Zack: Probably increasing, but that may be a reflection of the growth of my firm and the number of authors who are finding my firm on the web at www.zackcompany.com. Interestingly enough, I get a fair amount of mail from overseas, e.g., Australia, Thailand, India, etc., because of the web. Eleanor Wood: I haven't kept track. My gut sense is that the number is up. Joshua Bilmes: Honestly, I don't keep count of the number of submissions I get or genre breakdowns for them. Whether it's up or down, there are plenty of them. Jack Byrne: It's gone up a great deal. In my particular case, this is to be expected since I have (over the last few years) narrowed my focus considerably, moving away from representing material in a wide range of areas and concentrating on science fiction, fantasy and mystery. Nanci McCloskey: I think that it has stayed relatively the
same. SH: It appears to us at SFcrowsnest that the previous decade has seen something of a consolidation in the book-publishing world, both in terms of wholesale, as well as the universe of retailers, publishers and their imprints. Would that be your view, and what’s been the run-on effect for authors and their agents? Lucienne Diver: As you note in a question below, the consolidation of publishers and distributors made it somewhat more difficult for new writers to find a home and an audience. To oversimplify, some publishers, finding that buyers were only or primarily picking up their A and B slots, dropped their C slots entirely. If you were an established writer with a strong following, you were affected very little. If you were a writer still trying to build a following, you sometimes had to find ways to adapt to the new difficulties in the market. Some wrote their break-out books, some wrote media tie-ins while reestablishing their careers, some changed their names for a fresh start. Shawna McCarthy: The first obvious effect is that there are fewer houses to which to submit a manuscript, and the death of the mass market distribution business has obviously had its effect on the number of slots available for new books. See question one .. Don Maass: The effects of consolidation are many, but the biggest change in our business is something that became apparent even earlier: computerized inventory tracking by big bookstore chains. Today, this is a chilling reality for authors. The sales of your last novel are, to some degree, your fate. To put it another way, the sales history for your weakest novel nowadays will follow you around like a black cloud or a prison record. Try to avoid poor sales. Write great novels, and only great novels, got it? Andrew Zack: It is far, far harder to sell first-time novelists and third or fourth books by authors who didn't perform above and beyond expectations. Also, let's face it, there are very few houses to sell SF&F to and some are owned by the same publisher! So if you have an author not working out at Ace, your chances of selling his or her next book to Roc are close to nil. Or if you have an author published by Del Rey and not working, you can't move him or her to Bantam Spectra. So the mergers and consolidations of houses have really reduced competition. My solution has to been to simultaneously submit in both the US and the UK with the goal of having the publishers compete against each other for World English rights. Eleanor Wood: The demise of the small, independent distributors for the "ID Market" (supermarkets, drug stores, airports and other nonbookstore outlets) began back around 1995, so consolidation on the distribution end (where most small distributors went out of business) has been with us for years. As you know, consolidation of publishing houses began in earnest in the mid to late 80's and is still going on. Bertelsmann, the publishing giant who controls over half of New York trade publishing under various imprints, has just bought Heyne, one of the major SF publishers in Germany. The consolidation in distribution, bookstores, publishers is global and, apparently, unrelenting. My view is that the effect on authors (and therefore on agents as well) has been negative: fewer markets, fewer competitors. Life in publishing goes on, I'm still having fun as an agent - but from my point of view the government regulatory agencies have been asleep at the wheel. Joshua Bilmes: Anyone who's gotten close to Tom Doherty of TOR at a convention in the past several years has probably heard about the consolidation in independent distributors that has diminished variety of offerings at supermarkets and drugstores across the US. Every month, from Slow Glass in Australia to The Stars Our Destination in Chicago, we're hearing about closings amongst independent sf/fantasy bookstores. American independents are starting to hold their own thanks to the Book Sense marketing program, but B&N and Borders have now almost 1000 outlets between them and ten years ago just a fraction of that. On the other hand, you have new publishers like Meisha Merlin picking up some of the slack. There are a zillion effects on authors and agents from all of this; don't get me started on what it's like when Penguin and Putnam merge and then rely on a consolidated sales force to sell three different sf/fantasy imprints in Ace, Roc and DAW. Jack Byrne: Well, obviously there are fewer "big" publishers to approach and they can (and do) take longer to make decisions. There are, however, quite a few smaller presses out there, many doing a wonderful job at helping new (and mid-list) writers reach readers. Nanci McCloskey: Certainly it is true that the book-publishing
world has consolidated and ultimately there may be less risk taking
in publishing as well as a lack of personal touch and a greater
concentration on the bottom line. SH: How important are the personal relationships an agent builds with the staff at a publishing house? Eleanor Wood: Vital. Lucienne Diver: It's extremely important to build solid working relationships at the publishing houses – so that you know who to call to be sure the check request is flowing smoothly through the system, so that an editor looking for an author to fill a niche thinks of you and your list, etc. Shawna McCarthy: I think they're very important – knowing the editor's likes and dislikes and having a sense of what sorts of books he or she usually acquires can save a lot of time during the submission process. Also, since an editor has to work closely with the agent on books he or she acquires, it helps it the editor doesn't actively despise said agent ... Don Maass: Very important. Long term trust can accomplish a lot. That is true "clout". Andrew Zack: A good relationship is priceless, of course. I remember one truly old-school agent who had such a good relationship with one editor that the editor pretty much bought whatever he sent over. Of course, he didn't abuse this; he only sent what he knew this editor would like. The key is to get to know the editors and their lists well enough to know what they might buy. Of course, with new generations of editors coming along all the time, it's an ongoing process to get to know them. All that said, though, I think you could have an editor hate an agent and if that agent sent him or her a great book, it will get bought. In real estate, it's location, location, location. In publishing, it's the writing, the writing, the writing. Joshua Bilmes: Obviously important, but at the end of the day an agent's reputation for handling good material that editors think they might want is broadly important in a bigger way than the personal dynamic between a particular agent and a particular editor. Jack Byrne: Obviously, being on a first name basis with the editorial staff can help. It's nice to be able to call an editor and ask them what kind of things they'll be interested in over the next year or so; while this "general" kind of information is fluid and I certainly wouldn't immediately call my clients and say "you have to write (fill in the blank) right now!" it can aid in overall planning. Nanci McCloskey: Personal relationships are important because
