Mr. Janklow, wearing a very clutch necktie and a bulging messenger bag, spent much of the evening talking to his former colleague Eric Simonoff, the agent who represented Mr. James and his co-writer, Buzz Bissinger, on their seven-figure book deal with the Penguin Press. Back then, Mr. Simonoff was working at Janklow & Nesbit, the boutique agency co-owned by Luke's father Mort. Rumor was when Mr. Simonoff defected to the William Morris Agency earlier this year that it was Luke's apparent will to take over the agency that had driven him out.

"We hate each other, for the record!" Mr. Simonoff said cheerfully.  

Shooting Stars, which came out this week, focuses on Mr. James's high-school years, when the preternaturally talented player was under intense pressure to live up to the promise everyone saw in him. Of all the very accomplished men and women at Monkey Bar last night—Harvey Weinstein, Ron Howard, Bruce Weber and Fran Lebowitz among them—none would cop to having ever experienced anything like the pressure Mr. James was under at age 16.

"For me it was mainly getting kissed for the first time and getting grades that were good enough to please my parents, and being considered reasonably, not embarrassingly uncool around my school," said Vanity Fair contributing editor David Margolick. "I eventually did get kissed."

Mr. Weinstein wouldn't discuss it—"I'm here for Lebron, whom I love," he said—but one got a hint of what he might have said on the subject of pressure moments later, when Monkey Bar owner Graydon Carter brought up Inglorious Basterds and Mr. Weinstein wiped his brow dramatically and said, "Phew!"   
Mr. Simonoff said something about his mom wanting him to go to an Ivy League school and forcing him to join the varsity track team to beef up his application. "I was on the team for about two days," he said.  

What happened?

"They found out he was Jewish!" said Mr. Janklow.

"No, no," Mr. Simonoff said. "It was just too much running around and throwing heavy objects." He ended up going to Princeton.
"I did not go to an Ivy League school, I went to Wesleyan," Mr. Janklow said. "The pressure that I was under when I was 16 years old was to learn Eric Clapton's solo from 'Crossroads' on Live Cream Vol. 2., which I achieved. That is literally the only pressure I was under! Other than that it was skateboarding at the bandshell, trying to get my 360s together."  

Mr. Carter, who published an excerpt of Shooting Stars in the September issue of Vanity Fair, said that as a young boy in Ottawa, the toughest thing in his life was getting through cold winters. "It was a lot easier than it is today," said the father of five. "It's more complex now if you're a kid. There's a lot of peer pressure—a lot of parental pressure to do well, to get ahead."

He said he found Mr. James' story really moving. Looking over at him as he posed for pictures a few feet away, Mr. Carter admitted that the athlete, who is 24, did not look as tall as he had expected. "But he is a very elegant, very gentlemanly man. And an author!"

A little later, we caught up with Mr. James and asked him what he'd thought of The New York Times' review of his book, in which the critic Dwight Garner said it "reads like a better-than-average young-adult novel," and praised it, twice, as "modest."

"I haven't read it," Mr. James said. "I need to get it."

We told him there was one part where Mr. Garner kind of scolds him for complaining about being called "The Chosen One" on the cover of Sports Illustrated during his junior year in high school, and not mentioning that he later had the phrase tattooed on his back.

Mr. James smiled and shrugged.  "I like the tattoo."

For the most part, that is still true. But as book sales fall and publishing houses look for ways to cut costs, many literary agents are growing increasingly worried that publishers looking to trim their lists will start holding authors to deadlines and using lateness as an occasion to renegotiate advances and, in some cases, terminate contracts altogether.

“Publishers are looking at their books and saying, ‘O.K., this book is two years late. Do we want it anymore?’” said Eric Simonoff, an agent at WME Entertainment. “If the answer is no, they’re saying, ‘We don’t want it anymore—we’re calling our loan.’”

He went on: “Sometimes people have buyer’s remorse, and it’s a very convenient way of rectifying your buyer’s remorse after the fact. It’s safe to say that delivery dates are more meaningful now than they ever have been before. I think everyone’s putting their clients on notice and saying, ‘This is serious.’”

Most publishers are well acquainted with the feeling of regret that comes with realizing that a book they signed up years ago is no longer worth publishing. Sometimes this happens because the subject of the book has become irrelevant or the market for it has become oversaturated. Sometimes it happens because the editor who bought it has left or been fired. Other times it’s because the sum that was paid for the book at the point of acquisition has come to seem exorbitant and ridiculous.

