I’ve had a number of people write to me in response to my recent post about 2013 publishing predictions, asking how I felt the role of literary agents is changing. It used to be that an agent basically offered four benefits: (1) an editing/sounding board for writing and ideas; (2) access to publishers; (3) contract and statement assistance; and (4) some type of career advice. There are a bunch of other ideas people bring up (such as “maximize the advance!” and “be the tough guy when things get ugly!”), and no doubt several other iterations of the ideas above, but I think those are the four big content areas in which agents have generally served.

But now we’re in a new era. The way books are produced, marketed, delivered, and sold to readers has changed considerably over the past few years. The sales channels are completely altered. Publishers have overhauled their staffing and methods. New jobs exist that didn’t used to exist, and old ones have faded out of existence. The advent of digital publishing has not just created this new product called “e-books,” but have helped reshape the entire industry. So it only makes sense that a literary agent shouldn’t be doing his or her job the same way it was being done ten years ago. To that end, I thought I’d try to offer thoughts on how I see an agent’s role in contemporary publishing.

First, a good agent is still doing editing, but perhaps even more book and project concepting. Idea development and packaging are an essential part of the role now. Your agent needs to be talking with you not just about “how to do an ebook,” but how various projects and packages fit into your overall business plan.

Second, I think the notion of an agent giving an author access to publishers has evolved into an agent as interactor — networking with various publishing types, as well as connecting with marketing and publicity people, serving as your advocate, and being a well-informed source to keep you abreast of what’s happening in the industry and how you ought to be participating in it. So while the agent undoubtedly is an author’s biggest cheerleader, more importantly he or she helps with “relationship management” for all those parties associated with your books.

Third, a good agent continues to deal with contracts and royalty statements, of course — something that’s become necessary in an industry that seems to have been taken over by attorneys. But more than that, agents today are essentially serving as business managers for the authors they serve — exploring ideas, looking for opportunities, keeping abreast of sales data, suggesting changes, and taking care of those things that allow the author to focus on writing. Making sense of sales data and (For all the yammering about agents that went on with some popular bloggers in recent years, it’s humorous to note that all those writers who found success immediately went out and landed an agent, in order to have someone knowledgable assist with this area.)

Fourth, most successful literary agents are still offering career advice, but are also heavily involved with platform creation, marketing plans, public relations, and readership growth. Part of the agent’s job these days is to make sure the author remains relevant in the market, which means the agent needs to remain on top of trends much more than we used to. This is perhaps the biggest area of change for agents — and the one that separates the agent who simply wants to “do the deal and disappear.”

Fifth, and one of the ways the job has evolved recently, is that agents are now actively pursuing not just subrights (foreign editions, translations, dramatic rights, derivatives, etc), but serving as a sort of clearinghouse for author opportunities. So, for example, offering advice marketing copy, or discussing how an author website reflects the overall brand, or connecting with the technical specialists who can help for a specific problem, are all elements of the job that I didn’t used to do, but that I regularly find myself doing now.

I’ve been told more than once that the role of the literary agent is fading away — but I’ve also been told that publishers were going away, the printed book was dead, and in an age of an omnipresent web we would no longer need sales people. All of those things were untrue. The industry has changed, and the role of the literary agent continues to change with it.

So a few years ago, I posted “predictions” for the future of publishing. I clearly don’t have the gift of prophecy, but thought it would be fun to go back and look at what I had to say, and how my predictions panned out. This is from Dec of 2009:

1. Borders will survive, but Barnes & Noble will take over. Um… wrong. Borders, a fun but poorly managed business, is gone. B&N has taken over, but we’ll see if that lasts.

2. A major author will self-publish. This seems comical now, with everybody self-publishing, but at the time there was a question if established authors would try self-pubbing or remain exclusively with traditional publishers. Score a small one for me.

3. Ebooks will more than double in sales. Ha! It didn’t take a genius to figure that out, apparently. Ebooks have doubled, doubled again, then doubled again. Now the growth is slowing, but it’s still the future. I was right, but a blind man could have picked this horse.

