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Originally Posted by darryl
You mean of course literature majors with no legal or business qualifications and a built-in conflict of interest should break the law by giving their poor clients legal advice on contracts. Agents are on the way out, with very good reason. And trustworthy agents is almost an oxymoron.
Amazon is certainly no Saint. One way in which it has distinguished itself in the past is by taking a longer term view and a wider one. And a Big 5 publishing contract is vastly more onerous than an Apub one, let alone KDP terms. Amazon is not giving authors more favourable terms out of the goodness of its heart. It is doing it because it is good business. What Audible has done here is not. Nor are the Big 5's contracts including the current rights grab mentality.
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Most agents, if they are not lawyers, have lawyers on staff or at least on retainer. As far as conflict of interest, as far as I know, agents are paid as a percentage of what the author makes on a deal. They want to maximize their return as much as anyone else. If an agent screws an author over, word gets out. Hiring a good agent is mostly word of mouth anyway. Sports figures hire agents, many people hire agents when they are selling or buying a house. All the same incentives apply in those situations. If you don't trust your agent, then hire a lawyer yourself to read the contract.
With Amazon, the key thing to remember is they where they are in the cycle. Back when they were trying to establish market share, they were giving customers great deals. Now that they control the vast majority of market share for both ebooks and audiobooks, that generosity goes out the window. We saw it with how they treat indie authors and KU, and have seen it in a number of similar situations. When they think they have the whip hand, they play hard ball.