It's the blockbuster literary agent's dream; a deal expected to bring up to $20 million in royalties with 15% going to the agent. Agent John Brockman recently struck just such a deal for a writer—of software—not books. Brockman is one of several literary agents with little loyalty to the printed word, unless, that is, it's etched on Mylar. Inspired by predictions that American consumers will spend $2 billion on software this year, Brockman and others are reshaping the literary agent's trade in a high-tech image.
Not that anyone is abandoning hard copy entirely. In 1982, readers spent $1.5 billion on trade and hardcover books. But book publishing has an annual growth rate of only 8% to 12%, according to analyst John Reidy of Drexel Burnham Lambert. By contrast, software, a precocious toddler of an industry, rapidly expands every year.
A well-established book agent like Brockman can use his extensive contacts to make a hacker a star, as he did when he managed to get Sat Tara Singh Khalsa, president of Kriya Systems Inc., a Chicago software company, the multimillion dollar deal with SImon & Schuster. Relative newcomers like Maureen T. Whalen and Sandra Elkin, partners in the New York-based Electronic Media Assn., began to represent software clients in May 1983, and are after a less spectacular but solid educational market.
The success of all software agents hinges on an expected expansion of the software market, from specialized and expensive—in the $300 and over category—programs sold in computer stores to include mass-market products meant to be sold in bookstores and other retail outlets for about $50.
Since the software industry is not equipped to handle high volume sales, software writers need a pipeline—an agent—to the experts in mass-market publishing. A $29.95 price tag and educational appeal had already sold 250,000 copies of Kriya's Typing Tutor II, not enough for Khalsa. Dissatisfied with his original marketer, he went looking for a more enthusiastic advocate, and eventually found Brockman in New York. Brockman cut a deal with Simon & Schuster that should net Kriya between $15 million and $20 million over the next three to five years.
Brockman puts startup costs at $500,000. Though agenting is agenting, literary or software, the new business requires a few extras: computers to run the software and consultants to evaluate the programs.