4. Authors and publishers will offer a lot of free ebooks to boost readership. Again, this seems stupefyingly obvious now. So I was right on the basic idea. I just didn’t realize a million wannabes would glut the market with crummy free books, and therefore dilute the value of free ebooks.

5. Libraries will move to ebooks. Well… who knows? They want to, apparently, but publishers are worried about usage and lost revenues, so it’s still not clear how libraries are going to work (or if we need all of them, in an age when anybody can google a topic on their laptop). No points for me on this one.

6. Apple will create an e-reader. Um… score big on that one. This prediction was made before anyone had heard of an iPad, by the way. Again, it might be obvious now, but at the time it was a guess made by looking at the market.

7. Publishers will acquire websites in order to target niche audiences, and replace book sections in newspapers. Okay, this was one time I reached a bit. I thought publishers would purchase and promote some of the big, successful book websites. Instead, they simply started their own sites.

8. Publisher print catalogs and sales conferences will die out. Totally wrong. I guessed this because I thought the notion of a catalog and “selling season” were becoming passé. While companies have gone to a digital catalog, and are doing more with online ordering, the fact is that  everybody still has a sales conference and creates a catalog of titles. Oops.

9. There will be a hardcover option for every book. I thought everyone who posted an ebook would have the opportunity to generate a hardcover edition for true fans. Swung and missed. One of the weaknesses in the current system at Amazon or B&N or Smashwords is that offering a “print” option of an ebook is a completely separate decision, a separate package, a separate set-up cost. (If I were going to make predictions this year, it would be that Amazon will figure out this mistake and solve it.)

10. Everybody will switch to XML. I assumed expandable markup language would be the core of every document. It’s still the basis of Word and iWork, but it’s clear that I lack the techno-geek qualifications to look into the future of digital bookmaking and tell readers anything about software. My bad.

So…. not a bad prognosticator, but not exactly as good as the Mayans, who predicted the world will end next Wednesday, in case you aren’t ready. You may want to go ahead and indulge in that extra slice of pie this weekend.

While on an agent’s panel at ACFW in September, I sat next to Lee Hough, one of the smartest and hardest working agents in the business. While we all fielded the typical questions we get as panelists, someone asked a question about the current state of affairs in publishing, and how agents are faring.

When you look at writers who are making a living at their writing, you find they come in two basic types:

TYPE 1 is the writer who writes all over the map. There are plenty of examples of this in publishing – writers who do kids books, teen books, women’s fiction, romance, thrillers, study guides, and the occasional novella. They publish with multiple publishers, self-publish some titles, do some work-for-hire or collaborative writing, and cobble together a living. This author has good years and bad, makes decent money, is certainly out there a lot. On the nonfiction side, you find this much more with journalistic types — they’re taking on a variety of projects in order to make a living. 

TYPE 2 is the writer who figures out what she wants to write, then writes it. She focuses on a genre, figures out her voice, and writes to that audience. An example of this is Terry Blackstock (there are plenty of others). Terry is writing suspense novels, everybody recognizes her voice, and she’s focused on that one audience. Another is an author I represent, Lisa Samson. Lisa writes literary fiction, knows who she is and what her style is, and focuses on it. 

I’ll tell you right now that TYPE 1 writers rarely hit it big. She might make a good living, but it’s tough to really hit the big time when you move around in categories. You know that feeling of being overwhelmed because you’re doing six books in four different genres? Well, that’s the sort of life a TYPE 1 author is going to lead forever, because she finds it tough build an audience. Readers have trouble following her. Bookstore owners have a hard time getting behind her because they don’t know what her next book is going to be. That’s not to say you shouldn’t do this — frankly, it may be the only way to make a living with writing these days. Some writers do this and make a great living, but they rarely hit it big because their releases are diffuse. 

TYPE 2 authors have a much greater chance of building an audience, hitting the big time, partnering with retailers, establishing a brand, not working so hard or writing so many books. BUT it’s more risky being a TYPE 2. Why? Because what if your voice doesn’t catch on? Take a look at publisher mid-lists — they are filled with good authors (occasionally great craftspeople) who are writing and publishing but struggling along. I can think of a couple fantastic writers — literate, fun, insightful, with solid craftwork… but they’ve never really had a hit. There’s no guarantee that becoming a TYPE 2 author will establish you as a bestselling author. On the other hand, a good TYPE 2 author continues to get published, because she’s GOOD.

