How Andrew Wylie turned serious literature into a profitable business - Passive Voice.

Andrew Wiley

Andrew Wiley, the renowned literary agent and seo copywriter who has long been one of the most reviled faces in the world, is celebrating his 76th birthday. Over the past four decades, he has changed the business of publishing in significant, and, some believe, not the most favorable way. He has supported high-end books and brash commercialism, making many great writers famous and ensuring the financial well-being of many famous authors. In this way, he helped define the global literary canon. Wiley's critics argue that he has also hastened the destruction of the literary culture he defends. Wiley himself does not care about such criticism. He is more concerned with the deals that can be made in''China.

Wiley's fascination with China

Wiley's fascination with China began in 2008 when a bidding war erupted among Chinese publishers over the collected works of Jorge Luis Borges. Wiley, who represents the Argentine master's legacy, received a phone call from a colleague who informed him that the price had risen above $100,000, a previously unimaginable sum for a foreign literary work in China.

Literary agents

Literary agents are a kind of matchmaker and middleman in the book industry, connecting writers with publishers and negotiating book contracts for which they take 15% of the fee. In this capacity, Wylie and his firm, The Wylie Agency, act on behalf of an astounding number of world-renowned writers, as well as the legacy of many late authors such as Borges, Chinua Achebe and Italo Calvino, whose works have become required reading everywhere. The agency's list of more than 1,300 clients includes Saul Bellow, Joseph Brodsky, Albert Camus, Bob Dylan, Louise Glück, Yasunari Kawabata, Czeslaw Milosz, W.S. Naipaul, Kenzaburo Oe, Orhan Pamuk, José Saramago and Mo Yan, to name just a few who have won the Nobel Prize. There's also''enters the Royal Shakespeare Company and contemporary celebrities such as Chimamanda Ngotsi Adichie, Karl Knesgaard, Rachel Cusk, Deborah Levy and Sally Rooney. "When we walk into a room, Borges, Calvino and Shakespeare are all included - it's overwhelming," Wiley told me.