Which are two very different questions. Most people are focused on the first one, but I haven’t seen anyone address the second. (Correction on that, just saw Courtney Milan’s blog where she asks a similar question)
SHOULD? Many are pointing out an inherent conflict of interest. If the agency is taking 15% either way—traditional publishing or self-publishing, I don’t think they’d screw a client out of a trad deal to go self. They’d steer the client to where they both saw the most money in the long run. However, there is also the possibility they’d go for a deal where they made the most money, that might not be in the author’s overall best interest. Ultimately, though, an agent who starts publishing people is no longer an agent. Trying to be both is not only confusing, it has many problems.
Most of the people screaming that this is bad, a conflict of interest, illegal, they should all be taken out and shot, have no dog in this hunt anyway, so why should they care? I think this is a case where each writer has to make their own decision. The problem is many writers aren’t very well educated on all the nuances, especially a new writer with no experience in publishing. Caveat Emptor.
The thing that is most dangerous for many authors isn’t just agents wanting to publish you, but agents and e-publishers who work under the theory of throwing more titles out there, each making a little bit of money, rather than let’s focus on a few titles, market the heck out of them, and make a lot of money off a few authors. Thus making the few authors a lot of money. Your average author via an e-publisher is earning less than 1k per title. Your average self-published author is in the same row boat.
Writers are often much too desperate to simply get published to consider whether they are getting published well. Same with signing with an agent. No agent is better than a bad agent.
I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t pretend to know the legal angles of all this (but I think Courtney Milan will address this in her next blog). The reality is agencies are turning to this because they have to in order to generate income. Writers have to generate income too and is it worth 15% to you?
Still, an agency is not a publisher. Which brings me to:
CAN? What makes an agent think they know something about e-publishing? First, they’re not even print publishers. They’re used to negotiating contracts, not publishing books. So while they can bring some of their experience in publishing to bear, they don’t have experience as publishers. And even publishers don’t have much experience in e-publishing since they are traditionally focused on print publishing and have a vested interest in keeping that focus. Frankly, the mistakes I’ve seen some of the Big 6 make with regards to eBooks boggles the mind. Agency pricing. Covers. Rights reversions. Marketing.
How do I know this? While I believe I’m a pretty good writer and my books are fun reads, how can it be that the only author ahead of me on Kindle in science fiction is some dude named George RR Martin, who also happens to have just had an HBO series about his books? I’m not naïve to believe I am the #2 scifi author around (heck, I’m primarily known as a thriller writer). But somehow, there I am. And I have 11 titles in the top 50 in war, ahead of W.E.B. Griffin, who certainly has earned his spurs in that genre. What’s different about me than most of those authors in those genres? They’ve got the mighty weight of a traditional publisher dragging them down.
At Who Dares Wins, I’m selling over 2,000 ebooks a day, which is more than Random House managed of my Area 51 series in six months. So I know something about epublishing.
The issue is this: in a field agents have no experience in, what expertise does an agent bring to self-publish an author, that the author can’t find elsewhere? I’ve been running Who Dares Wins Publishing with Jen Talty for two years and we can tell you the learning curve to be an e-publisher is steep, brutal, and a full time job. I spent two hours in New York during Thrillerfest giving my agent just an overview of what we were doing. The big picture. It would have taken weeks to give her all the lessons we’ve learned. She was thrilled for my success because she’s a great person and a great agent, but I could tell she got it, that this isn’t a lark or a hobby or something you can pick up on quickly. And not something she would get involved in, because that’s not her job as an agent.
And here’s another thing. I actually was published by my second agent, many years ago, before eBooks exploded. Richard Curtis has been running e-Reads for over a decade, so this isn’t something new and I noticed no one was up in arms about a potential conflict of interest over the years. Here’s the bottom line on that: I sell more eBooks in two hours than e-Reads sold for me in six months. Because they’re MY books. Writers, remember this: no one is going to care more about your book than you are.
Sure, these agents delving into e-publishing will probably hire someone to do the technical and other work for them, but that begs the question of why is the author giving up 15% to go through the agent who will hire the person who the author could have hired on their own for a one-time fee?
On the flip side, agents do bring experience in selling other rights, such as audio and foreign, but there are agents who are now focusing on working with successful self-published authors do just that. I met another agent in NY for just that specific topic.
