In this new world of eBooks, agents are placed in a difficult role–negotiating the uncertain value of digital rights. In today’s installment of Media Beat (mediabistro.com’s new video show), Kneerim & Williams agent Steve Wasserman told aspiring authors not to panic over digital rights.
Here’s an excerpt: “Prediction in the publishing environment is extraordinarily fraught. New technologies are being invented almost daily. It would be risky to predict what the environment will look like 10 months from now, much less 10 years from now…I am much less concerned about these matters, because they tend to sort themselves out. The marketplace, in these matters, will rule. What counts is content. In these matters content is king. Information may want to be free, but writers just don’t want to give it away. What seems a fair or reasonable price for that content? I don’t know quite what that is, it will probably vary.”
Before working as an agent, Wasserman had served as the editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review and the editorial director of Times Books. He now represents a number of clients, including Christopher Hitchens, Robert Scheer, and Joan Juliet Buck.
Part 1: Steve Wasserman on the Qualities of a Good Literary Agent
Part 2: Steve Wasserman Delivers Agent Advice for Nonfiction Authors
Media Beat is mediabistro.com’s interview series with the movers and shakers of the media world. View all past episodes at MediaBeat.com.