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Assorted Correspondence

Between Author and Agent: A Cautionary/Epistolary Tale
by A. D. Coleman (and divers hands)

For four heady years between 1987 and 1991 I achieved the goal of many writers: representation by a high-powered New York literary agency whose very name made other writers' jaws drop. Getting in was a fluke; the agency's primary foreign-rights specialist was a photography buff and a long-time fan of mine. J-- S-- handled my account for about a year, and then left to pursue another path in his life. Things rapidly went downhill from there. So I got to fulfill a writer's dream, and then watched it turn into a nightmare. Here's the heart of the story, which takes up shortly after J-- S--'s replacement took over my account.

-- A. D. C.

January 1, 1988

R-- L--
MegaLit Agency, Inc.
New York, NY 10022

Dear R--:

Enclosed is a set of 31 slides from J-- M--'s Staten Island Ferry suite, along with the mss. of my accompanying prose poem. J-- T-- of Magazine A is expecting this, so please send it along to him; also, please give some thought to other potential outlets for it. Seems to me it could work in a number of publications.

I'm still waiting for the H-- G-- slides. Heard from C-- G--, who won't be back until early April -- so I've put J-- T-- on hold insofar as the interview is concerned.

Looking forward to our lunch next week.

A. D. Coleman
Staten Island, NY

February 1, 1988

Mr. Allan Coleman
465 Van Duzer Street
Staten Island, NY 10304

Dear Allan:

Following our conversation last week, and bearing in mind some of the concerns that came up in our discussion, I thought that perhaps the time had come to sit down and honestly weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the current client-agency relationship, taking into account the course of eveuts over the past year, and looking ahead to the likely outcome of major marketing in the near future.

And I'm afraid it falls upon me to report that the consensus at this end is that, as we don't believe we can substantially improve upon the markets already established for your work, we don't have much choice but to conclude that the client-agency relationship is no longer of any benefit to you. We'd initially agreed to representation with the understanding that new and original book projects would be a major part of our marketing agenda, and as a matter of course, as a courtesy, took on journalistic articles as well. However, since that time the prospects for a major book-length project have dimmed considerably, and, as you've indicated, no plans for a complete book can be expected. And, regrettably, we're not convinced that there's a major magazine market available for your specialist or general interest pieces; I hope I'm wrong, and it's a sad admission of the overly-commercialized state of the magazine industry, but that's what the evidence tells us. In light of the above, we feel it's best all around if we release you of your obligations to us; and this letter shall serve to dissolve the contract between us.

I'm truly sorry that this is the outcome we must have, but the market facts are facts, and regardless of our positive feelings towards your work, we'd like to keep your best interests in the forefront. I'd obviously have liked to have seen things reach a happier conclusion, and I certainly hope you'll have better luck with your material in the very near future; towards that end we're returning, under separate cover, all of your material we currently have on hand for your safekeeping.

Again, my very best wishes for your success in proving our assessment and that of the markets with which we deal an incorrect one.

Sincerely,
R-- L--
MegaLit Agency, Inc.

February 4, 1988

R-- L--
MegaLit Agency, Inc.

Dear R--:

I am saddened but not surprised by your letter of February 1, in which you seek to cut me loose from the agency. Saddened for obvious reasons. Unsurprised because your lack of enthusiasm for and initiative in regard to my work have been obvious since J-- S-- turned me over to you so abruptly a year ago.

I'm well aware that I'm not -- and will never be -- on the agency's list of top clients. Indeed, I assumed from the beginning, despite assorted reassurances, that I was J--'s pet project (due to our mutual interest in photography), and half-expected to be cut loose at the end of the first contractual period, since J-- is now long gone.

At the same time, I'm not a troublesome client. I don't call up to chat, I don't need my hand held, I don't ask for coddling, I don't get into fights with editors and publishers that require mediation. The only things I ask my agent to do are business-related:

* negotiate contracts

* keep track of materials sent out through the agency

* pursue payment for contracted material

* make occasional inquiries regarding copyrights, etc.

