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There’s a final dilemma. Publishers are now paying lower advances, releasing fewer titles and selling digital content at lower prices than print content (which in turn affects royalty payments to both agent and author). Assuming this is the new reality, there will be less money to go around for the number of agents now in business. Plus, will it be worth an agent’s time and energy to sell a project that doesn’t pay more than $1,500 upfront? Probably not. One agency has quietly come out with a new model that requires authors to pay a minimum commission—i.e., the agent must earn a minimum amount on a sale no matter what advance the publisher pays, which means authors would “share” a larger part of the advance upfront (or even pay out of pocket in the case of very low advances). Undoubtedly, there’s no shortage of aspiring writers who would be ecstatic to pay more to an agent if it meant securing a publishing deal. But such a model is sure to raise ethical concerns. Agents may take projects knowing they will ultimately be paid by authors rather than by publishers. Is the industry (that includes the author!) ready to accept such a shift in how agents profit?

The industry has long suffered the irony that effective publishing is most evident when invisible; it is only when standards are less than felicitous that we realise how well what we read is managed most of the time.

Gone is our confidence that publishers and agents know exactly what everyone wants to (or should) read

The copy editor, a traditionally marginalised figure, is now in strong demand.

Yet the first chapter remains basically what it was when they began—before they fell into the rhythm, before the text fully took shape.

This is where the right freelance editor will help your manuscript grab readers’ and agents’ attention and put it in balance.

Once they’ve seen the whole manuscript—or at least a detailed synopsis (which I often ask for, and is worth doing anyway, since it is often requested by agents), editors can see what is relevant to readers and what will overwhelm readers before they’ve fully committed to reading your book.

publishing is like Hollywood — nobody ever does the marketing they promise.

Mr. Mamet is taking advantage of a new service being offered by his literary agency, ICM Partners, as a way to assume more control over the way his book is promoted.

New Publisher Authors Trust: Themselves

The skill is copywriting.

A query letter is not a straightforward description of your work. It’s a sales letter. It should be persuasive and seduce the agent into requesting your work.

And this is why writers struggle with queries, because they can’t bridge the gap between writing to entertain (or inform or inspire) and writing to persuade. It’s a different mindset, and it requires an ability to look at one’s work as a product that has a selling point.

A Behind-the-Scenes Look. Give us a sense of what it is like to be a novelist. How did you feel when you finally landed an agent? What does a typical writing day look like for you? What’s it like to see your book in print and hold a copy in your hand for the first time?

But if the book is as good as critics are now saying it is, why didn’t it sell more copies before, especially since the rise of online publishing has supposedly made it easier than ever for first-time authors?

Given how difficult it is for first-time fiction authors, especially in a crowded genre like mystery, to find both an agent and publisher, it’s not clear “The Cuckoo’s Calling” would have made it off the slush piles.

An editor there told The Telegraph in London that the book “didn’t stand out.”