Pub Rants

Category: Agents/Agenting

Because You Asked—Take 2

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: People assume that Denver is cold in the winter. In general, our temps are pretty mild. Not this week. We’ve got Alaska weather. It was -13 degrees when I woke up this morning. At least the sun was shining…

What’s playing on the iPod right now? RIVER by Sarah McLachlan

Kristi asked:
I’d love to ask an editor if they feel less inclined to take on a debut author due to the current economic climate – if they happen to address that issue, I’d love to hear their thoughts.

If the project is strong enough and generates excitement, editors are just as interested in bidding for it at auction and taking on a debut author. However, if there isn’t that level of excitement, I do see that editors are being more cautious about submissions. And maybe cautious is the same as reluctant but I don’t think so. Editors are still showing interest but they are not jumping in with an immediate offer. I see editors asking for revisions first. Wanting to give it a second read post-revision to see if their interest level is still high. Then they are getting on board to try and make an offer.

I’m also noticing that all of the above is taking a lot of time. It used to be that editors would turnaround a project with an offer in 6 to 8 weeks. Now it’s taking 6 months. 8 months. Even a year. Cautious is definitely the word of the day.

Jade asked:
I’d be interested to know if angels are the new vampires or are vampires still the new vampires? Actually, I’m just generally interested in YA trends as always, especially since whatever is being bought now won’t be in stores for a couple of years.Oh. What about merepeople? That’s my call for the next big trend. Everyone seems to be writing about meremaids and meremen…except me.

I’d have to say that angels are probably the new vampire—although I don’t think vampires are done yet.

As for mer-people, I’m not sure what to say. I haven’t seen a lot in this realm but hey, maybe that’s the next hot trend and it hasn’t surfaced quite yet (pun intended!).

And I’ll tackle more Qs tomorrow…

Because You Asked

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Very sad to see that Imeem has now merged with My Space music. Not sure how good my music excerpts will be until I can find a new, good site for the embeds. I already miss Imeem.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting.

And because I so rarely answer, I thought it would be fun to take your questions from the comments section of my December 1, 2009 blog entry and actually respond.

I know. Try not to die of shock or get used to it. Grin.

Lisa Dez asked:
I’ve been asked to make some revisions by an editor PRIOR to her taking my mss to her editorial board. My agent says this imprint is doing that more and more. I’d love to know if this is a common thing at all houses.

Sadly, this year a lot of editors are asking for revisions before going to ed. Board or before offering to buy a book. It’s becoming unpleasantly common across a number of publishing houses.

Stephanie McGee asked:
I’d be interested to get a feel for how angels are faring with agents and editors these days. I know Becca Fitzpatrick had Hush, Hush hit shelves a couple months ago. I’ve got an angel project hanging out on the sidelines but I’m not sure I should bother since I couldn’t get it done in time to hit any sort of angel renaissance.

Angels do seem to be popular as of late. Random House is releasing their angel book called FALLEN this month as well. Is there room for more angel books? I’d say yes but it depends on your take on it. They haven’t been done to death as of yet but just like all things paranormal in the YA world, editors are looking for something different and fresh. Since different and fresh is almost impossible to define until you see it, I’m not sure this answer helps you much.

Debra Schubert asked:
One question: Did you simply hold the glass of wine or did you get to drink it, too?

I did take the occasional sip!

Things You Don’t Want to Learn While In New York!

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Back at the hotel for 30 minutes before I need to run out again.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? COME BACK TO ME by David Cook

I mentioned in our November newsletter a couple of weeks ago that Sara and I just absolutely loved a submission that came our way, offered rep, but alas the author went with another agent (as there were many agents interested).

I heard today that the project sold at auction for some money–with tons of houses bidding on it.

Ack. Hate that. But you know what? We tried for it; we were in the game. We loved it. Obviously lots of people agreed.

And for all of you, this is good news. This means Publishers are willing to step up to the plate for projects—something I was rather worried about as of late.

But truthfully, I wish editors hadn’t told me about it. Ignorance can be bliss…

LOL!

These Little Town Blues

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Turning in for the night.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? THAT’S LIFE by Frank Sinatra

Are melting away…

Can you guess it? Your intrepid blog reporter had to pop to New York City today to take care of some business so I’m here all week. I’ll try and dig up the dirt and serve it up. I’m interested to know what questions you readers would be dying to ask if you could meet with editors.

For my first night in town, I headed over to the Egmont USA launch list party they were hosting at their offices. I figured since I was here and I’m rarely here for NYC parties, I’d stop by to say hello to Regina and company.

So what happens at a Publisher party? Well, you write your name on a name tag. You hold a glass of wine. You nibble some cheese. You chat with the editors and you connect with a bunch of agents you happen to know who are also there. In fact, the number of agents present far outweighed the number of employees at Egmont!

For the agents, I chatted with Holly Root, Barbara Poelle, Dan Lazar, Ginger Clark, Scott Hoffman, Emmanuelle Alspaugh, and Eddie Schneider (just to name a few).

