page 1 the pitch fall 2013 The Newsletter for the Association of Authors' Representatives Contents Letter from the How can the $9.99 e-book be fair when we are trying to sell the new 1. Letter From The President President: The "New hardcover for $22.95? 3. From Bikes To Books To • What on earth is an “e-book” Blockbusters Normal" anyway?! How do we figure out 5. A “Small Claims” Proposal For what is a fair e-book royalty? Well, Copyright Infringement Claims maybe we don't have to worry too 5. Committee Report: Contracts ear AAR Members and Friends, much, because people like paper, D and the only people who read 6. Mark Your Calendars All of us of a certain age have electronically are probably those 7. The Buyers been looking backwards wistfully oddball nerds who are glued to 10. On Adaptations towards a calmer, earlier time, when their computers and stay up all an agent’s biggest fears might have night Googling various things and 11. New Members included: reading stuff on the Internet. 12. In Memoriam: Carl Brandt • Will I be able to manage a raise • How do I explain to my author 13. Committee Report: Digital for the fourth mystery novel in my that the publishing landscape Rights lovely client’s unsuccessful series? is becoming more corporate, 14. Behind The Scenes At • How far can I push the publisher and that there are no longer 35 Dealmakers to improve the paperback split? major houses to which we can send • How can we prevent our novels his manuscript? 15. Committee Report: Website from being snuck into big film 16. Up And Coming Editors studios, ruining our chances for And now, long-time agents are feeling 19. Prof ile Of A Small Press: City legitimate submissions to hand- the pinch of the “new normal:” Lights picked producers who might have • A four-million dollar author is 20. Committee Report: Royalties the clout to buy these properties? down to a $1.7 million advance, • Can I manage to get uptown to the and pouts; the author who gets 21. Big Moves King Cole Bar for lunch and back only rejections for a year and then 21. Alert in time for my 2:15 PM meeting? receives a $7,500 deal from a 23. Committee Report: modest-sized respected press also International Then there was a time when our worries pouts and claims this does not sounded like this: show that the publisher is really 24. Publicity Contact Sheet 2013 • There are fewer and fewer UK “committed” – does the publisher 29. Board Of Directors deals; foreign business is much even like the book, with such a slower; and while my author is busy low offer?! (And while I may be personally casting the movie, the toasting his success in this same film agents hardly want to take up deal, the author is consulting the properties because “nothing is all of his writer friends who selling.” commiserate and confirm the • My client is wondering why his author’s dismay.) book is available as an “e-book” and • An editor admits that he did on sale the same day as the hard not even read the whole partial copy publication date.... What is manuscript from a respected this, some kind of sub-rights deal author with whom he had that we forgot to explain to him? worked for years at a previous continued on page 2 page 2 the pitch fall 2013 continued from page 1 job, because he fears this kind of people won’t guarantee any paper iPad and find yourself buried in work novel is not quite what the current edition – the format must be up yet again, airplane to hotel … hotel house really wants to be buying, to the publisher’s discretion, as back to airplane. and these days he hardly brings the contract has always said, and In cases where you are slow to read, any fiction to the bosses because who knows what the publishing or where you try hard but have not yet fiction now is so hard. marketplace will be like when the found a publisher, the author may send • Agents’ days are full of so many book is finally delivered, etc. So cookies, or brownies, but then calls a more time-consuming tasks now I have to tell my client, alas, week later to sweetly discuss the “next and details – new contract terms, sorry, this is the best we can do: step.” Or to ask where that money an overload of rejections, anxious publication within 18 months from China is already, which they calls from anxious authors – that in a format the publisher deems thought they would use to pay their there’s no way on earth we will find appropriate. taxes, which are due in 30 days. And the time to go through our decades somewhere in the middle of all this, of backlist to see what can be set I am hearing from my peers – your mother calls to ask if you would up as an e-book, and with which agents for decades and often the heads do an informational interview with her e-book company. of independent agencies – that just next-door neighbor’s granddaughter • How can I tell a beloved author, when they were hoping to delegate a – it won’t take very much time; or to who has become a personal friend, tad more, and take it a little easy, they say that her tennis partner’s nephew the nasty news that the new novel are busier than they have ever been in who never managed to hold a real job (which we have labored on together their lives. has written a novel, and your mother for years) is just not appealing to Reading piles are so high that volunteered that you would be willing anyone, that no one wants to buy it, you fantasize calling in sick – but it to take a look at it. “I know you are and that he may have to put it aside would take three weeks of sick leave busy, but just take an hour or two for now and totally reinvent himself to accomplish all this reading! Some for this, honey; do it for me, I would with some fresh new idea, emphasis of these manuscripts recommended by really appreciate it.” on fresh? editors or top writers may actually be (By the way, does anyone out there • I have a deal and the author needs good! But even if they were all Pulitzer still have a personal life?!) to get paid now, but the publisher Prize quality, you cannot take them all This, I fear, is the new normal for has totally revamped its boilerplate on. And of course they will not all be some of us. I have spoken to brilliant, and even after four to five weeks so worthy, but each writer needs to feel dedicated agents who sound ready to working on the document, there your special love, best demonstrated by throw in the towel. I have heard from are numerous sticking points I can’t a deep and quick response, and, they famous agents whose work has been resolve. Big corporate agencies are figure, how much time, really, does it their whole life for 30, 40 years, who refusing to sign contracts with this take to read a 240-page manuscript? just cannot keep up with the new house – and announcing they may (Why on earth would it take more than technologies and contract terms. I hear not do business with this house two or three weeks?!) from independent agents with excellent, until it is resolved – but how can I You prepare to go on vacation, curated lists who realize that the (and my client), with so much less finally, and figure this is the time to investment and selectivity that defined clout, afford to hold out? read that award-winning biography their work over the past many years will • At the very end of negotiating you’ve had your eyes on, or that novel not indeed yield strong enough backlist a contract for a nonfiction book everyone was talking about, or the latest revenue, and that the idea of retirement that is due in two and a half years, Booker Prize winner. You have loaded is really an elusive dream. I realize there is no guarantee your iPad so you don’t have to carry a How times have changed! I think of hardcover publication and juicy stack of “real” books. Then, an hour younger agents manage to maintain the editor has been unsure if before you clock out, there is an intense a brighter perspective, as they don’t they would do a hardcover or a call from a big client, or someone calls have the benefit of knowing a time paperback. My client wants a in a favor, or your colleague begs you to when things were so different; the guarantee so I push, but I realize do a quick read of something that came next generation is also much more ultimately that the contracts into the office ... and you reload the computer-literate and they have much continued on page 3 page 3 the pitch fall 2013 continued from page 2 to contribute to the old guard and to From Bikes To Books day, “After you take this course, you’ll our clients on matters of digitization, have a harder time finding an apartment social media, and spreading the word To Blockbusters in New York City than finding a job.” in a new way to a new generation of And they were right.