The Suppression of Writing

More and more authors are now considering digital publishing opportunities and are taking control of their own works. New ventures such as Unbound, are inviting them to submit their unpublished work to into a social media lottery. Barnes and Noble Pubit, Wattpad, Lulu, and Kindle publishing, are among others all offering new ways to get published. We now even have agents embroiled in heated debate, as some of their numbers are starting to wear two hats and become publishers. We also see the publisher now creating new digital ways to socially capture and sift through the mountain of submissions. Although these routes may not offer the financial rewards of the more traditional one for authors, digital is now importantly enabling everyone to be published. The democratisation of writing and storytelling is arriving.

The old world has a series of gatekeepers which conveniently stand between the hoards of aspiring writers and the infamous ‘slushpile’ and the author goal of being published. However these roadblocks are now being increasingly questioned, tested and removed, but even in this new digitally evolving world, the old world of suppression, narrow selection and often closed ‘who you know’ circles still exists and are still supported by some in the establishment as the right way to do business.

We recently attended a new literary festival and were intrigued to listen to a talk from a leading literary agent and UK publishing personality. The subject was on how to get published, but the reality was that it should have been titled ‘why you are not going to get published’.

We heard many anecdotal stories about why agents matter, the difficult task they, or their interns face, in sifting through mountains of submissions. The fact that less than 1% of their submissions they receive actually even get to the consideration phase of selection. This poor agent already has a backlog from an obvious holiday in August and basically is in shutdown with Frankfurt for ‘two months’ and then no doubt Christmas will have its impact. It was hardly surprising that they had only taken on one new author and the last few years and were clearly focused in working their existing lucrative stable. Apparently, even agents get upset when they get knocked back from publishers at the next gatekeeper post!

It appears we have built a risk adverse approach to publishing.

There are, and always will be, good and bad agents and those which are more appropriate for an author than others. However, this image of ‘X Factor auditions’ would be fine if they at least promoted writing and worked in this digital, switched on and networked community, but the reality they don’t promote but suppress writing and are still clearly based on the physical book world, lengthy lead times to market and the 256 page economic model.

‘Don’t publish digitally and expect an agent or publisher to be interested second hand,’ was delivered, not so much as advise, but as a veiled threat. ‘Every clause in a contract should be reviewed by the agent,’ was then countered by the claim that boilerplate contracts are the way forward and many clauses can now be waved through. ‘Digital royalties should be greater than the 15%,’ but the figure suggested was still somewhat shy of what many believe is appropriate.

The point is that, if we were aspiring writers then the contradictions and ‘holier than thou’ plaudits on offer would have been more of a switch off than an encouragement to write.

Agents have many valuable contributions they can make a real contribution to the creation of more works and support new talent, but this talk demonstrated what some would suggest is how out of touch some are to the world today.

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Agents In A Digital World June 13th 2011

Authors Aren't Just For Christmas

We all are very cautious about generalising and are very aware of the huge variations in the services offered by agents and their individual performance. In some cases the agent is little more than an estate agent, a football agent or a dating agency, merely connecting parties and agreeing terms, in others they are akin to mangers and take care of the author’s life. Somewhere between these two extremes lies the vast majority.

Today the roles and relationships are changing. We now have the ability to connect authors with the market in ways that were not possible only a few years ago. The world is no longer publisher centric it is consumer centric and this dramatically challenges much of how we worked yesterday.

Recently we have even seen an agent trying to position themselves as ‘publisher’ and take on rights reversals on a print on demand basis. Today we read in Publishers Weekly that Simon and Schuster are setting up a speaker bureau. This joins the ranks of other major US trade houses and is focused on finding its authors speaking engagements. Also today’s Bookseller tells the same story albeit from a different angle, with PFD agency stating that they want to develop their brief to cover public speaking, presenters, exhibitions and manage their client’s careers. It will be interesting to see where the role of the agent goes tomorrow.

So can we now envisage a minor scramble for the author, with offers of marketing, publicity, brand building, blogs and websites, tours, exhibitions and slots on the speaker circuits and television? We can imagine everyone scurrying around the author all asking, ‘Can I carry your books for you?’

The question is who is best equipped and who has the longer term interest in the development of the author, their brand and development of their fan base? Do either agents or publishers, as we see them today, have the skills and long term commitment? Do others enter the market to fill any void and in doing so create a new social community, or do authors have to do it all themselves?

Double Agents?

This last couple of weeks has shown us how easy it is to forget or pay token gestures to authors. Nobody would be as bold as to stand and say a bad word about them in public but often actions speak louder than words.

We wrote last week about the ‘landgrab’ by a literary agency to revert rights and secure them in ‘safe keeping’ in the long tail print on demand channel. No marketing fees or promotion incurred here, just a one off conversion cost and every sale results in an additional bonus. Will authors and their estates get 90% of any revenues earned, or will they end up with a lot smaller percentage and the usual babble about investment and risk and the cost of redesigning the jacket! Will they get a second publication opportunity - highly unlikely - as to many, this is in fact their last publishing opportunity! They may well have done it themselves and in doing so also colected all the revenues raised. Mind you the agent may still have wanted their cut!

The question of who offers authors what advice, is interesting. Some may agrue that an agent who offers backlist print on demand under their label, a clear conflict of interest. They may say that it is may be praying on the vulnerability of some in this new uncertain world and obviously betraying their position of trust. You would not expect your account or tax advisor to recommend you to invest in their own company or schemes, so why accept this ‘bad’ advice.

We must always remember that there are only two players that count, the author who creates the work and the reader who pays for it. All the rest are intermediaries who should add value and invariably also cost. If value is not seen then just like in other sectors no one’s position is safe, agents, publishers, printers, distributors, retailers etc.

Authors deserve guidance and good advice and they afer all are the ones that create the content that is publibishing.

A New Role for Agents?

The Bookseller reports today on the role of the agent. In a serious twist today they report that the agency PFD is entering a print on demand relationship with Lightning Source which will enable it to bring back out of print works from its authors and estates and makes these available through Amazon and the two wholesaler channels of Gardners and Bertrams.
This clearly throws the gauntlet down on rights reversals and opens up all sorts of potential opportunities for both authors and agents.

By bringing these works back they effectively block publishers wakening up and doing it themselves and also are one step away from securing the full digital control of these works. It is unknown what the deal is with the authors and their estates but it is obviously better than no sales and is with little if no risk. By selecting the free to play channels they also are well place to pick up ‘long tail’ sales.

Interestingly we were only thinking what the role of the Agent may be in the new World. They could hardly remain as they are today and yet unless they step back into the publishing model it is hard to see how many will not be marginalised in the future.