Agents

After getting a rejection notice from a very puzzled literary agent, author Miracle Jones decided to self-publish his new book Sharing on Smashwords. According to Jones, the book is the first in a series of seven.

Jones posted his rejection note on a message thread on Reddit.com. Here is an excerpt: “To cut right to the chase, this is quite literally like nothing I’ve ever read before, both for better and for worse. Which is to say, it was a refreshing change from the predictable stuff that usually comes across my desk. But it’s also just not really my kind of book. I don’t think it even is a ‘kind’ of book (or if it is, I’ve never read those kinds of books). I admire your talent and most of all your imagination, but I quite literally have no idea who would publish this. Which is not to say someone won’t—only that it’s far enough outside of the kind of fiction I tend to represent that I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

What could this agent be talking about? Well here is the book’s description from the Smashwords listing: “After being abducted from a home for at-risk youth in the middle of the night by a twisted, murderous creature called an Indrik, a young girl named Charlotte with a talent for survival is taken (along with five other children) to an empty desert where it never becomes night and all the sand flows like water into a bottomless hole in the ground.” The book has five stars from SmashWords users and is available for only $4.

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Authors and publishers do not tend to agree on what is a fair royalty rate for an eBook. Publishers have set the standard at about 25%, but according to a panel at Digital Book World agents and authors think it should be 50%.

The Author’s Guild has a blog post on its site this week called, “E-Book Royalty Math: The House Always Wins,” arguing how authors are losing money on their eBook deals. In the post, the Author’s Guild calculated the gross profit (income per copy minus expenses per copy) for three popular titles to argue their case. Here is what they came up with:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Author’s Standard Royalty: $3.75 hardcover; $2.28 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -39%
Publisher’s Margin: $4.75 hardcover; $6.32 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +33%

Hell’s Corner by David Baldacci
Author’s Standard Royalty: $4.20 hardcover; $2.63 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -37%
Publisher’s Margin: $5.80 hardcover; $7.37 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +27%

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Author’s Standard Royalty: $4.05 hardcover; $3.38 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -17%
Publisher’s Margin: $5.45 hardcover; $9.62 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +77%

Agents and publishers have very different ideas about what royalties for eBooks should be. Agents think that 50% is a fair royalty, while publishers think that 25% is a fair royalty.

This finding is according to research from Mike Shatzkin, CEO of the Idea Logical Company and Constance Sayre, principal at Market Partners International. The two presented their survey at the Digital Book World conference yesterday afternoon. Despite the discrepancy, a third of agents claim to have negotiated deals for 50% royalty rates. According to Sayre, a few years ago Random House was offering a 50% royalty rate which may have influenced these numbers.

According to their survey, half of agents think the overall impact of eBooks is favorable for authors on backlist titles and 25% think eBooks are favorable for new books. Publishers aren’t so sure and have yet to answer the question.

Interestingly, 2/3 of agents think that a non-compete clause would not prevent them from doing an eBook outside of a contract. Publishers disagree. “But they are not interested in turning this into a fight, they’d rather negotiate than sue,” said Shatzkin.

The study also found that 90% of agents have author clients who have expressed interest in self-publishing, but publishers aren’t scared. “Publishers don’t think authors want to do the work themselves and they think they have the edge because they have the advance,” said Shatzkin. “Print is still heartiest sales and self-publishing is not good for print.”

Writing a pitch to describe a book is similar to creating an online dating profile, said Richard Nash, founder of Cursor, at the eBook Summit today.

In a panel called, “How to Get Published: Interactive Pitch Slam,” Nash said that the challenge is that you have to convince a reader to take the time to read a book. “The power and challenge of a book is that it typically takes ten to fifteen hours to consume, which is five times longer than a movie,” he said. “There is a real burden on the consumer to figure out if you want to spend ten to fifteen hours of your life with that authors voice in your head.”

Jason Ashlock, principal at Movable Type Literary Group, recommends that authors get to know their genre before crafting their pitch. “Authors should read in their category and genre to understand where their book fits in,” he said. “You should become a voracious reader, particularly in the category of which you are hoping to enter. Our jobs are made easier if you can clearly articulate to us where your book fits into a person’s library.”

Kate McKean, literary agent at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency recommends that writers stay on topic. She said that writers shouldn’t come to the table saying how they are not going to be the next best thing and making comparisons, but rather should say what their book is about. “The number one thing I see not happening in pitches is not telling me about your book,” she said. She also reminds writers who are pitching, to “remember that you are talking to a person,” she said. “You should also be a person when you do that.”

Amazon is not making friends with publishers in the UK. First the retailer said that publishers could not set their own eBook prices, but then allowed an agency model after publishers fought back.

Now, Amazon is being accused of bypassing publishers and setting up meetings directly with agents  at the Frankfurt Book Fair as a way to punish publishers for adopting an agency model.

The Bookseller has more: “A meeting with about 60 agents, organised via the Association of Authors’ Agents, followed a series of individual meetings Amazon recently held with author representatives. PFD chief executive Caroline Michel was among those who met Amazon at the Frankfurt Book Fair. News of the meetings came as Amazon France chief executive Xavier Garambois warned this week that e-books should be at least 30% to 40% cheaper than print versions, or else the market would not take off.”

Via TeleRead.

