ABSTRACT
Literary agents operating on a global, or even a merely transatlantic scale, find themselves not only mediating between three professional groups—authors, publishers or editors, and agents—but also between several cultures. Agents are bankers who not only make sure the proprietor of rights gets paid, but who also cash proprietors' money, and in the case of international transactions, facilitate money transfers. This role is all the more crucial when proprietors are geographically removed from the place of transaction, as they lack the means to control these different processes. Foreign rights contracts are usually drawn up by agents rather than by the publishers acquiring said rights. This saves publishers a lot of trouble, and further highlights agents' value in the transactions. To take in the full measure of the difficulties facing agents and proprietors of book rights, France's monetary and exchange policies require examination.
