for.Branch.
This entry is mainly for
ambling_Paradox since he inquired of the publishing process. I anticipate this entry to be quite long so if you're not interested in the publishing industry and don't feel like reading it, I won't hold it against you :D
***
First, a listing of the main characters in the industry:
Good Author-This is the person who has written a good book and has done his homework on the industry.
Naive Author- This is someone who may or may not have written a good book. Either way, this person certainly doesn't know a thing about the publishing industry.
Bad Author- Someone who has written a bad book and refuses to see it for what it is.
Annoying Author- Someone who annoys agents and editors.
Good Agent- An agent that genuinely cares for her authors and their craft. She also knows the in's and out's of the industry and has garnered the respect and clout it takes to strike a good deal on behalf of her writers.
Bad Agent- An agent that poorly represents her writers.
Copy Editor- This is someone who proofreads your manuscript and depending on the arrangement you have with them, either corrects mistakes they find or furnishes you with a report with recommendations.
House Editor-This is the hand that feeds you. We won't say they are good or bad for now. They work for the major publishing house you're trying to get your book published by.
Here's our traditional journey on how you go from Naive Author to Good Author. Grab your manuscript and come with me...
Our first stop is the Query Letter. You use the Query Letter to attract the attention of an agent. You get ONE page to tell the prospective agent about yourself, the manuscript you hope they'll represent, and why they should take you on as a client. Daunting task? You bet. Any more than one page and you stand the chance of keeping the title of Naive Author or worse, Annoying Author. Agents have a special round filing cabinet for these types of letters. We, outside the agent's office, refer to this as the trash can.
Now why do you need an agent? Major House Editors will have nothing to do with you unless you have one. Why? Because they want to see someone take you seriously first. A reputable agent takes on clients whose books will usually do well so they have credibility. This is more of the weed-out process. If you tried to get the attention of several agents and failed to get signed with any of them, it might be time to rethink your manuscript or how you're going about the process.
Today the gods of the publishing industry have looked out for you and Good Agent finds your Query Letter amongst the mass of letters in her office. You get a call from Good Agent and she tells you she is excited to see your work and requests your manuscript. Now before you start looking at prospective mansions to buy or envisioning your name on the New York Times Bestseller List, there's work to do. Good Agent will usually give you a deadline (a month or two) to hand in a proofread manuscript. Bad Agent will ask for it immediately as well as charge you a reading fee which, of course, will be refunded if they represent you. Now you need to get hold of Copy Editor to polish your manuscript for you. Do I have one? I have three with
i_hollywould being a tentative fourth. Why so many? Is that really necessary? No. However, know this Naive Author, you only get one chance to sell your First Book and make enough of an impression that people will fight to make it a Bestseller. If you don't do your homework and expend the necessary energy and resources, there may never be a Second Book. I've blown three deadlines because I refuse to turn in nothing but the best I can do for my First Book. Today, so much rides on the First Book that it seriously behooves you, Naive Author, to spend a great deal of time to set your career in high gear. Mark my words on this. You only get one shot at being a Naive or Good Author; then you are marked as Annoying or Bad. So what if I piss of an agent, I'll just go to another one, you say. Wrong-o. Good Agents Smith, Parker, and Priest are out to lunch in So-ho and Good Agent Smith tells them, "I've got this really good coming-of-age manuscript by (insert author's name). I'm totally stoked!" Good Agents Parker and Priest look at each other, laugh, and then look at your agent Smith. Your agent wants to know what is so funny. Good Agent Parker takes a sip of wine and tells your agent that both he and Priest tried doing business with you and you were nothing but a whiny, ignorant bastard who burned quite a few bridges and the only reason you went with Agent Smith is because no one else will deal with you. Game over for you, Bad Author.
Another word on agents: An agent usually specifies whether or not they prefer to read materials exclusively. This means they want to be the only one you submit to initially. So when you're looking through agent listings (more on that in a bit) and you think to yourself, "I'll submit it to these three agents who want exclusive materials. They'll never know I sent it off to other agents." Wrong again. Those three agents might have lunch three times a week together and if they've all received materials from you, you're now Bad Author who can't read and won't honor directions. Game over for you, again.
