Pub Rants

Category: Agents/Agenting

Know Your Options

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Foiled by technical difficulties on my home wireless last night. Serves me right for saving the blog until late…

What’s playing on the iPod right now? GET THE PARTY STARTED by Pink

Here’s a memo for authors who are looking for a new agent after being previously represented (or are currently represented).

You need to know your options—literally.

What do I mean? You need to know where your current/former agent stands on your option material for your current contracts. Per your agency agreement, do they have the right to shop your next project regardless of whether you have formally severed the relationship?

I think it’s important to have the answer to this question before you start looking for a new agent. It is going to be one of the questions you’re going to be asked and you might as well have all your ducks in a row.

Although why one would need to put ducks in a row is a mystery to me but it’s a great phrase and I assume it has something to do with the Mama duck leading her chicks but I digress.

Once you’ve got that understanding, pull your current contract(s) and make a copy of your option clause(s) for any new possible representative as well as creating an outline of where you are in the process. As in, still in option, must submit proposal soon. Out of option, feel free to shop anew. Previously shopped, here is who saw it. Here is what else I have.

The whole shebang as an agent will want that info as well. You’ll come across as prepared and professional which can only make you a better prospective client to anyone who is considering taking you on.

It will allow you to answer questions in a knowledgeable way and make you ready for a good and productive conversation when that time comes.

TGIF! Have a great weekend.

Royalty Statement Time

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: A new company has moved into the office suite next door and they are holding a wine & cheese party in about 10 minutes (who could resist?). I have to say I’m intrigued by the company. They work with corporations and architects to purchase art for lobbies, office decoration, etc. Sounds a bit cool I must say.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? WAR OF MAN by Neil Young

Statements come in Feb/Aug, March/Sept, April/Oct, May/Nov, June/December. We can pretty much count on at least one statement to arrive for just about every month of the year. Feb/Aug and April/Oct being the most common royalty periods.

I spent today reviewing royalty statements—which can make you cross-eyed by the end of the day as publishing houses like to cram a lot of information onto one sheet.

So what exactly does this entail?

Several steps to be exact. We have a large excel spreadsheet that tracks each project and when we can expect statements. A reminder in our Time & Chaos program also pops up with links to our cheat sheets (which is the royalty structure of a publishing contract at a glance).

If it’s a first time statement, one just needs to verify that everything is correct on the sheet. The advanced paid, the royalty structure, and whether the sales match approximately to what we have down for the initial print run and any sales numbers gathered throughout the year.

If there has been a previous statement, then we do a comparison, track the sales we have listed in our notes to what is on the statements, as well as following up to make sure that if a subsidiary right has been sold or a book club sold into, then the advance and record of that is on the statement as well. The cheat sheets are invaluable for this.

Then there are the issues that might arise and so would need conversations with the royalty department. For example, one of our statements (before the book was released) had a deduction of $2 on it so now the author owes more than the advance against royalties.

Obviously that’s not right and needs to be corrected and a new statement generated.

If there are real discrepancies, then a closer, more intense review is in order. Many agents (if they don’t have an in-house person) will work with a royalty review service that has expertise in doing a closer audit of the statements (for a percentage fee of the recoverable—which the agent pays—not the author).

And yes, incorrect royalty statements can happen frequently so an agent needs to be diligent with the record keeping about each project.

Here’s the fun part of the week. Several authors have just earned out beyond their advances so they get “surprise” money in the mail and smiles all around.

A Reflection On Horror

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Stuck in Glenwood Springs because of a 40-car pile-up on I70 that closed Vail pass. Reminder to self. No driving to conferences in the early Spring…

What’s playing on the iPod right now? Denver Nuggets game on the telly.

The biggest question I received this weekend, and rightly so, is why was I attending World Horror when on my website I clearly state that the Nelson Agency doesn’t handle Horror.

Good question. It was my same question I asked when the conference organizers called to invite me.

Why don’t I rep horror? I’ve certainly read enough in my lifetime so what’s the scoop? It basically came down to the philosophy that I have enough things keeping me awake at night, reading a good horror submission would just scare the bejesus out of me and I need a decent night’s sleep.

But I’m very glad I attended. The definition of “horror” can be pretty broad and lots of things that could be categorized as such would not necessarily alienate me. Maybe I need to rethink our policy as I certainly don’t mind SF&F with horror elements. In other words, dark SF &F. We’ll see.

