Tag Archives: Contracts

Terrific posts by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and David Byrne

Posted on May 12, 2011 | Comments Off

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a terrific post this week on the business changes happening at light speed right now, “Writing Like It’s 1999.” Publishing contracts are changing FAST and it’s important to be aware of what is going on if you want to make a living in this industry.

Also, I found out from a comment by LP King on her post, that David Byrne did a great article back in 2007 on changes in the music industry entitled “Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists–and Megastars”. Considering that the music industry technology shift happened about eight years before it started in publishing, this is a terrific article to help get a feel for what might happen or be possible for writers. I made a cup of tea during a work break and read it in one sitting. Great stuff to ponder.

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Posted in Agents, Business of writing, Contracts, Copyright, Editors, Publishers, Writers on Writing Links

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It’s Not Indie VS. Traditional, It’s Indie AND Traditional

Posted on March 26, 2011 | Comments Off

As fiction writers, we live in an exciting era right now due to the new distribution opportunities available through Kindle, PubIt, and Smashwords. But to hear some writers talk, it’s Indie vs. Traditional, and one has to choose sides.

Well, a lot of neo-pros and old (20+ years) pros I’ve been talking to are excited about being able to do both indie publishing and traditional publishing at the same time.  Having more revenue streams as a writer makes it easier to pay the bills each month. And as long as one is careful about reading and negotiating away any excessively broad non-compete clauses in a traditional publishing book contract, doing so should not be a big deal.

Short stories still need to go to traditional markets first if you want to sell them to a place like The New Yorker.  But if you write a novelette or novella that can’t find a traditional home, it is now possible to indie publish it instead of just letting it sit around unpublished. And once the exclusive time frame on a traditionally published story expires (and if you didn’t sign an all rights contract), you can republish it as an indie reprint to generate more income.

But one thing I want to emphasize is the importance of thinking twice before giving away a royalty cut to an e-packager for an indie story.  Dean Wesley Smith and J. A. Konrath and Barry Eisler debate the pros and cons at length in a post put up today.

We’re all in for a wild run over the next few years in publishing. Since I used to work in the software industry–which makes publishing look glacial by comparison–I confess I’ve welcomed the publishing technology breakthroughs that are bringing on a faster business pace.

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Posted in Business of writing, Contracts, Markets, Publishers

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Barry Eisler Turned Down $500,000 Deal to Indie Publish

Posted on March 21, 2011 | Comments Off

In case you haven’t already heard the gossip, thriller writer Barry Eisler has turned down a $500,000 advance from a traditional publisher so that he can indie publish his next 2 books instead.  You can read his interview with J. A. Konrath about the reasons here.

In the end, it looks like it came down to having much more money and control in self-publishing that tipped the decision for him to go indie. He’ll be able to make a heck of a lot more revenue over ten years by indie publishing than in the deal he was offered. And he’ll be able to get the first book published now instead of having to wait until Spring 2012.

Dean Wesley Smith has a thoughtful analysis on the Eisler & Konrath interview on his website. Reading Eisler’s blog post, followed by Dean’s, will give one a great crash course on money matters in publishing.

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Posted in Business of writing, Contracts, Markets, Publishers

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The Borders Bankruptcy Number Crunching

Posted on February 21, 2011 | Comments Off

C. E. Petit is crunching the numbers over at his website right now about the Borders bankruptcy and how it may impact publishers as creditors in the Chapter 11 proceedings.  Go read his posts from yesterday (Feb. 20) and today, great stuff.

This is a wise time to learn about the financial health of any publisher you have contracts for novels with that are still in print, or if you are planning to sign a contract in the near future with a publisher.

If the publisher is part of a publicly traded conglomerate on the stock exchange (and you know the name or ticker symbol) you can easily look at the SEC filings at 
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm
The quarterly (10-Q) and annual filing with the SEC is where the good stuff can be found, like how much cash they have on hand (Cash and Cash Reserves), cash flow, and their debts. You’ll want to take your time and read back as far as the database will allow you to get a good feel for what is going on in a particular company.

As for private publishing companies, if your library has access to Hoover’s (http://www.hoovers.com/), you might be able to get some info on their finances from there.

Also, another resource to turn to for help in doing financial research on a publishing company is your nearest Reference Librarian. Librarians are a wonderful resource for this sort of research.

