Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 2

Now I'm all itchy, dammit.

James D. Macdonald said:

There's a market for everything....

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Haggis got a story published by those guys I'm pretty sure and I've been meaning to send them something for awhile now (since I write what Fred Rayworth calls "icky bug" sometimes).

From Uncle Jim's Mailbag:Dear Querying:

You have several questions rolled into one there. The first thing is this: If you're talking about another book, not the one that you self-pubbed, sure. Why not? Commercial publishers, from the biggest to the smallest, are looking for new material.

If you are talking about the one you self-pubbed, your question is really, "Can I sell reprint rights?" The answer is the same whether you were the publisher yourself or you were published by Dell: Check the guidelines for the publisher you're interested in. Do they say "No reprints?" Yes/No.

If the publisher's guidelines say "no reprints," cross them off your list.

That leaves you with publishers that accept reprints. Query them as you ordinarily would, following their guidelines to the letter.

Now, will your book be accepted?

Here are some considerations: How were the sales of the previous edition?

You have three possibilities:

1) Sold a negligible number. Depending on the press you're talking to, a negligible number can be a few hundred to a few thousand. That's a proven failure; no sale. Unfortunately it's also the typical sales expectation of self-published books.

2) Sold every copy that it's ever going to sell. Again, depends on the press you're looking at. Numbers I've seen mentioned for this range in the five-to-eight thousand copy mark. Again, no sale.

3) A breakout book. Sky's the limit. Sold a metric ton. Looks like it'll sell tons more. This book has a very good chance of getting picked up by a commercial publisher.

If your story falls in the sales area of Case 1 and 2 above, you'll probably have to take it out of print before you start querying it.

Are there exceptions to cases 1) and 2)? Sure. If the editor loves the book, there's always a chance. Of course, if the editor loves the book that same editor would have bought it even without your self-publishing first.

Any exceptions to the no-reprints rule? Again, yes. That'll be in Case 3 above. If the book's sales are headed for the stratosphere the publishers will come looking for you. Does this happen? Yes, but not very often. We can probably name all the titles.

So, is self-publishing first a clever plan to sell this book to a commercial press?

No. You've greatly decreased the number of markets you can even approach. And typical sales figures suggest that your book, however dandy it might be, will look like an unbudgeable turkey to the nice folks who'll have to sign off on acquiring it.

So, if commercial publication is your goal, follow the path of submitting original works in accordance with the guidelines.

If self-publication is your goal, go forth and do so boldly.

If commercial publication is your goal, self-publication first may prove, at best, a time-consuming detour.

Consider your objectives. Consider your resources. Consider which choices are more likely to lead to your objectives with the resources you have on hand.

"The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's how the smart money bets."
-- Damon Runyon

"You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"
-- Dirty Harry

Thanks Uncle Jim for your very clear explanation of this.

As an aside to Jim's excellent comments on self pubbing, I think there is another angle that Jim probably does not have experience with, but I have that unique wisdom that comes from absolutely doing things the wrong way. Some of you on here might remember that I was a PublishAmerica author those many years ago.

Taking a book to a publisher of their ilk will necessarily place you several years behind in book selling. I took me several years to get even 1000 books sold. The two books PA had became the AIDS victims of the publishing world with no one even wanting to read them. I had to sell the next in the series to a small publisher to get them even a chance of being resold once I got my rights back.

The rule? Know the publisher before you query. Bad publishing is worse that self publishing. Buy a book or two from the publisher. Read them. Study them. Decide whether you can live with their level of work. Be critical. If they can't make your offering a great product, you don't want them.

I know. This isn't on topic for the discussion, but it really needs to be stated often, and with speed and intensity.

Yeah, Allen. That falls under Being Badly Published is Worse Than Remaining Unpublished, and Printing is not Publishing.

Or the ever popular, "She wanted to be published in the worst way ... and she was."

So:

Reprints happen. This should be intuitively obvious because otherwise you wouldn't be able to get a copy of Huckleberry Finn, Moby-Dick, or Macbeth today.

But reprint advances are typically lower than advances for originals.

Allen, I thought your last post fit in well with UJ's #2480 (which, holy crap btw). I appreciate that post because it feels pertinent to a lot of us reading this thread, if I'm typing my understanding of a wide range of writers / readers without wanting to speak for them. So, thanks.

Finally read through both UJ threads - long trip but worth it. Thank you Jim.

You're quite welcome!

stripernut said:

Finally read through both UJ threads - long trip but worth it. Thank you Jim.

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Someday before we die, we readers of this thread need to get together, if for no other reason than we all took the journey.

Heck, Allen, I think we were both messing around in Latin America at the same time. We might take one look at each other and say, "Hey, you're the guy...!"

