Redhammer’s illustrious client Martin Bell took to the stage over the weekend to reveal a previously hidden talent: he is a master of light verse. Headlining at the 2013 Much Wenlock Poetry Festival, Martin read from his new book, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Tony Blair and Iraq, Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic, two-faced politicians and the cult of celebrity worship were all skewered with gentle humour – extracts follow – enjoy!
Redhammer has pioneered the use of live video events to keep authors close to their fan base worldwide. From our studios in London, UK we connect readers to their favourite writers… giving them the opportunity to ask questions, enter contests, chat to each other and generally do what fans want to do!
Redhammer manages international bestselling author Michelle Paver‘s fan site, The Clan, and the most recent ClanCast – exclusively for Clan members – has just gone online – view it below!
The widely-acclaimed British author Mal Peet has moved to Redhammer Management for his literary representation and management. His awards include the Branford Boase Award, the Nestle Children’s Book Award, The Carnegie Medal and The Guardian Children’s Book Prize as well as a number of major American awards.
“In just five books”, says Redhammer’s Peter Cox, “Mal has distinguished himself as one of the most important writing talents of our time. His awards have only been surpassed by praise from critics and his peers. We are honoured that he has chosen to come to us.”
Redhammer offers a completely different management approach to other, more traditional literary agencies. Cox came to agenting from a background in advertising and marketing, not the more conventional route through publishing or inheritance. “We are very client focused”, he says, “and quite obsessed about delivering what authors need. I’m sure publishers thought I was crazy initially but our success – and that of our clients – proves that this is the right approach for the future.”
Mal Peet has been tagged a “young adult” author, but both Peet and Cox feel this is unnecessarily restrictive. “I’m with Mal when he says he sees no barrier between teenage fiction and adult literature”, says Cox. “Good writing is good writing, period.”
“Redhammer has an astonishingly small client list compared to other agencies”, Cox says, “but we provide highly personal management and a far broader range of expertise than can be found in almost any other agency. We’re the agency of the future, and Mal is in the right place, where he belongs.”
Redhammer has relaunched children’s author Michelle Paver‘s fansite, The Clan, with a new look and additional features including simultaneous translation which will enable fans from different countries to talk in real time. Andrea See, who previously worked at Canongate overseeing the Meet At The Gate site, will work as online community manager.
Redhammer founder and agent Peter Cox said: “I was very impressed with what Andrea did for Canongate, and felt that she’d be a terrific fit with Redhammer’s ethos.”
He added: “Other agencies are busy plundering their clients’ digital rights. By contrast, we’re busy creating more value for the client, the publisher and the reader. That is the only way for literary agencies to grow in the future.”
The Clan, at www.jointheclan.com, will also feature a “wiki” which site users can contribute to, aiming to be the biggest repository of knowledge about Paver’s writing on the internet. The site currently has almost one million posts from more than 20,000 members.
Puffin will publish Paver’s next series, Gods & Warriors, in 2012.
Peter Cox writing in The Bookseller
Half the adults in the wasteland that used to be the great American city of Detroit now cannot read. We’re not talking about their failure to perceive the finer nuances of Jonathan Franzen’s latest flight of fancy. No. They can’t read a bus sign, a pill bottle, or a McDonald’s menu.
If that doesn’t scare you, nothing will.
With our libraries falling at a rate not seen since Caesar sacked Alexandria, and our public wealth being nasally ingurgitated by sociopathic bankers, the most we can expect on this issue from our rulers and masters are homilies without substance and platitudes without resources.
Things will get worse.
Today, there is an air of urgency in the bookselling business that I’ve never sensed before. It’s not just about the money; it’s about fighting for our society and culture. We can all sense the darkness at the edge of town, I think. Getting people into bookshops is today a moral issue. But – how?
All retailers study the science of footfall. Independents are disadvantaged in this respect, with less in the way of resources compared to their larger competitors. Even so, some creative thinking can go a long way: challenging times call for exceptional actions. Here are five of the best, least expensive, ways to boost bookshop traffic.
We can win this battle – as indeed we must, if we’re to save Western culture before it’s closing time.