Back to our journey. Copy Editor Niesen has returned your manuscript and now you're armed with a proofread, solid, sellable manuscript. You call Good Agent and tell her it's in the mail. Two weeks go by and she calls to tell you your book is remarkable and she is interested in representing you. She would like you to make a trip to New York to sign the contract with her. You hang the phone up and do a happy dance that probably looks so ridiculous that people would die from laughter if it were shown on YouTube.com.
You're sitting in the lobby in your best suit waiting for Good Agent. Good Agent's secretary tells you you may go in. You enter the office of your new agent and you see it's a clusterfuck of manuscripts and opened and unopened letters galore. There are pictures of authors on the wall and you sneak a look at the trashcan and thank god you're not one of the many letters you see lying under her empty Starbucks cup.
Good Agent shakes your hand and small-talks with you for a moment before pitching her deal. You are told that she gets 10% domestic sales, 15% foreign sales, and the contract is binding for 2 years. Now, before we question this, let us assume for a moment that you're not in the office of Good Agent but rather, Bad Agent.
You still being Naive Author eagerly sign this contract with Bad Agent. You go home and call everyone you know and tell them you got yourself an agent! Months pass by and Bad Agent has yet to sell your book. You have another interested agent but once they learn of your contract, they look over their glasses at you and say, "You're fucked." Now you want to take Bad Agent to court to accuse them of breach of contract since they haven't yet sold your book to a Major House and refuse to let you out of your two year binding contract. Being the Naive Author you were, you never negotiated a termination clause nor did you specify how long the agent has to sell your book. Bad Agent appeals to the judge showing him periodic rejection letters as well as long phone bills showing an attempt on their part. The judge has little choice but to side with Bad Agent. You go home after court and decide you'll just wait out the remaining part of the 2 years and try again with a new agent.
A few weeks later you learn that you're now being sued by Bad Agent for attempting to defame them to their peers. You can see how bad this can get.
Now we're back to the office of Good Agent. You, making the transition to Good Author, request a termination clause for your contract and Good Agent knows you know your stuff and complies. It is set that if Good Agent doesn't sell your book within six months, the contract can be broken and you're free to start over elsewhere, no hard feelings.
After signing the contract, you go home and play the waiting game. The gods are in your favor again and Good Agent calls within a few weeks (not realistic but whatev) and says that House Editor at Doubleday wants to sign you for $50,000. Since you've now made your transition from Naive Author to Good Author, you tell Good Agent they've got you fucked up and to come back with a better offer. A few more weeks go by and Good Agent reports she has several Major Houses interested in your book and she has set "the floor" at $250,000. What is "the floor?" It's the precedent in a bidding war. Any Major House that wants the book will throw their bid in and it's up to you and Good Agent to decide when the sale is to be made. There is usually a time limit for this and the Major Houses will shell out quite a bit of money based on the buzz for your book.
After a few weeks of this bidding war, House Editor at Broadway Books wins with a bid of $600,000. You get the news and can hardly stand up. You and Good Agent go to New York to sign the contract. For brevity, I won't discuss each detail of the contract since this is just an overview of the industry. However, let us assume that Good Agent did her job and now your First Book has found a home. A word on this $600,000 advance...
It usually comes in 3 installments. The first $200,000 payable on signing the contract. The second payment furnished upon Manuscript Acceptance (more on this later) and the final payment the week your book hits the shelves.
Before you call your real-estate agent and tell them you're now rich and want a new home or worse, tell your boss what you really think of them and quit, we have to have a discussion on this money.
Remember the agent contract?
It states you owe them 10% domestic. They usually get paid on the gross, not the net. So, when the publisher pays the probable tax of at least 20% on your first $200,000 payday, you are left with $160,000. Does the agent get paid on $160,000 or $200,000? Usually $200,000 so you owe them $20,000 of your remaining $160,000. Can you negotiate the agent getting paid on the net instead of the gross? Sadly, not usually if you're a first-timer. Swallow it down and be happy you have anything at all.
