Random House

Über-agent Andrew “the Jackal” Wylie has hatched an audacious plot. Or maybe he has just seen the future. Either way, he has disintermediated the publishers he works with – for ebooks at least. With last week’s launch of Odyssey Editions, his Kindle-only ebook imprint, a range of his authors are now available digitally for the first time. To me, this seems inevitable. Many authors and their agents get the new digital realities – and, more importantly, the opportunities – while too many publishing discussions still focus on a protectionist response to the ‘threat’ of digital. If publishers won’t grasp digital, authors and agents will.