You have finished your novel and are ready to get it published. You might know the process on the surface, but do you know who you shall pursue to represent you and your interests?
Here it would be best if you were looking to connect with the top literary agents in India who can represent your business interests and written works. Good agents work equally well with new writers, bestselling authors, and intermediaries between creative and publishing houses.
What Does a Literary Agent Do?
The best literary agents in India work efficiently well on both the businesses and creative side of the industry. Here we bring you the key role of literary agents in the writing industry.
A literary agent helps the client get work.
The literary agents understand the interface with the book publishers and can easily negotiate the publishing contract. Agents also help their clients put forth their views and arrange the licensing deals to keep track of all payments.
A literary agent reviews manuscripts.
The agent also reviews their client’s manuscripts, nonfiction books, and short stories collection. This helps them create and give insights into their clients’ work that can help them engage and edit their work wherever required. Before submitting the manuscript, they make sure it’s in the best possible condition.
A literary agent puts together query letters and pitch packages.
Agents help the author put the query letters, book proposals, marketing plans, and sample chapters together before submitting the book in the traditional publishing industry.
In addition, agents track all the submission guidelines and formats that vary, depending on the writer’s actual submission, be it commercial fiction, narrative nonfiction, or children’s books.
So, should you take writing as a full-time career?
Ravi Subramanian has been in the writing industry for seven years but never planned to take up writing as planning to take up writing as a full-time career.
There are many reasons to decode his take; if you take up writing full time, then writing becomes another job commercially. It can compromise the passion for words and remove the fun element of writing.
So he said he prefers to rely on writing for money, and if any money comes out of it, it’s a big plus. Several misconceptions are circulating about how much money authors make, which according to the public, can go upto ten lakhs but honestly, it’s a pure myth.
The authors make their revenue under the following even heads:
- Royalty & Advance
- Translation rights
- Overseas rights
- Film rights
- Merchandising opportunities
- Speaking assignments
Royalty-
Debut and good novels can pay an author between 5-7.5% of MRP for a paperback. It slowly climbs up depending upon the publisher and the author’s success in their previous books. Another trigger point is their ability to negotiate their deal with the publishers instead of accepting any percentage of royalty thrown at them.
With a royalty percentage of 7.5%, an extremely successful author makes Rs 15 for every book sold (at an MRP of Rs 200). But with an MRP of 100, the royalty is Rs 7.5 a book.
Of course, some successful authors can negotiate a royalty of upto 20 percent, but only those who sell upwards of 75000 copies per book. But usually, the range falls between 7.5 to 10 percent.
If the Books by Indian authors cross the 20000 mark, they are considered very successful. This is because almost all of these books are between Rs 100-300 price point.
In the end:
In the best case, an established author makes upto 6 to 7 lakhs per annum and spends almost everything in making the book a success. This is our view, pretty essential for the authors to establish their presence in the market.
If the book clicks, one can recover all their expenditure with his subsequent publications. Other sources of the author’s income are pointless, too if you do not have an already established base in this industry.
Therefore, though Royalty and Advances are still the biggest author’s revenue contributor, the revenue amount is ridiculously low.
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