The latest entry in the growing field of agency-based publishing is Ipso Books, a new addition to the services offered by Peters Fraser + Dunlop (PFD).
Ipso means “self” in Latin, says PFD chief operating officer and senior agent Robert Caskie, and the new service has quickly begun looking beyond its mystery-crime estate clients for content to publish.
“Initially we looked within the company for content,” Caskie tells The Hot Sheet. “But that has already changed with our first nonfiction title, a short book on the current situation in Turkey. We have three brilliant journalists writing for us who are not clients.”
We’ve asked Caskie if Ipso Books is also open to literary fiction, which is having so little luck gaining digital traction: “We are open to all genres,” he tells us.
As with the all-digital Open Road Media (but to a less exclusive extent), backlist is a key component here—“our foundation,” as Caskie puts it.
There are no costs to the author in the Ipso model, and the plan offers a 50-50 royalty split with the author, Caskie says. The company not only pays for editing and design but also says it invests in Facebook ads and other marketing support.
One of the things that varies from agency to agency in assisted-publishing models is the rights arrangement with an author. At agent Ed Victor’s Bedford Square Books, for example, Bedford holds the author’s rights, but the author can have those rights reverted at any time.
In the case of Ipso, the agreements have a fixed license period, after which the rights revert to the author. This, of course, is seen by many in the industry as far more advantageous to an author than the standard publishing contract’s life-of-copyright agreements now under heavy criticism from the Authors Guild.
And how are publishers handling the idea of having print rights while Ipso Books has digital rights?
“It’s a hard concept for publishers to grasp,” he says. “They see it as brand dilution and a loss of control. We see it as brand expansion and focus on the author.”
There are other agency-assisted publishing options to consider. Keep in mind the key considerations of (a) who holds the rights and for how long, (b) what the program pays, and (c) how much marketing and distribution support is included.
- NLA Digital is based at Nelson Literary in Denver and offers an 80-20 split to authors, who retain their rights. NLA stresses that it is not a publisher but an assistive service to self-publishers, and it’s open to bestselling indies who are not clients of Kristin Nelson’s agency.
- Diversion Books in New York City was established by agent Scott Waxman but operates independently of the agency and recently has added in-store print distribution for indie and hybrid authors in its romance division, EverAfter.
- London’s Curtis Brown literary and talent agency is a leader in seeing agency publishing as a proof-of-performance vehicle for content. As managing director Jonny Geller puts it, “We’re actually trying to make the process of buying intellectual property and copyrighted media easier for publishers” by piloting it in the marketplace. Authors retain their rights, and the agency’s services never exceed typical commission levels, Geller says.
- London agent Andrew Lownie launched Thistle Publishing in 2013 in line with Geller’s idea of demonstrating a property’s viability to publishers with both digital and POD capability. Like Curtis Brown, Thistle uses Amazon’s White Glove service; the agency takes a standard agency commission from White Glove’s 70 percent royalty to cover its expenses.
Editor’s note: Ipso Books was later rebranded as Agora Books.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
