When an agent leaves...

When my agent moved to another agency I was given the choice of either going with her or staying with the original agency. Naturally, I went with her. It required a letter of termination to the old agency and signing a contract with the new. Pretty easy stuff.

Hope that helps!

Couldn't say about the requested materials, sorry.

I imagine it's a little of both, depending on the agency. I remember researching one agent and one of her authors stayed with the agency when she switched, even though the agent signed her to a fabulous deal. I don't know if that was the author's choice or a condition the agency set on its (junior?) agents.

My agent left last week. Not to another agency, but to go on a bit of an adventure, live in a different country, see if she really was interested in being in the publishing industry at all (she's young, like a year older than me, so it made sense she wanted to do this). It was very sad for me because we got on great, she was awesome, and we worked well together.

But she was a junior agent at a small but very respectable agency in the UK, and there are several other agents there to take care of me until they hire a new children's book agent. In fact, though Julia was my personal agent, I always felt it was a team effort at the agency, I got emails from foreign rights agents, the accounting staff . . . so I feel just as safe and loved as I did before. Aside from that, the head honcho Darley sent me a lovely email telling me not to worry and that the agency was as committed as ever to my work.

I couldn't say about partial or full requests though. I do know Julia was very intent on selling her latest acquisition's book. She really felt guilty leaving especially if her newest client didn't sell before then. Fortunately it did.

ETA: No need to feel sorry for me! I love my agency, and have no fears at all for the future of my work (at least not at present). The fact that Darley himself has decided to represent me while he is looking for a new children's book agent is actually a huge honour.

I think a lot of the time the leaving agent will say that materials should be sent to their new agency email/address and everything. If they were already looking at a partial, maybe re-email/re-send them the partial with a note explaining that it was already requested before and you're resending incase it was lost/misplaced in the move. If the agent is leaving publishing all together, then you're probably out of luck. Especially if it's a large agency where group decisions don't happen.

You can go with whomever you want (if given a choice), but earlier works are dependant on the contract you signed.

If my agent leaves my agency, regardless of whether or not I go with her, any and all works that were sold (first rights) at my current agency stay with the agency. They will be assigned to another agent and will always be represented by my current agency.

Once my agent reestablishes herself at another agency, she can only rep new work I give her. She no longer reps anything she’s sold in the past.