Historically, such regrets have led to action only in rare circumstances, as the practice of canceling contracts has been regarded in the industry as supremely unsavory and damaging. Publishers by and large have been unwilling to risk earning a reputation among literary agents as being mercurial and untrustworthy. (To this day, agents bristle when reminded of the great purge of HarperCollins, when in the summer of 1997 CEO Anthea Disney ordered 100 books canceled in an effort to “clean house.”)

But like so many other practices associated with the “gentleman’s business” that the book business used to be, eating advances in the service of good humor has become a luxury most publishers do not indulge in as readily as they once did. 

“What has happened is that in the cold light of morning, publishers are looking at all these expensive deals they made based on the inflated marketplace, and now the bill is coming due and they don’t want the contracts anymore,” said one top agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I buttoned up all my contracts—I amended all of them way before the due dates came. Once the author delivers on time, then the publisher has to find something unacceptable in form and content, and that’s a much more serious thing to do. At that point there’s a whole process that they have to go through, and it’s much more challenging for them to find something in breach.”

As a result, authors are under unprecedented pressure from their agents to stay on schedule. Most of the literary agents interviewed for this article said they have tried to impress on their clients that if they want to make sure they don’t lose their contracts and find themselves having to pay back an advance that in many cases they’ve already spent, they had better be vigilant about turning their manuscripts in on time. 

“I don’t want my authors to be in that situation, so I’ve been reminding them all year long to not treat their deadlines lightly,” said the independent agent David Kuhn. “Everyone’s paying attention to their contracted deadlines more than they used to, for sure—at least publishers are, and therefore agents are, and therefore authors should.”

“Publishers are going to look at every opportunity to save money in this climate,” said Simon Lipskar, an agent at Writers House. “Most of them aren’t being quite as venal as calling to cancel a day after the due date, but my standard recommendation to my authors at this time is to just deliver their books on schedule.” In so doing, Mr. Lipskar said, “they remove one major contractual ‘out’ for the publishers.”

None of the agents interviewed for this story would provide actual examples of late books that have been canceled recently on the basis of late delivery, even as they asserted with total confidence that the practice is becoming more common. Many noted that cancellations are so traumatic and embarrassing for everyone involved that extra care is taken to prevent them becoming gossip fodder.

Publishers, for their part, aren’t copping to the charge (at least not when The Observer asks them about it), and while many of the editors and executives reached for this story said they’d heard about other houses canceling books because they were late, all of them emphasized that they themselves had not been party to any such incidents.

Speaking on background, though, one publishing executive at a New York house confirmed agents’ fears, saying that authors—especially those without a rock-solid reputation—must be conscientious about honoring their contracts if they want to avoid the possibility of having to pay back their advance.

“People ruin their writing careers by not taking this stuff seriously,” the executive said. “Usually they decide to take legal advice from some friend who says the publisher will never ask for the money back. Well, they frequently do. And nowadays, repaying the publisher is going to be harder, because a writer can’t get the money from Condé Nast. Now is the time for you to be really nice to your publisher.”

The executive said the best thing authors who are having trouble can do is be honest with their editors about their progress (or lack thereof), thus avoiding a situation in which a publisher has budgeted for a book on the assumption that it would come in on time.

“Even if you’re late, be collaborative and communicative,” the executive said. “We just need to know what’s going on, and if it’s not coming, we need to know. Because, you know what, sometimes people have trouble, and we can help. But often when authors know they’re late and they know they’re in trouble, they hide. And that’s exactly the wrong thing to do.”

Of course, authors with established track records and promising projects in the works don’t have much to worry about. Spiegel & Grau won’t be dropping Sara Gruen’s long-delayed Ape House anytime soon, just as Doubleday was never going to cancel Dan Brown’s follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. 

As Mr. Simonoff said, “The reality is, you don’t have to worry about lateness if they want your book. You only have to worry about lateness if they don’t.”

lneyfakh@observer.com

Mr. Abate was left to plan his next act when the merger was finalized at the end of April and it was confirmed that he wouldn't be joining the combined company's book operation in New York. That division will be run by longtime William Morris literary co-heads Jennifer Rudolph Walsh and Suzanne Gluck when the merger receives governmental approval.

