By David MontgomerySunday, March 7, 2010
In "I, Alex Cross," the new bestseller set in Washington by James Patterson, fictional detective Alex Cross scans the ego wall in the office of a senator he's investigating:
The senator has hung photos of himself "with the president . . . the vice president. Tiger Woods. Bono. Arnold and Maria. Bob Woodward. Robert Barnett."
Robert Barnett?
"The senator," muses Cross, "was obviously a well-connected man, and he wanted everyone who walked into his office to know it right away." ...
... Barnett's rate of $975 an hour is a lot of money, but his transformational insight was to apply a lawyer's fee structure to the work of an agent. Then it's not necessarily so much money
A traditional literary agent charges 15 percent of an advance. Barnett helped Bill Clinton sell "My Life" for a record $15 million. Clinton would have paid an agent $2.25 million; Barnett says he put in far fewer hours than the 2,308 he would have needed to work to bill $2.25 million. (more ...)
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