an agent is an authors' ally in publishing. Not even the best agent
in the world can place a bad book, but an agent who is familiar
with an editors' personal taste is, of course, an asset. SH: Do you think the economic demand for guaranteed sales has led us to an over-reliance on best-selling authors, formula works and the media tie-in novel? Jack Byrne: Yes. Lucienne Diver: The argument I've often heard is that bestsellers and media tie-ins make enough money for the publishers to be able to take chances on risky propositions like newer authors. Of course, they also take a great deal of the publisher's resources – monetary and promotional. As far as media titles, publishers don't take a slot away from original fiction to publish a tie-in, so it doesn't cut into the number of other titles released. Shawna McCarthy: Yes, I think it has. Publishers are so desperate to feed their bottom lines that they'll even resurrect the dead to keep a best-selling author's work coming out. See Louis L'Amour, or the Flowers in the Attic series. You see slots on the SF shelves being filled by books with ISAAC ASIMOV in great big letters on the cover, and in much smaller type below it is revealed that this is a living writer working in Isaac's universe. I am and have always been one of Isaac's biggest fans, but books like those are taking up space and money that might be spent on living, growing, talented new authors. Don Maass: It is dispiriting to see media tie-ins so dominating SFF sales, even in specialty bookshops. But you have to remember, that demand doesn't come from publishers, it comes from consumers. You can't blame publishers for giving the people what they want. Every novelist is a mini brand name; hopefully growing. It's just that they now have to compete against the power of TV shows. It's a drag, but it's a reality. Write great novels. (Did I say that already?) Andrew Zack: I think the economic NEED for sales has led to a strong focus on such types of books. The profits from one best-selling author help ensure that publishers can continue to afford to publish new voices. But readers could help by buying one unknown author for every best-selling author they buy. Eleanor Wood: I have absolutely nothing against media tie-ins, and a best-selling science fiction or fantasy author can help highlight the whole field and thereby give the genre a higher status with publishers and booksellers. Much of the problem, in my view, lies with corporate executives who state they only want bestsellers. That is contrary to the spirit of good publishing, which should present a variety of material, and also contrary to good business, which recognizes that a house that publishes SF or fantasy bestsellers can only be successful in the long run if they have a program for publishing a diverse and steady stream of books, including novels that fall under that much-abused term "the midlist." Joshua Bilmes: I might approach the question differently. Not just in book publishing but in music or movies or any similar creative copyright business, there's always been a demand for bestsellers, an interest in riding the latest wave, in having Man From UNCLE books the same way we have Dragonlance books today. What's different is that the other opportunities have narrowed. Because publishers may once have done six books every month but now do only two or three, there are fewer voices overall. Still, books and movies are holding on to variety far better in my opinion than the music business has been able to. Nanci McCloskey: No more than usual. The coolest thing,
at least in SF, is that the top end of science fiction, almost by
definition, is always doing something new and interesting. SH: How much, if any, of an impact is POD and the world of e-books having on your market? Lucienne Diver: Some publishers are using POD technology to keep books in print and refuse to revert titles that are no longer actively being promoted and distributed. I think you're going to see authors groups taking a stand on this in the near future. E-book sales are still so small that they're not much of a factor. For the most part, publishers insist on holding onto these rights, though they haven't proven a big money-maker thus far. On the other hand, some reverted titles are finding new life with e-book and POD companies. Shawna McCarthy: Not much, that I've noticed, except that occasionally an e-book or a POD book will get noticed by the majors and picked up, though I have to think the odds on that are terribly small. I'm in the business of looking for new writers, but I don't have the time or temperament to search the internet for the one in ten thousand self-pubbed books that will be worth my while. I'll also make an occasional sale to an e-book publisher, but I've yet to see one earn out. Don Maass: None whatsoever - except that the few dozen (possibly hundred) readers who want older SF titles maybe now can find them. Andrew Zack: Not much. I've done exactly one POD deal. As they don't pay advances, there's little business incentive for me to pursue such deals. Additionally, my list is mostly filled with younger authors, still early in their careers. They don't have multiple out-of-print titles for which POD would be a good way to republish. Eleanor Wood: Not as much as you'd expect, from all the hoopla. POD is great for authors whose chief interest is seeing their book back in print – as long as they realize this doesn't mean their books are getting much distribution to bookstores. POD royalties on the whole are modest. E-publishing is interesting, and a few e-publishers seem to have succeeded. Still, I don't know of any author who considers e-royalties a substantial part of his income. As advertising, however, online e-text can make a real difference. Joshua Bilmes: As yet, not as big as some people thought it might be. There are a lot of contract and rights wrinkles with these new markets that agents have to negotiate. There are a lot of new markets trying to exploit new technologies. However, book publishing is still a retail business that thrives on display space, on the fact that people still lots of times tend to buy what is in front of them in the stores, or on the front page of Amazon. At Palm Digital Media, which is one of the biggest e-book vendors right now, sales can be very high when a book is a bestseller, featured new release, or featured in a weekly newsletter. And then they'll drop off. No different than at Borders, where a book might sell lots of copies early on when it's on the new paperback table at the front of the store, then drop off when it's just in with the author's other books in the SF section. Until it somehow magically happens that the whole idea of impulse buying evolves out of humankind, I think there's still going to be a centrality to the major distribution channels. Jack Byrne: There's been little impact thus far. Over time, however, I think these publishing areas will continue to grow in importance. Nanci McCloskey: POD and electronic publishing have offered
