Lawyers look for the next blockbuster as literary agents
Photo of Paul Levine courtesy of Paul Levine.
Doraswamy found she was subconsciously using legal analysis tools as a literary agent. “When I looked at a submission, I would go first to the structure: Does this have a beginning, a middle and an end? Second, what is the cast of characters? How is each one useful to the story? Third, I’d question the writer: ‘You introduce this character in the first chapter, but then she never shows up again until the end. If you need her in the story, she can’t just make a guest appearance at the beginning and end. You either integrate her into the story or let her go.’ ”
Doraswamy compares story crafting to writing a brief. “In court, you’re creating a story using the facts and the law: ‘Here’s what happened. So-and-so violated the law, and here is why he should be fined or incarcerated.’ It’s the logical process of going from step one to step 10 to connect the dots. Whether it’s a work of fiction or fact, it all comes down to: Did we get to the crux of this matter?”
While some agents specialize in fiction or nonfiction, those interviewed for this article handle both.
“All I care about is that [a book] fits the old paradigm: ‘good story, well told,’ ” says Levine, although he intimates that his “sweet spot” is self-help and how-to books. Kleinman says an “up-market” agent like himself is drawn to literary rather than commercial fiction.
Paying dues
Whether an agent walks in a real or fictional world, there is a universal reality: The profession is not for someone who would be uncomfortable forgoing the finer things in life, at least for a while. Agents earn money solely from commissions, and you can’t expect to make a major sale right away. Even if you do, you only get 15 percent, and it doesn’t come in one big windfall. Say you sell a book for $100,000. The agent gets $15,000, which may sound good, but the payments are parsed out over three or four years. So you have to live on about $4,000 per year.
“When you have enough clients and really get going, a $4,000 check shows up and you go, ‘Oh, yeah. I totally forgot about that book.’ Then it becomes OK to have to wait for the money,” says Kleinman. Until then, he says, be prepared to live on credit cards for a few years as he did, although his lean years didn’t last as long as they tend to for a new agent.
If you live in New York City, which is the publishing hub of the U.S. and has one of the highest cost-of-living indices, $4,000 per year doesn’t even get you to the poverty level. Running an agency near a major city—such as Doraswamy in suburban New Jersey (15 minutes from Manhattan) or Levine in Venice Beach (same distance from LA)—has its advantages. But in this technological era, agents can do their job from anywhere.
Even though he is one, Kleinman shudders when he hears a writer say he wants a “New York agent.” He dismisses it as “a myth and a glamour thing,” adding, “Actually being a non-New York agent sets you apart and makes you kind of special.”
That has proven true for Levine, who sold his first book in 1997. Author Sheila Copeland came to him after she had self-published her debut novel, Chocolate Star, which became an alternate selection of the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club. It turned into a series.
At the time, self-publishing was the only recourse for a writer who couldn’t get a publishing deal, says Levine. “There was no internet, no Amazon, so that meant you went to a printer in Montana because that’s where the trees are and that’s where the paper comes from, and you paid him to print copies of your book.”
Copeland followed that formula and sold 5,000 copies on her own, which was unheard of at the time. “I told that story to Random House, Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s and got a bidding war going,” says Levine. The book went to St. Martin’s, and Copeland began a successful career as an author with multiple publishing deals.
I’d send letters to publishers in the U.K. and say, ‘I’m coming to the London Book Fair. Can we meet?’ It was at a very grassroots level. Everyone has to start somewhere, and for me it was pretty much at the bottom.
—Priya Doraswamy
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Things may have gone differently for her without the publishing industry relationships Levine had cultivated as a lawyer. In the early 1980s, he was an associate at a Century City entertainment law firm whose biggest publishing client was Price Stern Sloan (now an imprint of the Penguin Group). Founders Roger Price and Leonard Stern created the popular Mad Libs books.
In 1992, after representing Stern for seven years, Levine figured he knew the book business well enough to start his own law firm. He also had experience in film, television and music deals, but so did the denizens of many LA entertainment law firms. “I needed to find a way to distinguish myself from every other entertainment lawyer in town,” he recalls. “The way to do that was to concentrate on books.”
Writers who wanted to get out of deals with small- or medium-size independent publishing companies, often because of royalty disputes, began to seek him out. Levine came up with a relatively easy solution: a letter stating, “You breached the deal, and here’s how. Pay my client what you owe him and let him out of the agreement within 10 business days, or we’ll sue you.” Usually, he says, “They do the right thing.”
He also “vets,” or fact-checks, a lot of memoirs because it’s difficult to get a book publisher or film studio interested in a true-life story without an errors and omissions (“E&O”) professional liability insurance policy in effect. With books and films about real people and events, the writer, editor and publisher may be exposed to defamation claims (usually libel). For example, before he was president, Donald Trump filed a $5 billion lawsuit against author Tim O’Brien and Warner Books, which was later dismissed, over the book TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald. He claimed it defamed him by characterizing him as a millionaire rather than a billionaire.
When Levine sees a red flag in a manuscript that could trigger claims of libel, invasion of privacy, right of publicity and copyright or trademark infringement, he asks the writer to provide supporting evidence.
“Once I have E&O insurance and a book contract in my hands, I can go to Hollywood and say it will be published, by whom and when. Then the studios will get interested real fast. Hollywood wants somebody else to say yes first.”
Paul S. Levine Literary Agency materialized after he began attending writers conferences across the country, which he still does. Editors are usually on speaker panels. Three or four years into solo practice, he realized he knew about 100 editors at various publishing houses.
“I figured that was enough to start my own literary agency, so I printed up some letterhead and business cards, got myself listed in literary agent directories and online agency lists, and away I went!” says Levine.
For him, the major change wasn’t the difference between being a lawyer and an agent but shifting from representing publishers to advocating for authors. Levine reported for duty with the necessary arsenal.
“I knew what publishers would try to get away with because it used to be my job to help them do it,” he says.
Levine maintains a positive attitude to keep his job fresh. It’s rare when he takes on an unsolicited pitch like Lim’s. “Every email I get, I hope it’s the next ‘one,’ ” says Levine. “This one was.”
Darlene Ricker, a legal affairs writer and book editor based in Lexington, Kentucky, is a former staff writer and editor for the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times.