The bottom line is that there are many roads to Oz. More importantly, all of us aren’t starting from Kansas on our way to Oz. An author with rights to 40 backlist titles isn’t the same as an author who has never been published. The right Yellow Brick Road for one author could turn out to be a nightmare full of lions and tigers and bears, oh my, for another author.
My suggestion to writers considering this: think long and hard, weigh the plusses and minuses, listen and read all the opinions one way or the other, then make the right decision for YOU.
Thanks for the great post, Bob. I always learn something interesting about the industry from your blog.
I was wondering about this too. Thanks for answering some of the questions and providing a link to Courtney Milan’s blog too.
Yet again, Bob, your insights are deeply appreciated. Thank you. LT
I’ve been wondering, although it’s probably slight off-topic, if a self-published author should even want to be published by a traditional publisher. Which has led me to thinking that maybe a self-published author would find value in having an agent, but not in terms of getting traditional publishing contracts. That they should rather be moving towards selling film options and/or translation rights. I’ll probably write a blog post about it soon, but I’d be interested to hear/read your take.
Every deal is different. I’ve got a manuscript with a traditional publisher right now. If they put a deal on the table I’d have to examine it. I’ve also got a manuscript with an industry publisher; same thing.
Thanks for a very interesting post. I enjoy learning from you.
Hi Bob,
With regard to the whole agent becoming a publisher conundrum, I think we need to separate two things out.
The first is an agent offering assist self-publishing clients for their existing 15% fee. I don’t see this as an agent moving into publishing, but rather an agent offering project management capabilities. This is along the lines of what Joe Konrath’s agents DGLM have proposed, and it is something I have no problem with – in principle – but questions would remain about how well the agent (not specifically referencing DGLM here) could do the job. But this is only one of the options that BookEnds will be offering their clients.
The second is actually publishing them with their e-publishing arm Beyond The Page, which will “share the profits” with the author. There will be a publishing contract, and rights will be signed over to Beyond The Page. They haven’t confirmed the royalty split, but one commenter on their blog has suggested it will be 50% net for the author (which hasn’t been contradicted thus far). This is a far different proposition, and its where – for me – conflict issues come into play. I would also guess that this aspect – agents setting up publishing houses, rather than just project managing for 15% – is what Courtney will focus on in her blog tomorrow.
That’s my take – and you have a lot more experience than me, so take it for what it’s worth.
Congrats on the continually increasing sales numbers. 2,000 a day is something else. Am I right in saying that’s doubled in under a month? In what is supposed to be the slowest time of the year for publishing and for shifting e-books?
Very impressive.
Dave
My grandmother has several books on Richard Curtis’ eReads and my family tells me the royalties are around a few hundred dollars a quarter. I’m not sure what rights RC has, my aunt handles all that, but I have been trying to convince her to get them (if she can) and do it herself. I’ll forward this blog to her.
As far as the agent thing goes, it’s really more of a luxury problem for self pubbers who are selling tons of product. I have two books available and, although they have been getting great reviews, my sales would never attract an agent. If I had Bob Mayer sales, I’d maybe consider hiring an assistant or a manager and fire them when they got my coffee wrong. Why give them 15% for life?
Do you have an assistant Mr. Mayer?
There is a lot of chatter regarding Agents becoming publishers. Its one more shake up in a changing business model that needs a lot of fixing.
One thing I think that is important to consider is that this 15% is not for life, but for the life of the contract. That is very different. In every contract I have seen in ePublishing (except one) there is an “out of print” clause for ebooks. Usually if an ebook sells less than X for a certain time period, then the publisher will take it off the shelf and the rights will revert back to the author after 6 months or a year. Many contracts are for a term of 2 years with an option to renew depending on sales number. So, I’m making an assumption here that these agents who are now publishers who deal in contracts ALL the time would have some kind of out of print or term of the life of the book and their 15% would then not be for “life” but for the terms of the contract.
I’ve also heard authors with backlist saying they would only go with their agent in some kind of partnership (willing to pay the 15%) to help them with their backlist because the agent helped them sell it to NY to begin.
As the other half of WDWPUB I know the time and energy I have put into helping to make WDWPUB a success. For nearly two years I have worked 7 days a week and at least 8-hour days. Sometimes I think Bob stops talking to me at 9pm EST time because if he doesn’t I think he’s afraid I will never stop working…but my point is that I did not make this happen and I can’t take credit for Bob’s success. However, he couldn’t have done this without the help of someone who understood not just ePublishing, but the technology that goes with it. He would have still done it, and because he has good books, he’d still be selling, but not sure he’d have as much of his backlist up without a little help.