It also was rather refreshing to chat with some male writers. Whenever I attend conferences, and this certainly isn’t a bad thing, the majority of my pitch sessions are from women writers (obviously this would be true at romance venues) but I’m certainly not opposed to adding some testosterone to my list. So World Horror was a nice change as the pitches were so different than anything else I’ve read or listened to lately. Right now it’s too early to know if any will be a match but I think I’ll enjoy the process.

You Know You Have A Tired YA Fantasy Theme When…

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I had a great time listening to pitches that had a horror element to them and so different for anything I’ve looked at lately. It’s so rare to have 18 pitches and only three women in the mix. What a different mix-up so I’m enjoying World Horror.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? TOMMY THE CAT by Primus

Tonight I had dinner with fellow blogger and YA fantasy editor Stacy Whitman from Wizards of the Coast.

When you get an editor and an agent together, talk turns to submissions as we are wont to do. And you have to remember, we like to talk shop and even though we might highlight some tired themes in our conversation, any fresh twist on it can change our mind in a heartbeat.

Dinner conversation kicked off with a moment of understanding that it’s really hard to carry off a YA novel where a monster eats a child in the first chapter.

On one hand, it’s immediate conflict. On the other, not sure where the story can go from there….

But here’s our dinner list. You know you might have a tired YA fantasy theme when:

1. Your main protagonist is the “chosen one” and only he or she can save the world.

2. You have a lost magical amulet and that search alone is driving the story.

3. When your main protagonist is waking up and getting ready for the day in the opening chapter.

4. If you have to go through the portal to actually begin the story.

5. If your Mom & Dad are dead (and on top of that, they are dead wizards or something similar) that the protagonist must live up to.

And I would have added, you know you have a tired YA fantasy theme when your characters are on a quest but Stacy says she’s still game for those stories (albeit a little tired of Vampires because she can’t see how a writer might pull of an original story in that realm at the moment).

TGIF. I’m out!

Payment Schedules

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: All six contracts are almost complete. I’ll so drink to that!

What’s playing on the iPod right now? ELENORE by The Turtles

Over the weekend I realized my whole Friday entry was a bit cryptic if one didn’t know anything about payment schedules in publishing contracts. I’m pretty certain I’ve covered this in one of my prior entries (check out the Agenting 101 blogs) but what the heck, it doesn’t hurt to repeat it.

When a publisher buys a book, they don’t pay out the advance all at once (and probably none of you suffer from that assumption that they did, but I’ll state the basics just in case). No, when a publisher buys a book, they will stipulate a certain amount for the advance and then the payments are attached to what I call triggers—as in something contractually happens and a portion of the advance is paid.

Typical triggers can be these:

1. on signing of the contract

2. on d&a (delivery and acceptance) of a detailed outline
Side note: this happens often when a publisher is buying new books from one of their already established authors and they are buying on spec—as in nothing has been put on paper yet.

3. on d&a of the final manuscript

4. on publication of the work

5. on publication of a paperback edition

My favorite payouts are, of course, ½ on signing and ½ on d&a. Personally, when the monies are small, I really don’t see the sense in doing it otherwise. Now, I can understand when the advance pops into the six figures etc. but I don’t have to like it and I will certainly use all leverage possible to eliminate it. That’s my job after all—to get the best payout structure possible amongst other things.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of emphasis from Publishers to have payment in thirds rather than halves.

Of course I don’t lean that way either but I’m okay with it for the most part—if I can avoid the upon publ pym.

I’m sure y’all are sensing a mantra here. I’m not always successful and I imagine as Publishers dig in on this topic, it will be harder and harder to get.

Now as to Friday’s entry, what I meant by weighting forward is this.

What if the advance is 30k for one book. Payouts can look any number of ways.

If it’s in halves, that’s easy:
15k on signing
15k on d&a

If in thirds:
10k on signing
10k on d&a of outline
10k on d&a of full manuscript

Now let’s say you have to have the pym on publication and I can’t budge the Publisher on it. My job is to weight the payments forward.

Instead of equal thirds like this:
10k on signing
10k on d&a of full manuscript
10k on pub

I’ll try to weight monies forward:
12.5k on signing
12.5k on d&a full manuscript
5k on publication

And this can have a myriad of variations. I just did what was easy math.

Clear as mud?