This column first appeared in The Bookseller on the 24th June 2011
Illustration by jinterwas
by Peter Cox
A major debate is going on in publishing circles at the moment, and you need to know about it.
Frequently, these things are a storm in a teacup. What excites publishing folk often leaves the rest of the world… a bit limp. “Inside Publishing” isn’t always as exciting as… watching leafcutter ants.
This time it’s different.
This issue is enormous. Because it will affect every book deal, every publication contract, from now until the end of time.
Click for the full article
It affects every author who has an agent, or who would ever like an agent. It goes to the heart of what being an agent is all about.
In a nutshell, this is the question:
Should your agent also be your publisher?
In recent weeks, there have been a spate of agents who have cut deals on behalf of their clients with… themselves. One such involved the agent to the estate of the late author Catherine Cookson. According to the Daily Mail, the literary agent didn’t even inform the author’s publishers, Transworld and Simon & Schuster, that she’d done a deal – with herself – to digitally publish 100 of the author’s titles. “I haven’t told either firm about the deal”, she said, “and I am sure they are going to kick up a fuss about it”.
Yes, I bet they will.
As should any author whose agent says to them – come on – let’s cut your print publisher out of the picture… give me those lovely digital publishing rights, and I’ll publish you myself!
No doubt many agents will jump on this particular bandwagon before it overturns.
Let me be absolutely candid with you. Although various excuses have been put forward by agents for doing this – it’s mostly about lining their own pocket.
Not that I’m against agents making money – how could I be?
But this isn’t just about making money. It comes perilously close to what is termed in law “self-dealing“, and it is both ethically wrong and legally very dangerous. In taking this fateful step, those agents who choose to do this are in danger of crossing a line that is legally and ethically of immense significance.
“The law is very clear…An agent must at all times avoid conflict of interest”On a matter of law, the situation is very clear. An agent must at all times avoid conflict between the interests of the principal and his or her own.
Once you become your client’s publisher, you then become a principal in the transaction. This means you can no longer function as the client’s agent.
Agency law makes it clear that an agent must not engage in self-dealing, or otherwise unduly enrich himself from the agency. Nor must an agent usurp an opportunity from the principal by taking it for himself.
I really doubt whether any agent can legitimately claim that it is in the author’s best interests to be published by their literary agent. It’s like the ref in a game of footie being paid by one of the teams playing. It raises huge issues – and it just doesn’t feel right – does it?
Also, I don’t believe any agent can declare, “I couldn’t find a digital publisher for my client, so I had to do it myself.” No. The fact is, the internet is full of digital publishers, both large and small. Digital publishers are everywhere, and they are keen for our business.
We have to be honest with ourselves, and say that this whole issue is about one thing, and one thing only: opportunism.
“Most agents don’t have the resources to be publishers. Especially now, when publishing has never been a more difficult or demanding profession”It feels like a rights grab. Looking after Number One.
The problem is this. If you become an agent, the author should be Number One.
Maybe those agents who have cut these sort of deals haven’t really considered all the implications – I don’t know. I certainly hope they have great liability insurance.
I also hope they fully understand how to publish their clients effectively in the digital domain. I hope they have all the necessary technical and marketing expertise and resources to do a great online publishing job. I hope they won’t stint on the advertising and marketing budgets. I hope they won’t favor one client ahead of another. I hope the contract will have a review period which will allow the author to go elsewhere if the agent makes a hash of it. Fingers crossed on all those points.
Frankly, I just don’t believe that most agents actually have the resources to be publishers. Especially now, when publishing has never been a more difficult or demanding profession. Most “traditional” publishers I know face massive challenges currently.
Any agent who thinks that it’s a soft option being a publisher today is incredibly naive.
There are plenty of new opportunities for agents today without pillaging clients’ publishing rights. The agency Conville & Walsh has just launched a speakers bureau for its clients. Good thinking. Make more money for the client, and you’re making more money for yourself.
I like that idea. Let’s have more like it.
If you’re an agent reading this – please pause for a moment.
Our authors need us now more than ever to guide them through the treacherous waters ahead. They need us for our good advice, expert knowledge, and selfless counsel. Agents need to evolve into good business managers. Some of us may have to learn a pack of new skills to do that. Nevertheless, that is the way forward.
