It’s good to learn terminology and what it means. Let’s talk about pre-empts and best bids. Here’s a story.
I was involved in a very competitive auction. Toward the end, I had three bids that were very close to each other. So I decided to go to best bids. That means that each publisher should make the very best offer they can. It should be the absolute most they want to spend.
One of the three bids was higher than the other two. I favored that one (although not because of the amount. It was because I felt they were the most dedicated.) The author agreed. So we accepted the offer. Then one of other publishers wanted to know for how much it sold. I told her. She said, “Oh, we could have paid that.” I wanted to say well, then why didn’t you offer it, but refrained.
To me, a best bid is exactly that. The whole purposes of best bids is to flush out the highest offer. There is no obligation for us to accept the highest offer, but it helps to see where they’re at. If you keep accepting more bids after declaring best bids, it defeats the purpose. I’ve heard that some agents keep right on going after bests bids, and I don’t agree with that. It renders the term meaningless, which means there is no point in doing it.
Then there are pre-empts. That happens when one publisher is so enthusiastic they they are willing to offer a daunting amount that will shut the whole thing down. Here’s what I do if I am offered a pre-empt. First, I examine all sides of it. If we want to take it, that doesn’t mean I’m accepting it exactly as it’s presented. I may want to retain certain subsidiary rights, I may want to tinker with royalties or cover consultation or a host of other things. So I work with the publisher to make it the best it can be.
If I don’t feel it’s enough, I can turn it down and keep going. I will tell the other publishers that I turned down a pre-empt, and for how much. That shows them that the ball park wasn’t enough. But I don’t use the offer as a launching point. I don’t shop it to see if anyone else will top it. The whole point of the pre-empt is to end it. There is no point in a publisher making a pre-empt if they know it won’t then be over. The idea is for the offer to be so dazzling that we are content enough to accept it. Any publisher can make such an offer at any time–including and especially before an auction officially begins–so they all have equal opportunity. Sometimes they are disappointed that they lost out on a book because it was pre-empted and they never had a chance to bid. Except that they did have a chance. They could have pre-empted too.
All this has to do with aggression and ethics. How far are you willing to go? That varies from agent to agent and from situation to situation. Things can always go wrong during an auction, and often do. So we have to be ready for anything.
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