So…ask yourself what you want to be. One problem I see is that many authors writing numerous historical novels aren’t taking the long view – they started out with the goal of “landing a contract,” and they continue with that as a goal. I would simply suggest a better goal than “landing another contract” would be “establishing a successful long-term career.”

Again, there’s no right or wrong here — just differences. Would love your take on this.

Got a publishing or writing question? Send it to me and I’ll try to get you an answer. 

Lisa McKay is a psychologist and the author of the award-nominated novel My Hands Came Away Red. A memoir, Love at the Speed of Email, will be released in June 2012. She lives in Laos with her husband and infant son. To learn more, visit www.lisamckaywriting.com.

When my first book, My Hands Came Away Red, was published, I fell prey to an addiction that afflicts many authors at some point during their publishing career. It’s a behaviour I now call amazturbation – obsessively checking your own Amazon ranking to see how your book is stacking up sales-wise against the hundreds of thousands of other books that Amazon sells.

I visited Amazon to check the rise and fall of this number first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

I checked it when I was feeling glum and when I was feeling all right.

I checked it at work and I checked it home. I even checked it on my phone.

I checked that number at breakfast and I checked it at lunch.

I checked that number a whole, whole bunch.

My Amazon addiction started the way most addictions do – with a rush. Right after the book was released I was in Ghana, traveling for work. When I got access to the internet for the first time in a couple of days I dropped by my Amazon page to see if anyone had left a new review, and was amazed to see that my sales ranking was way higher than it had ever been before.

After an exhausting and stressful week of leading workshops on trauma, seeing that happy number was a huge rush. And I wanted more of that feeling.

Understandable? Yes. Dangerous? Also, yes.

We authors have never had so many ways at our disposal to track and quantify our own popularity. We can find out Amazon sales rankings as well as state-by-state statistics on our book sales during the previous month (thank you, April 2012 shoppers in California and Tennessee). We can google our book’s name, or our own, and read what people are saying about our work. And, of course, we can look to the number of facebook friends we have, or twitter followers, or comments or shares on our blog, as markers of our “success.”

Access to sales information and reviews is wonderful. It can help us learn new things about how and why our work appeals to people. This, in turn, can help us to make more informed decisions about what we write and how we market it.

But.

It is also terrible. Time spent repeatedly checking our Amazon sales ranking (or facebook page, blog stats, reviews, etc.) is time wasted that we could have spent creating.

Easy and almost instant access to these forums makes it tempting to divert to browsing the web whenever we get stuck while we’re writing. Feeding that temptation to take a quick break whenever we hit a creative pause will eventually erode our ability to focus on our work for extended periods of time. That ability is a foundational skill for writers.

Finally, too much information about what others think of our work just isn’t good for us.

Too much praise can lead to inflated egos and/or a paralysing fear of never being able to live up to previous successes.

Too much censure can lead to self-doubt and de-motivate us to keep on writing and striving to improve at our craft.

Too great an awareness of the global faceless audience can foster an awareness of yourself and others that is exactly the opposite of the suspension of self-consciousness that can prove so necessary to getting down our first drafts. When you are too aware of what others might think, you can over-censor yourself, muffle your natural voice and write to the middle in an effort to please everyone. The result will probably be forgettable and uninspiring writing.

In 2008, when I caught myself checking Amazon for at least the twentieth time that day, I decided to go cold turkey on checking Amazon and reading reviews for a month. After that I allowed myself to check my sales stats once a week. Now I go months without thinking about these figures (although I suspect that will change when my new book, Love at the Speed of Email, releases in June).

Everyone is different, though, and what worked for me may not be what’s best for you. The really important thing is to have a plan for how you engage with the global faceless audience online. Here are three steps that might help:

1. Identify one or more good writing habits that you want to cultivate. It might be, for example, spending half an hour creating before you even check your email or working for at least two hours of internet-free time every day.
2. Then decide how often and when you’ll browse things like your sales rankings, blog stats and reviews. Daily? Weekly? Monthly?
3. Ask someone to keep you accountable.

