How To Be Your Own Literary Agent: An Insider's Guide to Getting Your Book Published - Softcover

Curtis, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0618380418 ISBN 13: 9780618380411

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Comany, 2003

Synopsis

How to Be Your Own Literary Agent takes the mystery out of book publishing for any writer, published or not. Richard Curtis -- a top literary agent for more than thirty years -- provides a comprehensive practical overview of the publishing process, from submissions to contract negotiations to subsidiary rights to marketing, publicity, and beyond. He also gives away trade secrets and invaluable wisdom -- candid advice that can be found nowhere else. Now completely revised and expanded, How to Be Your Own Literary Agent is essential reading for all writers.

* Big publishers, small publishers, self-publishers, e-publishers: how to keep up in a rapidly changing business * The new breed of busy literary editors: how to find them and know what they're looking for * What the electronic revolution means to you, and how to take advantage of it * How to know your "publishing" rights and negotiate effectively * How to have a say in your book's design, jacket, and promotion * How book chains and superstores have altered publishing -- and what that means for you

About this title

About the Author:

The head of his own literary agency in New York, Richard Curtis is also the publisher of e-reads® and the author of more than fifty books.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Introduction

If professionalism may be defined as mastery of the tools of one"s trade, I
have to wonder how many writers earning money from their work can truly
call themselves professionals. After all, one of the most important tools of
their trade is the publishing contract. Yet, of the thousands of writers I have
known over the course of my career as agent, author, and lecturer, only a
small percentage have had more than a superficial understanding of contracts
and the negotiating skills associated with them. It is a sad irony that after
struggling so hard for so long and at last achieving something worthy, a writer
will then proceed to depreciate its value with a stroke of his pen on a
publishing agreement.
I"m not sure I comprehend this reluctance of writers to understand
and negotiate contracts. I know it"s not necessarily a lack of legal
sophistication. An editor friend of mine tells about the late Justice Abe Fortas
of the United States Supreme Court, whom he signed up to write a book. The
editor mailed off the firm"s standard publishing contract, wondering what
would be left of the document after so distinguished a jurist finished
dismembering it. To the editor"s astonishment it came back by return mail,
signed without so much as one alteration. Appended to the contract was a
note. "I haven"t looked at it," scribbled Fortas, "but I"m sure it"s okay."
Perhaps writers are apprehensive of contracts because they have
something to do with being businesslike, a quality that some artists feel is
not in keeping with the creative spirit. Many writers, particularly new ones,
tend not to think of their work as having commercial or legal value. Not long
ago an agent I know phoned a client to report he"d sold her first book. As
expected, the author went slightly berserk with joy and hung up to share the
news with her family. Fifteen minutes later she phoned back sheepishly. "Uh,
I forgot to ask. How much are they going to pay?" Authors, it seems, are so
grateful somebody wants to publish them that matters of money and contract
become secondary.
The moment a writer receives his first offer for something he"s
written, however, he crosses the threshold into the business world. By
endorsing that first check, he makes a legal commitment every bit as binding
as a lease or a car-purchase agreement. Although lawyers and literary
agents exist to interpret contracts for authors and conduct their business,
rare is the writer who has not woken up one day to the realization that his
appointed representative has not represented his interests as completely, as
competently, as responsibly as was expected. Indeed, not a few wake up to
realize their appointed representative has botched things up terribly. And
that"s just writers who do engage agents or lawyers; there are countless
numbers who don"t, and botch it without professional help.
Consonant with the creative spirit or not, then, it is every writer"s
responsibility to be businesslike, to feel comfortable with a contract, to
understand what his agent or lawyer is trying to do for him, to understand
what a publisher is trying to get him to do. There are some wonderful works
available on how to write, and this book doesn"t pretend to compete with
them. It assumes you"re already writing or have written something and want
to sell it, or have received an offer for it and want to negotiate a good
contract. Despite its title, it is aimed as much at writers who have agents as
at those who do not. Because agents are mortal and subject to errors,
sometimes egregious and even fatal ones, no author is relieved from
responsibility for his contractual commitments merely because he has an
agent who is supposed to be an expert in such affairs. Quite the contrary,
whether your agent is an expert or not, he has no liability whatever for legal
and other problems arising out of documents he hands you to sign. My
purpose for represented writers, then, is to help them understand and oversee
their agent"s work, to become informed clients.
I rest my authority on two qualifications. First, I have been a
literary agent for over forty years. Second, as author of more than fifty books I
have committed just about every contractual blunder on record. Luckily, I am,
I assure you, much better at representing others than I am at representing
myself. But because of these experiences I feel compelled to state this
book"s bias candidly: I"m by no means certain a writer can be his own agent.
The famous proverb of the legal profession, that the lawyer who represents
himself has a fool for a client, may be apt for the writing profession as well.
As my own client I tend to be impatient, to have no objectivity about my
work, and to be so easily flattered that someone wants to publish me as to
accept terms I would sternly reject if they were offered for one of my authors"
properties. So this book is definitely a case of Do What I Say, Not What I Do.
Another bias of this book is that it"s aimed at book, not magazine,
writers. Most of the marketing, negotiation, and contractual strategies
discussed in these pages can be utilized by magazine writers, however.
Because short stories, articles, essays, and poetry sales are so
low-paying, most agents will not handle such material except as a courtesy
to certain clients or in cases where the material clearly has the potential to
sell to a high-paying market. My agency is no exception. But I"m not sure
there"s much an agent can do for magazine writers that they can"t do for
themselves. Magazine editors are much more responsive to unrepresented
authors than book editors are, so it"s easier for magazine writers to get a foot
in the door. The price ranges of magazines are fairly inflexible, so there"s not
that much negotiating leeway for an agent. Magazine purchase agreements
are less complicated than book contracts. All in all, magazine writers can
survive without highly developed business skills; I don"t think book writers
can. Still, all writing paths seem to lead to books; at least I"ve never met a
magazine writer who didn"t have a book in him. Sooner or later, then, every
writer will have to deal with the problems discussed here.
I wish to apologize to all women readers of this book for my use of
the masculine pronoun when referring to authors and editors. Writing this
work has certainly raised my consciousness about the way our language
discriminates against women. At the same time I found that such usages
as "he/she" didn"t sit comfortably with me, and I was twisting sentences into
cruel configurations by employing "they" or "you" or "one" all the time. So I"ve
fallen back on the publishing tradition wherein, on all contracts, the
masculine pronoun signifies writers of either sex.
Finally, a number of statements made in this book are critical of
publishers. For these I will not apologize. But I would like to thank
my publishers for tolerantly permitting me the freedom to make
them. The opinions expressed herein are, I"m fairly certain, not necessarily
those of the sponsor.

Copyright © 1983, 1984, 1996, 2003 by Richard Curtis. Reprinted by
permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Comany
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0618380418
• ISBN 13: 9780618380411
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 297