* seek new markets for my work

For these services I am quite willing to pay the percentages demanded by our contract.

So long as we're engaging in a critique of our professional relation, however, let's make it two-way. Neither of the two people who have represented me at MegaLit Agency, have been effective at finding new markets for my work. Whether that's because this work is unmarketable is a matter of sheer speculation on the part of anyone, though -- because neither of my agents at MegaLit Agency have tried to break me into new markets. J-- S--, a foreign-rights specialist, made no attempt to sell any of my work in Europe. You, with special knowledge of the Canadian market, made no attempt to find Canadian outlets for my work -- didn't even think of it, in fact, until I suggested it. Neither you nor Jonathan ever sent out a completed essay, off the shelf, to any publication I didn't suggest first; neither of you ever sent my book manuscripts and proposals to a publisher I didn't suggest; neither of you ever brought in a sale on your own initiative, or negotiated a deal I didn't instigate and arrange.

To your credit, you both negotiated those deals well -- well enough, from my standpoint, that this service alone was worth your fee. And, to his credit (and on his own initiative -- the idea had never occurred to me), Jonathan did retrieve for me not only the rights but even the plates to my book The Grotesque in Photography, for which I am ever in his debt.

It was my hope, when I joined the agency, that I would finally discover where and how best to market my work. That hope was encouraged by MegaLit Agency's reputation (and advertising) as a savvy, aggressive outfit. After two years, I can safely assert that none of that aggressiveness has been applied to my work. Therefore, I have reason to disbelieve the claims that you treat all clients equally, and to discredit any assertion that my writing is unmarketable.

I'm a forty-four-year-old writer with twenty years of professional experience under my belt. I'll be the judge of when "the client-agency relationship is no longer of any benefit to me," and of how to "keep my best interests in the forefront." Your hypocritical, mealy-mouthed use of these phrases -- in a letter clearly concerned only with your best interests and the benefits of this relation to you -- insults my intelligence.

As it happens, I disagree with you on those points. Even if all the agency does is negotiate contracts I bring in, track the material it sends out, and secure payments, I consider it to be of benefit to me and in my best interests to maintain my relationship with MegaLit Agency. Let it be clear, then, that this relationship is not terminated by mutual consent. And, according to my contract, the period during which it could be terminated unilaterally by either of us expired almost two months ago.

So it looks like MegaLit Agency is stuck with me for another two years. I've no real desire to be somewhere I'm not wanted, but I also refuse to accept such shabby treatment and cavalier violation of your contractual obligations. I realize that by thus forcing myself on the agency I'm virtually asking to be sent to Siberia. So be it. Turn me over to the lowest man or woman on your totem pole. Maybe I'll finally get lucky and hit someone with gumption enough to treat me as an experiment in marketing.

Yours,
A. D. Coleman
Staten Island, NY

cc: Head Honcho, MegaLit Agency, Inc.

February 8, 1988

Head Honcho
MegaLit Agency

Dear Mr. Head Honcho:

By now you will have received the copy I forwarded to your attention of my letter to your employee, R-- L--, responding to his illegal attempt (apparently authorized by you, as he wrote of the "consensus at this end") to break the agency's contract with me.

I am awaiting your response to this situation, as is my attorney. In the meantime, I want to acknowledge receipt, today, of two large boxes of my material, shipped via UPS, carelessly and loosely packed so that some of the material arrived in crumpled condition.

Included in this shipment was the enclosed material, which pertains not to me but to other of your clients. This correspondence seems to have been sitting in R-- L--'s hands since J-- S--'s departure. Seems to me these writers deserve better treatment.

Also included in the shipment was a set of photographs by C-- G--. These were to have been sent to an editor at A C-- of A-- as illustrations for a proposed article, the manuscript of which had already been sent on to him. This editor has been awaiting these photographs; publication decisions -- and, thus, my economic livelihood -- have depended on their transmission via your agency. The C-- G-- photos were to have been sent out last fall -- therefore, well in advance of the sudden, unannounced, and contractually impermissible interruption of your services to me.

