Agent eat agent

by Jim

Holy animosity, Batman! In one of the more unexpected blog posts I’ve read lately, agent Betsy Lerner took aim at people she hates: namely, literary agents. Including (it seems) herself!

Betsy equates the publishing tradition of agent/editor lunches to having someone shit on her face. Now, I’ve had some bad lunches, but… She then goes on to describe agenting as “being a professional sleaze bag.”

I’m not gonna lie. When I first read this, my hackles raised, and I muttered something like, “What a load of [string of expletives].” But that was defensive me talking. (Defensive me has a really dirty mouth). I quickly settled down, but I still don’t really agree with Betsy’s take.

I’m sure there are editors who hate agents and agents who hate editors, and I know there are terrible people in every business. But for the most part, I enjoy my colleagues on both sides of the divide. More importantly, I love being an agent. Which is why I do it!

My take is that if you feel like you’re being a sleazebag, maybe you’re doing something wrong. Or maybe you’re just approaching things in the wrong way. The interests of client and publisher are often very similar: let’s get the best book out there and make the most money. There are differences of agreement, rights to battle over, and money to beg for (the best part!), but in the end, there aren’t two oppositional sides in this business. At least, there certainly shouldn’t be.

Which is all to say, I think it’s possible to agent with dignity and respect. Yes, agents are often the bad guys—we send out the most rejections, we’re pushy on behalf of our authors, and some of us can be aggressive as hell, but it’s being done for the good of authors and in support of books. I can’t find fault with that.

As delightful agent Ginger Clark passionately stated in the comments, Cobb salads are delicious. Still, I wouldn’t be overly concerned if someone was tired of eating them. In terms of an agent cracking a joke that they can figure out what 15% of any number is…okay, I’ve totally used the same joke a ton of times. I thought it was funny! But apparently I was shitting on people’s faces. Oops!

So what do you say? You hate us when we reject you, but sometimes you secretly love us, right? Some of us are super nice and totally respectful. Pinkie swear.

The publishing lunch

by Jane

One of the “legends” of book publishing is the publishing lunch. In fact, this has traditionally been a time for publishers and agents, or editors and agents, or editors and editors, or agents and their clients (or potential clients) get together and talk about ideas and industry gossip. It can be very productive and it can be fun. It can also be educational.

This week, I decided to go down memory lane and describe some of my more interesting publishing lunches (unfortunately for my readers, those with whom I broke bread will not be identified by name, to protect the innocent—and me).

Years ago, there were those editors who as part of their employment contracts had “accounts” at The Four Seasons restaurant, one of the most exclusive in New York. I remember being invited there a number of times by various editors who had such arrangements. Unfortunately because the “Grill Room” where we sat was so filled with celebrities, I was so busy gaping that I could rarely concentrate on business talk.

Then there was the lunch I had with one of the icons of the publishing industry. This happened many years ago and I was delighted that he had invited me after I had sold a novel to one of his editors for quite a large advance. But, I was so tongue tied and he was so unforthcoming that I wound up spending most of the lunch telling him how I had stopped smoking. (It didn’t help—despite numerous health problems, he still smokes to this day.)

There was a lunch I had early in my publishing career with the head of an imprint at a large publishing house where my host proceeded to have seven drinks. I was astounded, especially when he easily managed to exit the restaurant without passing out.

There was the bestselling restaurateur and cookbook author who begged me over lunch to introduce her to one of our hugely successful celebrity clients so the cookbook author could learn the secrets of the celebrity’s success (they had actually met several years earlier before the celebrity client was a celebrity but the restaurateur had not thought to pay attention to her at the time).

A week after my lunch with one of the top editors at a major publishing house, she called me to make a lunch date having completely forgotten that we had just had one. Nice!

There was the lunch I had with a good friend and wonderful editor at a major publishing house who told me ruefully that he could no longer take me (or anyone) to lunch as his t&e budget had been all but eliminated. (How silly, I thought, the lunch expenses have to be the least of a publisher’s worries.)

And then this past week when I lunched with one of the top executives of a major publishing firm who predicted the end of bookstores and publishing as we know it by this time next year (nice and cheery).

But hey, there are also hundreds of wonderful lunches where solid ideas are cooked up and good business is done It all goes into the mix of making our business so much fun.

Cutting expenses effectively

by Jane

Recently I learned that a major publisher was severely limiting the amount each of their editors could spend taking agents to lunch. And then there was another major publisher who eliminated editor/agent lunches for a month at a time and cut all T & E expenses in a significant way. Finally, there are those publishers who have totally eliminated the editor/agent lunch.

I have to ask why, in a business that is really a “people” business they chose to do this? For decades the editor/agent, editor/author lunch was where real work got done. Ideas were exchanged and concepts were developed. Indeed, I know that many great books resulted from these relatively inexpensive forays.

At the same time as these lunches have been cut out (or cut way back), publishers still continue to:

• Send significant contingents to enormously expensive international book fairs, some traveling first class.
• Use town cars to travel to and from appointments.
• Insist upon delivering signature contracts in the mail or even by messenger rather than electronically.
• Send covers by hand rather than as jpegs.
• Fed-ex documents and books hundreds of times weekly (a publisher I spoke to recently told me this).
• Keep their lights on overnight.
• Use messenger services to return proposals and manuscripts which have originally been e-mailed to them.
• And, of course, cut very good personnel from their staffs.

My question is why? Why not change all of these things immediately so that exciting new book ideas and important relationships can develop again? Yes, over lunch. 

 

Can you think of any other ways publishers can cut current expenses to enable them to operate more efficiently and less expensively without costing them the creative exchange of ideas our business depends on?