In recent years, the role of the literary agent has become increasingly important. Editors are unable to spend the amount of time assessing new work as they once did, and view agents as providing a very necessary filter.

Indeed, most publishing firms will not accept un-agented submissions.

Agencies range from the large players specialising in different areas of the media down to individual operations.

Peter Buckman of The Ampersand Agency in Little Tew is larger than a one-man-band, as he works with Anne Marie Doulton and his wife Rosie and daughter Jessica, who run the long-established Buckman Agency, which deals with foreign rights.

Mr Buckman explained: "Foreign rights is a very important part of the writer's income and you can double the pitiful advance some people get if it's a book that will appeal abroad, which many of ours do."

Aged 65 this year, he set up the agency in 2003 with the octogenarian Peter Jansen-Smith, once author Ian Fleming's agent, who came on board as a consultant.

Mr Buckman said: "If you're self-employed, assuming you enjoy what you're doing, you don't give up."

Successful He set up the agency partly because he was finding it more difficult to get published as a writer after very many successful years writing everything from greetings cards to television series.

He said: "Everything in this house is named after something I adapted for TV. This is the Van der Valk conservatory. The kitchen is the Morse wing. There's the PD James garden."

It was his wife who suggested his new career.

"Agenting was the one part of publishing that I hadn't had anything to do with, and I thought that was a brilliant idea," he explained.

While Mr Jansen-Smith's dowry was the Georgette Heyer estate, Mr Buckman's was the six-figure sum he made for first-time novelist Vikas Swarup.

The Buckman Agency then doubled that figure for Mr Swarup, which just goes to show the benefits of these two agencies working so closely together so close in fact that their offices are across the lawn from each other.

Ampersand receives 100 unsolicited manuscripts a week, which Mr Buckman winnows in a weekly session with Ms Doulton.

He said: "We sit at opposite ends of the desk and we each take a handful of stuff out of the pile.

"One tiny pile on the right will be for proper reading and the rest will be rejects. We're in the business of communication and selling and talent has to shout to make itself heard, and it has to shout in an original and enticing way."

Apart from being an unpaid filter for publishers, Mr Buckman takes on and represents authors whose work he values and thinks will sell.

"For a writer you're like a confidant, counsellor, facilitator and a critic.

You've also got to be a salesman and a negotiator," he said.

Developing good relations with publishers is also crucial.

"You have to establish a reputation for having a good eye and for being a good negotiator, in that you don't ask for ridiculous sums," he said.

The agency currently represents 30 writers and makes commissions on sales of their work of between ten and 20 per cent.

Advances Mr Buckman said: "We now start at 12.5 per cent, because most of our new writers earn so little.

"The reason for the higher advances at the other end is in the translation rights. You use sub-agents and they have to have their percentages."

They also take a higher percentage in the case of complicated deals, such as film options, which take many hours of negotiation.

Not all the writers make money each year. Even so, the firm achieved a turnover last year of roughly £259,000, enough to pay Ms Doulton, although Mr Buckman acknowledges that if he drew a salary it would be less than the minimum wage.

Nevertheless, with profits now over the minimum of £25,000 needed for membership, Mr Buckman was recently able to join the Association of Author's Agents and he feels the agency is building nicely.

He added: "If you're setting up on your own, your expectations must be modest."

However, whereas a large agency needs a strong list of successful authors, a small one needs to only have one big success to make a fairly decent living.

Mr Buckman gives the example of the writer, Joanne Harris.

He explained: "She's now with an agent who has very few clients and doesn't have to worry because Joanne Harris is published everywhere and sells very well," he said.

Mr Buckman enjoys the many diverse roles of agenting, particularly editing.

"Publishers don't do as much editing as they used to and agents actually have to help shape things," he said.

He also relishes selling, having discovered a knack for it. As a history student at Oxford, he once spoke to his tutor about doing a possible PhD. Mr Buckman explained: "He said I can't help thinking you'd be happier in commerce."

So after a lifetime of writing he is now happily fulfilling that early prophecy.

Contact www.theampersandagency.co.uk