some benefits to authors who are having trouble with their publishers
by keeping their names out there. SH: Have royalty structures changed since the days when you first hung out your shingle as an agent? Lucienne Diver: Not really. Shawna McCarthy: I've seen more houses using a net receipts royalty structure, rather than a cover price structure, which is, unless they're offering 25% of net, bad for the author. These houses, so far, tend to be the smaller independents or the more academic arms of bigger places. Don Maass: Not at all, except for the long stupid pointless fight over non-existent e-book royalties. At least that is behind us now, for what it is worth. (Which, so far, is not much.) Andrew Zack: Not particularly. However, discounting by publishers is greater than ever and therefore "deep discount" clauses are much more likely to reduce an author's royalties. Also, Tor Books, a major publisher of SF&F, which had a deep discount clause I felt was fair, seems to have adopted that of it's sister company, St. Martin's Press, which is among the more aggressive in the business and, if you get it in your contract, you'll find that it can certainly take a big chunk of your royalties away. Eleanor Wood: Very little - and that's 25 years. I know that back in the sixties paperback royalties were much lower - around 4% - but by the time I started, the rate was better and continues to be about the same for the bulk of authors. (Obviously bestselling writers can demand bigger percentages than the norm.) Joshua Bilmes: Not really. We're still sorting through what electronic royalties should be, however, and as electronic markets gain in prominence and print markets diminish it's possible we could start to see larger changes. For an individual author, what does change is their place within the royalty structure as their careers develop and readerships build. Jack Byrne: Well, negotiations have certainly become more ... interesting. Nanci McCloskey: No, royalty structures – if you mean the
splits – have not changed very much. SH: Have you seen an increase in the volume of first-time author approaches you receive? It sometimes seems to our untutored eye that the whole world and their brother want to be the next JK Rowling. Andrew Zack: Hey, so do I! Again, I don't know if any increase I've seen is directly because of Harry Potter or The Lord Of The Rings movies, or just because of the growth of my firm and its increased visibility. Eleanor Wood: Not a great deal, though undoubtedly more new authors are attempting to write in the fantasy field than was true a few years ago. Lucienne Diver: Except as above (adding a new genre to those we already represent), the number of queries from first-time writers hasn't changed. Everyone's always trying to be the next John Grisham and agents hope to find the next big name, but trying to imitate someone else's success isn't generally the best strategy. Shawna McCarthy: I've seen an increase in queries by about 50 fold, but I don't know if that's because I was previously shielded by a big firm and relatively anonymous except to those 'in the know' or if it's because more people have bought computers and learned to use their word processing programs. Back in the day, when people actually had to use typewriters and White Out, writing was a much more time consuming process and I think it tended to weed out a few more 'I'm creative and I've got a story to tell' types. Don Maass: That is the good news: YA fantasy, which was mostly unsaleable for years, now has a market. And that is genuine. Sales in the US of Diane Duane's "Wizard" books about teenage wizards have been climbing steadily for the last five years. The first of those novels, "So You Want to be a Wizard" has been in print continuously for twenty years, and has sold best in the last five! There will be a 20th Anniversary edition next fall! Joshua Bilmes: Now they want to be the next J. K. Rowling. In 1978 maybe they wanted to be the next Arthur Hailey. Whomever it is that they want to be, there are still a lot of them wanting to be somebody. Jack Byrne: Everybody wants to be a writer (I just wish they didn't ALL know my address!). Seriously, the field needs new voices, new talent, new blood. The ongoing interest I see from new/unpublished writers - while daunting, at times - is a good sign for the future of the field. Nanci McCloskey: I don't think that there has been a significant
increase in first-time authors, but the recent boom in Young Adult
fiction may mean there are more first-time authors trying their
hand at YA. On a whole, the increase does not seem dramatic. SH: How have the nature and scope of an agent's responsibilities changed over the recent years? Lucienne Diver: I think the agent's job is what it's always been: to keep on top of the market, make submissions, negotiate contracts, exploit subsidiary rights, act as a liaison between the author and publishing house and generally promote our authors' careers. Shawna McCarthy: I honestly don't think they've changed much, though I hope I'm not revealing some horrible hole in my services by saying so. Agents have always been a combination of parent, advocate, editor, pitbull and cheering squad, and I don't think it's terribly different now. Don Maass: The biggest change is the ever-increasing editorial role of agents. I do extensive advance work with my clients. I have even written a book of advanced fiction technique, "Writing the Breakout Novel", which has been (he said modestly) very popular. Andrew Zack: I create and maintain a web page for each of my clients and their titles. I issue press releases when their new books are sold or published. This makes me feel like I'm performing more of a management function, including publicity, than many agents did in the past. Authors can no longer expect publicity from their publisher and need to be more creative themselves. As an agent, I try to do as much as I can in this area, but it's not a profit center (one reason publishers do less and less), so I can only do so much under the commission structure. I have entertained the idea of bringing in a staff publicist and charging for his or her services, as well as a lecture agent, and imagine that in time agencies will morph into companies that provide such services on an a la carte basis and charge for them outside of the commission structure. However, I am not convinced that the majority of authors' organizations would look favorably upon such a development at this time, so have not yet pursued it. Eleanor Wood: Many things change, but the agent's responsibilities, at least as far as I'm concerned, remain essentially the same. Joshua Bilmes: I kind of feel as if I'm doing the same things I did in 1986, only more of it as my business and my clients develop. Each agent has a different sense of his or her responsibilities. Jack Byrne: Yes. In many ways, we've become publishing houses "first readers." We also need to be aware of the changes that technological advances will impose on our responsibilities. I'm personally handling only about half as many clients now as I did in 1999. It's a more "hands on" approach and, for the most part, it's been a success for my clients and myself. Nanci McCloskey: We no longer send out promising manuscripts
that need work; we work with the author to fix the problems prior
