STATUS: Off to early start today…
What’s playing on the iPod right now? HOMETIME by One Eskimo
So charmingly tongue and cheek—even if all I can say is “ouch.” Talk about tapping into an author’s greatest fear….
Maybe a second career has a folk singer?
STATUS: Oh, I’ve got a lot to accomplish today.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? LIFE IN TECHNICOLOR by Coldplay
A couple of weeks ago we got an email from a rather upset reader in Denmark. He wanted to buy Gail Carriger’s SOULLESS as an eBook in English for his eReader. According to this fan, he is Danish but reads most of his novels in English. He could see that it was available in the US without a problem but why couldn’t he buy it?
I imagine this fan is not the only non-US resident with this question so I’m going to tell you why he can’t buy the US English eBook version in Denmark (or wherever outside of the US). And yes, we did send a letter to this person explaining why.
It’s a sticky situation folks. As eBooks have global capacity in the English language, the reason why it may or may not be available resides in the initial rights/territories granted to the publisher when the deal was made for the print edition.
I know, not exactly what you wanted to hear when you live in Timbuktu and you just want to buy the dang eBook. Doesn’t the author and the publisher get the money?
So let me see if I can explain more clearly because trust me, it’s causing headaches for agents, for authors, and for publishers, and there is no easy fix-it solution.
If I sell Title X for North American rights only, then that means the US publisher is only allowed to sell its English version in the US, Canada, US territories (aka Philippines etc), and non-exclusive in select countries in the rest of the world (clearly listed in the contract). Print or ebook. The reason for this is that we want the ability to sell English to UK or ANZ (Australia) separately and UK/ANZ insists on certain “exclusive territories” for its print and electronic edition.
Are you starting to see the problem? If UK/ANZ hasn’t been sold, then no eBook version in English is available in let’s say Denmark because Europe is considered exclusive to UK in terms of selling the English edition.
Now, if an agent and author has granted World English or World rights to the US publisher, then there is the possibility for the US publisher to sell its English version world-wide in print or eBook. I say “possibility” as the US publisher may still want to sublicense property to UK or do a deal internally with a sister-UK/ANZ company who will want its version exclusively in certain territories.
So, it’s not just a matter of the author or US publisher giving Amazon or Apple or BN or Whoever a thumbs-up to sell away the English language eBook from their distribution channels in other countries. It all depends on the contract.
And yes, we ALL understand that with the electronic book there is now a greater global market for the English language version that needs to be exploited but with all English-speaking territories wanting to protect their exclusive sales area for their version, it’s a bit of tangle with no easy solution.
And yes, I get that avid readers may simply pirate an eCopy when the legal/legitimate one is not readily available. We aren’t stupid but the industry is not shifting fast enough to implement a quick solution.
STATUS: So thrilled today.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? THIS IS THE DAY by The The
Actually, I’m not exactly sure what that means except to say that Ally is still young and it sounded like a great title for this blog entry.
All I really want to say is CONGRATS ALLY! On coming in at #6 on the New York Times Series bestseller list and your best out of the gate sales numbers ever!
If any of the reviews on Amazon and BN are to be believed, this is the best Gallagher Girl book to date! We heartily agree.
STATUS: Just another crazy Monday disguised as a Tuesday!
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? VOLCANO by Damien Rice
As you folks know, we agents receive deluges of queries and sample pages from aspiring writers. One of the industry’s laments is that everyone seemingly wants to be a writer but when we compare that number to the statistics on the number of Americans actually reading books, well, according to studies, the average person only reads 2-3 books a year.
Then I read this tidbit in Shelf Awareness (source Galley Cat), that Tin House Books will require that any writer wanting to submit to them must also include a copy of a receipt that proves the writer has purchased a book recently from a bookstore.
I love it! I wonder. If we required same, would that drop the number of queries we receive? Better yet, could we have the writer prove that he/she actually read the book for said receipt?
I know. Impossible but there’s something about this idea…
STATUS: Doing all the crazy wrap-up before the three-day holiday weekend. Yes!
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? LEAVING LAS VEGAS by Sheryl Crow
I’ve mentioned before what I call The Curse Of The Sophomore Novel. For whatever reason, authors invariably trip when it comes to writing the next novel after their debut.
