Pub Rants

Category: Publishing Industry General

And Speaking Of Money – Our Next Webinar – The Anatomy of Money In A Book Contract

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Not much has changed from last post….

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now?  CRASH INTO ME By Stevie Nicks

And since we are speaking of money and concerns over the possibly shrinking advances, LOL, this leads right into my very next webinar that’s taking place on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012 from 6 to 8 pm Mountain time. It’s called SHOW ME THE MONEY: The Anatomy of $ In A Book Deal.

I’m literally doing a 2-hour workshop that walks writers through a publishing contract and the anatomy of money in it. I’m using actual contract clauses to illustrate how and what earns a writer money in a publishing agreement.

I’m pretty sure this will be the best tutorial you’ll have without actually having a book deal and your own agent walking you through your brand spankin’ new contract.

“A little learning is a dangerous thing” as Alexander Pope says but I’m of the philosophy that you can’t learn less.  I like to be as thoroughly educated as I possibly can before being confronted with something.

Stuff you’ll learn:

1) What can a writer earn in terms of advances for different genres?
2) What are the standard royalties? Royalty escalators?
3) What is “high discount” and how can it impact what you earn?
4) Bonus clauses. What are they? What types can be built into a contract?
5) What subsidiary rights can be sold and what are typical monies involved.
6) Clauses that don’t immediately seem to be about money but can impact what you earn anyway.

Sound like something you might want to know? Then I’ll see you there.

Because The First Thing That Comes To Mind Is The Size Of The Advance – Not.

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: With New York Publishing shut down, I’m working on a UK contract and catching up on email. I think it’s going to be this way for most of the week.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now?  HOPE I DON’T FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU by Tom Waits

Obviously the Random House – Penguin merger is all the news in the publishing world right now. It’s a big deal. But I read this article in Publishers Weekly and pretty much snorted my tea.

PW makes it sound like an agent’s biggest concern might be the reduction in advance amounts paid for books.

I’m concerned about MANY things that might come about because of the merger but smaller advances is not one of them. It’s not even on my top 10 list of things to be concerned about.

Publishing saw the consolidation of publishing houses into smaller and smaller numbers in the early 90s. That evolved into what had been known as the “Big 6” of the last decade.

It’s now down to the “Big 5” and quite honestly, I don’t see NewsCorp (which owns HarperCollins) settling for the status quo. Wouldn’t surprise me at all to see the “Big 5” become “4” with two more houses merging in the not-so-distant-future.

Of course this all has to pass anti-trust rulings, etc.

What does fewer publishing houses mean for authors?

That answer is pretty simple. Fewer choices. Less competition. More uniformity of royalty rates (like that hasn’t happened already because houses are already more interested in status quo among themselves rather than actual competition). Narrowed vision of what is the market and what should sell (and they already have tunnel vision as any number of digitally self-published successes have recently proven). More emphasis on commercial blockbusters and less building authors from the mid list.

Getting the picture? Smaller advances? Not a main issue on my radar.

A Little Blog Update

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Yes, I’m still alive!

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now?  WHITE FLAG (acoustic version) by Dido

Travesty I know! It’s been more than a month since I blogged. If you are missing me, be sure to check out my Facebook page where I am posting regularly.

Here’s the scoop. We are in the midst of doing a whole website redesign and the plan is to integrate the entire blog into the new site.

I’m a bit excited as it will have all our social media fully integrated into it (Sara’s twitter and FB. My FB and blog and whatever else might come down the pike in the future. I’m not particularly wed to pinterest or tumblr but I definitely have my eye on other things that are catching the public interest.)

So thanks for your patience as we transition. I haven’t been blogging regularly to mitigate the content transfer.

I’ve also being toying with making my FB status updates more like blog posts. I get that there are space limitations but heck, that might be good given my current workload. FB is easier to do on the fly or with just a short window of time available.

If you have an opinion, ideas to suggest, upcoming social media that should be on our radar, I’m open to hearing all of it. Leave me a comment!

Feel The Fear – Do It Anyway

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Hum, I thought August was suppose to be the slow month in publishing. Not so much.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now?  WAITING FOR A GIRL LIKE YOU by Foreigner

Last Thursday, Angie and I spent the day doing round-table chats with the graduates of The Denver Publishing Institute. The intensive month course ended and these 100 or so graduates are now making their way into a job market that is one of the toughest I’ve seen in years.

It’s true. But let that just be white noise as you move forward. You know this info but you aren’t going to let it rule what you will do. If you are determined enough, you can make something happen.

The year 2000 changed everything for me. I was a corporate trainer in my mid-30s making 6-figures doing training for fortune 500 companies. I worked 8 days a month. And I walked away because I didn’t love the job.

Folks thought I was crazy.

