Category : The Business of Writing

  • February 3, 2012

    What you've always wanted to ask the Agent

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    I've been receiving a number of questions about authors and agents, so I wanted to take a few weeks to explore agenting. Glenna wrote to ask, "How long does it usually take for an agent to respond after receiving a requested manuscript?"

    Everybody is different. I try to respond to people within a month, but this past fall it seemed to take me two or three months before I could read and react to all the submissions. If you'll check out the web site of literary agents, most will offer some sort of timeline in the two-to-four month range. I've heard stories of authors having proposals in to agents for eight or nine months, but my response to that would be: "Maybe you aren't picking up the hint." Look, if you've had something in with an agent for six months, and they haven't so much as responded to your idea, it's clearly not ringing their bell. Move on.

    I should also note that I have a couple people who work for me who review manuscripts. Like most longtime literary agents, I don't promise to read everything that gets sent to my company. I work with a couple people who have great editorial eyes, and they frequently take a first look at stuff coming in over the transom. And if something isn't a fit, we may not respond at all. (In fact, it may not be read at all if it's written in crayon, is a retelling of the Book of Revelation, or warns me that I'll go to hell if I dont immediately read and get excited about the idea. Just so you know.)

    This question came from Janet: "If an agent has asked you to send in a manuscript, is it wrong to continue sending out queries to other agents?"

    Not in my book. The way I look at it, if I'm taking a couple months to review a manuscript

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  • February 1, 2012

    Ghostwriting: Not as Spooky as it Seems (A Guest Blog)

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         There’s no middle ground. If you are a person’s ghostwriter, that person will either hate you or love you. It’s all about ego.

         If the person whose name is going to appear on the cover actually wants people to think that he or she wrote the book, that person will want you to write a brilliant manuscript and then drop off the face of the earth so that he or she can go on radio and TV talk shows and take kudos for writing such a brilliant artistic masterpiece. (I actually had a client break into tears recalling how “emotionally gut-wrenching it was to write chapter nine.”  Oh…pul-leeese!)

         So, let’s put our cards on the table. Most ghostwriters, including me, do this for the money. Thus, rule one is to charge plenty.  I mean it.

         Let’s get the negatives out of the way. First, ghosting causes a split personality: the publisher is expecting the ghost to deliver one kind of book, but very often the client wants a totally different kind of book. (When it doubt, favor the one paying you.) Second, ghosting is hard work, but usually you get no credit for your labors. (One woman, whose entire book was written by me, thanked me on the acknowledgements page for “proofreading assistance and help with typing.”) Third, no matter how the book fares, you, the ghost, will come off the loser. If the book hits #1 and sells five million copies, you won’t get a dime more than the work-made-for-hire flat rate you were originally paid. If the book tanks, everyone will blame you, personally, for producing an inferior manuscript.

    WHERE’S THE UPSIDE?

         By now you may be wondering why a guy like me, who has written 34 books under his own name, would also have ghostwritten 18 books for other people. One reason is because writing is what I do, and

    Continue Reading "Ghostwriting: Not as Spooky as it Seems (A Guest Blog)"
  • February 1, 2012

    Ghostwriting: Not as Spooky as it Seems (A Guest Blog)

    by

         There’s no middle ground. If you are a person’s ghostwriter, that person will either hate you or love you. It’s all about ego.

         If the person whose name is going to appear on the cover actually wants people to think that he or she wrote the book, that person will want you to write a brilliant manuscript and then drop off the face of the earth so that he or she can go on radio and TV talk shows and take kudos for writing such a brilliant artistic masterpiece. (I actually had a client break into tears recalling how “emotionally gut-wrenching it was to write chapter nine.”  Oh…pul-leeese!)

         So, let’s put our cards on the table. Most ghostwriters, including me, do this for the money. Thus, rule one is to charge plenty.  I mean it.

         Let’s get the negatives out of the way. First, ghosting causes a split personality: the publisher is expecting the ghost to deliver one kind of book, but very often the client wants a totally different kind of book. (When it doubt, favor the one paying you.) Second, ghosting is hard work, but usually you get no credit for your labors. (One woman, whose entire book was written by me, thanked me on the acknowledgements page for “proofreading assistance and help with typing.”) Third, no matter how the book fares, you, the ghost, will come off the loser. If the book hits #1 and sells five million copies, you won’t get a dime more than the work-made-for-hire flat rate you were originally paid. If the book tanks, everyone will blame you, personally, for producing an inferior manuscript.

    WHERE’S THE UPSIDE?

         By now you may be wondering why a guy like me, who has written 34 books under his own name, would also have ghostwritten 18 books for other people. One reason is because writing is what I do, and

    Continue Reading "Ghostwriting: Not as Spooky as it Seems (A Guest Blog)"
  • January 26, 2012

    A Writer's Budget

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    A couple of people read my Monday blog and asked me, "What does a writing budget look like?"