My hypothesis is that the first novel took many years to write, had lots of feedback and many drafts. Then novel 2 needs to be written on deadline and usually in under a year’s time. With that crunch, a lot of talented authors kind of blank on all the great tools they used in the debut novel that made it so good. By the way, it doesn’t matter how talented the author, what genre the author writes in, or how many previous novels he/she has under her bed. More often than not, a new author will whiff on book 2.
Good agents anticipate and prepare for this—which leads me to a terrific article my author Kristina Riggle just sent me from Poets & Writers. Editor Jofie Ferrari-Adler has been doing a series of articles on editors and agents and every one of them is a gem. If you haven’t seen them before, I suggest tracking all of them down.
What this month’s article tackles is best described in Jofie’s own words. He says: “This is a story about literary agents. It’s a story about good literary agents and bad literary agents and, more specifically, it’s a story about the tireless, often intangible work that good literary agents perform for their clients during the period after the contract is signed but before the book is published.”
Interestingly enough, none of the agents in the article tackled the curse of the sophomore novel so I thought I would in today’s post.
As I mentioned, good agents anticipate the curse. I always strongly recommend that I see the sophomore novel before it’s delivered to the editor. In fact, I encourage our authors to send it to me (if at all possible) 2 months before the delivery deadline to the editor. Just in case. Occasionally, the author does just fine and the sophomore novel is great. No intervention necessary. More often than not, the curse has reared its ugly head.
For the story I want to share, the editor (to this day) does not know—and this is why details will remain anonymous. In fact, I should say “stories” and “editors to this day don’t know” because it’s happened more than once and none of the editors know.
Author delivered the cursed sophomore novel. I read and said “good heaven! This won’t do. The poor overworked editor will blow a coronary if we send this on.”
Called author and delivered the bad news. Then buckled down with the author to, literally, rewrite the entire novel in 6 weeks. (The author sent me 2 chapters every 2 or 3 days. I would edit and turnaround in 2 days to shoot it back. Author would send next batch and while I had that, author reworked already edited chapters until entire novel was revised.)
Author delivered wonderful “first draft” of novel to editor on deadline.
Couple weeks later, editor called just to tell me what a pleasure reading the novel was and how the editor has never had such a clean sophomore novel delivered to her before.
I responded with “I know. Isn’t the author amazing?”
And I’m positive I’m not the only agent to have ever done this.
By the way, this only ever happens to an author once. After the sophomore curse, the author never missteps again.
Happy 4th of July! See y’all back here on Tuesday.
STATUS: I have several interesting negotiations going on at the moment. Makes the day rather chaotic when I’m constantly having to switch gears from one deal to the other as editors call.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? CRAZY by Shawn Colvin
As we are often reminded daily when we see a sale in deal lunch for a title we’ve passed on (LOL), agents can have different opinions on the same work. A couple of weeks ago, we got a full manuscript submission that both Sara and I had decided to read.
Sara started before I did and sent me an excited email about how much she was loving it, etc. I started it, read a good 75 pages, and I just wasn’t wild about it (regardless of how well-written the work was).
It seriously just came down to our personal tastes.
Sara had no hesitation so she offered representation and took on a new client. If left up to me, I probably would have passed.
So we mean it when we say “this biz is really subjective.” It also means it’s a good thing that there are two of us taking on clients and that our tastes don’t always match up. It means more opportunity for everyone.
STATUS: My To Do list was ridiculous and I didn’t even finish one item on it. In good news, some other fun stuff happened.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? ONE AND ONLY by Teitur
I actually typed up yesterday’s blog entry while at the office. I headed home and then met with a friend for dinner. When back at home, I picked up my kindle so I could take 30 minutes to review some sample page submissions. (On a sidenote, this process is pretty typical for me. I only allocate about 30 minutes to review submissions. Now if something grabs me, then I’ll go beyond the allocated time frame. That’s how I know something is good if I’m “staying up” to finish reading the sample. I’ll ask for the full the next day).
But back to my story. I pick up my kindle and pop open the first submission—a young adult work. Sure enough, the main protagonist dies within the first five pages.