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” I sell more eBooks in two hours than e-Reads sold for me in six months. Because they’re MY books. Writers, remember this: no one is going to care more about your book than you are.”
Amen, bro. I took my books away from them and have had the same experience. They seemed to push certain books, a small percentage, but mine weren’t among them. I’m so happy I decided to pull them and go it alone.
Bob, and everyone else, what you say about others ‘selling’ your books, and you selling your books is the ticket. I would never hobble my own books with cheesy covers and sit on them, hoping for a sale or two every year. Buyer (writer) beware.
Good post, Bob.
I’m so glad to hear your books are selling well, Paul! I thought your CALLING CROW novel was one of the best historical novels I’ve ever read.
I’m 100% with you on this Bob. Seeing as we are both running what I would call successful indie pressess we know that making books sell takes a lot of business acumen and marketing experience that I really don’t see how an agent can bring this to the table. There is certainly money to be made on backlists but the trick is how best to get them to market. Recently, I’ve had agents approach Ridan Publishing and want to use us to get these books to market because they don’t feel they could do half as good a job as we can. To me this seems like the best win-win situation. So for you agents out there thinking of going into this “business” start making a list of good indie pressess who are really getting some traction and bring your authors to us
Thought-provocative issue about the rage of agents’ publishing practices. Thanks for addressing this issue from your veteran author perspective, Bob! Weighing the pros and cons is key to deciding the best career path.
RSullivan–I saw your interview with Dan Blank and it’s pretty much a similar experience.
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I think Bob is spot on in this post as is David in his response. I think agents, like those at Bookends, would be better served to work as editors and consultants. They already have those skill sets and I would pay money for someone like Jessica Faust to go through my manuscript. But that’s it. I’m not giving over my rights unless Amazon or one of the Big 6 come knocking.
Bob. Wow perfectly expressed and totally correct. I wish I’d been following your tweets and blogs prior to publishing Grey Redemption. New authors and writers take notice and take this to heart. I wish we could get you up for the Surrey International writers confrence in October. You and Donald Maass on a panel with Slade and McCammon would be brilliant.
I’ll be at Surrey. I’ve done it several times and will be there again in October.
I just noticed you were there last year as well? So many speakers so little time! I will make time, this time! Looking forward to listening to you. This will be my third year at the conference, one of the best on the planet! Participating in the book signing too this year.
Congratulations on selling over 2,000 books per day, Bob! That is awesome!
I love this: “The bottom line is that there are many roads to Oz. More importantly, all of us aren’t starting from Kansas on our way to Oz.” So true! Having been published by indie eBook press before self-publishing a few novels and short stories for 99 cents each on Kindle, I learned a lot about book marketing before attempting to market my self-published books. I self-published in March and have seen my daily sales increase 17x since then. My goal for this month’s sales has been surpassed, making me a very happy writer.
I’m with David on his concern. Actually, I have a couple of them:
1) Some folks are commenting that there’s no chance for a conflict of interest, because it’s 15% either way. However, it’s not 15% of the cover price in either case. For a self published book, it’s 15% of 70% of the cover; for a trade published ebook it’s 15% of usually 25% of the cover. One is significantly larger than the other. Now, no guarantees which will sell more, but if both sold equally, then the agent would be a lot better off encouraging the writer to self publish. That of course means the writer earns more, too – but that’s not always a writer’s top priority on a given book, so the *potential* for conflict exists.
2) A lot of people are saying “it’s just 15%”; but it’s not. As David pointed out, the two models shaping up overall seem to be 15% for advisory services (with the writer still paying for editing, cover, formatting, etc.), and 50% for books that the agency covers production costs on.
I’ve got concerns about the “advice” being a somewhat vague and amorphous thing. It might be really, really good. It might be worthless. Writers will have to be very cautious here to ensure they’re really getting their money’s worth. There’s also a question of investment. A trade publisher spends money to produce the book; this creates an investment in the work which the company is then going to try to earn back, ideally with profit. Offering a percentage to an investor is a good idea, because it encourages them to work harder on your behalf. With no investment from the agency/advice model, there’s nothing really forcing them to go out of their way to make sales. Real caution recommended there.
