From my understanding, they're paid on commission and take ten to 20 percent from a sale. So, no paychecks every two weeks, right? Correct me if I'm wrong! My character has been with the agency for well over a decade and has made several lucrative deals. But he can't perform his job anymore and was asked to leave.
Would he be given a severance package? I was thinking a month for every year worked -- too much?
And because I'm curious -- what additional benefits do agents get? Medical, dental, 401K, etc.?
Resources: Googled "literary agent pay," "literary agent salary," "day in life of literary agent," "literary agent severance pay," "literary agent severance package," "do commissioned workers get severance pay?" and lots more.
Visited Miss Snark and typed in things like "salary," "lay/laid off," "severance," etc.
Visited Preditors and Editors. Did some general looking around and looked at a lot of listed agencies.
Visited The Association of Authors' Representatives, Inc. Checked out the FAQs, but that was geared towards writers.
I've the feeling that this will end up as one of those questions that allow me to decide the outcome, ha. Really, all of this will amount to a sentence or two. Oh, well.