Payments on Pub

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: TGIF! I’m going to be so happy when all these contracts complete. That’s my new definition of happiness. That way I can get back to reading—which is the more fun part of the job.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? YOU LEARN by Alanis Morissette

I wish this issue would go the way of the dinosaur. I was talking with a few agent friends today and this topic came up—as it often does. Unfortunately, I’m convinced this one is stuck here for good so what to do about it.

Certain publishers are demanding payments on pub no matter what the advance is. (Cough—a publisher that begins with a “P” comes to mind). Other houses are more relaxed until the money gets into the six figures, then the upon pub payment rears its head.

Unless there is an auction going on. Then the agent can get the publisher off it because they want the book enough to be in an auction so will often be flexible where payout is concerned so as not to lose the auction.

If an author is big enough or established enough, well, anything is possible right? Not just no payments on pub.

But if you can’t get rid of it, what do you do? Well, we weight the money forward so as little money as possible will be paid on pub.

One agent did point out another factor I hadn’t really considered which is that an on pub payment allocates money in a different year as other monies in the contract (as publication more often than not happens in a year other than the contract). This can be better for authors in terms of paying taxes. This is true but it seems to me that taxes can be managed properly and most people would prefer the monies earlier.

I’m out.

Aggressive Competitive Works Clauses

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Fun picture of the week. My cousin was in Washington D.C. with her family and they visited the International Spy Museum and guess what they found in the gift store there? It just tickled us pink.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? WATCH YOUR STEP by Anita Baker

As y’all know, I’ve been working on a lot of contracts lately. One contract was with a new publisher (Macmillan) that I had never sold a book to before so there’s just a lot of extra negotiation necessary to hammer out the boilerplate.

When I started reading the contract for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised at how normal it was. There were lots of elements already included that normally we would have to request and fight for. But it wasn’t so…until page 16 when I reached the Competitive Works clause.

I think my jaw dropped open and stayed that way for a good 15 minutes. I even rang up my contracts manager because I couldn’t believe how aggressive it was. Until this moment, I had never seen a publisher contract where the Competitive Works clause was more than one short paragraph.

CW, by the way, is where the publisher tries to limit what other books an author is allowed to write while working with this publisher. Needless to say, as an agent, I’m pretty aggressive in removing a lot of elements to this clause or adjusting them appropriately because if you don’t, it can really interfere in how an author can write for a living.

This clause had four sub-paragraphs in it, each one worded slightly differently but amounting to the same thing.

My fav is this one, “the Author will complete the Work and submit it to the Publisher prior to beginning work on any other book for INSERT GENRE (excluding only other books that may already be under separate contract to the Publisher).”

My goodness. And then there were three more paragraphs…

Uh, that will need to be changed.

Talking Websites

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I’m working on contracts. Need I say more?

What’s playing on the iPod right now? STICKSHIFTS AND SAFETYBELTS by Cake

I had many interesting chats with editors while I was in New York City this past month but I just remembered one that I had meant to blog about. And then I received an email survey about this very question and that reminded me that I hadn’t yet blogged about it.

The editor and I were talking about not-yet-published writer websites and whether we look at them when we’ve requested sample pages and might be contemplating asking for a full. (The URL is often included in the cover letter.)

For both of us, the answer was “yes.” When reviewing sample pages where we like the writing, we’ll often give the writer website a glance and see what’s there. I don’t bother if the sample pages haven’t caught my interest.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a good website, with solid content, if you are going to have one at all. More on this in a minute.

If you don’t have a website, that’s fine too. I’ll still ask for a full manuscript if I like the sample pages enough. There are pros and cons to footing the bill of a website before you are even published so don’t stress about it or run out and get one right now because I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary.

But if you do have a website or blog and you are currently looking for an agent, or to make your first sale, or what have you, I can offer a couple of words of advice.

Don’t have a website/blog unless it can be a professional one. The homemade sites look it and just make me cringe. It won’t keep me from asking for your full (or if I like the novel, offering representation) but it’s not putting your best foot forward and that’s never a benefit.

What content should it have? Well the standard. About you, what you are working on, any cool interests you have that might inspire your writing, workshops you are doing, critique partners or anything about the writing process.

What you might not want to include is a whole play-by-play of your current editor, agent, or publisher search. This could backfire. I have seen sites where an author has clearly outlined all the rejections (sometimes the letters are posted there verbatim!). It would make me think twice about asking for the full (although the one time I encountered it, I did end up requesting the full as opinions can vary widely) but think of the psychology impact of that. If lots of people are saying NO, maybe I’ll think twice about saying YES.

