Old Work, New Agent

Question of the day: When you break up with your agent after your first book was published does the new agent now rep that title or does that stay with the old agent?

I've never been in this exact position but I believe that technically, yes, the old agent reps that title. I know in my case, my agent left her old agency after she sold my debut, but I still get royalty information from that old agency, so technically, they'd get any profits, etc, from that book. THOUGH, since I'm still with the same agent, she still reps this work if, say, we ended up selling other rights than we previously had.

I think the best thing to do in this case - I'm assuming you've parted ways with your agent and are interested in selling additional rights to that work - is simply ask her if she has any intention of ever furthering that book's chances in the marketplace, and if not, ask her if she'd consider releasing you from the contract you signed. It might not be up to her: if she's one of many agents within an agency, she might not have authority to do this, but if she works alone, she might. (I'm guessing here.) If she has no plans of ever making another dollar off of this work - and if she's a reasonable person - she might just let you pass it off to the new agent, who could pursue foreign opportunities, etc.

But as I said, I've never been in this exact situation. Have any of you readers out there? Want to advise our question-asker?