Scouts are the spies of the publishing world. They're like James Bond, except without the sex, drugs, guns and generally any of the stuff that makes James Bond cool. Instead of a license to kill, they have a license to KNOW EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. The good ones are charming and sly. They are paid by foreign publishers or movie production companies to get the scoop on projects that are out on submission and determine if there's any movie or foreign sales potential. They do this by making nice-nice with editors (and some agents) around town, cozying up to them so that the editors feel safe enough to share submissions (that agents have not already leaked to the scouts.) They then feed these submissions to their clients. (And, sometimes, they even feed editors. Lunch. And alcohol. Which is appreciated, since we editors usually pick up the bills for publishing-related outings.)

And there's more! From Unsolicited at Gawker.