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Posted in Business of writing, Markets, Publishers

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Please Go Read “Bad Decisions and the Midlist Writer”

Posted on January 27, 2011 | Comments Off

With the major changes happening in publishing right now, anyone not reading The Business Rusch is missing out on great weekly blog posts on this business.  Kristine Kathyrn Rusch is a successful award-winning fiction writer, as well as a former editor and publisher.

This week’s topic is “Bad Decisions and the Midlist Writer,” and is a must read for anyone who wants to make a living as a fiction writer.  With the technology and distribution changes that are happening right now, wonderful opportunities are opening up for fiction writers like in the era of the pulps.

However, when there’s more money to be made means that the sharks and scammers are coming out in force.

Here’s a short excerpt from her post:

Right now, established writers are standing on the starting line of a brand new gold rush.  Unfortunately, writers as a class are stupid about business.  Those who understand business have already cut in front of the writers and have set up shop.

So what do I mean exactly?  Why am I worried about this?

Here’s the hard truth: for the first time in my lifetime, a midlist writer can make bestseller money without having a bestseller and without writing 6 or 8 or 10 books per year.  The rise of e-books, the availability of print-on-demand publishing, and the growing use of internet bookstores like Amazon make it possible to sell backlist titles that could earn a writer tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of dollars per year.

Seriously, read the entire post here. Following her advice could save a writer, as well as his or her family after the writer’s death, significant sums of money over the coming decades.

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Posted in Agents, Business of writing, Contracts, Markets, Publishers

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Scrivener’s Error: Blog on Publishing Law

Posted on December 1, 2010 | Comments Off

I’ve discovered an amusing website for keeping up with publishing law news.  Lawyer C. E. Petit has a site called Scrivener’s Error where he blogs about many things related to publishing gossip, especially anything involving publishing law.  Well worth reading.

Also, be sure not to miss Petit’s rants about the terrible contract terms being offered to want-to-be-published newbie writers by James Frey’s book packager Full Fathom Five, especially his post on this from November 13th called “The Million-and-First Little Lie.”

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Posted in Blogging, Business of writing, Contracts, Copyright

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The insanity of the “I just wanna write fiction AND get published” mindset

Posted on September 26, 2010 | Comments Off

I have no problem with someone saying, “I just wanna write.”   Creating art for art’s sake is a wonderful thing to do.

What drives me nuts is when someone says “I just wanna write fiction AND get published.”  That’s just crazy.  Because publishing is a business, and if someone wants to play the publishing business game, they’d better learn the rules of the business.  Otherwise, just slap a “I’LL BE IN TROUBLE” label on their back and be done with it.  Because one of the following WILL happen (let’s alternate between genders):

1) The writer will fall prey financially to a scam agent, a scam editor, scam contests, or scam publisher because she couldn’t be bothered to learn the business.  Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of dollars will disappear into the black hole of scams.

2) The writer will be gouged in pricing by a subsidy or vanity press because he couldn’t be bothered to research actual publishing costs and methods.  Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of dollars will be lost.

3) The writer will run into legal problems because she couldn’t be bothered to learn about publishing contracts so she could understand what she was signing.   If she’s really unlucky, she could find herself stuck in court for years.

3) The writer will be taken by surprise when his publisher goes out of business, sticking his books with that publisher in bankruptcy limbo.  He couldn’t be bothered to keep track of the financial health of his publisher.

4) The writer will be in financial trouble when she discovers her agent or publisher has been cooking the books.  She couldn’t be bothered to learn how to read a royalty statement, add important clauses to her publishing contracts to protect her interests, or how to track her own money.

5) The writer will run into serious career trouble when his agent dies, gets sick, dumps him, or leaves agenting as a career.  He couldn’t be bothered to learn the business of how to sell manuscripts to editors.

6) The writer will be surprised when her publisher drops her, because she couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to the print run numbers.

7) The writer will run into cash flow problems, because he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to the out-of-print, e-book royalty rates, subsidiary rights, and reversion rights clauses in his contracts.

One thing I’ve noticed again and again at conferences is that the fiction writers I’ve met who’ve survived in the publishing business for 15+ years pay attention to the business side of publishing.  A writer can get away with ignoring the business side (if she or he is lucky) for maybe 7-12 years.  But statistically speaking, sooner or later a rough patch will happen, and the writers who survive to publish again are those who pay attention to the business side.

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Posted in Business of writing, Contracts, Markets, Psychology of writing, Scams

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J. A. Konrath on Ebooks

Posted on May 27, 2010 | Comments Off

Unless you don’t follow publishing news, I’m sure you’ve heard about J. A. Konrath signing a major deal with AmazonEncore. I advise reading about it at his blog since Publisher’s Weekly got some of the basic facts wrong .

