Leaving an agent

writergirl29 said:

I'm in the process of leaving my agent. I have a couple books, one of which he read and submitted, but didn't sell and two that he had read, and gave some thoughts on before we decided to part ways.

Should he have rights to those books once we leave? If I self-publish them or sell them to another press on my own, once we've seperated, should he still get a cut since he did read the books? He says he does and I'm not sure how to move forward. Is this the norm?

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What does your contract say?

Way back when I had an agent, he shopped one manuscript around and the contract specifically said if I sold that particular manuscript after parting ways within a year, he got 15%. It didn't apply to other manuscripts I'd written that he hadn't read or shopped.

I'd second reading your contract to see what it says. It would make most sense for him to get a cut of the one he shopped around but not the ones he only read.

Hope this helps.

Read your contract and talk to your agent. Sometimes agents are entitled to a cut of a book they didn't sell, especially if they shopped it around, but sometimes they're not, especially if they never shopped it.

Good luck with the future, by the way. Leaving your agent is tough.

My arrangement with my former agent was that he was entitled to his commission if the book he'd shopped sold to any of the editors he'd pitched it to, but not if it sold to someone he'd never approached.

He was not entitled to any commission on future works, including a book he'd worked on with me.

As suggested, read your contract. If you don't have one, talk to your agent during the process.

As others have said, look at your contract. If you decide to query new agents, you can do so with the MSS he didn't sell as any new agents are unlikely to want a previously subbed MS. A good friend of mine recently parted ways with her agent. He wanted 30 days to tie up any foreign sales, and that was it. He had no rights to any of the projects she talked over with him or showed him. Good luck!

Like Giant Baby said, mine was the same--only the ones she shopped around and with those particular editors she sent to. Supposedly I have two pending submissions she is holding on to. But those two submissions have been on sub for 6 months now and of course when I try to get a hold of her, she doesn't respond-- mainly why I left her in the first place.

But like I said, she is only entitled to those two submissions IF an offer is on the table and IF I decide to accept. I had other work with her too, but those don't count because those she didn't shop to ever.

It depends on the contract, but the books should belong to you. When an agent doesn't sell a book, the agent should NOT get money from the book. Period.