to submission. SH: Has the amount or structure of the compensation received by agents and your clients evolved of late, and do you have any suggestions how - in a perfect world - it could change for the better? Shawna McCarthy: Commissions have stayed pretty steady for the last ten years, though my foreign rights agent recently raised his from 10 to 15%, which I think is totally reasonable given his costs in overseas mailing. I'm pretty comfortable where I am in my commission structure, and I while I'd love to receive a salary in lieu of commissions, so that I'd be able to budget and plan my financial situation, I somehow don't think I'd be able to convince either clients or publishers to pay me one! Don Maass: It has not changed in years. The commission structure endures because it is a good model: Starting writers pay nothing up front; plus, the agents' compensation is directly proportional to the author's. When you get rich (or I make you rich, depending on how you want to look at it), I prosper. If I don't do a good job for you (or you write bad novels, depending on how you want to look at it), I suffer. Andrew Zack: I may have just answered some of that above, but I will say that I've raised my commission on unpublished authors, as I've found such projects require a lot of honing, fine-tuning, editing and hand-holding to both the authors and the editors involved in order to make sure everything goes smoothly. Additionally, many first-time authors receive lower advances, as publishers hedge their bets and don't risk as much money, and therefore I need a larger commission to make such books profitable to represent. As for changes, I do think the standard royalty structure is problematic. With publishers changing royalties based on discounts granted, I foresee a future where publishers and authors are going to have to share a percentage of the net, much like they are doing now on many ebook editions, rather than remain rigidly focused on a retail royalty. The problem, of course, is that publishers are going to want paying on the net to be more profitable than paying on retail, rather than equivalent or potentially more profitable for authors. It's this fear on both sides that things could be worse that perpetuates the current structure. Eleanor Wood: Spectrum Literary Agency's agent's commission for domestic sales went up on new works from 10% to 15% in 2001. (Foreign percentages are still 20%, with 10% of that going to the subagent.) An agent's responsibilities may not have changed, but I can assure you that the overhead costs have risen dramatically. I think I'll skip the "perfect world" scenario. Joshua Bilmes: When I started in the business a 15% agent commission was unheard of, but now is common. I don't know that the basic structure of compensation can change without the industry undergoing epochal changes. Jack Byrne: About the only suggestion I might have (with tongue planted firmly in cheek) would be for publishers to pay my clients more and my clients to insist that I take a higher percentage. Nanci McCloskey: For authors there seems to be a greater
disparity between advances. Compensation for agents has gone to
15%, but expenses have also gone up. Postage, for instance, has
increased 25% over the last ten years. Fifteen percent commission
has been common for a long time, but now it's just about universal. SH: How can a good agent help a writer's career? Lucienne Diver: A good agent can see that the writer's work gets in front of the editors most likely to buy at the publishing houses most likely to succeed with the work, negotiate the most advantageous terms, exploit subsidiary rights reserved to the author, working with agents on the West Coast for film and television deals and all over the world for translation rights. We also advise the authors on career moves and self promotion, keep authors abreast of reviews and submissions, chase checks and generally keep things running smoothly. Shawna McCarthy: A good agent will help to structure and plan a writer's entire career. What to do next is possibly the most important question a writer faces after the first sale, and helping the writer to establish him or herself as the sort of writer they want to be and the sort of seller the publisher wants them to be is the agent's main task. Don Maass: How much space do we have? Apart from access to publishers who would not otherwise read your work, apart from expert negotiating and contract handling, apart from sub-rights sales, apart from editorial guidance, apart from countless different kinds of follow-up, help and crisis intervention, your agent is the person who probably knows better than anyone else what you are going through. Your agent is your friend on the inside. I mean, who else can you call when nameless anxiety is keeping you up at night? Your editorial director? Not unless you are a best seller, sorry. Andrew Zack: How long is this piece? Seriously, feedback, both conceptually and editorially is rare among busy editors these days. The agent (many, many of whom are former editors) has taken on this job. Publicity is nearly nil and the agent may also take on this job. Keeping track of the royalties and finding errors (more often than not with some publishers) mean real money in an author's pocket. Knowing what aspects of the contract to watch out for and how hard to push the envelope in negotiations are key jobs of the agent. Eleanor Wood: Giving good advice, getting editors interested in the work, securing the best possible contract, nagging publishers for checks and royalty statements or nagging editors for answers on submissions, talking with the authors about the direction of their career, publicity opportunities, in some cases helping with copyright or trademark applications.... I could go on and bore all your readers with more, but I'll stop here. Joshua Bilmes: Too many ways to count. Add self-awareness. Provide editorial guidance. Get better contracts and more money. Sell foreign and other subsidiary rights. Monitor the distribution channels. Jack Byrne: By helping the writer make good business decisions. One of my clients received an offer that I suggested she turn down; although quite nervous about the decision, she did so and we sold the manuscript elsewhere for better terms. If the agent is qualified and the writer agrees to the arrangement, the agent can also provide a certain amount of editorial input. The author/agent relationship is unique and individual; I don't have the same relationship with all of my clients by any means. The relations evolves and becomes what the author and agent make of it. Nanci McCloskey: Agents can help a writer's career by paying
attention to career building: advising on projects and proposals
and generally keeping an eye on the whole picture. We can help in
lining up blurbs from authors; keeping an eye on what's happening
post-sale: covers, cover copy, catalog copy, print run, press releases,
and advising on self-promotion. Agents are also helpful in knowing
