Social historians often talk about “agency”, by which they mean the power of a certain type of person in a certain society to influence his or her circumstances. Does a peasant woman in 12th century southern France have agency? Can she get rid of an abusive husband? Can she improve her material conditions? Can she earn a trade? Can she move to a more prosperous area? etc. etc. These are the kinds of historical inquiry that fascinate me – in order to draw up a reasonable answer, you have to look at laws and social conditions and seek patterns in the historical records. Even then, there’s often a wiggle of uncertainty.
What does agency have to do with writing fiction today? Well, the interesting thing to me is that people outside of the publishing business generally believe that authors have a great deal of agency, far more than is actually the case. (This suggestion that authors are in charge of the show can give me a giggle fit, if you catch me at the right moment.) And so, what often happens is that everything Ms. Average Reader dislikes about publishing, she blames on the author, attributing all sorts of nasty qualities to the author.
For example, I once had a book cover which had the hero’s name spelled wrong. This was agonizing to me, as this particular house at that particular time showed the cover art to the author only when it was final and thus impossible to change. (I often wondered whether they did that on purpose, as authors are notorious for wanting to tweak their covers.) So, I couldn’t do anything about it – other than begging shamelessly to have it fixed. My editor said she tried but it was too late. I subsequently received a letter from a reader, telling me I was “stupid” for forgetting how to spell my own hero’s name.
A writer I know had some of her backlist reprinted by her former house. She had reached the NYT with her current house, and as if often the case, the former house chose to capitalize on success. She really didn’t want these early books reprinted as they stood, as they were in a different subgenre. She also believed she had learned a lot as a storyteller and as a writer. She had thought about revising them before they were printed (if they were printed) but the house had the rights – she learned about the releases when she saw the books for sale. They had nice new covers, which looked almost exactly like the covers on her NYT bestselling series, even though the books were quite different. This upset her, but there was nothing she could do about it. (See my previous post called Silver Linings to learn a bit more about backlist rights.) She got mail from readers berating her for being “greedy”.
And finally, yesterday, I was talking to someone who was complaining about authors working in partnerships. He perceived this to be “lazy” on the part of the famous writers, that they were getting someone else to do their work for them and taking the money. But an author with an established bestselling brand will be very protective of that brand and the kind of work that is published under his or her name. It’s the bread and butter, and it would be foolish to jeopardize it. So, often these kinds of partnerships are opportunities for the author with less of a selling reputation to reach a wider audience. They can be mentoring relationships in terms of craft as well, in which the more experienced author works directly with a less experienced author on a joint project. There are many writers who teach creative writing classes, and I’ve heard of these associations occurring with a promising student – the bestselling author doesn’t have to make this gesture of generosity. A partnership can also be about creative stimulus, about two writers with talents in different areas working together to take one writer’s work in a new direction. I think actually that it’s pretty neat when authors do this, as it’s a mark of support for their fellow artists.
And come to think of it, it’s the one example here in which the author does have agency, or the power to create change.
Deborah Cooke: Author 