It was unclear at the time whether the squad Mr. Abate had built up at Endeavor over the past two years would follow him wherever he goes next. But according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation, he is saying goodbye to literary agents Kirby Kim and Rebecca Oliver, as well as his subsidiary rights manager, Laura Bonner, all three of whom have resolved to leave their old boss and have committed to joining up with the ladies at William Morris instead. Both Mr. Kim and Ms. Bonner joined Endeavor in the last year or so. Ms. Oliver has been there since May 2007.

As for the rest of Mr. Abate's people, it remains unclear what's next for Shawn Coyne, who has been with Endeavor since the fall of 2007, or Trena Keating, who was the editor in chief of Dutton before Mr. Abate brought her on as an agent in the fall of 2008.

Mr. Abate's plans, meanwhile, are anyone's guess at this point, though he is rumored to be in the process of forming his own agency.

All those involved either declined to comment or did not return emails from The Observer.

According to our source, who will be part of the combined WME Entertainment, no one from the William Morris literary department—which includes agents Bill Clegg, Wayne Kabak, Erin Malone, Jay Mandel, and Eric Simonoff—will be leaving the company.

“Mort and I are far from retiring,” Lynn Nesbit said on Friday afternoon. “It isn’t a question on the table at the moment. It really isn’t.”

The night before, one of the stars at the boutique literary agency Ms. Nesbit runs with Mort Janklow abruptly announced that he was leaving for a job at the global, multiplatform talent agency William Morris. Eric Simonoff, who represents Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri and others, had spent 18 years at Janklow & Nesbit. Apart from a stint as an assistant at Norton the year after he graduated from college, it was the only job he’d ever had. At 41, he was widely thought to be the prince of the firm, in line to one day take over for Ms. Nesbit and Mr. Janklow alongside his equally heavy-hitting colleague, Tina Bennett.

Precisely what such a takeover would potentially entail depends on who you ask, but until last week, the consensus assumption among publishing people was that the agency’s namesakes, 78-year-old Mort and 70-year-old Lynn, had been deliberately grooming Mr. Simonoff and Ms. Bennett, and would hand the reins to the agency over to them when they got tired of steering it. 

Because of this, many found Mr. Simonoff’s sudden defection puzzling, and the motivations behind it have been intensely debated.

Though Mr. Simonoff could not be reached for comment, Ms. Nesbit said Friday it wasn’t really so complicated at all.

"I think what provoked him is the huge financial offer,” she said. “I think it’s as simple as money. He said they made him an offer he felt he could not refuse.” 

She added, “He’ll be the only alpha male in William Morris's literary department.”

Suzanne Gluck and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, co-heads of the William Morris literary department, announced their new hire on Friday just as all of publishing prepared to pack into the New School’s Tishman Auditorium for the National Book Critics Circle Awards. The news appeared on The New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog under the headline, “A Star Book Agent’s New Home.” Therein, Ms. Gluck was quoted as saying Mr. Simonoff had been her “dream date” for years.

Three well-placed sources who would not speak for attribution said Ms. Gluck and Ms. Walsh (neither of whom would comment for this article) had been actively looking to add someone of Mr. Simonoff's stature to their ranks for several years. Several industry people—knowledgeable ones, the lot of them, though obviously all too shy to speak on the record—said William Morris could use someone with literary sensibilities who can hit home runs with titles that skew more commercial than the high quality (but often narrowly targeted) stuff that Bill Clegg tends to do.

Publishing people were giddy when they heard about Mr. Simonoff's job change last week, and not even because they were happy for him—though some were—but because it was surprising, and exciting, and an undeniable show of force by William Morris that no one really knew how to explain off the top of their heads. Editors, publishers, agents, everyone wanted to talk about it, and they got into work on Friday still drunk on the news and excited to start calling and emailing one another about it. People asked if a “dominant theory” had emerged, the question invariably coming out sounding hopeful, but also cautious, because no one really wanted the fun to end.

The last time anyone felt this way was in June, when News Corp. fired Jane Friedman. With all that had happened since—the wrenching reorganization of Random House, the closing of Collins—that felt like a lifetime ago. 

"Was I shocked? No,” Ms. Nesbit said on Friday. “I was surprised but not shocked. I think Eric has to spread his wings. Maybe it was all too much like family."

But what exactly was behind Mr. Simonoff’s defection? His colleagues in the industry were left scratching their heads over the weekend.

“There had to have been something material that prompted it,” one editor said. “It’s not something you would do just for the sake of it ‘I just want a change’— agents don’t do it.”

