Literary agent Richard Curtis says agents will make more books available in E when publishers are readier to pay decent advances for digital books.
“I’ve known for ten years what’s been holding agents back from plunging into e-book pool,” he writes in the wake of Amazon spending more than 10K to fly some top New York agents to Seattle for a brain-picking session, “and in fact I can tell it to you in one word: advances. The agents have been waiting for something they can identify with the traditional business model. And advances are as traditional as Thanksgiving turkeys.” Image is of Curtis’s Web site.
Meanwhile publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin tells of trouble that lit agents will suffer in finding a market for their traditional services. More optimistically he writes of expanding opportunities for people advising authors who self-publish. He suggests that agents keep up with new digital and business options for clients, including self-publishing.
Hmm. I see two scenarios. Richard Curtis is writing of the possibility of an important element of traditional publishing continuing with E, while Mike Shatzin is saying in effect: “Hey, get set for lots of restructuring.” I suspect that the future will contain elements of both. My guess—nothing’s conclusive at this point—is that the future isn’t going to be a neat "either or.”
Among other things, will some agents try to sell just p-rights to big publishers, and focus on E, as it grows in importance? And how will publishers respond, especially when some smaller publishers offer more generous terms?
(Curtis item spotted by Dan Bloom.)
Related: Jealous rivals determined to tank Google settlement, from the Curtis blog.
To date, the big publishers are happy to treat eBooks as an appendix to paper books. I’m not sure that advances will make much difference, though. Stephen King and Dan Brown (and the usual half-dozen others) could probably demand advances for eBooks, but they already get huge advances so it would probably just be a split of what they get into categories. They could probably also sell paper-only rights, coming to publishers like me (or do it themselves) for electronic. But for most authors, the big publishers would simply smile and walk away if their agents put additional demands on the table. Publishers are cutting advances, not looking for ways to create additional expenses.
Rob Preece
Publisher