Considering I just literally blogged about that hours before, the irony was not lost on me. Y’all will be happy to know that I didn’t stop reading the submission. It was actually a rather cool premise so I did read the sample pages in its entirety (so about 30 pages). Ultimately I decided to pass on asking for a full. I didn’t connect to that main character and considering she is already dead, I felt like that was a rather crucial ingredient to make this novel work for me despite it’s rather unique setting and concept.
I figured blog readers wouldn’t mind hearing about this. As for queries that have yesterday’s outlined trends, we don’t dismiss them out of hand by any means. But it certainly has to go the extra distance in its uniqueness so that we’ll ask for sample pages.
So keep that in mind.
STATUS: Importance of proofreading. I sent out an email with a sentence that featured the same word three times. Sheesh. It’s a Monday…
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? ONE FOR MY BABY by Jack Jones
I have to say it’s getting a little gruesome in our query letters and sample pages. We’ve received an inordinate amount of queries where the poor main character has to be killed off before the novel can begin.
(1) Main characters dying and then being sent back to earth to redeem themselves or finish one last task.
(2) Teens dying in car accidents and then narrating their story from the other side.
(3) Main characters that become a ghost and narrate the story from that perspective.
I’m sure writers are simply trying to find a cool hook or an interesting framework in which to tell their stories but in the last month, we’ve seen a hundred of these.
Some other trends?
(1) Greek mythology characters in a modern setting (Thank you Mr. Riordan.)
(2) In women’s fic: 30-40 something women facing a choice between (1) a happy but mundane family life and (2) a new romance/exotic adventure; We assume most of them choose their families in the end. Also, we’ve been seeing a lot of stories about women who have discovered their husbands cheating, getting divorced, and then moving to a small town where they start their own business—like a B&B. They always move to the small town as the key feature.
(3) Adult novels with bipolar characters (not sure if this is relevant since we haven’t requested any of them, but it’s amazing how many of these queries we’ve seen).
(4) Psychics (both YA and adult) who solve a mystery or save someone or other people’s lives
(5) vampires (still) – in romance and YA (fewer werewolves, but amazingly still those pesky vampires)
(6) people (adult and YA) who “see” things in dreams that are real and lead them on an adventure (all sorts of genres, but same concept).
STATUS: I’m off to speak at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists this afternoon. A first for me!
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? GIRLS ON FILM by Duran Duran
How authors handle reviews…. From my author Kristina Riggle–who is particularly good at finding me great funnies to share.
Enjoy!
STATUS: If I read my latest Publishers Weekly magazine at the same time as getting a pedicure, does that qualify as working? Hey, it’s summer time.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? I AND LOVE AND YOU by Avett Brothers
Last weekend I spoke at my local Lighthouse Writers Litfest. They wrapped up two weeks of celebrating literature and authors with an agent panel at the Tattered Cover in Lodo (which stands for Lower Downtown)—and to be honest, agents doesn’t sound overly celebratory to me but hey, they thought that was the way to do it. Didn’t you know that most of us are full of hot air?
One of the questions asked at the panel was how much of an advance can a writer expect for a debut novel.
Admit it. All of you just perked up your ears. Always, always, writers want to know about the dollars involved. The problem is that this question is really hard to answer. Depending on the novel, it literally could go for any amount of money.
When pressed, which happened of course, the audience wanted to know what was “typical.”
Once again, no such thing but if you hold a gun to my head, I’ll say this:
1. Most debut novels will have advances of under 25k per book. I’d say that’s typical.
2. What a debut novel will get for an advance will depend on genre.
a. Romance novels—5-15k per book
b. YA or MG—10-30k
c. Mysteries & thrillers—Uh, no idea. Don’t rep them. Janet Reid, my friend, can you chime in here? I think you are the Queen of repping this genre.
d. Literary fiction—10-30k
e. Women’s fic—10-30k (are you noticing a pattern here?)
f. SF&F—5-25k
Okay, fine. I told you the money—as long as you realize this list is meaningless, we’re fine.
Have I sold a debut romance author for six figures? Yes. Debut literary author for six figures? Yes. SF&F debut author for 6? Not yet (but I’ve gotten really close…).
Etc. It all depends on how many editors want your particularly debut novel. For my part, I often feel the most satisfaction for selling a debut that took forever to place (and the author was on the verge of giving up hope) and the novel I sold for peanuts that then exploded and just sold and sold.
Now that’s the kind of money I like to talk about.