Pub Rants

Category: foreign rights

End-of-Year Stats & Maybe End of an Era

by Kristin Nelson

Happy December! Wishing all our loyal newsletter readers a joyful holiday season. As extra holiday cheer, we are delivering our end-of-year stats early. Normally we make readers wait until January, so click now and enjoy. We’ve also been crunching some newsletter data, and those insights show that 2023 will ring in some change. 

Had I been smart, I would have saved every newsletter created. Best that I can tell, we here at NLA have been delivering a monthly newsletter since 2008. That is basically a decade and a half of delivering insider content to help aspiring writers learn about publishing and navigate the industry. I’m not going to lie. Many a month I’ve been swamped, time crunched, and struggling to carve out the time to whip up an article. Sometimes it feels like an extra homework assignment on top of an already heavy workload. I would daydream about a final newsletter. But now that the time is possibly here, I feel a little melancholy. This has long been a part of my agenting life. 

But in the end, stats tell a unique story. Although we’re proud of having over 7,000 subscribers, only about half ever open the email. Of that half, only 500-1,000 click on a link to read an article we are sharing. What’s clear is that we certainly have a loyal readership (and we heart you folks if you are reading this right now!), but in the end, that’s a lot of time, work, and content development on our part for so few eyeballs. Please do keep in mind that we crunched the data prior to our unexpected hiatus in mid-2022. 

All this is to say with a heavy heart that it might finally be time to retire the newsletter. For the beginning of 2023, the newsletter will be on hiatus as we evaluate the cost-benefit ratio. We might retire it for good, or we might decide to relaunch it in the future with a new look, feel, and focus.

As we love stats, there was no way we were leaving our loyal readers without one last annual sum-up. I know it’s a fan favorite, so we are happy to oblige. 

THE 2022 STATS

8,539 : Queries read and responded to. Down from 13,932 in 2022 and although this looks like a precipitous drop, NLA is leaner, more focused team now, and for personal reasons, both Joanna and I were closed to queries for long stretches of the year.

287 : Number of full manuscripts requested and read (down from 353 in 2021): 61 requests for Kristin, 227 requests for Joanna (who was an obvious reading rock star!). For me, 70% were referrals or requests made at a conference or pitch event as I was closed to queries for so much of the year. For Joanna, only 17% were referrals or conference/pitch-event requests. 

64 : Number of manuscripts we requested that received offers of representation, either from us or from other agents/agencies (down from 111 in 2021). This might be an indicator of the burn-out happening across the industry, or it might just be a momentary adjustment. 

4 : Number of new clients who signed with NLA (0 for Kristin—two years in a row, eep—and 4 for Joanna)

29 : Books released in 2022 (down from 37 in 2021 as it is now just Joanna’s and my client lists).

3 : Number of career New York Times bestsellers for Joanna (up from 2 in 2021)—extra congrats to her client Kate Baer.

54 : Number of career New York Times bestsellers for Kristin (up from 51 in 2021). So wonderful to see Jamie Ford on that list again and to celebrate Shelby Van Pelt hitting with her debut novel. 

2 : Number of Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club picks (2 in one year, a first for Kristin’s career).

7 : TV and major motion picture deals (up from 5 from previous year, indicating Hollywood is still buying and buying a lot).

2 : TV shows in production (coming in 2023, Wool Saga on Apple+ and Beacon 23, both based on works by Hugh Howey).

109 : Foreign-rights deals done (slightly down from 126 in 2021 which shows there is some belt tightening going on, although 3 of those deals were with Ukraine publishers, bless them). 

1 : In-person conference attended by Kristin (StokerCon in Denver, and lots of people had Covid afterwards but I was okay).

0 : Virtual conferences attended by Kristin.

0 : Physical holiday cards sent (our first year of Paperless Post for clients).

762 : Electronic holiday slideshow cards sent (up slightly from 736 in 2021).

Lots : Of wonderful days reading and appreciating creators. 

(Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels)

2021 NLA End-of-Year Stats

by Kristin Nelson

For over a decade NLA has compiled our yearly stats. This year is no exception and there is one positive note in the number of manuscripts requested that also received offers of representation. This is good news for writers! Find out what else was positive for writers in 2021 (hint: across the pond). 

13,932 : Queries read and responded to. Up 371 queries from 2020 [which had a total of 13,561]. This looks like a close match…but it’s not. The agents of NLA, collectively, were closed to queries about 47% of 2021, as opposed to in 2020, when we were collectively closed to queries for only 27% of the year. So our average number of queries received per month actually increased 29% in 2021 over 2020.

353 : Number of full manuscripts requested and read (down from 430 in 2020): 95 requests for Kristin, 161 requests for Joanna, and although no longer with the agency, 97 requests for the other agents. 

111 : Number of manuscripts we requested that received offers of representation, either from us or from other agents/agencies (up from 106 in 2020). This is good news for writers in the query trenches. 

22 : Number of referred manuscripts KN read and considered during the times she was closed to general submissions but open to referrals only. The total for number of referrals read is 34 when including the other agents. 

3 : Number of new clients who signed with NLA (0 for Kristin—which is first in her career; 3 for Joanna)

37 : Books released in 2021 (down slightly from 41 in 2020).

2 : Number of career New York Times bestsellers for Joanna. Extra congrats to her client Kate Baer!

51 : Number of career New York Times bestsellers for Kristin (up from 48 in 2020). Marie Lu hit the list again this year, while Stacey Lee and Richard Chizmar made it for the first time.

5 : TV and major motion picture deals (almost on par with the 6 from previous year)

1 : TV show in production (Wool Saga coming on Apple+ in 2023) 

126 : Foreign-rights deals done (up from 70 in 2020). Wowza. This is great news for writers, as foreign markets are another great source of income. 

0 : Physical conferences attended. Thanks again, Covid. 

2 : Virtual conferences attended by Kristin (Story Brook Children’s Lit Fellows, Virtual Stoker Con). 

103 : Physical holiday cards sent (up one from 102 in 2020—we still only sent to clients during this Covid year).

736 : Electronic holiday cards sent (down from 837 in 2020 as a lot of editors left and we did a much needed cleanup of the list).

0 : Eggnog-chai lattes consumed during December because Starbucks didn’t offer. Huge sad face.

Lots : Of wonderful days reading and appreciating creators. 

Photo by Black ice from Pexels

Coronavirus Hits Publishing

by Kristin Nelson

(This article originally appeared in the NLA Newsletter on February 14, 2020. Stay tuned on Wednesday 4/1/2020 for a follow up article.)

It rather cracks me up that according to USA Today, Google searches for Corona beer have surged recently. A good portion of Americans are searching “beer virus” to find information about the epidemic currently sweeping China and threatening to go global. For the record, the coronavirus (now renamed COVID-19) has nothing to do with the refreshing beer you can stick a lime in. And if you want more info on the origin of the name, wikipedia might be a good source. 

But it’s no laughing matter when something far across the Pacific impacts publishing right here on American shores. And once again, China is back in the spotlight. In September 2019’s newsletter, I talked about how the trade war between the US and China is impacting foreign-rights licensing. Now it’s a virus causing disruption. I fear it’s going to be a lean year for sales in that part of the world. 

NLA partners with a terrific foreign-rights co-agent in Asia—a partner who keeps us in the loop with detailed updates. Normally, we’d be catching up with him at the book fairs in Bologna and London, but, sadly, not this year. International travel is risky right now, so to be safe, they’ve canceled. I one-hundred percent support health over attending. 