As for yesterday’s post, I might as well ‘fess up. I actually think the author is lovely and the project did go to an agent friend of mine so I’m happy to give it a plug. The author knows I was really torn on that project when I passed. I also knew about 3 weeks later when I kept thinking about it that I was going to regret passing on it. Such is life. Every agent I know has at least one story like this.

The project was SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater.

Grin.

Brightening An Agent Friend’s Day

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I had a routine Doctor’s appointment late this afternoon. The first thing the nurse asked me to do was step on the scale. Right. Exactly what I want to be doing the Monday after Thanksgiving.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? 21 GUNS by Greenday

I had an agent friend call me today because she was just feeling a tad blue. A client she had loved working with had unexpectedly decided to leave her agency last year. In the past couple of weeks, this agent friend had spotted the sale for the project they had been working on together before the author left.

That’s just hard.

But I had just the thing to cheer her up. I said, “You can’t help when a client chooses to leave. It happens. But at least you didn’t pass on a novel that has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for more than 16 weeks.”

Yep. Yours Truly.

That and a pot of tea cheered her up immensely!

Grin.

Agenting 101: When The No-Compete Clause Comes Into Play

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: TGIF! Have a great weekend. I plan to.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? CAN’T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD by Kylie Minogue

Currently, Publishers consider non-multimedia electronic rights as part of the “standard” package of the grant of rights when buying a work from an author.

For years, I often held electronic rights (back when publishers weren’t paying attention to it) but now, publishers will walk away from deals unless eRights are granted. Very few authors, especially the new or the debut, are willing to walk away from an offer over a right that makes up such a small percentage of current overall sales—at least in today’s world. Who knows about 10 years from now.

But here’s another interesting tidbit. Let’s say you are successful in keeping electronic as a reserved right. Publishers are getting stricter in the language they are using in the no-compete clause of the contract and that language may make it impossible for you to exercise that reserved right.

I’ve talked about the no-compete clause here in my Agenting 101 series.

But just to jog your memory, here is a sample of language from a no-compete clause in a publishing contract (and since I lifted it from my previous entry, this language is easily several years old).

“During the term of this Agreement, the Author shall not, without written permission of the Publisher, publish or permit to be published any material based upon or incorporating material from the Work or which would compete with its sale or impair the rights granted hereunder.”

So what am I trying to say here? I’m telling you that even if you are able to reserve your electronic rights so as to as to set up your own deal with Kindle or Scribd (or whoever), your publisher could make an argument that sales of your reserved electronic right is materially damaging the sales of their licensed rights.

Ah, I see the light bulbs going off as you get what I’m saying here.

We’ve particularly seen this over the last two years when reserving comic book/graphic novels rights only to fight on the no-compete clause to make it even a possibility for the author to exercise those rights.

Unless you are embroiled in publishing contracts on a daily basis, very few authors make the connection of how these two very different clauses (grant of rights and the no-compete clause) clearly impact each other. Once again, I hope I’ve shed just a little light on it.

And on that lovely note, have a great weekend!

Agenting 101: Bring Back Term of License?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Getting the blog done early so I can concentrate on a ton of reading today.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? NINE IN THE AFTERNOON by Panic! At The Disco

I’ve only been in publishing for close to going on 10 years. In light of some agents who have done this job since the early 70s, I’m a baby indeed.

But I have heard that back in the day, Publishers utilized a term of license rather than a term of copyright with an Out Of Print clause.

In fact, all foreign contracts use a term of license (5 years is common), with the exception of UK and ANZ (which stands for Australia/New Zealand) which often use an OOP instead.

What is a term of license? Simply put, a term of license is a clause in the publishing contract that states that the contract will expire 5 or 7 years from the date of the agreement and all rights revert back to the author.

In other words, no matter how well the book is doing, all rights revert on that date unless the publisher and author would like to renegotiate the terms and create a new contract with a new term of license.

Interesting, no?

In this rapidly changing digital age, a return to a term of license might be an attractive alternative. Whatever terms that are negotiated today will have to come up for renegotiating upon term expiration.

Some pros?
–There is a set reversion date no matter what.
–If the book does well, there is the possibility of renegotiation for better terms for the next agreement.

Some Cons?
–Most books, in general, go out of print in about 2 or 3 years via the OOP clause and rights revert. With a term of license, the out of print work could be tied up for 2 to 5 years longer than if there had been a sales threshold that triggered the reversion earlier.
–The next negotiation might be for lesser rates than what you locked in with your initial or previous contract.

Food for thought. Also, I don’t see publishers jumping on the “return to term of license” train anytime soon.

Agenting 101: Sales Thresholds in OOP Clauses

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Contracts and more contracts.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? VIVA LA VIDA by Coldplay

I know I’ve blogged about this before and the info is available under the tag Publishing Contracts but what the heck, it bears repeating. I can add the link under the Agenting 101 headings now for easy access.

OOP stands for Out of Print. Every publishing contract should have either a term of license for set period of years (7 being common) or the contract should have an out of print clause based on a sales threshold.

Sales threshold being the key term here if it’s not a set license period.

