Читать книгу The Selected Works of Arnold Bennett: Essays, Personal Development Books & Articles - Arnold Bennett - Страница 84

The beginner, at the very outset, will do better for himself than any literary agent can do for him. A good agent with a busy practice will not, and cannot, devote to the work of a beginner, who may prove in the end profitless, that careful and minute attention which is necessary to ensure success. The best agents naturally decline to act for quite unknown men except on payment of a preliminary fee; and the preliminary-fee system is bad for all parties. When the aspirant has made a little success, when he can sell his work himself, then is the time for him to go to an agent. This advice may seem paradoxical, but it is sound. The value of a good literary agent to a rising or risen author has been demonstrated beyond all argument The question of the literary agent is no longer a “vexed question”; it is settled. An occasional protest against the agent, as an institution, is raised in some organs of the press, but all authors familiar with the inside of Fleet street are perfectly acquainted with the origin of such protests, and they smile among themselves. The editor and the publisher who “cannot understand why authors should be so foolish as to pay 10 per cent, of their earnings to an agent,” are marked men in genuine literary circles. When an editor or publisher informs you with a serious face that he never deals with literary agents, keep your wits about you, for you will need them. As a matter of strict fact I do not believe that there is a single editor or publisher of the slightest importance in London who could afford to boycott literary agents, for the simple reason that the work of nearly all the best authors can be obtained only through their agents.

An inefficient literary agent is worse than none. The number of efficient agents is exceedingly small. My personal opinion is that there are certainly not more than three. The young author should remember this, and not be led away by specious circulars. In no case should he pay a preliminary fee. If a good agent will not act for him without a preliminary fee, the aspirant may rest assured that his case is not ripe for agency. The remuneration of agents, 10 per cent, on gross receipts, may at first sight appear large, but actually it is not excessive, especially on small incomes. When an author’s income reaches two thousand a year, the agent should be willing to accept 5 per cent, on all sums exceeding two thousand; but these details are not for the aspirant.

The agent cannot perform miracles. He cannot force editors and publishers to buy work which they do not want, or to pay more than they feel inclined to pay for work which they do want What he can do is to suit the goods to the market and the market to the goods, to prevent the author from making an arrant fool of himself, and generally to exercise in delicate negotiations that diplomatic firmness and that diplomatic elasticity which are his chief stock-in-trade. The author who sells his own work when he might employ an agent to do so, commits three indiscretions at once. He loads his mind with preoccupations which impede the processes of literary composition. He meddles, of course clumsily, in a department of activity in which he is not an expert, and for which he is not fitted. And he loses money. It is almost universally true that an agent will get higher, and much higher, prices for a rising author than the author can get for himself. I do not think I am exaggerating if I say that when the average rising author goes to an agent, his income is doubled within twelve months.

An author should visit his agent frequently, and keep him fully acquainted with his projects and plans. He should listen to the agent’s advice, but should not follow it too slavishly. No man, except a greater author, can teach an author his business. The agent is seldom or never a real expert of the literary art He is half an expert of the literary art and half a commercial expert: that is his raison (d'etre. An agent who was a real expert of the literary art would decidedly be a very bad agent.

Lastly, when an agent is negotiating the sale of a work, he has the right to expect that his client will not interfere in the negotiations in any manner whatsoever. On the purely business side, after minimum prices have been settled between author and agent, the author should trust to the agent implicitly.