Whatever else you decide, do yourself a favour and make sure that amazturbation becomes an occasional fun past time instead of an addiction, because checking how well you’re selling is a poor substitute for doing what you do best…writing.

You can pick up a copy of Love at the Speed of Email on Amazon or Barnes and Noble (a portion of my profits will be going to support charities here in Laos) or drop by my blog and say hello. I’d love to hear from you.

Cheryl wrote to ask, "What is the process of getting your proposal selected by a publishing house?"

Think of a publishing house as being an actual building. Your proposal probably isn't walking in the front door. More than likely it's sliding into the building by way of a window known as an acquisitions editor (often an acquaintance of your agent, sometimes a person you met at a conference, or maybe a guy who lost a bet). He or she will read through it, make some suggestions, talk it over with your agent, and eventually make a decision on whether or not they think it's worth pursuing.

Most publishers are relying on agents to do the initial filtering of junk, so the slush pile has sort of moved from the publishing house to the agent's office…which means you're going to have to sell it to an agent first, therefore adding one more step to this process.

Once it's in the building, if the acquisitions editor likes it he or she will take it to some sort of editorial committee, where they sit around grousing about their pay and making editorial jokes. ("I'm having a DICKENS of a time with this one!" "Yeah, let's catch a TWAIN out of town!" Editorial types love this sort of humor. That's why they're editors and not writers.) Eventually they'll run out of bad puns and be forced to discuss the merits of your proposal. If it's a non-fiction book, is it unique? Does it answer a question people are asking? Is there a perceived market for it? Does the writing feel fresh and offer genuine solutions to the question that's posed? If it's a novel, does the story have a clear hook? Is there a well-defined audience for it? Does it feel new, or as though it's a story that's been told a million times? (The fact is, it probably HAS been told a million times. There are only so many stories. The question is really if the author can make it feel as though he or she has a fresh take on the story.) If the whole package passes muster, it moves to the next step…

The Publishing Committee, which is a group generally made up of folks from editorial, marketing, sales, accounting, and administration. They'll meet somewhere between once a  week to once a month, and they'll have an agenda of books to talk through each time, with the various representatives offering their own perspectives — the editors will talk about the merits of the words; the accountants will figure out the costs and potential dollars in play; the sales guys will begin discussing who they can sell copies to; and the marketing people will sit around trying to think of how to cover their sorry hind ends. They'll talk about the market for the book, if it fits with the rest of the books on their list, the author's platform, what it would cost to print the book, what the marketing costs would be, and how many sales they think they could generate. This is the group that will explore the feasibility of doing your book. They may send it back to the acquisitions editor to do some work.

At that point, the editor has to run a Profit & Loss sheet or pro forma, in which they'll take wild surmises as to how many copies they can expect to sell in the first year, what the hard costs of ink/paper/binding will be, how much money they'll have to throw at the money-grubbing author, who, if she really loved words, would write her damn books for free, since we all know the publishers are only in it for the joy of reading and to serve humanity. The editor will take all this information back to the publishing committee, who by now has had all sorts of time to think up new reasons why they shouldn't do the book. They'll talk about it again, this time with hard numbers attached. Eventually the pub board will be forced to make an actual decision, so they'll probably throw the Urim and Thummim, maybe pull out an Ouija board, and make a decision.

I've heard people say there are a series of "sales" to get to this point. The author sells the agent. The agent sells the editor. The editor sells the editorial team. The editorial team sells the pub board. Once they make a decision to actually contract the book, they have to negotiate a deal, then put it on a list and make it part of the process — because the sales guys are going to have to sell it to retail accounts, who will attempt to sell it to the reading public. It's a lot of work. And all of that points to one thing: It's tough to get published. Each step along the way is an investment, so even the books they say "no" to have had dollars spent on them.

