Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
Authors should not bargain on reversions in this brave new world unless they are prepared to pay for them. The Big Publishers are part of large corporate groups, and the balance sheet comes first. And the publishers rights in each book are assets on that balance sheet.
Literary agents are also on the way out. They were yet another snout at the trough in the traditional publishing system, with a high likelihood of a conflict of interest by the very nature of their profession. As Chris Rusch pointed out on a number of occasions on her blog, many of them engaged in legal and negotiating work for which they usually had no qualifications whatsoever, and in the case of the legal work may even have been breaking the law in many jurisdictions.
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Well, the time to bargain is when they are talking contract, not after the fact. I agree that the large corporate publishing house where there is more control by the home office is a lot less likely to revert a book as a matter of courtesy.
I'm not so sure that literary agents are on the way out. It seems to me to be folly for most authors to negotiate their own contracts without someone who knows the business to warn them of the traps. Most of the authors that I read seem to go out of their way to praise their agents.
Certainly, if you have an agent who isn't qualified that's a major problem, but then again, that's the same for any legal work, or really any work in general. You also don't want a roofer, electrician or plumber who isn't qualified.
One of the more interesting things that I've noticed is that many successful authors seem to have quite a support network. I just finished Tamora Pierce's latest book and she thanks her support network at the end of the book. It's quite a list.