how and when to get a second publisher. SH: Is an agent more important before or after an author's first sale? Lucienne Diver: I'd suggest finding an agent, if possible, before approaching editors. Many publishing houses no longer accept unsolicited, unagented material. Your material will be looked at more quickly and any offer will probably be higher if your material is submitted through an agent. Shawna McCarthy: No writer should ever negotiate a contract on his own. Don Maass: Definitely after, although to new writers I'm sure it doesn't seem that way! Andrew Zack: Before. So much of publishing is based on precedent, be it contract precedent or sales precedent, that it's important to have a good agent there all along. Eleanor Wood: Depends on the circumstance. However, I will say that if an editor makes an offer for your first novel, don't rush out and grab the first agent who says ok, I'll negotiate the contract for you. I advise taking your time to talk with other authors before you decide on the right agent. Joshua Bilmes: I think a good agent is important, and the sooner the better. Even if you don't think an agent will help sell your first book (a debatable proposition, but I've heard people give that advice) you better think of which agent you'd like to call when the offer comes in to handle the actual contract. Jack Byrne: After (ideally, after the first offer but before the first contract is negotiated and signed). This is when the career planning starts to become critical. Nanci McCloskey: Agents are most important when a writer
is first starting out and then when he or she has been in the business
for a time and has reached a level of notoriety. There are now very
few publishing houses that accept unsolicited manuscripts. It's
almost a solid rule rather than exception that agents are involved
in a first sale. After an author is "established" the business aspect
of publishing gets more complicated and it becomes very important
to have an ally to protect the author's interest. SH: What's the impact been of the rise of the Internet on both the agent and author's existence? Lucienne Diver: The Internet is a great promotional tool. Websites kept by authors and fans alert readers to forthcoming publications, appearances, etc. Word of mouth is spread through chat-rooms and discussion groups. Shawna McCarthy: As I said earlier, I get fifty times the queries I used to because I'm listed on several sites. I also communicate almost exclusively by e-mail with both writers and publishers, though I do always call when I've got an offer for a client. Don Maass: The internet has changed publishing in the same ways it has changed everything. It is a huge resource. One great opportunity are author websites. Every author should have one. Well, a good one. Andrew Zack: Well, my phone bill is a lot lower! Getting material from my clients and to editors is much easier. Nearly 50% of my submissions of proposals are done by e-mail. When I need hard copies of a manuscript, I e-mail it to the copy shop and they print it out and deliver the copies. Additionally, by putting submission guidelines and other information on our firm's website www.zackcompany.com, we've cut down on the calls from prospective clients asking us for information. And we've cut down on queries regarding projects we would NOT be interested in. Finally, we can refer editors and others to the client biographies and title descriptions on the web and save a lot of time that way also. Eleanor Wood: The Internet offers the author inexpensive publicity and, sometimes, helps sell books. The e-revolution, in my experience, may have changed the way we get in touch with each other, but it has not made fundamental changes in bookselling. That said, going back to the pre-computer days is impossible to imagine. As one of my authors remarked years ago, moving from the typewriter to the computer is like going from a pogo stick to a car. Joshua Bilmes: I'm in a global business, and I love e-mail. I love being able to search out reviews on the internet. I love being able to monitor sales trends at Amazon, with the caution that this like any tool can be used incorrectly. On the other hand, this is still a business that ends up being about words on paper; for that reason I'm very old-fashioned in wanting to get query letters by the regular old snail mail because I can discover things about an author that way which I can't discover by reading an e-mail. Scads of money have been lost trying to turn the internet into some magical tool for selling translation rights. The internet is a tool that like any other can make things better or make things worse depending on how you're able to use it, and that will change in time. I'm sure my nephews will be using the internet in ways I can't imagine. Jack Byrne: Web pages have enabled writers to establish fan "bases of operation" which is wonderful. As an agent, I can use my web page for a dual purpose; it highlights my clients (and links to their pages) and shows the scope of my client list (handy for dealing with foreign sub-agents; they can see who and what I represent). Nanci McCloskey: Well, the Internet is broad: advertising
on web pages, etc. is certainly positive; book availability through
Amazon & Barnes & Noble.com is positive; e-mail is, of course, wonderful
but overwhelming. SH: How do you handle your submissions on behalf of your clients to publishers; does your approach vary appreciably if the author is well known with a track record? Lucienne Diver: The approach varies not just by author, but by project. Sometimes I believe I know just the right editor for a novel and will give him/her a single submission for a limited time, sometimes I'll do a broad submission, hoping for an auction. It depends on the nature of the material as well as the track record of the author. Shawna McCarthy: The real difference is that with a well-known author with a track record, I can call the editor and say So and So is available - I can give you two weeks to look and make an offer, whereas with a first-time writer I'll write a carefully crafted submission letter selling the writer and the book to the editor. Andrew Zack: I start out with an email pitch to an editor, and maybe a follow-up call if I don't hear quickly one way or another. I then either email the submission or send it out through the mail. If an author is well known, then I'll certainly trumpet his or her track record. Eleanor Wood: The approach does not necessarily vary (if the author is "well known with a track record"), though presumably the money does. There can be differences. On occasion I've held silent auctions (i.e. editors submit their best bids via fax and we go with the best offer) for well-known clients; I wouldn't do that for someone unknown or whose books haven't sold well. Joshua Bilmes: I handle submissions lots of different ways. Is the book a first novel I think I can sell, or is it a first novel that I think will put the author on the Campbell Award ballot for best new writer? Or sometimes one I actually don't think I can sell, but where I have reason to believe the next one will be better? Does "well known with a track record" mean a good track record or a bad one? A big fantasy will appeal to a broader range of publishers than literary SF. No cookie cutter approach; always trying to decide what's right for a particular manuscript at a particular time. Jack Byrne: Of course, if the author in questions is a "name" that makes a difference (a phone call may be all it takes to get a contract). In terms of lesser known (or unknown) writers, my approach depends on the kind of material it is and where I plan to go with it. Knowing editors' preferences is the key here. Nanci McCloskey: Certainly there is a lot less "selling"