So – are agents to be driven by short-term opportunism – or by the longer term interests of authors? Every agent has to take a decision on that for themselves.
But you know where I stand.
Firmly on the author’s side.
Peter Cox
To contact me, mail peter [at] redhammer.info
Icon Books has acquired a third title by Redhammer client, veteran reporter and former-MP Martin Bell. Icon m.d. Simon Flynn acquired world and full digital rights to For Whom the Bell Tolls from Peter Cox of Redhammer Management. The title is an autobiographical collection of “light and dark” verse.
Flynn said: “This light and dark collection of poems is a funny, honest and often moving account of Martin’s life and experiences.”
Icon will publish as a £9.99, B-format hardback on 1st December.
Penguin’s international deals for Redhammer client Michelle Paver ignited the Bologna Children’s Book Fair today. Penguin penned deals for Paver’s Gods and Warriors series with House of Books in Holland, Hachette in France, Semic in Sweden and Mondadori in Italy, with “plenty more to come over next weeks and months”, according to rights director Chantal Noel.
Paver met international publishers at the fair to give details of the new series, set in the Mediterranean region during the Bronze Age. At a presentation this morning, Paver told publishers she chose the era because it was a “rich, spectacular, exciting world to inhabit, with chariots, ocean-going ships, slaves, warriors, myths and magic”.
The new series will tell the story of Hylas, a lowly 12-year-old goatherd in the Greek mountains, whose adventures take him far afield to Crete and Egypt, and involve him, like Torak in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, with animals—in the new series, a lion, a falcon and a dolphin.
Paver moved to Puffin with her new series, after publishing the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness books with Orion. Elv Moody, editorial director of Classic Puffin, promised international publishers a “global sharepoint to share ideas and resources” for the launch campaign for the first book, as yet untitled, in the autumn of 2012.
Redhammer client and author of The Fame Formula profiles the late Malcolm McLaren on BBC Radio Four. “I’ve been called many things,” McLaren once said. “A charlatan, a con man, or the culprit responsible for turning popular culture into nothing more than a cheap marketing gimmick. This is my chance to prove these accusations are true.”
Author and public relations expert Mark Borkowski, knew McLaren well. What intrigues mark is not just the success, but the myths that have evolved around this highly manipulative man. An intriguing programme about fame, the media, and why the truth should not be confused with an easily believable myth.
Puffin Books announced today that it has signed up the acclaimed and bestselling children’s author Michelle Paver for a major new series. Puffin has acquired world rights, including digital, in a deal which will see the award-winning author – well known for her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series – published by Penguin in the US as well as by Penguin group companies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and South Africa.
Elv Moody, Editorial Director for Puffin Books, secured the global deal for five books from Peter Cox of Redhammer Management Ltd.
The new series, entitled Gods and Warriors, is set during the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean. Famed for her vividly-imagined exploration of the prehistoric past, Michelle Paver has already begun research for the new books, the first of which will be published by Puffin in the autumn of 2012.
Francesca Dow, Managing Director of Puffin, said, ‘We are thrilled to be publishing Michelle Paver. She is the real thing – a true writer whose books have huge appeal and lasting value. Puffin will publish her new series with all the ambition and creativity it deserves. We can’t wait!’
Peter Cox of Redhammer Management Ltd said, ‘The decision to move to Puffin wasn’t taken lightly. Tom, Francesca and Elv are part of a team that feels excited by the future, not daunted by it. This willingness to engage with the future – and indeed to make it their own – is the essence of today’s successful publisher. I’m entirely confident that Michelle’s new publishing home is the right place for her to be in the years ahead, and I feel as excited about it as the Puffin team are.’
Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series is published in thirty eight countries and has achieved huge international success with a total of 1 million copies sold in the UK alone. Ghost Hunter, the last book in the Chronicles series, recently won the prestigious Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2010 and Michelle’s adult ghost story Dark Matter has just been published to wide critical acclaim.
Michelle Paver said, ‘I’ve been overwhelmed by Puffin’s passion for GODS & WARRIORS. As a child, my bookshelf was crammed with Puffin paperbacks, and I’m thrilled that my next series will become part of that tradition.’