    Here's the basic idea…

    1. The author sets a financial goal for the year. It's got to be something that is livable (if the writer is attempting to make this a full-time job) and reachable (so there's no setting a goal of "a bazillion dollars"). Let's say, for someone just moving into full-time writing, the goal is $24,000 per year. Skinny, but a real wage for most writers. So figure out how much you need to earn in a year from your writing.

    2. I encourage an author to break that annual figure into monthly chunks — so in our example, the author's goal is $2000 per month.

    3. The next step is to add up what the author expects to earn on the writing they are doing. How much in contracts does she already have? What other writing does she know she'll be doing and getting paid for? That will help her figure out how much money is coming in, and how much she needs to add. Let's say an author has a royalty check coming in May, expects to have completion money on a book contract in July, and is expecting to sell a project in October. All you have to do is to figure out the amounts and write them onto your writing calendar. Nothing will give an author more clarity than hard numbers written down on a calendar — it's a way of saying, "I'm making this…so now I need to work to make that."

    4. The obvious thing to do next is to match up dates and amounts. If you know you're going to be working on a book in March/April/May, you can write down how much you're making on that project. By looking at your calendar, you'll see where the holes are that need

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  • January 24, 2012

    Who Needs a Publisher?

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    In these times of self-publishing, ebooks, bookstore closures, agents turning into publishers, and the crumbling of the traditional publishing model—who needs a publisher?

    May I offer an indie publisher’s perspective on that question?

    First: Ask yourself if you know the industry. Many writers seem to have no clue about the changes in the publishing market. You need to do your research, learn book marketing, and educate yourself. One day your publisher is going to ask you, “What is your marketing plan?”, and if you say, “I can email my friends and do a book signing…”, there is a good chance your book will fail. No matter what path you take to publish, you will be responsible to market your book. Not the publisher—you.

    Second: Ask yourself if want a publisher. You may feel you don’t need a publisher these days, as you can do much on your own. But a publisher can do it faster and better, and brings expertise to the process… so do you want a publisher? (And when I say “publisher” I mean the indie publisher, the new model publisher, the partner publisher, or someone who is not stuck in the old way of doing business. I do not mean the Big 6 or old-school, dying on the vine publishers who seem to think eBooks and news of thinking are evil.)

    The fact is, a good publisher can do a few things for you that you can’t do on your own. But that will cost you something. You will give up part of your royalty to cover their services. Think of a publisher as someone who knows 50 people that you need to meet in order to get your book into reader’s hands. All a publisher does is make the introductions:

    ·      A publisher can get your book into bookstores. To sell with Ingram you need 10 titles before they will even talk to you.

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  • January 23, 2012

    Creating a Career Plan for Writers

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    I have a background in organizational development — that is, the study of how an organization grows and changes over time. In my job as a literary agent, I've found it's proven helpful when talking to writers about their careers. You see, my contention is that some agents pay lip service to "helping authors with career planning," but many don't really have a method for doing that. (Actually, from the look of it, some don't even know what it means. I think "career planning" to some agents is defined as "having a book contract.") During my doctoral program at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!), I served as a Graduate Teaching Fellow in the Career Planning and Placement Office. The focus was on helping people graduating in the arts figure out how to create a career plan, and that experience allowed me the opportunity to apply the principles of organizational theory to the real-world setting of those trying to make a living with words. So here are a few things I like to consider when talking with a writer…

    First, I want to get to know the author. Who is he (or she)? What's the platform he brings to the process? Does she speak? If so, where, how often, to whom, to how many, and on what topics? Does he have experience with other media? What kind? What's her message? What books has she done in the past? What other writing is the author doing that could boost the platform?

    Second, I want to find out about the author's past – the significant events and accomplishments. I also like to make sure I'm clear on things like strengths, gifts, burdens… all of that helps give me context when discussing career paths.

    Third, we have to talk about perspective – what is important to the author? How does he define success? What does she need to change? What do they want to

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  • January 18, 2012

    What do I do with my life?

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    Steve wrote to say, "I have a degree in teaching, and I've taken classes in a professional writing program… but I feel stuck between two careers. What do I do?"

    If you're trying to make it as a writer, you've got an uphill climb. But so does everybody who wants to make a living with art. Making a living in the arts (ANY art) is hard. Here's an example I've used several times: I'm a pretty good ballroom dancer. (Really. Publishers love it when I come to their publishing balls, since there will be 300 authors and 6 guys who know how to dance.) I took lessons, was in dance classes, and hoofed it in musical theater. If you saw me on the dance floor at the Harlequin ball, you might think I was head and shoulders above most beginners. But I realize there's a huge gap between being pretty good at the local dance club and asking people to pay $80 to come watch me dance in a show on Broadway. There's a gap between being "pretty good" and being "a professional."