Just in time for the Frankfurt Book Fair, literary agent Andrew Wylie is making publishers in France angry with him. This summer the agent shocked the publishing world by announcing an exclusive partnership with Amazon called Odyssey Editions, in which he is publishing the digital versions of some of his esteemed clients’ backlist titles. Authors in the deal included Philip Roth, Ralph Ellison and Norman Mailer.

After battling with American publishers, now the French Publishers Association is on guard. In an open letter published this week in The Bookseller, the French Publishers Association warns agents about splitting up digital and print rights. It reads: “the actions of certain agents who seek to position themselves as direct competitors to the publishers of their own author/clients.”

The Bookseller has more: “The Bookseller Daily understands that at least four French publishers have suspended negotiations with Wylie since July. Gallimard told The Bookseller: ‘We are one of them, and I know several of my colleagues have done the same.’ [Antoine] Gallimard said e-books did not have a sufficient presence to justify separating digital from print rights. And he added: ‘We were shocked that Wylie gave exclusivity to Amazon and consider that it is a conflict of interest for agents to create companies that compete with their customers . . . this is totally unacceptable.’ According to sources, Gallimard represents about 50% of Wylie’s rights business in the country.”

Wylie went on vacation after this announcement in the U.S., but this week the agent is reportedly attending the Frankfurt Book Fair and will likely have to address these concerns.

The role of the literary agent is beginning to blur now that eBook retailers are offering their own self-publishing channels.

Agent Andrew Wylie shocked the literary world this summer when he made an Amazon exclusive deal on backlist titles from some very big name authors. Now Sharlene Martin, a Seattle-based literary agent, is following in Wylie’s footsteps with her agency Martin Literary Management.

Publishing Perspectives reports: “Martin’s agency published Cirque Du Salahi: Be Careful Who You Trust on September 15. It’s the story of Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who Martin represents along with the book’s author, investigative journalist Diane Dimond. Martin decided to get the book out quickly, short-circuiting the normal one — year publishing process, by publishing it through Amazon.com’s CreateSpace program.”

While CreateSpace took care of distribution and formatting print and eBook versions of the tell-all, Martin had to get hands on and handle editing, design and marketing. Will the digital channels change the traditional agent/publisher relationship? What do you think?

After Random House reached an agreement with the Wylie Agency about its disputed Amazon exclusive eBook rights, Penguin is now negotiating with the literary agency about rights.

Earlier this week, Wylie removed 13 Random House titles from the agency and Amazon’s Odyssey Editions. GalleyCat reports: “While neither side would comment on the negotiations, the Wylie Agency built the fledgling eBook imprint, Odyssey Editions–bypassing traditional publishers to create digital books for classic titles. Last month, Penguin Group CEO John Makinson addressed the problem, noting: ‘I don’t think it’s a cosmic issue.’”

Bookseller has more: “Penguin refused to elaborate on its discussions with Wylie, but has two books – Saul Bellow’s Adventures of Augie March and William Burroughs’ Junky – for which it holds global rights in print, and one further title Brideshead Revisited, where it has UK and Commonwealth rights. A statement from the publisher read: ‘Penguin Group has had conversations with Andrew Wylie regarding the books in the Odyssey Editions program and those conversations are ongoing.’”

After a public battle, Random House has won its fight against the Wylie Agency.

Here is the joint statement: “We are pleased to announce that The Wylie Agency and Random House have resolved our differences over the disputed Random House titles which have been included in the Odyssey Editions e-book publishing program. These titles are being removed from that program and taken off-sale. We have agreed that Random House shall be the exclusive e-book publisher of these titles for those territories in which Random House U.S. controls their rights. The titles soon will be available for sale on a non-exclusive basis through all of Random House’s current e-book customers. Random House is resuming normal business relations with the Wylie Agency for English-language manuscript submissions and potential acquisitions, and we both are glad to be able to put this matter behind us.”

Last month the Wylie Agency angered Random House after partnering with Amazon on exclusive eBook rights to some of its most famed author’s backlist titles. The publisher had vowed not to strike English language deals with the literary agency due to the deal.

Dia de los Muertos, a modern noir novel by Kent Harrington, comes out in eBook format today through Amazon’s Kindle store. The release comes out of a new deal between the Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency and Amazon called Get-Back Editions, which launched last month with the release of Harrington’s Satellite Circus as an eBook.

Under the terms of the deal, the Spitzer agency is distributing eBooks non-exclusively through Amazon’s digital text platform. The partnership came out of a meeting at BEA earlier this summer, said Lukas Ortiz, an agent at the Spitzer Literary Agency.

Ortiz said that the idea is to help build a platform for their authors and expand readership of backlist titles. “We are engaged with Amazon because the deals are non-exclusive, we would only do it this way,” said Ortiz. “What Andrew Wylie is doing is a disservice to the author and to the audience because it gives Amazon too much power.”

While Ortiz would not confirm the royalties, he said, “The terms are favorable to the author. The deal is better than the announced terms that Andrew Wylie and Amazon agreed to.” The Author’s Guild speculated that Amazon is paying Wylie Agency’s Odyssey Editions 60 to 63 percent of the retail price of the book.

Ortiz expects more agencies to make similar eBook deals with Amazon. And he expects other retailers to offer similar eBook deals. “We are waiting for B&N to step up to the plate and compete with Amazon a far as this format is concerned,” he said.