The LA Literary Agency (formerly Maureen Lasher Agency)

If anyone is familiar with Biba's cookbooks, here is a story about what her agent has allegedly done to her:

sacramento.bizjournals.co...tory2.html

Almost a half-million owed to Biba for books she never knew she was to write - :ssh

Who thought there would be that much money in cookbooks? Mind you, I think we have a few of these on our bookshelf at home.

Anyone heard anything through the rumour mill about this agent and any other alleged nefarious deeds?

What strikes me most about this story is that Biba has worked with this agent for over a decade. You would think that after that period of time trust would be assured between the two parties.

Guess not.

Re: From the "better no agent than a bad agent" fi

Ouch. Poor Biba.

Thanks for this allion. I'm going to (try to) copy this over to the B & BC board too. Some folks there will be interested.

Re: From the "better no agent than a bad agent" fi

Yup, cookbooks are hot selling items.

This article is scary. I really can't help but think of how/why this agent to some pretty big names suddenly started acting unethically.

Re: From the "better no agent than a bad agent" fi

I'm new to this board and have been reading the posts. Now I have a question from this thread. How was this possible? Didn't the publisher expect a signed contract from the author before sending the advance? I have little to base my thoughts on how agents work, but I did suppose that the publisher would want the author's signature before releasing a large sum of money. Please, tell me how this works.

Stlight

Re: From the "better no agent than a bad agent" fi

Hopefully Victoria or one of our more experienced authors will respond to this too but I have a guess. It may that an agent of longstanding, as Biba's was, can make a deal for his/her author. It's also possible that the signature was forged. I suspect the details will trickle out as the case unfolds.

Re: From the "better no agent than a bad agent" fi

>>It may that an agent of longstanding, as Biba's was, can make a deal for his/her author.<<

Yes, you can empower your agent to sign contracts for you. Much as I trust my agent, I would never do this, though I suppose this can be convenient for busy authors, or if your agent is at an overseas book fair and wants to do a subrights deal for you on the spot. If the allegations are true, it may be that this agent took advantage of that--or maybe, as Frank says, might have forged the signature.

- Victoria