Literary agents open new chapter in China

Chinese publishers and writers have also tasted the power of literary agents as in the case of Carmen Balcells and Toby Eady.

An agent for six Nobel-winning writers, Balcells has finally approved the publication of authorized Chinese versions of Garcia Marquez on the Chinese mainland after the publisher Thinkingdom House tried all means. The first book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, appeared in 2011 and has since led to a series of phenomenal successes.

Eady is the one who made both the Chinese publishers and officials aware of the importance of literary agents. Through his channels, Chinese scholar Yu Dan's Confucius from the Heart has been translated into 28 languages and has made bestseller lists in the Western world, becoming a legend in the global performance of Chinese books.

Believing a "book is about human thinking and observation of life", Eady told China Daily on Friday in an e-mail that an agent should "have a brave and talented mind to find a writer to write a book to make people think, understand how important that the personal supports to the writers are, and has a knowledge to organize the publicity with publishers", besides a willingness to take time and take risks.

"The Chinese have not got very much knowledge and respect to the literary agent yet," Eady added.

One possible reason for that is the relatively low payment for writing. Generally, a literary agent takes 10 to 20 percent from a writer's royalty gains. Not all Chinese authors can afford a professional agent.

"In China, as in many Asian countries, there is not a very strong demand in the domestic publishing market for the services of literary agents, except very successful big authors," Jackie Huang Jiakun, chief representative of Andrew Nurnberg Associates International's Beijing office, told China Daily on Friday.

Huang said Chinese writers do need to choose to work with a capable literary agent when they want to go abroad to publish books.