This raises some serious questions concerning R-- L--'s performance of his duties as my representative, and the general quality of the agency's representation of me since J-- S--'s departure.

I'll look forward to hearing from you forthwith on these matters.

Yours,
A. D. Coleman
Staten Island, NY

February 11, 1988

Mr. Allan Coleman
465 Van Duzer Street
Staten Island, NY 10304

Dear Allan:

Thank you for your letter of February 8, and the letter copy dated February 4.

I'm sorry if you've gotten the impression that our attitude towards you was in any way offhand or cavalier; it isn't. For the record, it was Mr. L-- who urged continued representation after J-- S-- left the agency, arguing in part that at least one new book project from you was under discussion. I understand now that you no longer have plans for a new book project; however, if you think it valuable to you to have us represent your journalism for the major markets, we'd be happy to do so.

In keeping with the terms of our contract, if you'd like to continue agency representation, that's all right with us, and we'll be back to you shortly with your new contact; in the meantime, since we work as a team here, representation will continue.

It was not our intention to criticize you personally, and we don't feel it profitable for there to be bad blood on either side. My suggestion, then, and I hope you'll agree: let's put any bad feeling behind us, and move ahead on new work.

We'll be in touch shortly, and for now, all best wishes.

Sincerely,
Head Honcho, MegaLit Agency, Inc.

February 18, 1988

Dear Allan:

In keeping with our recent correspondence, this will confirm that your new contact here at the agency is Mr. J-- B--.

J-- is the person who will be working most closely with your account, and is looking forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,
Head Honcho
MegaLit Agency, Inc.

March 7, 1988

J-- B--
MegaLit Agency, Inc.

Dear J--:

I'm glad we met last week -- it's more pleasant to do business with someone you've encountered face to face. I look forward to working with you in the future.

I'm presently drafting the book proposal I mentioned to you, for the project I call Mortal Coils: Photography and Death. I hope to have a working draft of it to you by the end of the month. In the meantime, my Thanksgiving piece can go out to several editors. And I'd like you to make inquiries for me concerning rights to some of my writing.

I wrote extensively for the Village Voice between 1967 and 1973, and for the New York Times between 1970 and 1974. (I assume you don't need the title and date of every column I wrote for the Voice and the Times. Annotated checklists of these writings are available, if necessary -- but they're many pages long.)

The column I wrote for the Voice was titled "Latent Image." The first one appeared on June 20, 1968; the last on March 15, 1973. (Roughly 170 columns in all during that period.) Additionally, there was a considerable amount of theater criticism for the Voice, published between September 1967 and November 1968, plus a few features on various subjects during that same time. Finally, there were two articles on photography published in the Voice between 1974 and 1977.

For the Times, I wrote approximately 120 articles on photography between March 8, 1970 and November 4, 1974. All appeared in the Sunday Arts & Leisure Section; aside from the last one or two, which appeared on the "Art" page, all appeared on the "Camera" page.

I was never on staff at either the Voice or the Times. I was always a freelance. I have no recollection of ever signing a "work-for-hire" agreement, nor of signing away any rights. I have no copy of any letter of agreement with either publication in my files; my guess is that I went into both situations on a handshake, believe it or not. I'm interested in discovering what contracts (if any) cover this writing. Could I ask you to inquire of them what actual contracts exist, and then to apprise me of the legal status of that material vis-a-vis my use of it?

(The policy of both is to permit authors to reprint material, without fee, in books of their own authorship, but to charge a fee for reprints of it in anthologies, etc., a fee which is supposedly split with the author. However, as I was not on staff at either publications, received no salary but only the fees for my essays, and never to my knowledge signed a work-for-hire clause, it seems to me that they bought one-time rights only, and that all other rights should be mine.)

This is important information, because I'm currently discussing with interested parties the possibility of converting all my writings on photography into a database. In that connection, the rights issue is vital.

I believe that short letters of inquiry from you will be effective in extracting this information quickly from the Rights and Permissions Departments at both journals.