A publishing house has all those filters in place so that they can do the easy thing and say "no" to you. (Really.) The purpose of the process is to say "no" to most everything. Therefore create proposals they can't say "no" to. Yes, that's easier said than done, and we're going to start talking about creating great proposals in the next few weeks, but that's the basic mindset — work on your proposal so that it piques their interest, provides a clear hook, and answers any objections. If you do that, your proposal is much more apt to be selected by a publishing house. 

Kevin wrote to say, "I'm about to negotiate my own book contract! What is important for me to know?"

If you're at the stage of negotiating your own publishing contract, congratulations. It means you've created a strong proposal, shopped it to publishing houses, and found an editor interested in your work. Those are huge hurdles, so you've already done well. Now what's going to happen is that the publisher is going to approach you with some details and numbers. Let me offer a handful of thoughts for you…

1. Have a Plan. A contract negotiation isn't just a bunch of random conversations, helping two people move things forward. It's one piece of a larger discussion about your book — how both sides view its value, what it will pay, how it's going to be produced and marketed, etc. Therefore, do your homework before you go into the negotiation. You should have researched what the market is paying (so you get a fair deal, but you don't ask for the moon), you should know what rights you want to keep or give away, and you should have a familiarity with the issues that will be involved in a publishing contract. All of this takes time (and all of this is why authors get agents who, presumably, know this stuff).

2. Take a Positive Approach. Too many people seem to have learned all their negotiation strategies from watching television dramas — the two high-powered lawyers point fingers, pound the table, make demands, and generally act like jerks. That's not an approach that's going to work very often in publishing. From my point of view, you have to develop a relationship with the person you're going to negotiate with. That way there's a sense of trust on both sides. You really want to establish some rapport with the person you're negotiating with, so that you both keep in mind the big picture of making this a successful book. Think of it this way: would you rather buy insurance from a trusted friend who happens to sell insurance, or from some stranger who shows up at your door? All of us prefer doing business with people we know. So approach your contract negotiation in a spirit of cooperation, rather than a spirit of confrontation.

3. Think Win/Win. The publishing of books is a business, so put away all your thoughts about just being helpful or friendly, and approach this as strictly business. Believe me, the publisher will take this approach. The goal isn't just to "win," but to help both sides feel as if they're winning. The publisher needs to be able to sell the book at a profit. The author needs to be able to make a living. From the start of your discussions, let both sides be thinking of winning, of doing well, of making this project succeed. Again, television dramas have a tendency to make it seem as though one side must win and the other must lose. In the real world, that doesn't work. I want every publisher I deal with to be successful. I want them to make money, to sell lots of books, and to want to work with me on other projects. So as you're putting your plan together, don't just focus on "how can I get this deal to my advantage?", but think of "how I can help the publisher succeed?" If both of you come out of this negotiation feeling good, you've set yourself up for a healthy long-term relationship.

More on this topic tomorrow… but feel free to ask questions about negotiations. 

We've been exploring what you need to know when you approach a book contract. Here are five more questions to ask…

11. Are there restrictions on the sale of the contract? Check to see if your publisher has the right to sell the entire deal to another house. This doesn't happen often, but it can happen, especially with smaller houses, and you need to be aware of the possibility. It would mean you go through the entire process of negotiating a deal with one house, then suddenly you find yourself working with another house. I once had a sleaze-ball publisher sign a well-known personality to a book, then immediately start shopping the contract… In other words, he never had any intention of publishing the book; he just wanted to sign a lowball deal and flip it to a bigger house. (This is something he admitted to me, but denied to the author. Mr. Sleazeball is now an agent, by the way.)

12. If it all goes south, who pays for the lawyers? Remember that a contract is put in place to clarify two things: what will happen if everything goes well, and what will happen if everything goes to hell. A good contract covers both scenarios. In case of the latter, check to see who covers the cost of the lawyers. True story: A short while back I was sent a contract that called for the publisher to pick the lawyer, but the author to pay for it. Um… we suggested a minor wording change to keep the author from getting hosed.  