Here’s how the epidemic is affecting publishing in China:

  • Chinese companies are having employees work remotely so as to minimize contact. In publishing, this will significantly impact contracts, royalties, and payments. I actually have a big deal happening in China. Luckily we received the on-signing payment back in September, but I have a sense that other payments will be a lot slower to come in. Luckily, most of our authors don’t rely on foreign advances when doing their annual financial planning. Still, it’s tough news.
  • In good news, publishers are still reading manuscripts. But unless a title is super hot, offers will not be as forthcoming.
  • The big rights fair of the year, The Beijing Book Fair, normally happens in September. That might be canceled. Lots of deals happen at that fair, so cancelation will be a blow.
  • Printers, physical bookstores, and banks remain closed. Yep, I’m sure you can extrapolate how that impacts so many things in this biz.

In this global publishing world, Asia’s problem is our problem. And all of it affects an author’s bottom line.

I won’t raise a beer to that. Or stick a lime in it. 

Creative Commons Photo Credit: eFile989

What To Do If Your Books Are Popular In Iran?

by Kristin Nelson

The short answer is nothing. There actually isn’t much you can do.

Rarely discussed in publishing is the fact that certain countries don’t recognize or honor copyright law. Persian countries (including Iran and Iraq) are an excellent example of territories that don’t. Persian publishers will often translate popular novels and publish them in their countries without a license, and the author does not receive a dime as an advance or royalties.

Kind of shocking, isn’t it?

This situation has happened a number of times for my authors. We usually find out about unlicensed editions when an author receives fan mail or a lovely note from the translator. Even though the Persian publishers don’t feel much obligation to the author, we have found over the years that the translators actually do. And often they will reach out to the author and ask permission to do the translation—even though they know (and are quite apologetic) that the publisher has no plans to compensate the author in any way.

I have a special place in my heart for these morally centered translators.

So what can an author do when it becomes apparent that his or her books are being translated and published in countries that don’t honor copyright protection?

My answer is this. The author should offer to write a special foreword for the edition in exchange for a nominal fee. It’s my attempt to get the author at least some compensation. Yet so far no Iranian publisher has taken me up on this offer.

But I’m hopeful. Someday…

Photo Credit: Peta de Aztlan

Like Finding Loose Change in the Sofa – Kind of

by Kristin Nelson

So just this week, we received an outstanding Australian royalty statement for one of our clients that had been missing. Because we actually track, review, and audit our statements, even foreign ones (and let me tell you what a nifty trick it is to do the Japanese statements…) we immediately spotted one rather large problem.

Oddly, there were no ebook sales listed anywhere on statement. Dating back since 2013. Not a single ebook sale in the last 2 years is a bit hard to believe, so we pinged the publisher.

Sure enough, the ebook ISBN wasn’t linked to this title in their accounting system. It was there but floating out in the ether with no title to attach to. Once it was appropriately linked, voila, almost $1000.00 was owed to the author.

And as my client so aptly replied to me, like finding loose change in the sofa!

Kind of. 😊

Even if the publisher controls the World Rights, we ask for the statements so we can review. Because I’m pretty certain that given the deluge of statements the internal publishing rights team receive, they aren’t paying super close attention.

Want to know how to audit royalty statements for yourself? We start you off easy by tackling U.S. royalty statements first. Our contracts and royalty guru Angie Hodapp is showing you how on July 30, 2015. Be a smart and savvy author. Auditing royalty statements. Only a couple slots left as there is a cap on attendance.

Photo credit: Branko Collin

The UK Contract – Now Equally As Important As the U.S. Contract

by Kristin Nelson

In today’s global digital publishing environment, negotiating a UK contract has now become equally as important as the home-court US contract. So if you want to think like an agent, spend as much time reviewing your UK contract as you do your US one.

Now that used to be easy. UK contracts traditionally have topped out at twelve or thirteen pages. A veritable reading breeze in comparison to the 25+ page marathons you get from US Publishers.

Not so any longer, from what I can tell. I’ve negotiated several UK contracts that are giving the US a run for its money in terms of length.

In fact, one UK contract’s out-of-print clause (a.k.a. the OOP) recently made me burst out laughing. The clause stated that a book would not be deemed out of print until earnings for that title, in all formats, added up to less than 75 pounds in two accounting periods.