I'll talk with you about this next week.

Best wishes,
A. D. Coleman
Staten Island, NY

March 10, 1988

Dear Allan:

Thanks for your letter. I'll see what I might be able to discover regarding your Voice and Times work of some years ago.

I've now had a chance to read "Gobble, Gobble: Spicing uip the Bland Tradition. To be blunt, it's impossible to focus on what other high or low points the piece might have when I encounter something demonstrative of such appallingly bad taste as comparing a Thanksgiving meal to PCP. If you'd be able to think of some more appropriate analogy, I might be able to consider sending the piece back out to market. As it stands, I think it's difficult to evaluate recipes in the proper frame of mind.

All best wishes,
J-- B--
MegaLit Agency, Inc.

March 15, 1988

J-- B--
MegaLit Agency, Inc.

Dear J--:

Not long after our phone conversation this afternoon, the mail arrived. It brought with it issues of a UNESCO-sponsored magazine which has valued my writing enough to translate one essay into French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Arabic. It also brought your abrasive letter of March 10. To which of these two evaluations of my work am I to give credence? Your missive opens up in one brief paragraph a can of worms on which I've no idea how to put the lid. My response has three levels.

1.

Matters of taste are always arguable -- or inarguable, depending on where you put the emphasis. If my joke is indeed in bad taste (even "appallingly bad taste"), then that fact escaped not only me but a number of readers I've shown it to, the editor who published an earlier version of this piece a number of years ago, the editor at GQ who held it for three months and invited its resubmission, and R-- L-- of your own agency. Surely this suggests that what we're dealing with here might well be your opinion and/or taste pattern. It might be worth your while to conduct an experiment: without prejudicing their reading in any way, run the essay past several of your colleagues at the agency, then ask them if they find anything in it to be in significantly bad taste -- and, if so, what. (On this level, I might add that if my mild quip so offends you, we should all be grateful that the output of Lenny Bruce was never in your hands.)

By the way, you seem to have missed the point of the article -- which has to do precisely with the eccentricity of the basic premise and the humor of the prose, not the uniqueness of the recipes. If it was purely a recipe piece, we'd be sending it to Gourmet and Bon Appetit rather than to men's magazines, now wouldn't we?

2.

More important by far, though, is this question: to what extent, if at all, am I required to conform my writing to your taste patterns in order to have you represent a piece of my work to a market toward which I've directed you to address it? I am not aware that you possess any significant credentials as a writer, an editor, or an intellectual; that is to say, I've no idea to what extent, if any, the profession I've been in for the past twenty years has validated your taste patterns. (It's validated mine by granting me considerable influence in my chosen field, and by purchasing and publishing approximately 800 essays with remarkably few editorial changes, virtually none of them revolving around issues of taste.) Nor have I any reason to believe that your notion of acceptable taste necessarily reflects the market's. But even if it did, I've been writing in the public eye long enough to have earned the right to violate the canons of taste.

I would certainly be willing to negotiate such a question with an editor. Indeed, H-- L-- of A C-- of A-- asked me to rethink a joke in my forthcoming "Open Letter to Jesse Jackson" -- on the basis not of taste but of tone. I gave it some thought and acceded -- partly because I thought he might be right, partly because he posed it as a query rather than a demand, partly because I believe in giving editors some druthers, but mostly because the piece didn't suffer from its departure. (I'll use it elsewhere.) That's part of the give and take of the editor-writer relationship. However, you're not my editor. I'm not convinced that you're qualified to be. You seem to be usurping the editor's prerogative in this case. So unless I can be persuaded that the agency will be seriously discredited if this jape appears in a manuscript transmitted under its aegis, I'd propose that your concept of good taste has no bearing whatsoever on our professional relationship, and should not enter our discussions unless I solicit your opinion on the matter. As a critic, I operate on the principle that taste should be kept where it belongs: in one's mouth.

3.

