August Brown Bag Lunch

Steve Wasserman: The Role of the Literary Agent
Thursday, August 22nd

Steve Wasserman spoke at our August Brown Bag Lunch and gave a retrospective of his remarkable career as an editor, reviewer and agent. Before his cross-coast move to take on the role of director of Kneerim & Williams, Wasserman served as editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review for nine years. He has also worked with such companies as New Republic Books, Hill & Wang, and the Noonday Press. He has had vast experience in both the book publishing and journalism industries, and now applies such experience in his role as a literary agent.

For him, the biggest question that publishing faces today is the challenge of cutting through the avalanche of noise created by a busy culture and new media to draw attention to books. Potential readers only have so much time in their day, and many times they choose to do other things rather than read. Moreover, bombarded by other forms of entertainment many readers, used to hour or half hour television segments, have also lost the stamina to withstand longer narratives.

But not all hope is lost. Wasserman spoke of his surprise to find so many foreign investors involved in American publishing. While it seems that many American companies have given up on the printed word, Wasserman suggested that these foreign investors might have a longer world view. Publishing may indeed be falling to other media forms, but Rome did not fall in a single day; it took 800 years. And really, the printed word, the book, will never disappear.