AAR, Agents, and Publishing

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kaitie

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I just read this over at Kristin Nelson's blog. It's pretty interesting, and I'm glad AAR is weighing in on the matter.

Thoughts?
 

Cyia

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Can't view blogs at work.

Thoughts?


Here's a snip:

1) An AAR member may receive compensation only from the client for the agent's services. Agents may not separately engage in business, ie. electronic publication, where they receive compensation from exploiting the client's work. In short, Agents can't be publishers and still be AAR members.

So for example, Agent Richard Curtis has a separate ePublishing company called eReads. He is not a member of AAR. And please, do not take this as any personal commentary on Richard. This is just an example.

2) Agent is obligated to inform client of all the financial implications of any ePublisher and the agent can't take action to put his own biz interest above the interest of the client.

In other words, it pretty much is a conflict of interest for agents to be both an agent and an ePublisher as they may want their clients to publish with them instead of with some other ePublisher.
 

Dr.Gonzo

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Thanks, Cyia. Interesting. I think it makes sense. It reminds me of when I went to buy a house about ten years ago. With some ex. We're going to this estate agent and we're really set on this house but he talks us out of it and shows us another over the road from the one we like. It was more expensive but had 'surface' qualities that appealed to a younger couple who didn't know what the fuck they were doing. It was the agent's house. Our parents came to look, saw the radiators with no pipes, the doors that wouldn't close, the price that wasn't realistic.

Conflict of interests sounds about right.
 
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i think this is great. I have read what amazon is doing with the rights that were not available to them when they purchased rights before this new phenomenon was created. i think that the establishment of black and white criteria of what is and is not a conflict of interest will ultimately serve the authors in the end.
 

kaitie

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It definitely makes sense, and I know a lot of us have been concerned with some of the current models that look like a very big conflict of interest.

I'm wondering what this is going to mean for agencies with models that don't fit. I'm also wondering about all of the in-between models. It seems like there's still a fair amount of wiggle room in there.

I'm just glad that they're addressing the issue, though.
 
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