In today's bit of egoboo, today the mail brought a contributor's copy of Oxford English 2, Knowledge and Skills (Australian Curriculum), by Paul Grover.

Yes, that Oxford.

They used portions of one of our short stories ("No One Has To Know") for the examples in Unit 8, "Actively Adverbs -- Positive, Comparative and Superlative Adverbs."

Other authors whose works are used as examples in this volume include J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, and Ray Bradbury, so we are well pleased.

978-0-19-552247-1 if your life isn't complete without it. Or the story itself is in Vampires, edited by Jane Yolen, (HarperCollins, 1991, multiple reprints over the years). Also available as part of our collection, Witch Garden and Other Stories, multiple electronic formats.

Oooh, kudos to you and your partner Uncle Jim!

allenparker said:

Someday before we die, we readers of this thread need to get together, if for no other reason than we all took the journey.

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We should have a pin designed, too.

We'll be at Readercon this weekend. If anyone is there, or in the Boston area, here's my sked:

Friday July 12 8:00 PM CL Kaffeeklatsch. Debra Doyle, James D. Macdonald.
9:00 PM E Autographs. Debra Doyle, James D. Macdonald.
Saturday July 13

8:00 PM RI The Xanatos Gambit. Jim Freund (moderator), Yoon Ha Lee, Scott Lynch, James D. Macdonald. The tangled webs of schemers both good and bad have always had a presence in imaginative fiction. There are the wily king-killers, the intrigue-fomenting spinsters and widows, the bard who hides the knife beside the harp, the indispensable keeper of secrets, and more. What are the challenges in writing an especially clever character? How has the role of the schemer evolved, and what versions do we no longer see?

Suggested by Josh Jasper.
Sunday July 14

2:30 PM VT Reading: James D. Macdonald. James D. Macdonald. James D. Macdonald reads an excerpt from a forthcoming work.

OK, since there is a couple of people interested, I have scheduled my demise for June 3, 3031, the day I pay my credit cards off. How about the 4th of June 3031 for our meeting. Anyone already have a conflict?

On a serious note, there is a short video advertising a way to help eliminate breast cancer while getting to wear some cool clothes. Please click and then surf over. You are going to wear a shirt anyway. This just prolongs laundry for another day. (sorry to derail this discussion. my bad.)

Wow, awesome thread. I can't believe I read the whole thing.

I'm a newbie here and would like to thank all who have contributed to this thread over the years. I've learned so much from each of you. You've inspired me to write my own novel. I have a background in poetry but novels are a completely different animal. Thanks for the advice and all of your hard work.

Bless you all.

Hey, Uncle Jim?

I just wanted you to know that it is your fault I read Twilight. You just had to post that first page, didn't you?

That one was a winner. As soon as I read that page I knew I was going to read the books; I was never interested before that.
So I did. I read 'em all. Liked them too.

Thanks : )

I have a bunch more first-page inspired books to read now.

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High-five to PandaMan and stripernut for making it through the thread!
It's really exciting and scary to make it to this point. Kind of like writing and dreaming of publishing. Thank goodness (and Uncle Jim and everyone all the others who've posted about publishing here) that I'll know what to avoid in publishers.

Thanks OZ, it is quite a trip through the two threads.

I've put it off long enough, it's BIC time for me. I had hip replacement surgery on 12 June, and still have pain, but I'm done with the foggy-head generating percocets and have put away the cane. My sadly neglected WIP, a thriller set in a southern U.S. college town, needs attention. So, it gets at least four hours tomorrow. It ain't gonna write itself.

stripernut said:

Thanks OZ, it is quite a trip through the two threads.

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Thanks too OZ. It also feels like a time warp of sorts. I mean, it only took a couple days to read both threads but they span several years of posting.

My mom had that surgery years ago so I know how painful it is. Good luck and a quick recovery for you.

Okay, Uncle Jim, seeking your opinion here.

I just ran across 13 Ways to Convince a Literary Agent to Represent You on my twitter feed.

I won't lie, this is actually disheartening to read. Some of the advice is pretty standard. Like all blog 'lists' filled with soundbite information that are words but not really saying anything substantive, I get that a few bits of the advice are geared toward non-fiction (like number 5), but seriously....a youtube video of the author speaking?

Really? Agents have time for this? To follow links to YouTube videos where the author sits in front of a video? Or would that also fall under the non-fiction realm of pitching to an agent?

Seriously...every time I read blogs like this, I really do get disheartened that more and more, blogs like this are casting the role of an author into playing the role of a salesman vying for the attention of a consumer customer and not a writer, you know, writing books.

Any thoughts?