How the agent's job has changed

[John Jarrold]

Here's a snippet from an interview with veteran New York literary agent Nat Sobel, which had me nodding agreement vigorously:

"I think what is evolving today for agents is that they need to be the first line editors for their authors. Judith and I really love the editing process. We have spent years editing nearly every novel we've ever agented. We did that long before we began to discover how little editing was going on in the publishing houses. But today agents need to be far more proactive in almost every other area of the publishing process. We have to be the marketing directors for many of our books. We have to involve ourselves in looking at the jacket design, the jacket copy, the catalogue copy. We have to be very proactive in how we help direct the writer to help sell his or her book. Those are things you never thought about in agenting when I first came into it. You made the deal, you negotiated the contract, and that was it—the publisher took over."

Editors involve me in all areas of the book. They can't build a little walled fiefdom in which agents are not welcome in the 21st century, though some try. The agent in 2008 must have an overview of all aspects leading up to and on through publication of his or her clients' books.

The whole interview is here, and makes fascinating reading: http://pw.org/content/agents_amp_editors_qampa_agent_nat_sobel

[chopper]

that is fascinating reading, John, though i'm also interested in the paragraph below the one you quoted, given the conversations on the Chrons in the last few days on self-promotion by authors:

Today the writer very much needs to be proactive. When I have writers who have the kind of personality that they enjoy going out and selling their books, and I've gotten them a big enough advance, they are smart enough, with my guidance, to put some of that advance aside and spend their own money to get the book off the ground. I think that being able to suggest things to writers, things they can do themselves to help sell the book, is getting to be as important a factor as helping them to edit the work. It's been amazing to me how much money a publisher will spend to acquire a book, and how little they will spend to make the book a success.

s

[John Jarrold]

Dead right.

[indigotwilight]

This is really interesting. It makes one wonder just what the future has in store for the industry as a whole.
Could there be a point where an agent and author decides to publish by themselves, cutting out the mainstream publisher altogether? It seems, on reading, that as the publishers are far more likely to take on non-fiction projects on the basis they are 'easier' to sell, then many more fiction writers will start up their own independent publishing chains.
Look inside most novels, and you can see: Typsetting by such-and-such. Printed and bound at ----, and the publisher just throws in the start up capital for the production costs. If a publisher can send off a typscript to these places, then surely an agent and author can too.

It reminds me, a little, of the music industry. Research into the independent scene tells you many of these bands started up on their own labels, often triggered by a disgruntled audience fed up with the 'manufactured' quality of music from the the larger record companies. In the eighties came punk and gothic, later the Indie scene with the advent of bands like Stone Roses and The Charlatans. Then, one day, the indie scene took off, giving rise to Oasis, Blur, Sleeper and countless others. It split, it went commercial, it turned into Brit-Pop and became the next big thing.
At the turn of the millenium, heavy metal music was a thriving market again. Gothic and Punk endured a massive revival. Suddenly, there were new genres replacing the old. Hard-core punk gave way to Emo, Metal to Nu-metal... Gothic merged with sythpop to create a new type of Industrial.

Could a similar thing happen in publishing?

Twi

[John Jarrold]

There are certainly conversations going on within and without the major publishers about the multiplying routes authors can take to publication in the 21st century.

But sales and marketing are also in the mix (and many other aspects of publishing that I undertook over fifteen years), and the best publishers do expend a great deal of time and money on those matters.

No easy answer.