This article started out as a note for Notes from the Editor’s Desk, and as such very much reflects my personal opinion as an editor, and is more informal in tone. I am not trying to tell anyone else what to think, only where I am coming from, in terms of this. I’m always happy to hear your thoughts at support@authorspublish.com.
The established literary agency Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (DGB), has resigned from the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) over an ethical disagreement regarding conflicts of interest. Recently the AALA amended its Canon of Ethics in a way that DGB felt they could not support. Discussion was attempted first, but failed.
They have published their statement on the issue here. The statement alludes to their being more points of contention but the primary focus is on this one:
“…the new Canon allows agents who have separate editorial businesses to charge editorial fees with the potential to then sign those authors as clients and retain those fees”
This is obviously a huge issue, and it is very alarming to me that AALA has amended their Canon of Ethics in this way.
Jane Friedman has also written about it at length here. Her article is particularly helpful because she sets the foundation for the reason that this change has happened, in the first place, based on data from the AALA’s members survey. She also goes into the details of the other problematic changes to the AALA’s Canon of Ethics. This includes agents serving as publishers for their clients’ books, if a consent form is signed, and agents offering additional services to clients, like promotion, at a cost. There are other changes as well, and all of the major changes are disclosed in Friedman’s article.
When searching for agents I’ve always discouraged students from using the AALA agent database as a filtering process. The reason for this mostly boiled down to their being many good agents and agencies that weren’t members, and there were also many members with questionable behavior that were still in in good standing. It seemed from an outsider perspective like a hard organization to get kicked out of, and it was rare and notable when an agent was removed.
I still think this is a huge issue for all the reasons Friedman and DGB mention. Because even if I didn’t think the AALA did as good of job enforcing their Canon of Ethics as they could have, at least it was there as a standard to point to.
This reminds me a lot of when an otherwise established and respected independent press starts a hybrid imprint, and they’re like “Everyone else is doing it, so it’s OK! It’s the new publishing model.” But the person who is paying for this new publishing mode, both in terms of agents (if the AALA’s cannon becomes widely accepted) and publishers (if we don’t keep pushing back against hybrids), is authors. They end up taking on a lot or all of the financial burden, and paying more than they end up making.
When people talk about diversity in publishing they often don’t spell out the role economics plays in terms of that (and how that intersects with race and gender and disability). This will absolutely impact real diversity in publishing in a fundamental way.
Also, it ultimately affects the reader. Editors and agents are supposed to be the filtration process that helps readers find books. If it switches over to this “pay to play” model the quality many readers will access will decrease.
I do really believe there will be push-back against this, as there has been against hybrid publishing. I’ve been running Authors Publish for thirteen years now, and since the start publishers have been pushing hybrid publishing as the “new model” without the reality of how most publishing works really changing.
This is something some agents in the industry are trying to make happen, not something that necessarily will change at this point. I do think if you are seeking an agent right now, and you are offered a meeting, asking questions around these changes, might be very helpful.
Bio: Caitlin Jans has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the co-founder of Authors Publish and The Poetry Marathon. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals including: The Literary Review of Canada, The Fiddlehead, Jelly Bucket, The Penn Review, The Adroit Journal, and Killer Verse. Her prose and poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, BILiNE, The Best Small Fictions Anthology, and The Best of the Net. You can learn more at her website or follow her on Facebook.