    My son is a good guitar player, but there's quite a leap from playing in a garage band and asking people to plunk down $18 for your latest CD at Wal-mart. My daughter Molly could act and was in the plays in school — but there's a big gap between "being pretty good in the high school comedy" and "asking people to come see me at an equity theater." All of us who grew up in churches have heard really good singers over the years… but there's a big gap between the woman who is pretty good with a solo in the Christmas concert and the professional singer who has been granted a record contract. 


    So just because someone is a pretty fair writer doesn't mean she can expect a reader to pay $21 for her latest
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  • January 17, 2012

    A Series of Fortunate Events – a guest blog from Gina Holmes

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    It's not everyday that a debut novel becomes a bestseller, which is perhaps why people are curious as to why and how Crossing Oceans made its way on to the CBA, ECPA, Amazon, and PW Religion lists. 

    Anyone who regularly follows the bestseller lists for a few months will notice that while the book titles change, the authors rarely do. People like Ted Dekker, Francine Rivers, Karen Kingsbury, etc show up there over and over—making it difficult for a new name to squeeze in. (This is true in the CBA as well as the general market).

    There is, of course, no single way to turn a book into a bestseller. If there were, everyone would be doing it with every book. I can’t speak for the rest of debut novelist’s who were lucky enough to break in, but this is how it went for me:

    ·      I had a champion.

    Actually several. It started with a top-notch agent, Chip MacGregor, who championed the book and sold it to Tyndale House. Karen Watson, Associate Publisher there, read a partial manuscript and became passionate about it. She took a risk and gave an untried author a chance.

     This wouldn’t have happened though if the idea had been poorly executed. It took years to hone my skills. Over the course of ten years, I'd written several manuscripts that were ultimately rejected, read every how-to writing book I could get my hands on, and aligned with the toughest critique partners I could find. 

    Lucky for me, the rest of the team at Tyndale House also got excited and additional resources were thrown at the book. One "higher-up" from Tyndale commented it was one of the best debuts he’d  ever read. That’s the kind of excitement that helps sell a book.

    ·      I had a great editor.

     I doubt I have to convince writers how important this is. Kathy Olson saw my vision for the

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  • January 16, 2012

    How is money paid on a book contract?

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    Cherice wrote in to ask, "Can you explain how money is paid on a book publishing contract? I've got a contract in front of me, and I don't understand it."

    Happy to, Charice. First, most authors are paid an advance against royalties when signing a book contract. There's a long tradition of publishers paying advances to authors, since it allows the author to survive while he or she is working on a book. This isn't free money — it's sort of a no-interest loan that will be earned back after your book releases. Let's say the contract calls for a total advance of $20,000. Typically you'd get one-third of this on signing, another third upon turning in the completed work, and the last third upon publication. (That said, there are a million ways to divide the advance. Some pay half on signing, some pay a percentage when the author completes the bio and marketing forms, etc.) So when your book releases, you're now in the red $20,000 to the publisher. You've been paid that amount, but you haven't earned anything back yet. 

    Second, as your book sells you are credited with  money for each sale. That's your royalty money, and with each sale it slowly reduces that $20,000 debt. Most trade publishers in the general market (that would include Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, etc.) pay a standard royalty on hardcover books: 10% of the book's retail price on the first 5000 copies sold, 12.5% on the next 5000 copies sold, and 15% thereafter. Royalties for most trade-paper books are 7.5% of the retail price, and mass market books pay a bit less than that. (Be aware: Most CBA publishers don't pay on the retail price of the book — they pay on the net price, which is the amount of money the publisher actually receives from the bookstore. And you negotiate royalties on each book.

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  • August 25, 2010

    On Relationships in Publishing

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    Donna wrote to ask, "Is it possible to have two agents, one for fiction and one for nonfiction, or one for ABA and one for CBA?"

    It's possible, I guess. I'm not a fan of this plan, since I think it makes it harder for an agent to do his or her job in terms of career planning. Still, some people do it. The alternative? Find an agent who fits what you do. 

    Julie wrote with this: "Some agents have a large number of clients, and represent very successful authors. But where does the midlist client fit in today's market?"

    I think your question presupposes that having a small list of clients is a good thing — perhaps better than being part of a larger agency. In my view, it's not as simple as that. First of all, I don't think most authors would know what a large or small number of clients is. I represent around 40 or 50 authors. Is that large? Not in publishing — it's fairly small. But so what? You don't sign up with an agent because he or she has only five clients, do you? You sign up with an agent because he or she does a good job, knows how to help you, is a fit for you and your work, and can help make you successful. Move from the world of books to the world of investments for a moment – Would you prefer to hand your hard-earned money to a startup guy who admits he doesn't have many clients, or to somebody with a proven track record of success? (And I"m not making an argument for going with a big agency here — I'm just trying to show the weakness of this particular argument.) Janet Grant, a friend and a very good literary agent, and I are two of the people who have been agenting the longest in CBA. We've both seen

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