For this commentary, I’ll be referring to the 2003 revised version of HOW TO BE YOUR OWN LITERARY AGENT by Richard Curtis. Curtis is a NYC literary agent who has run his own agency since the 1970s, and been in the publishing industry even longer than that. He’s also got some experience as a published writer as well.
The main goal of the book is to encourage writers to be more educated about contracts, marketing, what agents do, and the publishing industry as a whole. He encourages writers to find an agent, but wants them to be able to tell if the agent is doing a good job or not. And also, he’s aware there are markets (such as small presses), where it may be next to impossible to find a good agent to represent a writer. So this book tries to fill in a few of the knowledge gaps.
I found the Appendix “Is It a Good Deal?” invaluable. Here he has a checklist, from an agent’s perspective, of what he considers a “poor,” “fair,” or “good” deal from a NYC publisher. Rights granted, advance amounts, royalty rates–it’s all listed. I would want to double-check with other resources such as Publisher’s Marketplace for more recent data, but the appendix is a handy place to start.
I also found very helpful the chapters where he goes through a publishing contract from an agent’s perspective (i.e. what he looks for). In particular the chapters on “Negotiation,” “The Basic Deal,” “Warranties and Indemnities,” “Permissions,” “The Option Clause,” “Termination and Reversion of Rights,” and “Royalty Statements” made this a book I wanted to buy to put on my reference shelf. Even though much is changing in the publishing industry, some fundamental issues have not.
This book alone is not enough to understand all that goes into a publishing contract, I’d still need to hire a literary attorney or agent to read over any NYC publishing contract I encountered. But now I know what questions to ask and what major pitfalls to watch out for.
Also, throughout the book are tales about the foibles of the publishing industry, which I found fun to read since Curtis has decades of experience to share.
For an excerpt, I’ll share some words of encouragement he wanted to give to writers:
So you mustn’t be discouraged if your first book or books don’t take off into the wild blue yonder….few blockbusters are first books. Rather, they are the culmination of years of dedication to craft, and a number of flops or indifferent successes….Do what you can to make your book succeed, but after you’ve done all you can, go back and write another, and another after that, and yet another after that.
