A couple of months ago, agent Sonia Land of the Sheil Land literary agency placed Catherine Cookson’s backlist titles directly on Amazon, without consulting their print publisher, Random House, or offering it a chance to be part of the deal. Now it would seem that Random House has struck back, closing a backlist e-book deal with author Tom Sharpe and bypassing Land, who is also his agent. On FutureBook, Philip Jones writes:
Agents will fume: one said the gloves were now off. Anthony Goff, president of the Association of Authors Agents, told me that undermining the principle that publishers should not engage in contractual discussions with agented authors direct was "unacceptable". He said: "Once an author has a deal with an agent, then for a publisher to go behind that agent’s back for financial or contractual discussions is totally unacceptable. It is not just that agents don’t want it, neither do authors. There is a reason agents are employed as advisers."
But publishers have differing opinions, especially given that it seems agents are beginning to start competing with them in the e-publishing market.
Of course, this could just be a tit-for-tat exchange between Land and Random House. But it could also be a bellwether of changes that are going to come as e-books change the way authors, agents, and publishers interact. And this change doesn’t seem like a positive one.
Hmm, Goose, meet Gander.