They have of course the you-can-get-that-anywhere name and address data. Then comes what we know of the agent's previous work history (what other agencies did she/he work for, was she/he in publishing), and a general bio category in which we put anything we know that may be of interest - she/he was part owner of a baseball team, a little theater, does sky diving. Anything and everything. Often nothing. Depends on what we've come across.

Comes next, the deals.

This is the heart of the report and is essentially what you're paying for. We list every client we have identified as being currently with or ever having been with the agent, "from the public record." This is what makes the report unique. We pick up what is said in the trade and general press, not responses to a self-serving questionnaire filled in by the agent. We include as much as we know about sub-rights sales - including dramatic rights deals and translation rights deals - and this includes dollar figures (we include them for primary/volume right deals as well) and the names of the sub-agents the agent uses for representing her/his clients abroad and in Hollywood (which is certainly a whole n'other country as far as publishing is concerned.)

The value of all this is that if you study it carefully - and you're wasting your money if you do not - you begin to see patterns of what the agent handles best (by definition the deals that make the public record are those the agent wants to brag about, ergo they are the kind she/he does best with) how strong she/he is in terms of sub-rights sales, dramatic rights sales, etc. Knowing which sub-agent to go through for a particular work, for example, is one of the great arts of the agent...

Finally we tell you if the agent is someone the press go to when they want an expert quote on this or that aspect of agenting. (I.e. how important is the agent in the business; among colleagues), and on what topics. We include as well a separate report on what we know about the corporate history of the agent's "employing" company. (Employer in this case includes a company the agent owns in whole or part.)

It is, as you can see, a lot of info. Which is why we include a separate sheet with an explanation of what each category means and how to read it.

The New Agent List and Fingerprint Reports are priced cumulatively. Dead Reckoning (i.e. individual) Reports are priced according to how much data we have on the agent, by which we mean how many clients/deals we've picked up. All our reports are sent in hard copy by first class mail. Dead Reckoning reports and the New Agent List go out in one business day, Standard Fingerprints usually take five business days, and Customized Fingerprints are completed twelve to fourteen business days from the time we receive the answers to our Questionnaire.

To order go to our website and use Secure Ordering to purchase online with a credit card, or to print out the order from, and send it in with your check or cc details.

Where available overnight service by Fedex is offered at a surcharge of $75.00 for the US and Canada; $100.00 to Europe and Latin America; and $100.00 to Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. That surcharge includes queue jumping for Fingerprint reports. (Two business days rather than five or fourteen.)