If you’ve been following the trade press, you’ll know that I’ve had a few thoughts on this subject recently.
Now comes news, via The Guardian, that the reformed agency PFD is to offer a POD (print-on-demand) publishing programme, aiming to make their clients’ forgotten books available once more. Although this is likely to produce next to nothing in terms revenue, and matter not one jot to the client concerned (who is most likely to be dead), the move has provoked ire in the just the quarter where I thought it would.
“An agency sitting back and saying you can find this book listed on a website is very different from trying to find a publisher who’ll take these titles on and bring them back into print,” says the Society of Authors deputy general secretary, Kate Pool. “The agents’ role is to go out and get the best deal they can. [PFD] seems to be taking 90% of the money for no work.”
In other words, a good old-fashioned conflict of interest looms.
No other post on this day.
Discussion
No comments for “The Future of Agenting”
Post a comment