Seventy-five pounds during a one-year period.

That is laughable, but I don’t think this publisher’s intent was to be funny.

Depending on the price point of the title (and let’s just say the average price in the UK is ten pounds), that would be the equivalent of selling something like eight copies, in any format (which would include high discount, special sales, premiums, book club, audio etc.) in one year.

Sheesh. I think a publisher would really be messing something up if they can’t sell eight copies of a particular book in a twelve-month period. Typical UK contracts set an out-of-print threshold of several hundred copies, so if you were going to do an earnings equivalent instead, it would need to be around fifteen-hundred pounds to be reasonable.

Definitely not a number you want to overlook!

Self Publishing? Excel Is Your Friend

by Kristin Nelson

I’ve discovered that in general, authors are not numbers people. They tend to have vague idea of sales and revenue earned. In fact, most authors probably don’t scrutinize their royalty statements like they should (with a few exceptions of course). And I get it. Authors are creative folks. Math uses the other side of the brain. But if you are digitally self-publishing, then you are your own publisher. And given that, you should be generating your own royalty statements in an excel spreadsheet. Here’s what you should track and why.

TO TRACK:

1) All Price Points – sales especially

2) All editions — including audio/shorter works

3) Copies given away for free

4) All distribution venues where editions are available

5) Percentage splits/royalty

6) Cumulative totals

 

WHY:

If you later want to partner with an agent, that person will need a fully transparent and detailed record of all sales to represent you fully.

At DBW, fellow agent and panelist Steve Axelrod made a good point about how agents are using new metrics to sell an author to editors, to film, to foreign. We are using FB and twitter followers. Visibility on big e-Sites like Wired and Boing Boing. Actual digital sales clearly outlined.

Especially for film and foreign sales. If there isn’t a big publishing deal to start the buzz abroad and in Hollywood (which was the traditional path), well, presenting the facts can make a difference in convincing these two realms to pay attention to the title and license unexploited rights. Keep in mind that electronic book adoption and sales abroad are easily 3 years behind what is going on in the U.S. Foreign publishers must be convinced to license rights to a digital-only title.

But actual sales and documentation of that data speaks volumes – at least that’s what we are finding here at NLA.

So, are you tracking your sales? If not, get started.

 

 

 

 

Why Bring An Author to Bologna?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Still time to sign up to learn how to craft the perfect pitch paragraph for your query letter. The video webinar is tomorrow, Thursday, March 28 at 6 pm MST. It should be a blast to give.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? ONLY A MEMORY by Smithereens

In general, the whole purpose of Bologna Children’s Book Fair is to pitch your rights list to scouts and foreign publishers in order to generate interest in upcoming titles so as to promote foreign sales. And I certainly did a lot of that while there but for the most part, I have a foreign co-agent who handles that on our agency’s behalf.

So what’s Frankfurt or Bologna all about when I visit a Fair with a client in tow? It’s about face-time. It’s about making the foreign publisher feel like an important part of an author’s career. It’s about marketing dollars and inspiring the foreign editor to choose our clients’ books if it’s a choice between two.

1) Foreign editors rarely get to meet the authors for whom they are translating. It may or may not translate into more sales but I know from experience that a foreign publisher who has met an author in person is more likely to do a promotional push for that title in translation.

2) Those meetings give us valuable information that we might not hear otherwise (or not hear in a timely fashion). Marie Lu’s German publisher is making LEGEND their big lead title for fall and sponsoring a German tour! Would this have happened without a Bologna visit? Certainly (as we would have been looped in eventually) but now we are in the know months earlier and can actively help them. Also, they are 10 times more excited to have this big push after we had a lovely sit-down dinner with them and relayed all the latest promo news while in Bologna. We’ve confirmed they are making the right decision.