when an author is well known and established. SH: How do you filter your slush pile? Lucienne Diver: We don't accept unsolicited manuscripts. Unless I’m absolutely swamped (at which point I ask our assistant to pitch in), I read all of my queries myself. Generally, we ask to see a query letter and synopsis with SASE. If I’m interested based on that, I'll ask to see a completed manuscript on a single submission and respond within four to six weeks. Shawna McCarthy: Badly, I'm afraid. My first priority is writers who have either been referred by other writers or clients, or whose work I know from the magazines. Then come the email queries which sounded interesting and which I've requested chapters and synopses on. Then I get into the real slush and like every editor and agent, I read the first line, then the first page, then the next, and if I find myself at the end of the proposal or book wanting more, I'll take them on. To be perfectly honest, I don't have much time for the real slush pile, and it tends to get put off for months at a time ... Andrew Zack: We just read, read, read until it's gone. We accept only queries with SASEs (no e-mail queries) right now. We read those and reject 99.95% of them. For the others we usually request 3 chapters and a synopsis (or a proposal for nonfiction). If we like what we see there, we'll request the whole manuscript. It is not rare for it to take a full year for us to take on a client, from first query to actually agreeing to represent the book. We're working on using outside readers and interns to cut through the piles, but with nearly 40 clients whose current projects need immediate attention, it's tough to get through the slush that much more quickly. Eleanor Wood: Sometimes I read the slush, sometimes an assistant looks at queries and shows me the most promising. Does the work look interesting? Commercial? The standard stuff. Joshua Bilmes: By reading it to see if there's anything good. In terms of the reading pile as a whole, I have to give first priority to a manuscript that a publisher is expecting, second priority to current clients, third to prospective clients (a revision, or I liked opening chapters and asked for more), and then everything else. Jack Byrne: I read everything myself. I'm very picky. In essence, I open every submission with two desires firmly in mind. One: I hope it is so good it simply blows me away. Two: I hope I can quickly find a reason to reject it. I've become very good at number two. Nanci McCloskey: What I look for in a query letter is a
well-written letter with an understanding of the audience and some
credits are always nice. Also, it is important that the manuscript
is finished and it is an appropriate length. SH: For all the would-be authors who’ll be reading this, what kind of annual salary would an average selling mid-list SFF genre author working in the US expect to receive in 2003? Lucienne Diver: I wouldn't like to quote a figure, but I would suggest that beginning writers don't expect to quit their day jobs right away. Shawna McCarthy: Writing an average of one book per year, not tie-ins or packages, I'd say anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 per year. We're talking mid-list here, which to me means a relatively established but not bestselling author. Don Maass: It varies widely. One thing I can say is that after five or six books, practically no novelist feels like he or she is getting "paid" enough. Notice those quotation marks? It is common for novelists to think of publishers as their employers. That is also dead wrong. Your employers (customers, really) are your readers. They pay you. When you give them a great novel. (Are you sensing a theme in what I am saying?) Andrew Zack: $7,500.00. And, no, I didn't drop a zero. Mid-list, average sellers are about 20,000 copies in paperback (that may even be better than average). $6.99 cover price x 6% royalty x 20,000 = $8,388.00, but publishers are going to round down, so that's where the $7,500.00 comes from. If you get a foreign sale or two, add say $3,500 less 10% tax and 20% or 25% commission for each one. If you've got a book or two under your belt and they earn out, you may pick up an additional few thousand (more likely hundreds) in royalties. Eleanor Wood: I'm side stepping that one. Midlist could be anyone making about five or six thousand a year (and even less in an off-year) to someone making over $100,000 a year, which still isn't near major bestseller range. Joshua Bilmes: I don't like this question, in part because an average is hard to define, and in part because the answer can be depressing, and in part because income can be widely variant. Let's say hypothetically that I do a deal in March for an "average" client who's able to get an "average" advance of $12K/book. A three-book deal. The author gets half of it today, one-sixth when each book is turned in. That client could earn $24,000 this year for the on-signing and one delivery payment, and then $6,000 next year for turning in the second book. Even if there are some royalties on earlier books, the bottom line is that this author doesn't have the consistent strong income to justify giving up the day job, considering writing income to be a "salary." Jack Byrne: I'm afraid the range is so wide that I'm reluctant to even guess. Nanci McCloskey: Alas, you're not doing too badly if you're
making $7,000.00 a year. SH: Roughly what percentage of manuscripts do you receive which you would consider incorrectly formatted? Lucienne Diver: We don't accept unsolicited manuscripts, but those we ask for are generally in the correct format. We also don't accept electronic submissions (via e-mail or disk), but they sometimes come in anyway. We're not going to open files from writers we don't work with for two main reasons: 1) risk of computer virus, 2) we don't like to spend extensive periods reading on screen (eye strain), so we'd have to use our own resources (time, toner, paper) to print out the material. Shawna McCarthy: Not that many anymore - maybe 10%. Don Maass: Very few. Andrew Zack: We have guidelines on our site (http://www.zackcompany.com/manuscri.htm) for this, so we actually get a fair number of good-looking manuscripts. I'd say they all need some fine-tuning (most authors still use their wordprocessor as a glorified typewriter), but many look pretty good. Say 50/50. Eleanor Wood: Not that many - less than ten percent. Joshua Bilmes: Such a small percentage that when they come that way I still feel comfortable rejecting immediately, because why can't this author figure out the right way to do it like just about everyone else manages to do? Jack Byrne: 25 - 30%. Nanci McCloskey: Requested manuscripts are generally formatted
correctly. Incorrectly formatted manuscripts are much more common
with unsolicited manuscripts. SH: Have you ever had cause to resort to lawyers in your dealings with writers or publishers? (feel free to omit names - we have no desire to get sued!) Nanci McCloskey: Very seldom. Lucienne Diver: Not to date. Shawna McCarthy: Not since I've been on my own - I try to avoid potentially litigious, complicated deals since I don't have access to a high-powered attorney. When I was with my previous firm, there was one pretty painful situation dealing with a ghost writer who'd been fired by a celebrity. Don Maass: Yes, though only rarely. Andrew Zack: I work hard on my clients' contracts and use a fairly detailed representation agreement. The goal of both is to avoid needing lawyers. That said, I find that I rarely hear of an agent doing something that would require an author to need a lawyer and that, more often, it's the agent being cut out of a commission in some manner where a lawyer might be useful. Also, keep in mind that many agents are members of the Association of Authors' Representatives and that there's an Ethics Committee to which an author could appeal in the case of a problem. There's also the Grievance Committee of SFWA. Unfortunately, neither can help an agent when an author is behaving unprofessionally. But agents have much, much more to lose, so I think they tend to keep their noses clean. Eleanor Wood: With writers (i.e. against writers) no. With publishers, on rare occasions. Joshua Bilmes: Yes. However, dealing with lawyers doesn't mean necessarily legal troubles. I or my clients have sometimes gone to a lawyer, but I've sold hundreds of books without ever having an actual legal action taking place between a client and a publisher over a book that I've sold. Jack Byrne: I've steered a few writers toward specialists
