Agents: Keep Your Hands Off Our Two Percent

Yesterday’s story about the literary agency that wants more of its agents’ commissions has a new twist. As you’ll recall, this literary agency decided to redefine the terms of its commission splits—how much of the 15 percent would go to the agent who made the deal, and how much to the agency where he or she works. When it notified former agents who were still earning royalties on book deals negotiated when they were at the firm that, from now on, they would only be receiving 8 percent of the royalties as opposed to the 10 percent they used to get, the agency explicitly stated that “all our agents have agreed to accept 8 percent,” implying that it was a done deal and everybody was simply going to have to get used to the new way of the world.

An agent who’s currently at that firm and recognized the language in the memo, however, told us yesterday that’s simply not true. “Only one of us has signed the memo,” this agent says. “The rest of us refused, because the terms for sub-rights are appalling… [and] our terms are slightly different if we leave; we get 6 percent commission on books left behind, not 7 or 8.”

“It was a major blow-up at the office here,” this source continued, “and still hasn’t been resolved.” Oh, one other detail: All this started because the literary agency claimed it needed those extra two percentage points from the royalties to meet its operating expenses— because it accused publishers of taking advantage of the industry’s recent descent into chaos to delay the payment of royalties. But the agent on the inside told us that wasn’t necessarily so: “We haven’t really noticed a slow-down in payments from publishers. At least not any slower than usual.”

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