This video is for aspiring authors hoping to get a traditional publishing deal. Or those who just got an email from an agent or coagent or scout or publisher promising them, the world.
Who are these people in the publishing industry and what do they do?
Let’s review.
Agent – a literary agent is someone you, as the author,r give the exclusive right to pitch and sell your books to a publisher. The agent will work with you to revise (some are more editorial than others), and craft a solid pitch (likely based on your query letter). Then they have relationships with editors at publishing houses so they can pitch your book. They go to industry events. They know the ins and outs. And when an offer is made, they bring it to you as the author and say, “Here is the offer, what would you like to do?” If you are a super lucky unicorn, maybe you get multiple offers. However, the agent does not agree to the terms of the deal. You do. Hopefully, they’ve already negotiated to the max on your behalf because they don’t get paid until you get paid.
Co-agent – translation rights, primarily. Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, your literary agent has relationships with editors in their primary markets. Right? I speak English, I write in English, and my agent works with publishers to sell English Worldwide rights. Her relationships and expertise are with the big five and large independent publishers that publish English books.
Co-agents work to help secure translations for books. They know the editors in their markets, the trends, the language. All of it. So when we signed a French translation deal, the co-agent AND my agent got a cut, before I got paid. But without either of them, I wouldn’t have had any translation deal for Heifer. So, co-agents are very, very helpful.
Scout – I don’t know as much about this niche profession within publishing because there seems to be an intentional lack of knowledge. They don’t want you, eager author, to know who they are. The scouts work for the publishers or production companies to bring them manuscripts.
You may be thinking, uh, don’t agents do that? They sure do! But the agent works for the author. The scout works for the publisher or production company. They have more sway with their boss to say “I found this, take a look.” So they also do a lot of reading manuscripts, meeting with agents, and meeting with editors.
But in general, you, the author, probably aren’t going to interact with this person. They are helping to sift through all the manuscripts to find gold.
The extent to which I know about this is that my agent told me she was pitching my next book to a scout.
It would defeat the purpose of their job to be paid by authors. Because then they would be incentivized to promote those manuscripts and not necessarily what they think is best.
Publisher – The company that acquires your book and publishes it. There is likely an individual at the publishing house whose executive title is Publisher.
With each of these roles: NO ONE IS ASKING FOR YOUR MONEY UP FRONT.
The agent is paid when you get paid.
The co-agent is paid when you get paid.
The scout is paid by the publisher or the production company. That’s not clear to me, but I know my agent is talking to one about my book, and no one has asked me for a dime up front.
The publisher PAYS YOU for the rights to your book.
So, yes this video exists to define these terms for you, but also to warn you off of scams.
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MK Williams 