That was the year I had teamed up with a fellow corporate trainer and we did an awesome nonfiction book proposal. We had a well known literary agent. Our proposal was aggressively shopped and turned down all over New York (so I do, indeed, now what rejection feels like). But that was incidental. It was my “aha” moment that I wanted to be in this field but not on the writing side of things. But on the biz end.

But I was a corporate trainer. I lived in Denver. This was not the mecca of publishing in the year 2000 (and one would argue that Kate Testerman, Rachelle Gardner, and I do not a mecca make in Denver now)! I started researching what it would take and that showed me that I was going to have to work for an agent first to learn the ropes.

Not exactly a lot of possibilities available in my immediate geographic region. My husband and I sat down and formed a plan. If I had to, I would take a job at an agency in New York. We rock as a couple. We could commuter marriage for a year, two if necessary. That’s how important this was to me and I was determined to make it happen. I started applying for jobs. I went to New York and sat down with several agents who didn’t hire me but were awesome to talk to and encouraging.

Then I went to a local writers’ conference simply to meet the agents and network about jobs. I met an agent who had recently moved to Denver (previously with HarperCollins before having to relocate). She was looking for an assistant. I was looking for a job at an agency. Luck Luck Lucky.

Absolutely. But I was willing to do what was necessary and if New York had proved necessary, I would have done that so stay open. Work outside of “can’t” or “I can’t afford it” or “I don’t want to live in New York City.”

So I learned the ropes at that agency. I did the Denver Publishing Institute as a way of bolstering my network (which was very effective by the way as I sold my first book to a Penguin Editor who was a former DPI grad).

The day the program ended, I was ready. I had a $20,000 business loan and a five year plan and I opened my own agency on August 15, 2002. I gave myself five years to make a profit.

Year 1 – took a loss
Year 2 – took a loss
Year 3 – took a loss, did another business loan (my husband didn’t sleep at all that year as he was pretty stressed about the debt)
Year 4 – small profit so I hired an assistant.
Year 5 – took a loss because of the salary I paid my assistant (another sleepless year for the hubby)
Year 6 – a respectable profit!
Year 7 – an even bigger profit so hired a marketing director
Year 8 – stunned myself on how profitable we were becoming
Year 9 – a really stunning year so hired two more employees (our royalties and contracts manager and our digital liaison)
Year 10 – it’s our anniversary and we are celebrating on August 25th with our clients coming to town to join us. We are on track for our best year ever.

In 2002 for my first trip to New York to network with editors, I bombarded every friend I knew and asked if they had any relatives or friends who lived in Manhattan. They did. I slept on the couch in the apartment of people I had never met because they were family of friends of mine and they graciously opened their doors to me.  (HUGE THANK YOU!! You know who you are.)

Make stuff happen. You’d be amazed at how many people love to be enrolled in what you are doing if you just simply ask!

If I knew then what I know now, I probably would never taken that first step. Thank goodness I was blindly optimistic.

Feel the fear. Do it anyway.

Got Epic Fantasy?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I’m still buried under a ton of emails and whatnot as I try and catch up post BEA and New York. I have high hopes of resuming Fridays With Kristin next week!

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? DRIVE ALL NIGHT by Need To Breathe

Because every SF&F editor I talked to said they were open to seeing it. Which made me extra sad when I saw the six-figure deal on Publishers Lunch for an epic fantasy by an author we offered rep to.

Sigh. But can’t win them all.

Then on Monday I spotted the “major” deal for a YA fantasy I offered rep to as well. ARRRGGGHHHH!

Paper cut with lemon poured on it!

Hey, at least I know my gut instinct is still working.

But back to fantasy. If you are working on an urban fantasy, you might be out of luck. Every SF&F editor I chatted with while in New York was being inundated by urban fantasy submissions and with some rare exceptions, were not buying them.

In good news, SF&F editors were being leery about looking at science fiction stuff and now that is turning. They mentioned actively looking for it now and since I just put an SF on submission, I’m thrilled with the reception it’s getting. 

Here’s A Genre I Didn’t Think Of!

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: From the blog silence, you can imagine how hectic this trip as been. Meetings all day. Catching up on emails in the evening, and you have to fit a little bit of fun in there too!

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? CALL ME MAYBE by Carly Rae Jepsen

I’ve been in New York for the past 3 weeks doing meetings with a lot of different editors at all the different houses. I started off with the editors who acquire young adult and middle grade.

Of course I ask, “What have you been seeing lately?”

Imagine my surprise when no less than three editors (all from different houses) responded with, “crap.”

At first, I wasn’t quite certain how to reply. That wasn’t exactly the answer I was expecting! I opted for, “would you care to define ‘crap.’

And they did. They mentioned recently that they’ve seen a whole slew of submissions that weren’t really ready for an editor to see. By the way, these were submissions from agents.

I asked why they thought that was so. I got three main reasons:

1) They were seeing hot genre stuff, such as dystopian, that they felt like the agents were not vetting as thoroughly as they should.

