Business Musings: Agents and Estates (Contracts/Dealbreakers/Estates)

Last week, I posted a blog on Prince’s lack of a will, and talked a little about estates. Of course, some people (who apparently never read my blog) asked me if agents should handle a writer’s estate. No, agents should not. Before I even get to the issues below, let me tell you this: Many literary agencies are small businesses, just like your writing business […]

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The Business Rusch: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I have been down the rabbit hole, and it is labeled “Philip K. Dick.” I had a simple question: Who benefits directly from the Philip K. Dick estate? I found websites, wikipages, arguments, lawsuits over movies, and all kinds of other things, none of which directly answered my question. Until I located an interview conducted by the Library of America with Jonathan Lethem and Laura […]

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The Business Rusch: Fearless Inventories

First, an anecdote: It comes from the November issue of Vanity Fair. The magazine published an excerpt—if that’s the right word—from Truman Capote’s legendary unfinished novel, Answered Prayers. In an accompanying article, Sam Kashner describes the history of the novel, why it remained unfinished from the 1960s to Capote’s death in 1984, and how it became one of those legendary unfinished works, more imagined than […]

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The Business Rusch: Want To Be Read 100 Years From Now? Here’s How.

So, you want to be an artist. You want to be one of those writers everyone has read, even though you’re long dead. You want your work in libraries, on bookstore shelves, and in digital format. You want professors to assign your work, or kids to sneak that “crap” that everyone decries but everyone loves. There are two very simple ways to do this: 1. […]

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