Also, he’s well-known in e-publishing circles because of his candor in blogging his actual sales numbers on the Kindle since he started self-publishing there. There’s been a lot of handy information on his blog since he’s experimented with different approaches–like better book covers and changes in pricing–and I know he gathered it up for THE NEWBIE’S GUIDE TO PUBLISHING. I’ve downloaded it, and will try to find time to read it this summer to review here.

He’s getting swamped with emails from writers asking questions about e-publishing, so he just did a blog on “Top Ebook Questions.” I think it’s a good place to start exploring this new revenue stream for writers.

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Posted in Business of writing, Contracts, Copyright, Markets, Publishers

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Richard Curtis’ HOW TO BE YOUR OWN LITERARY AGENT

Posted on April 2, 2010 | Comments Off

For this commentary, I’ll be referring to the 2003 revised version of HOW TO BE YOUR OWN LITERARY AGENT by Richard Curtis.   Curtis is a NYC literary agent who has run his own agency since the 1970s, and been in the publishing industry even longer than that.   He’s also got some experience as a published writer as well.

The main goal of the book is to encourage writers to be more educated about contracts, marketing, what agents do, and the publishing industry as a whole.   He encourages writers to find an agent, but wants them to be able to tell if the agent is doing a good job or not.  And also, he’s aware there are markets (such as small presses), where it may be next to impossible to find a good agent to represent a writer.  So this book tries to fill in a few of the knowledge gaps.

I found the Appendix “Is It a Good Deal?” invaluable.  Here he has a checklist, from an agent’s perspective, of what he considers  a “poor,” “fair,” or “good” deal from a NYC publisher.  Rights granted, advance amounts, royalty rates–it’s all listed.   I would want to double-check with other resources such as Publisher’s Marketplace for more recent data, but the appendix is a handy place to start.

I also found very helpful the chapters where he goes through a publishing contract from an agent’s perspective (i.e. what he looks for). In particular the chapters on “Negotiation,” “The Basic Deal,” “Warranties and Indemnities,” “Permissions,” “The Option Clause,” “Termination and Reversion of Rights,” and “Royalty Statements” made this a book I wanted to buy to put on my reference shelf. Even though much is changing in the publishing industry, some fundamental issues have not.

This book alone is not enough to understand all that goes into a publishing contract, I’d still need to hire a literary attorney or agent to read over any NYC publishing contract I encountered. But now I know what questions to ask and what major pitfalls to watch out for.

Also, throughout the book are tales about the foibles of the publishing industry, which I found fun to read since Curtis has decades of experience to share.

For an excerpt, I’ll share some words of encouragement he wanted to give to writers:

So you mustn’t be discouraged if your first book or books don’t take off into the wild blue yonder….few blockbusters are first books.  Rather, they are the culmination of years of dedication to craft, and a number of flops or indifferent successes….Do what you can to make your book succeed, but after you’ve done all you can, go back and write another, and another after that, and yet another after that.

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Posted in Agents, Business of writing, Contracts, Copyright, Editors, Markets, Publishers

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Literary Agent Kristin Nelson on Harper Studio and Vanguard Press

Posted on November 25, 2009 | Comments Off

Literary agent Kristin Nelson has a helpful post on Harper Studio (HS) and Vanguard Press (VP), and how the contract terms for them differ from the typical author-publisher contract.   Go read the entire post for all the details.   But here’s a snippet:

I’m wondering if the editor was erroneously comparing Harlequin Horizons to a legitimate publisher such as Vanguard Press or Harper Studio.

They are not remotely the same.

At Horizons, the writers are forced to pay for their work to be “published.” And forced to pay for “marketing” or anything else from a fee-oriented “menu” of choices. The writer foots the entire cost.

At VP and HS, the publishers pay for publication. The authors are not out any money from their pockets. Vanguard and Studio also commit a certain percentage of monies to the marketing/promotion as part of the plan. In lieu of the advance, there is an equal split of royalties between Publisher and Author.

And another key factor, at VP and HS, the books are available for wide distribution via traditional sales outlets just like a traditional publisher.

There is also an interesting post by one of the commentators, Lisa Dez, about Smashwords.

Happy Thanksgiving!  :)

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Posted in Agents, Business of writing, Contracts, Markets, Publishers

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