In other words, in any hot genre, the market gets crowded yet those submitting hope that because the genre is hot, it will sell.

2) There were some agents submitting young adult projects that don’t traditionally rep it and to be blunt, it’s different than repping fiction in the adult realm.

3) A lot of submissions could have benefited from a solid edit and revision before submitting. In other words, they were not in strong shape even if the concept or idea was solid.

Some agents don’t edit before submitting. Some do.

So interesting. I’m definitely looking to avoid submitting crap.

*grin*

I think I can do that!

The Criterion For Evaluating An Agent

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Gorgeous day! Must. Leave. Early. Chutney seconds that.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? TAKE MY BREATHE AWAY by Berlin

This week, Blogger decided to completely reformat their dashboard. I honestly cannot find anything or tweak the colors. Took me five minutes to find my previous postings so I could do my after-posting editing for Friday’s entry. LOL. I should never blog in a hurry but sometimes, I have to do it on the fly or it’s just not going to happen.

I want to expand a little on Friday’s post. I think the most important criterion to evaluate before querying an agent is that agent’s record of sales. Agents should be agenting and therefore selling stuff on a fairly regular basis. And they should be selling stuff that is in the genre of the work you are pursuing representation for.

If an agent is fairly new but at an established house, they should still have a track record of sales since they are using the agency’s reputation when approaching editors. Their stuff will get looked at and since they usually read in front of an established agent and have “training” so to speak; they have honed their eye and will know what will sell.

How can you find out what agents have sold and recent deals? Well, Publishers Marketplace is an excellent resource. Keep in mind, however, that not all agents list their sales there. So that’s not the end all be all. I’ve actually not been announcing a lot of stuff lately for a variety of reasons.

Still, a lot of agents will have pages on Publishers Marketplace or dedicated websites which will show covers of recent releases etc.

If an agent has been “agenting” for awhile (such as 3 years or more) but doesn’t have a lot of sales and to the major publishers, well, I’d take that as negative indicator of their agenting ability.

Also, just in general, agenting is a full-time job. I’d also be hesitant about agents who have been established for a long time but are doing a variety of other jobs on top of agenting.

Should Dorchester Remain on Probation? Yes.

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Was all set to potentially launch something cool on Friday and lo and behold, ice storm in Seattle. Trust me, this makes sense because we are based in Denver but our tech person, who manages all things digital, is in Seattle. She had no electricity or internet for 3 days. Shudders.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? FREE by Graffiti6

Last week, the Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America reached out to SFWA members about Dorchester Publishing.

Dorchester’s probationary period is scheduled to end on January 31, 2012 and SFWA would like to evaluate their progress in meeting the benchmarks SFWA set for them.

By their request, members could contact them with any information that the Board should consider.

Well, let me tell you, I was happy to oblige. I wrote a letter clearly outlining my stance that that Dorchester should remain on probation or be delisted altogether based on not making any progress whatsoever on benchmark 1: That it fulfills its contractual and financial obligations to the authors it has already published, including full and accurate accounting of royalties per contract, with scheduled payment of any royalties outstanding.

Despite repeated requests for updated accountings and the thousands of dollars still owed in back royalties to NLA authors who used to be with Dorchester, we’ve received excuses, delays, and no good faith efforts to resolve their obligations.

And I have no problem making my sentiment on the situation public.

Because It’s Cool & Hip: World Book Night 2012

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I’ve seen the first beta page for our website redesign. I’m so excited!

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? MEXICAN RADIO By Wall Of Voodoo
(Just saw the sale for the tell-all by the original MTV VJs. I’m feeling nostalgic!)

Are you an author? Want to be a part of something terrific and spread the love of reading? Then you’ll want to know about World Book Night. NLA has signed up to be a book giver as have some of our authors! We are committed and then some.

Originally started in the UK last year, Carl Lennertz is now taking it on to make April 23 extraordinary in the US.

Find out more about it and how to sign up here. The deadline is Feb. 1, 2012.

December–The Slow Month?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: If I hear that “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas” song one more time…

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? ANOTHER YEAR HAS GONE BY by Celine Dion

Traditionally, December is the month where publishing starts to quiet down as editors get ready to be away for the holidays. Kind of like how August tends to be an unofficial slow down period that then picks up after Labor Day.

If it’s true this December, I certainly can’t tell yet. We close next week but we are working like there is no holiday around the corner. Sara just wrapped up a deal earlier in the week. I’m announcing on Pub Lunch a deal I closed recently. I’m in the middle of two other negotiations–one of which was out of the blue from a publisher who couldn’t offer earlier in the year but now is.

Love that!

And lots of agents are obviously hard at work during this month as some fulls we’ve requested have gotten offers of representation–literally only days after receiving the actual manuscript.

So I would say it’s kind of like business as usual and probably will be right up until we close a week from tomorrow.