Now you're left with $140,000 of your $200,000 check. Are we calling realtors yet? No!
The next payment is acceptance. This can take more than a year. During that year, while you're living off your $140,000, you and House Editor work on your manuscript. So you can see why it's not a good idea to treat your town to dinner at Outback since there's all this time between paydays.
A year later and lots of sweat, blood and tears, your House Editor tells you your manuscript is accepted. Another $140,000 payday! Are we going to buy our relatives cars or call the realtors yet? No! But why not? Because a new necessary evil comes into the picture: The Publicist. Now, Major House paid you $600,000. That's quite a nice sum of money. With that being said, they definitely plan on promoting your First Book. However, with promotion, the sky is the limit. Bad Author may end up kicking you off the New York Times list. But how?! Because they were wise enough to save their money and put it into their promotion machine.
Let's talk about this Publicist. Her job is the hardest of your entire work force. It is the Publicist who gets you on Oprah, who organizes your book tour (and you, Good Author, will solely finance said tour). How much does Publicist make? If you want any commendable effort from her you will throw her money to the tune of 20% of each payday. But that's a shitload of money! Do you *want* to sit on Oprah's couch? However, most Publicists will work on a "budget." Aww, how charitable, you think. If Publicist knows you got a $200,000 payday and you tell them you can only give them $3,000 for promotion, you'll get what you pay for, make no mistake there. They are your Best Friend, maybe even moreso than Good Agent so keep their neck filled with ice.
Now after everyone takes their bite out of your paycheck(s), can you go wild and spend the rest? You already know what I'm going to say. :)
A year or more goes by after acceptance and your book is due on the shelf in two months. What do you do? Work with Publicist of course! Most of this promotional responsibility lies with you, Good Author. So make sure you have enough green stuff to hand Publicist.
How do I get paid once the book is on the shelves? Welp, first, your advance needs to be recouped. Let us suppose your contract said you get paid 15% royalty (this is rather high) and your book retails for $26. Further, you negotiated a loss fund of 10% (a very good deal I might add). One more word before we do our math: you usually only get paid from Major House twice a year.
Here's the math:
You received $600,000. You need to pay that back in sales before you earn another check from the publisher. Your book sells for $26 and you have a royalty of 15%. This means you get around $3.90 for each copy sold, right? Wrong. You have to pay your loss fund. What is the loss fund? This is a retainer the publisher keeps to defray the costs of giving books away on your behalf to reviewers, discounts to bookstores and to help pay for copies of your books that are stolen. So now you earn $3.51 per "unit" sold. This means you have to sell 170,940 units to earn any more money from the Major House. That's doable if you put enough money into publicity. What happens if you don't sell that many? Do you have to pay any money back? No. That's the good news. The Major House had an idea of what should constitute "success" in your genre.
If your book is a success, you'll get a royalty payment and then you, Good Agent and House Editor will discuss "Option to Buy."
If your book isn't a success, you'll be asking me if I want fries with my order. Maybe not that extreme but it will be much harder to publish your Second Book.
"Option to Buy" is a complicated contract and is more lengthy than I'm going to discuss but the jist is your book was a success and now the Major House wants to keep you and pays you a very nice lump sum for your next couple of books. An example to wet your tongue: Your First Book was a huge success and Broadway Books sits you and Good Agent down and says, "We're offering you $5 million for your next three books with advances comparable to your first."
What does this mean? Well, the $5 million isn't recoupable. This means after taxes and agent's cut, you get around $3.5 million. All yours to keep. NOW you can call the realtor. "Advances comparable" means that with the Second Book and subsequent books, you get at least a $600,000 advance and up which is usually recoupable. Now you can put most of that $600K into your promotion machine. The rich get richer, eh? :)
How do we meet these agents? Well, you can go to writer's conferences or buy books containing listings. I recommend the Guide to Literary Agents by Writer's Digest Books. These books aren't cheap and can set you back around $30-$50. However, until you are armed with a proofread manuscript and the like, don't bother since you'll be wasting your time as well as chancing being labeled, Bad Author.
I hope that was an illuminating view of the industry. There's more complications than I can discuss here but that's the general idea.