Word: merediths
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...Auctioneer. Manhattan's Scott Meredith, 43, perhaps the nation's most successful literary agent, approaches his work in a considerably colder spirit. Some years ago, the trade set up the Society of Authors' Representatives, a gentlemanly association of agents who valiantly try to regulate their business with a code of ethics. He is its most important nonmember. He advertises the services of his 30-man staff, and he charges a fee for reading manuscripts-two functions frowned upon by the S.A.R. Meredith can afford the frowns. His stable includes Norman Mailer, Gerald Green, Ellery Queen, Mickey Spillane...
...Meredith who in 1952 started "auctions"-the practice of submitting promising manuscripts, along with a bidding deadline, to more than one publisher at a time. Typically, he will send out letters to about 20 publishers informing them in glowing but vague terms about a sure-fire bestseller. After a sufficient number of nibbles, Meredith sets his H-hour, and on the big day-watches synchronized, manuscripts neatly packed in grey boxes-a platoon of messengers fans out across Manhattan to deliver their valuable cargo to the publishers. Fevered reading is then followed by even more feverish bidding...
Although conservative agents mutter in their tweeds about such practices, many have learned the game. Yet Meredith remains the master auctioneer. For Mystery Writer Evan Hunter, he got a $550,000 advance on two novels and nine "Ed McBain" thrillers; for Irving Shulman (Valentino), $100,000 apiece for his next two books; for Science Fictioneer Arthur C. Clarke, $160,000 for one book; for Whodunit Author Richard Prather (The Kubla Khan Caper), $1.1 million for 20 paperbacks...
However they handle their job, though, most agents are happy enough to participate in the publishing bonanza. But there are many who also fear that the payoff is getting too big for comfort. Says Jim Brown of James Brown Associates: "A man like Scott Meredith has hurt the industry by pressing for unrealistic advances in terms of what he is offering." Echoes Agent Robert Lescher: "I'm in the business of handling creative careers. I don't want a publisher turning sour on a writer because I negotiated too big an advance...
DEAR MR. GABLE (NBC, 8-9 p.m.). Burgess Meredith narrates a chronicle of the life of Clark Gable, comparing the real man with the reel...