Literary Agents Are Hanging Wylie and Odyssey Out to Dry
In the wake of the apocalyptic tsunami that flooded the publishing industry after Andrew Wylie (Codename: The Jackal. Also commonly referred to as: Damn The Man Can Wear A Leather Jacket Wylie) decided to launch Odyssey Editions, most parties involved have voiced strong opinions about the matter.
Random House fired back by ending all English language business deals with the Wylie Agency. John Sargent, CEO of MacMillian called the exclusive nature of Wylie’s deal with Amazon “appalling.” The Author’s Guild’s believes publishers brought this nuke (my word) upon themselves by refusing to raise ebook royalty rates. Independent bookstores mostly rejected the Wylie Amazon deal and at least one is boycotting Wylie titles.
The blogosphere was also fat-kid-full of posts about the Wylie/Odyssey/Publisher kerfuffle. Eric at Pimp my Novel covered it, as did Charles Kriel at Tales of a Lobster Boy, Maya, Henry Baum at SelfPublishingReview, the always brilliant Levi Asher at LitKicks and countless others. Reports claim that Twitter servers were literally on fire due to speed and Gatling gun frequency of Wylie related tweets.
Who’s Missing?
Everyone has an opinion: For Wylie and Amazon. For Wylie but not Amazon, Against Wylie but for Amazon. Against Wylie and Amazon. Countless subtle and textured permutations of these. Everyone is talking about it, choosing sides, making statements, observing, ranting, something.
Everyone except other literary agents.
It is 1:43 AM at this exact moment and I just spent the last twenty minutes searching Google almighty for a single post or comment by a literary agent (other than Wylie himself) on this issue. No dice. I am no researcher but there’s something wrong when I can find posts on the issue by obscure bloggers (my brethren) before posts by agents. While The Jackal makes these brave, abrasive, possibly catastrophic moves and takes on the entire publishing industry by his big balled self, the majority of literary agents appear to be whisper quiet on the matter.
Where are you, oh guardians of the creative mind?
If there was ever a time for literary agents to speak up, it is now. We can debate how wise it was for Wylie to sign an exclusive deal with Amazon, but there seems to be little doubt that his moves put pressure on publishers to increase ebook rights. Much has been said about the many discussions about ebook royalty rates taking place between agents and publishers but this is not the time for individual wrangling. This is the time to rally, to rebel and restore fairness to the publishing process.
Dear Literary Agents
This is what it will take to change the status quo. Royalty rates, time to market, time to payments, the nearly extinct midlist; publishers will never change these unless you stand together and pressure them. Do something bold and brash, piss off whoever it takes, blackmail and leverage the crap out of the establishment until you make change happen.
Remember when agents were writer’s heroes? When we didn’t see you as cogs in the great industry machine or as “middlemen”? Remember the days when we’d never consider cutting you out of the process? When we didn’t complain (read bitch) about your already meager compensation? We can go back there. All you have to do is fight together, fight for us.
A lot of folks consider Wylie too antagonistic towards publishers but the truth is that is what writers need in their agents. I love the success stories when a writer finds an agent and a house they love, I crave those stories. On the whole though, for the majority of writers, the status quo is not okay.
If you’re an agent and this post arouses absolutely no passion in you. Or if it makes you write my name down (again) in a thick, black leather bound book (because conspiracy theory requires you enter your black lists in an actual book), watch this.
Like I said in Writers and Agents: The Tough Questions, “I want an agent who is willing to both body slam the head of Random House and spoon-feed him caviar in a dark lit room. I want an agent with Cojones.”
Get in the game.
Did I somehow miss a hundred posts on this issue by agents? Do you think agents should rally behind Wiley? Do you think they can achieve anything by doing so? Think i’m much less than an obscure blogger? Get thee to the ol’ comment box and fill me in.
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I didn’t know about this. Thanks for enlightening me!
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for stopping by Lydia.
Thank you for your blogging exchange comment. Have been away a while from the blog. Apropos this, I was thinking about something else, that I have been so busy the past time that I didn’t have time to blog. =) What does this say about the rest of my time when I do have time to blog (well, I know the answer to this question)? But then I thought of your blog (or Wanda’s f.ex) and was thinking that you post about interesting thoughts which help you in your writing process. Make me think I should turn my blog into some other direction =) Keep the good work up! Regards Katarina