Sales threshold means that in order for a book to be in print, it has to sell a certain amount of copies, standard language is around 150 copies, in any accounting period. Most accounting periods are for 6-month periods in the publishing world.

This applies to ALL formats of the work—that would include eBooks.

In other words (and to repeat), the mere presence or the ability to do an eBook or a POD version will not keep a work in print UNLESS the publisher is selling 150 copies or more of any eBook or short run POD version in the 6-month period.

So even in the world of digital versions, the publisher still has to sell at least 300 copies a year to keep the work in print. If they don’t, rights revert to the author.

Remember the whole big snafu that S&S tried to pull last summer but eliminating those crucial last 4 lines of the S&S OOP clause that detailed the sales threshold? Yep, that’s why agents were in an uproar and refused to have clients sign those contracts.

Without that sales threshold, in this digital world, a work would never go out of print. However, with that sales threshold, publishers still have to sell 300+ copies to retain the rights.

Agenting 101: Why I Don’t Like Net Amounts Received

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Phone conference in 10 so I’m trying to dash this entry out before it begins.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? NESSUN DORMA by Paul Potts

If you read my Agenting 101 entries on royalty statements (see right side bar), you should know why Kristin wouldn’t like net amounts received.

But if you haven’t, then I happy to just rant about it and tell you. There are two main reasons why I don’t like royalties to be based on net amounts received.

1. It’s archaic and currently doesn’t serve much of a purpose as audio and eBooks have a retail price and there are high discount clauses in all contracts so why not simply make the royalty based on retail?

And

2. Agents can’t track net amounts received by the Publisher. The only way we will get that information is if we:

a. audit and therefore look at the books to see what monies were actually received, from what account, for how much, and what were the deductions, or

b. we put a clause in the contract, not unlike reconciliation to print, that allows us to request the information from the publisher at any time and they can print out all the amounts received information so I can determine if what is on the royalty statements is correct.

Ah yes, once again the onus is on me as the agent to be a squeaky wheel, to demand more info, and pry the necessary info out of the publisher to see if the royalty statement is remotely accurate. And this is making a huge assumption that the publishers have the necessary software in place that will allow for this information to be accessed, printed, and shared.

I know Random House has that in place. Do the others? Guess I’m just about to find out because you know I like kicking up a fuss and less is not more for me when it comes to royalty statements.

See how much simpler it would be if all royalties were based on retail price? I’m capable of doing the math easily on royalties calculated via retail price.

Now that we have this big push from publishers to move to 25% of net receipts for eBook royalties, whose going to hurt 10 years from now when eBooks may be the main format and print editions the secondary?

Yep, you can see why I’m in state of righteous indignation all the time as of late. Maybe it’s time we move back to a term of license on contracts instead of Out of Print clauses and term of copyright.

Publishers, You Want An Edge On the Competition?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: TGIF and blogging early as I actually want to leave the office before 7 pm tonight.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY by Led Zeppelin

Then let me throw this idea out there before all of you jump on the 25% of net band wagon so as to be like every other publisher out there offering substandard e-royalties.

Three years ago when I had a hot project (as in I’m getting pre-empts, potentially going to auction, going to have my choice of publishers), if Random House was in the mix, I’d lean their way. Why? Because RH had decent royalties for eBooks (at 25% of retail—which I know doesn’t match ePublishers but for a NYC major, not bad). Obviously other factors were in consideration such as marketing plans, other royalty structures, escalator break points but I think you can see where I’m going here.

This was 3 years ago (maybe even longer) when eBook sales might have added up to 10 copies total in any given 6-month period (SF&F or major authors excluded).

I could see the change a-coming; it was just going to be a matter of time.

So RH, you used to have a strong leg-up—which this year you’ve taken away from yourself. I can’t help but think that’s short-sighted.

You want an edge on the competition? Well then, why are all you publishers racing to do the same short-sighted thing?

Tell you what. Come to me with strong trade paperback royalty escalators, solid e-royalties percentages with escalators, decent audio percentages (downloadable or otherwise), etc. and I’m open to talking about non-outrageous advances or dare I say it? No advance at all if we can truly do a shared equal risk on a no returns basis (a la Vanguard Press and Harper Studio).

Maybe I’m alone on this (but I doubt it), I’m totally open to discussing less on the front end for a larger share of the back end.

But what I hear from publishers is the same low advance spiel with no change on the back end. And you’re wondering why I’m not leaping out of my chair with joy. I often hear that agents are to blame for demanding crazy advances etc. but have publishers asked themselves lately what’s been offered in return? Given an alternative, agents could be persuaded to think outside the box. Not given any viable alternative, then we have to stick with business as usual in order to best represent our clients.

Two to tango, certainly, as I’m thinking that “business as usual” won’t suffice for either publishers or agents as the publishing model rapidly changes…

And since it’s Friday and sheesh did I get off on a rant there, a gratuitous Chutney-in-the-snow shot from this morning. She HATES wearing her fleece. Can you tell? She won’t even look at me. Grin.

No Imeem file available.