when specific questions were beyond my ability to answer. For the
most part, though, I've become a sort of a "jailhouse lawyer." SH: With the relative ease for anyone to set up shop and call themselves an agent, do you, as one of the genre's top reputable agents, ever experience fallout from the activities of the sharks and kidology merchants? Eleanor Wood: Not to any appreciable extent. Joshua Bilmes: Not really. Lucienne Diver: Beyond pointed questions at writers conferences from those who've heard about various scams, not really. Shawna McCarthy: Only in that some people tend to ask more pointed questions, many of which I've seen in publications which tell writers what questions to ask a potential agent. I don't blame them - there are a lot of ripoff artists out there. I do have to say, though, that if the writer continues to act suspicious after we've begun working together, I probably wouldn't want to continue the relationship. Don Maass: The scam agents and editorial services are a scourge. They are not a small criminal enterprise, either. In this country, scam agents have been prosecuted in New York and Kentucky, among other places. The scale of their operations is eye-opening. They have bilked authors for millions and millions of dollars. Beware! Andrew Zack: Not that I've ever been aware. But if an author only deals with AAR members, he or she shouldn't have any problems. Jack Byrne: Not too much. I've been fortunate enough to deal with some pretty decent people and they've been kind enough to say good things about me. The word gets around. Nanci McCloskey: I can't think of any experiences that have
happened with any of our clients, but I've certainly read in query
letters of people who have been taken advantage by dishonorable
agents. Most "fallout" that we contend with is when an author had
represented him or herself for a time and agreed to everything in
the publisher's contract. SH: Can you give us a feel for the – dare I say glamour – of an agent's typical day at work? Shawna McCarthy: Hah! I get to my desk about about 9:00 and spend an hour or so answering email. I then will read manuscripts, make phone calls, read contracts, write submission letters, prepare submission packages, go the the copy shop, go to the bank, go to the post office, answer more e-mail, return calls, play solitaire, and finally quit around 6:30. However, since I work out of a home office (it actually is an office, not a desk in my dining room), clients feel free to call at any time, including late nights and weekends. I, in turn, feel free to ignore my office phone at such times, if I don't happen to be near it. However, I'm near it often enough at such times to reinforce this behavior! Don Maass: Glamour? GLAMOUR? Did I miss it? Shoot. Seriously, the best part of my day yesterday was when an SF client wrote to me that a bonus hardcover advance I had negotiated into her last contract had allowed her to pay off a credit card in full and start house hunting. I also went to bat for her in a title dispute with her publisher. She wrote, "I am having a good day." That made me feel great. I will trade that for glamour any day. Andrew Zack: Email, email, email. Phone, phone, phone. Lunch. Mail, mail, mail. Contracts, book-keeping, royalty statements. Drinks. Eleanor Wood: I don't read manuscripts during office hours - that's for nights and weekends. So the office day is spent on the phone, on e-mail, getting out submissions to publishers (or subagents abroad), nagging editors, royalty managers, etc., reviewing contracts, and in general dealing with the crisis of the moment. Joshua Bilmes: Like most jobs, it's much more glamorous when you don't have to do it. Today I've haggled with two publishers, scurried around because the airline decided to cancel my departing flight from London Book Fair and throw my schedule into disarray, readied some submissions for market. This was a glamorous day. Other days I'm playing mailroom and bundling up manuscripts or marketing material for overseas, staring at Quicken entering expenses, licking envelopes. The one thing that makes this business special is that you actually don't have control over what your day will be, it's not some job where you know exactly what you'll be doing for eight hours. Because all of a sudden you check e-mail and have three offers from overseas, then an editor gets out of their editorial meeting and has an offer, and then in the afternoon you find Hollywood calling. And all of a sudden a day that maybe looked kind of boring is full of great things. Jack Byrne: Think about cleaning my office - check email - handle that day's "list of things to do" - make/receive calls - send/receive mail - read submissions (average of 15 - 20 per day) - think about cleaning my office. Nanci McCloskey: I'm afraid that I'm going to disappoint anyone who has a romantic idea of an agent's job. Day to day business consists of answering emails, vetting contracts, granting reprint permissions, and calling the Internet provider to find out why the connection is lost. Most reading does not get done in the office, which means reading
at home at night and on weekends. It's a job that is very time-consuming
and you have to be doing it for love because you are certainly not
doing it for the money SH: If we lived - ho ho - in a world where publishers had an infinite appetite for SFF works as long as they were of publishable quality, what percentage of an agent’s slush pile would make the cut? Nanci McCloskey: Hard to say, maybe 1 in 500. Don Maass: The same, which is to say about 1%. Lucienne Diver: No more than make the cut now. There are some novels that are well-written but I wouldn't quite know how to position in the market or of publishable quality but just don't excite me. These might find their way into print, but an agent can only represent so many authors and pay them all the attention they deserve. I'd still only be working with those authors whose work really excites me. Shawna McCarthy: I was thinking about this last night, oddly enough. Sturgeon's Law being true in most cases, that leaves 10% of my slush pile not being crap. However, even in the not-crap pile, there are distinctions between all-the words-are-there-in-the-right-order and wow-this-is-a-good-book. Andrew Zack: No more than is currently the case, I feel. I don't think there are thousands of worthy authors not getting published. I just think it takes a while for them to get noticed in the gigantic pool of unworthy authors. Now, if we could just toss some industrial strength chlorine into the pool .... Eleanor Wood: If we lived in a world where publishers had an infinite appetite for SFF, we'd get an infinitely greater - well, no, just a much greater - volume of submissions, so I can't answer that. I will say that there is an overwhelming number of submitted novels that, in my view, do not deserve publication from other than vanity presses. Joshua Bilmes: Not much more than it does now. The difference between a thriving market and a bad one might be that editors are most likely to buy manuscripts in the 97th percentile instead of the 98th, but that still means the odds are woefully against any one individual. Either way 95% plus just won't make the grade. Jack Byrne: Sadly, still a small percentage. Most of what
