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What a Literary Agent Is Paid, and When You Are

The Authors Guild calls fifteen percent of gross standard on U.S. book and performance deals, and twenty percent when a foreign sub-agent is used. The AALA's archived canon sets the payment clock.

The Publishing Times Editorial Desk · September 7, 2026 · 8 min read

What a Literary Agent Is Paid, and When You Are

What does a literary agent get paid, and when does your money leave the agency account? The Authors Guild's answer on the percentage is short. The answer on the bank account is longer, and it lives in two different documents: a Guild guide revised in June 2025, and the Association of American Literary Agents canon.

The percentage

In An Author's Guide to Agency Agreements, revised June 2025 from an article first printed in the Fall 2017/Winter 2018 Authors Guild Bulletin, the Guild calls these rates standard.

On a domestic book deal, the commission is generally fifteen percent of the gross amounts payable to the author. The same fifteen percent is what the guide calls standard for performance rights: motion picture, television, and live stage. On a foreign sale handled by a sub-agent, the commission is generally twenty percent of the gross. The guide notes that some agents charge above that in countries where the money is very small for the work involved. Where no sub-agent is used, the guide says to keep the agency's commission at fifteen percent.

The Guild describes those rates as generally standard and not a point agencies negotiate. "Generally" is the Guild's word. It is not a statute, and it is not your contract until your contract says it.

The appointment that usually comes with the commission is exclusive and worldwide for the work named in the agreement, for the term the agreement sets. The guide says the agent should be able to hire sub-agents for territory and for non-print rights the main agent does not sell directly. Motion picture and television are in that list. Foreign language is too.

Where the check goes

Most agreements the Guild describes send advances and royalties to the agency, in the agency's name. The agency deducts commission and any expenses the agreement allows, then pays the author the balance. The Guild wants that payment made within ten days of the agency receiving it, or within a fixed period both sides have agreed, and it wants client funds held in a client trust account. Commingling them with the agency's operating money is the practice the guide says reputable agents already avoid.

The archived AALA Canon of Ethics effective April 29, 2022 is more specific, and it is narrower about who must do it. Section 2 binds members who are owners or administrators with control of the agency's accounts. Members who are not owners are told to push their agency to follow the same rules. They are not, by that section, personally the holder of the account.

Those owner-members must keep at least two bank accounts, one for money due to clients and one for operating expenses, so the funds are not mixed. They deposit client money promptly. They use reasonable best efforts to pay the client within ten business days after the money has cleared and been attributed, and in any case no later than twenty-one days, unless the client has agreed in writing to something else. There is a small-sum exception. If money for a client arrives more often than quarterly and the total does not exceed $100, the agency may pay quarterly. Once the funds exceed $100, or the client asks, payment is due within ten days after that. The client's books at the agency are open to the client for transactions that concern the client.

AALA's page now labels that 2022 text archived and points to a canon revised for 2026. The highlights of the revision do not restate the ten-day and twenty-one-day clock. Until you have the 2026 section in front of you, the clock you can cite is the one in the archived canon, and the ten-day recommendation you can cite is the Guild's.

Reading fees, after the 2026 revision

The highlights keep a ban that authors have heard for years, and they change the rule on paid editing.

Members may not charge reading fees to evaluate work for possible representation. The highlights name the manuscripts that count: query letters, outlines, proposals, and partial or complete manuscripts. A member who teaches a class or works a writers' conference may be paid by the school or the conference, even if the job includes evaluating pages. The member may not take that evaluation fee directly from the writer.

On editing, the revised text in the highlights says a member may not charge a client for editorial work done to prepare a submission. The association's stated reason is that this editing is part of the job of placing the book. If a member is hired by someone who is not yet a client, and later agrees to represent that writer, "the treatment of monies paid for editorial services performed prior to representation shall be subject to mutual agreement." The member may not go back later and bill for editing because a project did not sell.

That "mutual agreement" sentence is the change from the older rule, which had required a full refund of those fees before submission. Dystel, Goderich & Bourret resigned from the AALA over it. The agency's statement, the section numbers, and the questions worth asking an agent who also sells editing are in the September 25 desk story. They are not repeated here.

The same highlights cover referral money. A member may not keep a secret payment on a client's transaction. If a secret payment arrives, the whole of it goes to the client. A member may not seek a payment for referring an author to a third party. If a third party is known to pay for referrals, the member has to say so when the referral is made. If the member accepts the payment, the relationship and the amount have to be disclosed to the client.

Ending the relationship

The Guild's guide says an author should be able to end the agency agreement, though some agencies insist on six to twelve months to shop a manuscript before they will allow it. Ending the agreement does not wipe out commission on deals the agency already made. Agreements often also claim commission if, within 90 days after termination, or sometimes as long as 180 days, the author signs with a house the agency had already submitted to or was already negotiating with.

That window is how two agents can both send a bill. Hire a new agent the week you leave the old one, and a deal that was already in the market can look like both people's sale. The guide says to deal with that in the new agreement, so you are not paying two commissions on one contract. Ask, on the way out, for a list of every house that has the manuscript.

One phrase to delete if you find it: "an agency coupled with an interest." The Guild says that language is meant to make the relationship irrevocable, and that courts treat the label as ineffective unless the agent holds an interest in the work beyond the right to commissions, which the guide says almost never happens. Strike it anyway, in the agency agreement and in the clause that later gets pasted into a publishing contract.

If the agency will not give you a representation agreement at all, and wants to rely only on the clause inside future publishing deals, the guide says to demand the sample clause by email before you hire them, and to write back that you agree to it. The email is the record.

The author, not the agent, should be the one who signs a license. The guide's recommendation is an express ban on the agency signing deals, memos, and subsidiary-rights agreements in the author's place.

Questions worth asking before you sign

  1. Is the commission fifteen percent of gross on U.S. book and performance deals, and twenty percent of gross when a foreign sub-agent is used?
  2. Which bank account holds my money, and how many days after clearance do you pay?
  3. Do you, or does anyone at the agency, charge writers to read a query or a manuscript?
  4. If I am not yet a client and I pay you for editing, what happens to that money if you later offer representation? Get the answer before the editing starts. The 2026 highlights say that treatment is a mutual agreement, not an automatic refund.
  5. How long after I terminate do you still claim commission on houses you have already contacted? Is it 90 days, 180, or something else?
  6. Will you send the agency clause by email before I agree to it?

Query-response rates are not in any of these documents. Anyone who quotes one as an industry average is not quoting the Guild or the AALA.

Sources