Major Literary Agency Announces New E-Book Services

Dystel & Goderich Literary Management -- an agency whose clients include Barack Obama, Joy Bauer and Jacqueline Carey -- has announced a new slate of e-book services for its clients. But, it stresses, it is not trying to compete with publishers.

In an announcement on its website, the agency writes, “Over the past months and years we've come to the realization that e-publishing is yet another area in which we can be of service to our clients as literary agents” [emphasis theirs]. DGLM says “part of our job as agents in this new publishing milieu” is to make out-of-print books and “books we believe in and feel passionately about but couldn't sell—oftentimes, after approaching 20 or more houses” available as print-on-demand and digital editions.

The agency explains:
"Right now, you’re thinking, oh, DGLM is going to be another of those agencies that has decided to become an e-publisher and charge clients whose books they can't sell 50% of their income for the privilege of uploading their work. Some of you may be mumbling, “Uh…that’s a conflict of interest.” We get it and we understand how that can be the perception. However, we have no intention of becoming e-publishers… Again, what we are going to do is to facilitate e-publishing for those of our clients who decide that they want to go this route, after consultation and strategizing about whether they should try traditional publishing first or perhaps simply set aside the current book and move on to the next."