I receive is not very good, or has been done before (over and over),
or the idea is good but the writing is poor, or the writing is okay
but the idea stinks. SH: How important is the existence of organisations such as the US Association of Authors' Representatives or the UK Association of Authors' Agents to your trade? Lucienne Diver: As Eleanor says, these are wonderful for providing updates to professionals on trends and helping writers find reputable representation. They also allow agents to combine clout on certain issues. Shawna McCarthy: I'm proud to be a member of the AAR, and I think that it's an important tool for writers to use to avoid the previously mentioned sharks and ripoff artists out there. Don Maass: Very important. Literary agents are unlicensed and unregulated, except in California. Membership in AAR and AAA are an author's only guarantee of experienced and ethical representation. Andrew Zack: Very important, I think. As chairperson of the AAR's Royalty Committee, I can say from experience that we have made real improvements in the way publishers report royalties. The new Random House statement was the result of nearly 10 years of meetings between the Royalty Committee and RH. The Penguin statement incorporated a great deal of feedback from the Royalty Committee. Recently, the Royalty Committee has been working with Holtzbrink and hopes, in the near future, to see even more improvements in their statements. Furthermore, the Ethics Committee gives an author someplace to turn to in the case of a conflict with an agent. Eleanor Wood: Professional agents organizations such as AAR can be very useful by supplying information and updates on the publishing industry; writers organizations such as SFWA, NINC, MWA and RWA are also of great help in disseminating information as well as by establishing awards and providing opportunities for writers to meet publishing professionals. Joshua Bilmes: Not as helpful as it could be, in large part because we can't bargain collectively. AAR for us agents, SFWA for the authors, they're important and have a role to play, but the basic leverage in the business still ends up pitting an individual author against a very large publisher - especially because even with these organizations, there are still individual writers who have medical bills or a mortgage to pay who must make decisions that are vitally necessary for them, but awful for the community of writers as a whole. Jack Byrne: Although I'm not a member, I think these organisations are valuable in that they can help would-be writers avoid the shady agents and agencies out there. Nanci McCloskey: I think organizations like the AAR and
very useful especially in terms of keeping updated about changes
in copyright law, etc. and they have established a code that keeps
people honest and reputable. SH: How much leeway do you have these days to negotiate contracts for authors versus accepting a publisher’s copperplate deal? Eleanor Wood: A fair amount, but less than I had ten years ago on some points. Jack Byrne: There's always room for negotiation. Lucienne Diver: Over the years, we've negotiated our own boilerplates with various publishers that vary quite a bit from their standard, though details change according to the terms of a deal. Shawna McCarthy: Not quite as much as I used to, sadly. Payouts have become increasingly chintzier and advances are getting smaller. Other areas, such as rights and options and reversions have stayed about the same. Don Maass: We hammer away at contract boilerplate every day, and have done for years. We have been very successful in improving contracts, and I am particularly proud of the improvements I have brought to so-called "work-for-hire" agreements, which previously allowed for grotesque abuses of writers' time and talent. Andrew Zack: I have never accepted a publisher's boilerplate without changes and often those changes are extensive. My average contract letter is probably at least 8 pages, often longer (in at least one case, my letter was longer than the contract!). Joshua Bilmes: I've been in the business almost twenty years now but can still be amazed at what better language publishers can pull out of the filing cabinet if you remember the virtues of saying "no" loud enough and long enough. At the end of the day, one of the best things an agent can do is empower you to say "no," to say that, even with the mortgage due at the end of the month, I can still say "no" and come out the better for it. And that is where you need an agent, somebody who knows when the publisher can say "no" longer than you, and when you might be able to out-no the publisher. Nanci McCloskey: Leeway certainly depends on the author.
Many rights we prefer not to grant the publisher; there are some
we can nearly always keep for the author, but with others - translation
rights, for example - each case is different. SH: What's your experience been with subagents overseas? Do the agents abroad tend to live up to their national stereotype? Lucienne Diver: We work with subagents all over the world to market translation rights. I don't know about "national stereotypes." Shawna McCarthy: I don't deal with them - Danny Baror, my foreign rights agent, does all that. Don Maass: Our subagents are fabulous, know their markets intimately, and understand SFF. They have been instrumental in creating markets for English language SFF authors in every country. I have nothing but good things to say about our subagents Eleanor Wood: I work with a number of excellent subagents. I don't generally see "national stereotypes," but neither am I looking for them. My focus is on whether the agent can sell the books, keep adequate records, deliver contracts and monies in a timely fashion. Their lifestyles aren't on my radar. Joshua Bilmes: I work with some wonderful foreign agents, and I've worked with some not so wonderful. It has little to do with national stereotypes. My subagents and I haven't spent a lot of time discussing the international situation, because we're businesspeople and we have our jobs to do, as the politicians have theirs. Jack Byrne: I've had pretty good luck with my subagents (and a certain amount of success acting as a sub-agent). I never think about stereotypes and therefore cannot respond to that part of the question. Nanci McCloskey: We have had wonderful experiences with our subagents and have always found them to be courteous and professional. Andrew Zack: I confess I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a "national stereotype," but I can say that the majority of my subagents are frighteningly efficient and quick to make things happen once a publisher makes an offer. Getting the publishers to offer, unfortunately, is another story. Finally, for the record, I prefer hard science fiction, military
science fiction and space opera, or large, epic fantasies (but,
please, not so many quest novels) that take you to a fully established
world. Thanks to all the members of the panel for kindly agreeing to take part in SFcrowsnest's agent roundtable.
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OTHER CONTENT - April 2003
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