Literary agent

The literary agent is a service provider who supports writers and conveyed to publishers and other media companies. Its mission is to create a framework that work in the author and publisher together. The literary agent is acting on behalf of the manuscripts he represents writers from contracts, publishers looking for new books and prospective third party rights ( adaptation, translation, audio rights, etc.).

Agents retain a commission for their services from their clients an, on average, about 15 % of the author 's fee. Literary agents representing foreign publishers and authors. German publishers they then offer the appropriate translation rights.

Where an author with an agent who has the lecturer, if he is interested in the manuscript, negotiate the contract with the agent. Authors of commercial publishers can be frequently represented by literary agents as authors of textbook publishers.

Requirements

Literary agents specialize in the book market and know which publishers experience, for which books are interested in or suitable. You are familiar with the relevant contracts, copyright and licenses. Reputable agents are known in publishing and know the editors (or proofreading ).

Less reputable agents require authors payments, long before negotiations with publishers lead to success. The successful completion of contracts is therefore of secondary importance in the sequence; that is, he best, becoming the profit for the literary agents (see also grant Verlag). Also, the lack of mediation success can characterize the less reputable agent.

Literary agents in the magazine market

Also in the yellow press - area literary agents are active, give the short pulp fiction texts such as thrillers, love stories and so-called "True Stories " (Confessions ) against commission to the magazines. Some magazines work exclusively on literary agents, so that an author must turn on an agent to get into the business.

History

In the Federal Republic, literary agents employed initially mainly engaged in procuring foreign authors to German publishers. Unlike in the U.S., where almost all the authors were assisted by literary agents, acted in Germany, the publishers and the authors who contracts directly. The importance of literary agents in marketing of manuscripts, however, appears to be increasing in Germany in recent years.

Since the late 1980s, more and more literary agencies, the German authors were based supervised in Germany and mediated.