Morton Lloyd Janklow (born May 30, 1930) is the primary partner in Janklow & Nesbit Associates, the largest literary agency in the world. Clients include Barbara Taylor Bradford, Judith Krantz, Danielle Steel, Sidney Sheldon, Thomas Harris, Barbara Walters, Anne Rice, four U.S. presidents, and Pope John Paul II.
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Janklow was born in New York City.[1] After years as a corporate lawyer, Morton L. Janklow became a literary agent in 1972, when his friend and client William Safire asked him to handle a book he was writing about President Nixon. Mr. Janklow created tremendous attention for the book by requiring editors to come to his office and not allowing any pages to leave the room. “We ended up getting a huge sum, unheard of at the time for nonfiction,” he recalls.
He also ushered in a new era in authors’ rights when he successfully sued publisher William Morrow for trying to renege on the deal. “They said, ‘You can’t force a publisher to print a book; that’s never been done,’ ” Mr. Janklow remembers. “We took the publisher out of the captain’s seat and put the author in it. The publisher is replaceable; the author is not.” “A lot of my colleagues are worried about the Internet,” he says. “I’m not. I don’t care how many highways they build. I will decide which highway is the best and how much it will cost for my cars to drive on that highway. The increased distribution channels can only be good for intellectual property. [2]” Another version of this story emphasizes Janklow's role in changing the standard publishing agreement to being more fair for authors. Janklow is quoted as saying "I'm not trying to force the publisher to publish the book. I'm just trying to force the publisher to pay for it."[3]
Janklow is a partner with the law firm Janklow, Newborn & Ashley in New York city. In 1982 he founded the Morton L. Janklow Program for Advocacy in the Arts at Columbia and later established the Morton L. Janklow Professorship of Literary and Artistic Property Law. Mr. Janklow also teaches in the program. Janklow's current partnership with Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Associates, was formed on Jan. 2, 1988.[4]
Morton L. Janklow graduated in 1950 from Syracuse University. He earned his law degree from Columbia in 1953. He is married to Linda, the granddaughter of Harry Warner and the daughter of Mervyn LeRoy [5]