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Literary
Agent
If you wanted insider information on agents and
the publishing industry, you should have joined us on June 2nd
to hear Robert Preskill, founder of the Robert Preskill Literary
Agency and now a member of LitWest Group. Robert left law to
become a literary agent for the love of books. He now specializes
in travel, sports and leisure, true crime, literary and experimental
fiction.
Most writers know that courtesy and patience are
critical, whether we are hunting for an agent or working with
one already, but Robert added a few more suggestions of a practical
nature:
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Agents are busy and hate telephone calls,
but a pleasant, sympathetic author is hard to resist;
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E-mail only to follow-up but do not use email
to send attachments unless requested. The attachments just
get lost;
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If the agent keeps missing deadlines, he/she
may not be all that interested in your work, but, if you're
really nice about it, the agent might just refer you to someone
who will be.
Robert also gave us the following bits of information about
the publishing business: editors are just as harried as agents
so treat them the same way:
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Agents work with subagents who specialize
in TV or movies, and foreign rights (Canadian rights are sometimes
a separate area of expertise);
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Keep rights only if you and your agent can
do better than the publisher. Some publishers have excellent
contacts for the translation of your work and with foreign
publishers. They usually do have the best for audio books.
If so, let the publisher handle these areas for you;
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The big deal is easier to get than the small
one; in general, big publishers pay more and then lose your
book but small publishers pay less and work harder for the
author.
Robert Preskill, Esq., founded the Robert Preskill Literary
Agency in 2000 after gaining experience in book publishing and
law. He has since joined Lit West Group. He worked for publishing
companies such as McGraw-Hill, Richard D. Irwin, and Giant Steps
Media in a wide range of capacities. He was Associate Editor
of ACM literary journal. Robert has sold titles in the areas
of travel, sports and leisure, true crime, literary fiction,
and experimental fiction. California-based clients include travel-writer
Brad Herzog, downhill mountain biker Marla Streb and fiction
writer Peter Orner (winner of the American Academy of Arts and
Letters Prix de Rome and author of Esther Stories as well as
cartoonist/animator Eric Orner (author of Ethan Green series).
Visit his website at www.preskilllaw.com.
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