13. Does your contract clarify what constitutes "out of print"? It should be simple: When the publisher is no longer selling your book, it's out of print. Don't get caught up in windy explanations of why publishing-on-demand titles constitute a book for sale. (Years ago, I worked on a deal where a publisher claimed a popular author's book was still "in print" because they still were offering an audio version to libraries, so they still controlled rights.) Get a clear definition that includes having regular books commercially available. This has gotten much more complicated since ebooks became popular, so you're going to have to figure out if a digital book qualifies. Most publishers will say it does… so WHEN do you have a chance to actually get those rights reverted? Possibly never. So read your contract carefully. 

14. Does your contract have an option clause? There are various forms of options — everything from "you promise us your next book" to "we'd like you to give us a first look at your next one." Options aren't necessarily evil (they can reveal a commitment on the part of the publisher to an author's career), but you should know the risks and rewards of a proposed option clause. (True Item: In days of yore, one publisher used to insert an option clause that promised two books for every one you published… so an author could never actually get out from under the contract. For every book he wrote, he owed two additional titles. Ugh. That's no longer the case at that house, by the way.)

15. Is this a perfect contract? The answer, for those who aren't sure, is "nope." In a perfect world, you'd get a perfect contract. But, in case you haven't been paying attention to the war in Afghanistan and the Republican primaries, we don't live in a perfect world. So while you'll sometimes hear people make declarations about all contracts (things like "You should NEVER sign a multi-book deal!" and "I MUST have approval of my cover!" and "I would NEVER allow them to cross collateralize my contract!"), be aware that a contract is a negotiated settlement. You ask for some things, you give up other things. That's the nature of the business. Every good agent understands that. And it's why you might be best served having somebody negotiate on your behalf. Nobody gets everything they want, so learn to compromise and you'll find yourself more at peace with the process.  If you approach a book contract as a sort of partnership between author and publisher, rather than as a battle to be won, you'll be happier with the results. I'll talk more about how to negotiate a contract next week. 

Okay, so you've got a book contract, and you're wondering what you don't know. Here are a few more questions to ask…

6. When will the book be published? In most book contracts there is a window that explains your book will be made available for sale within two years. I recently saw a contract that had a five-year window on it, and another contract that didn't limit the publishing time at all. The danger (and it's happened to others) is that you'll turn in a book the publisher keeps forever but never actually publishes. Generally you want wording where the publisher makes a legal promise to produce your print book in an 18-to-24 month window, your ebook faster. 

7. When are advances paid? Make sure you know when you're getting paid. Traditionally an author received half the advance on signing and the other half on completion. Many of the New York houses now pay one-third on signing, one-third on delivery, and one-third on publication. Random House has this author-unfriendly clause that calls for one quarter of the advance to be paid a year after the book releases (so it's not really an "advance," it's more like a "delay"). And HarperCollins pays a portion of the advance after the author has filled out a marketing questionnaire — their way of making sure they get their information. I recently saw a contract that called for the advance to be broken into eighths (signing, completion of a questionnaire, after an interview with marketing, completion of the manuscript, completion of typesetting… um…the next full moon, etc.)

8. When are royalties paid? Many publishing houses pay twice per year. Some of the larger houses pay quarterly. I still see some contracts that call for royalty payments to authors once per year… and no, that publisher won't be offering to pay you interest on that money they've been holding for you. And your ebook publisher might pay you monthly. Find out when you're getting paid, and if it's less than twice per year, request they send you your money more frequently. 

9. If you're doing a novel, who owns the subsidiary rights? Publishers are in the business of licensing and selling rights, so they'll ask for the dramatic rights to your story. But check something out — Has this publisher ever sold dramatic rights? Do they actively pursue movie and TV deals? If not, you might be wasting your time granting them to the house. Nothing frustrates an author more than having rights that could be generating income tied up with a house doing nothing. 

10. If you're doing a nonfiction book, what's your buy-back discount? The publisher's boilerplate contract will call for you to receive about ten copies of your printed book, and allow you to purchase your own book at about a 40% discount. But if you speak to large groups, you'll want to negotiate for a better deal. You don't want to be in competition with your publisher, but if you regularly have a captive audience listening to you speak, selling books is a sure money-maker for you, and your publisher isn't losing money on the deal, so ask for more copies and a better buy-back rate. 

What questions are you asking when negotiating a contract?