Which brings me to the last level, by far the most important: that of your presumptuousness and arrogance. I'm both your elder and your senior, my boy: your elder by a number of years, your senior by a working lifetime's experience as a scion of publishers (my parents founded Plenum Publishing, Inc.), a professional writer and editor in my own right. Whatever credibility you have in the field of publishing, young man, comes largely from your employment by the MegaLit Agency. While you were still under the legal drinking age I published 120 articles in the New York Times and 170 in the Village Voice with no institutional credentials at all -- solely on the basis of the quality and intelligence of my writing. And, all of that notwithstanding, if I do exactly as you tell me to, you "might be able to consider sending the piece back out to market"? Indeed. Are you truly giving me an ultimatum? Are you actually refusing to send an article of mine back to an editor who requested its resubmission unless I delete from it something that offends your sensibilities? Who appointed you to be not only my agent, and my editor, but my censor? What on earth makes you think you're entitled not only to find a comment of mine offensive but to determine that it's "demonstrative of appallingly bad taste" -- in other words, not only a lapse but evidence of a character defect?

If you are to represent me further, J--, you will remember your place and your manners and address both me and my work with the respect due to myself and it. If not -- and my guess is that that will be the case -- I suggest you brush up on your etiquette, lest you someday cost the agency a truly valued client with such boorishness.

Yours,
A. D. Coleman
Staten Island, NY

c: Head Honcho, MegaLit Agency, Inc.

March 15, 1988

Head Honcho
MegaLit Agency, Inc.

Dear Head Honcho:

More correspondence enclosed, FYI. When I said I'd settle for the lowest man on your totem pole, I didn't mean throw me to Mongo. I can only take this as a transparent attempt to force me to leave the agency. It won't work; I begin to find myself taking a certain perverse delight in seeing to it that you actually live up to your end of a contract.

I had two very pleasant years with the agency, Head Honcho. I'll settle for two more tolerable ones with anyone on your staff who's competent and not given to insulting your clients. That doesn't seem much to ask.

Yours,
A. D. Coleman
Staten Island, NY

Enclosures: correspondence from/to J-- B--

Postscript: I never got a replacement; it was Mongo or nothing. I couldn't bear to talk with him on the phone, much less meet with him; among other things, he was physically repellent (though I'd learned from my friend J-- S-- that, incomprehensibly, he was nonetheless Head Honcho's protegé).

So I began doing all the work myself, even negotiating my own book contracts. The MegaLit Agency even proved incapable of doing me the elementary courtesy of providing me with the following four figures at the end of each year:
1. Total amount received on my behalf by the agency.
2. Total amount passed on to me.
3. Total amount of commissions retained by the agency.
4. Total amount of disbursements deducted by the agency.

Turned out they weren't computerized.

For some reason, I believed it was better to have bad agency representation than none, and had no other offers. I took a perverse pride in my association with this operation, and even dutifully sent in 10 per cent of every payment I received, regardless of the fact that they did nothing to earn it. It dragged on that way until mid-1991. Then I had a long-overdue attack of self-esteem, and asked for an accounting of the monies I'd paid them for the previous several years.

When no answer was forthcoming, I did the unthinkable: I sued them in small-claims court for breach of contract and failure to provide services. Perhaps because I filed the claim on my own home turf of Staten Island, which would have necessitated a day trip for the hearing, they called to negotiate. What did I want, their lawyer asked? My answer: a formal end to our relationship on every level -- including a quit-claim from their end to any royalties on two academic-press contracts I'd negotiated myself but that the agency had vetted and typed up. I'd had no profit from the relationship, and so no reason why they should.

To my surprise, they agreed. I'm told that no one else has ever gotten out of a contract with MegaLit, and that an agency releasing an author in that way is unheard of in the industry. The moral? Better a big fish in a small pond -- or even the only fish in a pond of your own making -- than small fry among sharks circling each other in the dark.

Copyright © 1988, 2001 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. For reprint permissions contact Image/World Syndication Services, POB 040078, Staten Island, NY 10304-0002 USA;T/F (718) 447-3091, imageworld@nearbycafe.com