Now once you have that book deal or agent or editor, I think it’s okay to write about it after the fact.

For blogs, remember that the writing you have there needs to be representative of you and your good work. It doesn’t have to be perfect but you shouldn’t blog if the writing doesn’t represent your “usual” quality—if you know what I mean.

In short, if it shows you off to an advantage, then have a website. If it can’t at this point in time, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Kindle Update

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Into the home stretch. Just one more editor dinner tomorrow night and I’m homeward bound.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? LET’S DANCE by David Bowie

Pros definitely outweigh the cons. I think Jeff Bezos should hire me as I convinced more agents and editors to buy the Kindle just by showing them mine and how easy it is to use.

What I love:

1. I love having 2 full manuscripts and 20 partials in one easy to store, easy to hold reader. No more back pain. No paper to lug around. No heavy laptop that needs to sit on my lap to read. And I bought a new purse (another benefit!) that can easily hold my cell phone, Kindle, sunglasses, wallet, spare parts etc.

2. I love being able to choose the font size to read in that is now the default and easy on my eyes.

3. I love being able to have all my favorite books downloaded to the Kindle so I can read them anytime and anywhere I want. Even when I’m traveling and I get the hankering to read Pride & Prejudice for the umpteenth time, it’s there. This is also great in terms of storage. Last year I donated boxes full of books because there was literally no where to put them. I won’t have that problem because even if you don’t want to store it on your kindle, Amazon will store a book for you at your site account.

4. I love the Clipping feature. If I make a note in any document, it is auto saved to this file for easy reference. In other words, I can read 10 sample pages, write a note to myself about each one while reading, and when it’s time to enter my response into the electronic database, I simply open that one file and all the notes are there. I don’t have to reopen each partial that I read. Very handy.

5. I love emailing the documents to myself. No cables. No “I forgot to transfer documents to my Kindle” before walking out the door.

What I would change:

1. I would like more flexibility in being able to organize my downloads into separate folders so my home page always stays neat and clutter free. Right now it doesn’t have that organizational capability.

2. Wouldn’t mind a reader light to turn on just when necessary.

3. Documents downloaded to the Kindle do not have corresponding page numbers that can be used as reference. That’s a bit tough for when I take notes. I can only refer to a chapter.

4. I imagine this was a cost element but a touch interface would be pretty cool.

5. When emailing myself, I’d like the note in the body of the email to be integrated into the document that’s being loaded on the Kindle. Right now, it doesn’t do that.

6. Side buttons are a little cumbersome and it’s easy to turn a page when you don’t mean to.

Other than that, I’m thrilled to have bought one. I spent one night reading a whole novel for 6 hours and my eyes never felt tired. That was the real test.

AAR Night

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: 10 weeks on the NYT bestseller list and counting…

What’s playing on the iPod right now? FREE FALLIN’ by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Last night I attended the Association of Authors’ Representatives monthly meeting. It was meet the editors of FSG night (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). An aspiring writers dream I imagine as there were easily 40 agents all in one place—not to mention 8 terrific editors at the front of the room.

Yes, these meetings are top secret…

Here’s what I found interesting. One editor pleaded with agents in the room not to “clean out their drawers” so to speak and send everything they have. This editor was quite blunt and said she couldn’t imagine that agents who do that really thought each book was really that good and deserved a spot on the rather small and intimate FSG list.

Personally, I was appalled that there were any agents doing that at all! I mean why? There can’t possibly be an upside to that. After all, our most important asset is our reputations. Or perhaps I just feel that way.

You’re looking at an agent who might take 5 projects out on submission in a year and that’s pretty much it. (I’m not counting new sales for current clients in that total.) I haven’t got any drawers to empty—metaphorically speaking.

Also, the editors all said they really preferred a phone call rather than an email before a submission. If I don’t know the editor, or don’t know him or her well, then I always call first but I must confess that all the editors I know super well I almost never do. Seems to me that people are so busy, it’s just easier to respond to an email when you have quiet moment to. So, that was good to know. FSG editors like a phone call.

In good news, I convinced an agent friend who is rather a Luddite that the Kindle really was worth its weight in gold. She’s going to buy it,

And the most fun? I went to lunch with Kathy Dawson at Harcourt Children’s and when I popped open my bag to show her my palm treo (she asked), she noticed my kindle and said she had one too!

The first editor I’ve lunched with who has had the Kindle two months longer that I have. Tomorrow, I’ll report how the Kindle reading is going so far.