3) Targeting a Fair allows an author client to make stops in other nearby countries. When Simone decided to come to Bologna with me this year, she was invited by her French publisher to stop in Paris to participate in a book festival there. Her publisher warned her that maybe 25 or 35 people might show for the signing. Imagine everyone’s surprise when more than 200 people came and Simone had a signing line more than 2 hours long! You think her French publisher is going to be paying closer attention to her next release? You betcha. Nothing inspires publishers more than seeing first hand fan enthusiasm for an author.

4) Finding out early that an author is selling like mad in a territory. (ie. The Perfect Chemistry Series is going gangbusters in Germany).

Other benefits of Fair participation include getting the latest gossip about what has sold recently. About what might be hot next. And simply connecting with the UK editors whom I don’t see as often. It gives an agent a global perspective of what works–not only in the US but around the world. Or maybe even more importantly, what doesn’t work in other territories.

Does that shade what I might take on next in the US? To some extent but it’s certainly not the end all be all in making a decision to offer representation but it is part of the big picture.

More pics from 2012 Bologna!

Marie Lu and me in Agent Centre

Simone with her editor Katrin (on left) and her Publisher Suzanne (Random House Germany)

Marie’s Bologna dinner with her US, German, and UK publishers!

Simone & Kristin in Venice! Rumor has it that if you kiss under a bridge while riding in a gondola, you’ll have good luck all year. I told Simone that even though I was a full service agent, that’s where I draw the line. *grin*

2012 Bologna Children’s Book Fair – Next Hot Thing?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Meetings every half hour and running on 6 hours of sleep a night on average. Yep, that’s Bologna!

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? I PUT A SPELL ON YOU by Bryan Ferry

Three days at Bologna and here’s what I can tell you.

On the plane over, people were talking about the next hot trend being about geeks in young adult fiction. Geeks transforming. Geeks not transforming but still winning the girl or the day. Geeks in love.

Do I think it’s the next hot trend? I haven’t got the faintest idea.

It’s definitely clear that foreign editors are feeling the drain of paranormal romance in YA being hot for so long but even with that, they say it’s still selling well in Germany, UK, and France. Editors don’t seem to be buying a lot of it at the moment though.

Since I’m here with Marie Lu to meet with her very excited foreign publishers (the trilogy has been sold in to 22 territories and counting), we are, of course, asking if dystopian is hot abroad.

The verdict is undecided. HUNGER GAMES fever is definitely sweeping the world but whether that will translate into other dystopian novels also becoming hot has yet to be proven. Well, I’ve got my fingers crossed for June and Day…

Hands down, for middle grade DAIRY OF A WIMPY KID works amazingly in every country but Russia. Guess they like big burly guys instead of wimps?

*grin*

Some pics!

Anita and I at entrance of the Fair.

Me with Sara’s amazing client Stefan Bachmann and the brand spanking new cover for his wonderful middle grade gothic steam punk: The Peculiar

Marie Lu and her Taiwan Publisher Sharp Point! Marie was a rock star. She did the whole meeting in Chinese. (Marie is second person from right.)

Marie and I in the Penguin Bologna Stand.

UK–How Stubborn You Are

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Have to run out the door in 15 minutes.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? HARD TIMES by David Newman

Not to put too fine a point on it. The book selling market in the UK is between a rock and a hard place. Booksellers in trouble. Publishers selling half the books sold at high discount levels, etc. Consequently, UK publishers aren’t buying that much. As of late, it’s one of the hardest territories to sell into unless a title sold for a lot of moolah in the US.

We are struggling to land a licenses there.

In fact, it’s probably why a lot of UK booksellers are buying US stock wholesale and offering it for sale there (and this would maybe show on a royalty statement as an export sale). It would be hard to track down.

So when we sell North American rights only and then request that the US publisher pull down their edition from the UK market, we aren’t looking to screw UK readers. It’s simply that the author might not get legitimately paid for those copies. If it’s not in the grant of rights and not showing up on any royalty statement…

But authors who haven’t sold into the UK are getting creative. In fact, some authors are taking matters into their own hands and are making their titles available electronically through the different ebook venues in the UK.

So even though the physical version might be a hard to find, titles can still reach UK readers.