I’ve got concerns about the 50%, too. Namely, what are they doing for their 50% – remember, ebooks are darned easy to create. If they’re just doing ebooks, you can do all the same work for a little up front cash as a flat fee. They need to be producing value – not just right away, but for as long as they hold publishing rights to the book. Otherwise, they really aren’t earning that 50%. Duration is a concern as well, but duration of contract is a concern for dealing with any publisher today. Publishers like Ridan are offering 70% of net to the writer and at-will cancellation. I believe that sort of deal will be the Gold Standard for publishers to meet on ebooks in the future – excellent royalties coupled with the right to yank the book if the company stops working for you.
I’m not saying “no” to the whole idea. I think writers need to tread very carefully in dealing with this sort of business, though.
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Great post, Bob, and equally great comments. I self-published a novel this past March, doing the Kindle version first and then book form. For this novel, I think this was the right way to go. It’s a lot of hard work, but I think that I am beginning to see results in sales. I have it in a few bookstores, but it’s being picket up by book clubs and libraries and soon will be mentioned in a couple of national organizations. And I’m enjoying giving book talks and meeting with readers who have a high interest in the novel’s background story, the Civilian Conservation Corps.
I am also pitching other novels the traditional way. I am treading very carefully with self-pub. It would be nice to be picked up by a more traditional pub, (unrealistic dream, most like) but I don’t think I need an agent for this.
Well said, Bob!
I see now way around the conflict of interest. It simply is.
However nice, honest, or well-meaning an agent may be, if they have a stake in a possible outcome outside getting 15% for the sale, it is a conflict.
What I want to know is why everyone keeps referring to an agent “self-publishing” an author. If someone sets up a publishing house or “arm” and publishes other people, by definition, it is NOT self-publishing.
If the house pays the author for the ms, does all the work at house expense on spec, and then pays a royalty on sales, the authors are being published by a small press.
On the other hand, if the authors pay the publisher for services like editing and cover art, and despite being paid, the house then keeps a percentage of sales afterward, that is an always has been a vanity press.
Whether the agency has the skills and wherewithal to be a publisher or not (and that’s a serious question to be considered), let’s at least call the publishing what it really is — and it’s not self-publishing.
That’s a good question to ask. What do agents know about publishing? They know the market for your book, they know competing titles, they know reviewers, and publicity and marketing professionals. They know developmental editors (heck, they *are* developmental editors), and copy editors and proofreaders and designers. What they don’t know they can learn – ebook publishing is dead easy. POD is dead easy. And they want to, because their business is drying up. Check out the PBS article about these agents and what they are doing for the writers they believe in. http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/06/literary-agents-try-new-role-as-self-publishing-consultants167.html
Bob said Frankly, the mistakes I’ve seen some of the Big 6 make with regards to eBooks boggles the mind. Agency pricing. Covers. Rights reversions. Marketing.
How do I know this? While I believe I’m a pretty good writer and my books are fun reads, how can it be that the only author ahead of me on Kindle in science fiction is some dude named George RR Martin, who also happens to have just had an HBO series about his books?
You are so dead on, Bob. But, don’t sell yourself short either, in comparison to published ‘heavies’. Market is selecting winners, not publishing muscle and limited choice in brick and mortar stores, and you can’t discount this impact either. Another thing to think on is timing. This guy, Stephen Berlin Johnson, wrote a book on Innovation (He’s a mad scientist and quite interesting). he talked at one point about adjacent possibilities, and that for one thing to happen often times for it to reach potential it needs a sort of fortuitous bridge or happenstance to allow this – the adjacent possibility. If something happens without that, it can’t hit the big time basically, no matter how darned cool it might be. (I’m paraphrasing).
Take a look at popular TV right now: Warehouse 13, Haven, Supernatural, Alphas…the list goes on…had they been in play a decade ago they’d not taken hold. In the current environment, darker elements and uncertainty are the bridge that gets them exposure, as the psyche is tuning into that given world events etc etc. So I’m not surprised that Area 51, et al, is finding a wide and voracious audience, and that kindle and digital distribution is working to enable that. With limited print distribution in an earlier age, it missed the adjacent possibility, but now, the audience is there, and a fast means of finding and obtaining the product exists to feed the furnace. George got his props in print first, who’s to say this isn’t your medium to get those same props?
again, great insights. Thanks Bob
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I always enjoyed self publishing, it makes everything so much easier. I use “instantpublisher” to do all of my self publishing. Check out http://www.instantpublisher.com/self-publishing/index.asp to do it your self.