Was it as Ms. Nesbit said? Had William Morris just offered Mr. Simonoff a dizzying amount of money? Or was there more at work—like, say, unresolved succession issues at Janklow & Nesbit that might have caused the famously ambitious agent to lose his patience with the firm and seek out something more secure? 

In a sense, there are two stories here, one about why Mr. Simonoff is joining William Morris, and the other about why he is leaving Janklow.

One theory is that he was tempted by all the perks that come with working for a large multimedia talent agency—namely, access to in-house film and TV agents who can help him not only by selling his adaptation-ready literary properties but also by giving him business whenever one of their celebrity clients wants to write a book.

In an interview Friday, former William Morris literary head Owen Laster, who retired from the firm after 46 years in 2006, said many of the opportunities a large organization with many branches offers are simply not possible at a small, prestige shop like Janklow & Nesbit. He offered that when he was agenting at WMA, he “personally handled many film and television deals” for his clients, and “very often” collaborated with people in other parts of the company.

“That office [Janklow & Nesbitt], although primarily literary, has a pretty wide base, but not like William Morris,” Mr. Laster said. “Their connection with CAA and other offices gives them power in those areas, but at William Morris it’s more direct—it’s our clients.” 

While the possibility of multimedia domination may have certainly appealed to Mr. Simonoff, the real reason behind his decision to leave his longtime home probably had a lot more to do with the murky question of succession at Janklow & Nesbit and the sense of uncertainty that is clouding the agency’s future. 

For one thing, Mr. Janklow is said to have thought seriously about selling the company over the years—and though he has denied it, he has reportedly put a price tag on it that was rebuffed by potential buyers. For another, there is the matter of Mr. Janklow’s 41-year-old son Luke, a former rock singer and current restaurant owner who has in recent years been doing some agenting for his father's shop, and Ms. Nesbit’s daughter Priscilla Gilman—a recovering English professor who recently returned from a nine-month leave of absence during which she wrote a memoir about motherhood.   

Did the presence of the young Mr. Janklow and Ms. Gilman signal to Mr. Simonoff that the agency would always remain a family business? That all the loyalty in the world wasn’t going to make it any more likely that he'd ever be made partner?

Nonsense, according to Ms. Nesbit: “I don’t think it was about succession," she said. "I honestly, genuinely do not think it was about that."

"I think Luke has many strings to his bow,” she added, referring to the young Mr. Janklow’s various non-literary pursuits, which also includes collecting guitars and cars. “I have a very strong alpha male here, you see, in Mort Janklow. Eric felt more comfortable with another younger guy here. I don’t think Luke and Priscilla were in any way a threat to him.”

Regardless of why it happened, Mr. Simonoff’s departure unmistakably leaves Janklow & Nesbit with a future even more uncertain than the one it was already looking forward to, especially considering that whatever finally convinced Mr. Simonoff to flee could conceivably convince Ms. Bennett to do the same.

Several people noted that Ms. Bennett and Mr. Simonoff are the only major players at the agency bringing in new clients and making spectacular sales with any regularity (Update, 5:15PM: It should be noted that just two weeks ago, Ms. Nesbit placed the journalist Andrew Meier's The House of Morgenthau with Random House, and before that sold a memoir by young Iraq veteran Christopher Brownfield to Knopf). Mr. Simonoff has Ms. Lahiri and Edward P. Jones, for example, and in January, he showed his muscle when he sold Danielle Trussoni’s debut novel Angelology in a hotly contested auction for nearly $1 million. Ms. Bennett, in turn, represents Malcolm Gladwell, Fareed Zakaria, Laura Hillenbrand, Eric Schlosser and many others. Sure, the elder Mr. Janklow can still do a multimillion-dollar eight-book deal for Danielle Steele with his eyes closed when he wants to, and Ms. Nesbit is still putting up dizzying numbers with her Tom Wolfe and her Anne Rice sales. But as one publisher put it, “they’re not taking on new people. What’s the future?” 

That publisher, along with other executives, speculated on Friday about whether Mr. Simonoff’s departure might inspire Ms. Bennett to look for other work, or whether it would instead have the effect of forcing some of the succession issues at the agency to the fore.  

Though unlikely, Ms. Bennett could conceivably follow Mr. Simonoff to William Morris. Said one knowledgeable agent, “Jennifer Walsh used to say, 'I'll get Tina Bennett over here—Watch me.’”

Ms. Nesbit sounded cool as a cucumber when confronted with that scenario Friday. "I expect Tina to be here forever,” she said.

Ms. Bennett declined to comment for this article.