At QueryTracker Blog, this post on a new kind of agency fee:
Then we get to the fun part, where the agency describes their new contract, introducing an administrative fee structure:
The first year we represent a manuscript we charge five hundred dollars ($500.00), then an additional two hundred fifty dollars ($250.00) each year until we place it with a publisher. Upon securing a publishing contract, the agency receives 15% of net revenues.
On their website, they try to sweeten the deal: they explain that this fee helps them partner with writers who are serious and willing to invest in their careers.
No, folks. This is not normal. You don’t have to prove to an agent that you’re serious and willing to invest in your writing. As Gavin DeBecker says in The Gift of Fear, statements like that are designed to get the target to act against his or her own self interest in order to prove s/he isn’t whatever the speaker is accusing them of being.
So let’s step back and be serious, as the agent wants us to be. This agent seriously wants you to fork over five hundred bucks before even starting the job, and that $500 won’t come out of the advance when the book sells. Then, if the agent fails to sell your book in one year, the agent gets rewarded with an additional $250.
In what reality does this make any sense for the writer? After taking your five hundred dollars, why would the agent work hard to sell your manuscript? Agents should get paid by commission. If they don’t sell, they don’t get paid.
Agents do not get to charge you $500 to make them do their job, then collect commission if they do it correctly, then collect an additonal $250 if they don’t do it correctly, and then shake you down for a final $500 when you decide to leave because they didn’t sell your book.
Lots more at the link. But, wow, this sure looks like an extra-awful twist on predatory agenting.
Please Feel Free to Share:
