The Next Circle of Hell, Vol. 2

Advances have actually been trending down in the past few years. Houses that commonly offered a $20,000 advance have dropped to $10,000. The flattening is pretty much across the board with fewer mega deals being made. The days of King like paperback rights (haha) are also over. In the 70's the hardcover was considered almost a loss-leader for the paperback and the number of paperbacks sold was huge. Not so much anymore. This is a hard and grinding biz, and not one we get rich at. Which is why I occasionally buy a lottery ticket....

Happy St.Patty's day, everyone. No Irish heritage here -- how about everyone else? Are there any traditional Irish treats we can pass around? All I can think of is potatoes. (Obviously I need more coffee)

WRITING
Did a bunch of work on my manuscript revision; just need the final touches before sending it back to my agent (eek!) Currently emailing him to try to hammer down the new title.

READING
Still beta reading!

re: "big" deals
I'd consider a "big" deal something with the Big Five or a major, longstanding, reputable independent (which are becoming fewer and fewer). For me personally, I want something with good distribution. My goal is to have my books in libraries around the country.
And yes, from my understanding, if a publisher gives you a big advance, they're going to do what they can marketing-wise to help you earn out bc they make more money that way, too.

tri - Thanks again for your insight. To be honest, negotiation terrifies me. I'm just the kind of person that deals well with it (thus why I definitely wanted an agent in my corner who's good at that sort of thing!)

Treehouseman - The other thing w SP (which I learned from a CP who self-pubs one of her series) is that it costs a TON upfront to get a good cover design & editing.

Anyway, back to work, everyone! We have books to write!

pinkbowvintage said:

I'm curious though, tri, isn't that all up to the agents? How can an author battle for a better advance if their agent is the one ultimately trying to make the deal?

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The agent is working for you (in the agent situation). Reputable agents will always connect with their client about money matters, especially advances and royalty amounts. That also goes for auctions and preempt deals. You will always be in the loop. But stress your intention of involvement right up front--you really shouldn't have to. They are not going to go behind your back and seal a deal without your knowledge.

Believe this or not, you can set an advance amount once your agent tells you what they're offering. Now, at the very least, you and your agent will come to agreeable terms via compromise at the beginning of the process, and that way you can back out early if you want and leave the negotiation to he agent. If you want it that way. My advice is to get in there and express your expectations, and your agent is going to listen with rapt attention. The first advance offer will most likely be a standard low-ball figure.

You would never negotiate directly with the publisher over a contract when you're repped. The agent is your mouth piece--you have the ultimate say in the end. Always. You can veto anything. With the A-list/celebrity authors, guess who runs the show there and makes the final decisions?

Writers battle for a better advance when they don't have an agent. This is difficult because there are not a whole lot of publishers out there that offer nice advances to non-repped writers. You would negotiate with, say, Tor or Baen, or some of the others that have an open-door policy (I'm sure you guys have a list of these). A small press that offers a little or token advance? You could try and push that up a bit, but don't count on it. I actually had a small press auction, if you can believe such a thing. But, I had an agent, and we gabbed back and forth about money like a couple of strong-arm robbers. I decided when to stop it and pick our winner. I have to say that it was funny as hell, but heated.

Yeah, it's sobering. We work for literally years on a manuscript and are lucky to get maybe a few grand out of it. The book business is totally whacked.

angeliz2k said:

Yeah, it's sobering. We work for literally years on a manuscript and are lucky to get maybe a few grand out of it. The book business is totally whacked.

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I was just thinking that.

Earthling said:

Is it really win-win, or are they less likely to publish your next book if you don't earn out your advance?

I'm all full of questions.

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If I didn't earn out my advance, but came close, it means the publisher still made money. Personally, I won't go back to a publisher that can't even help me get close to an earn-out. It means there's a lack of, or zero marketing on their part. I bust my keesster when it comes to promo and marketing. So I def know who is slagging when there's a sales fail.

Gak! In answer to your question, I think the big houses would not look favorably upon your failure to earn out. Some may refuse your next sub, some may grudgingly give you a second chance. I sure would hate to see a loophole clause in a contract that said your second book royalties would be used to pay the negative balance of your previous advance. I think this would apply more to small press, with some of the idiotic wording I've seen in some of those contracts.

Treehouseman said:

According to sources:

Nice deal is $1 to $49,000
Very nice deal is $50K to $99K
Good deal is $100K to $250
Significant deal is $250K to $499K
Major deal is $500K and up







With the earning out the advance, it's an odd little conundrum.

Now if you got a $100K advance and you got 6% of net profits on a book that cost $20 gross .... it roughly works out to a dollar a book net. So you'd need to sell 100K books to earn your advance back, right?

WELL, your publisher is probably making 10 bucks per book gross, so around the 10K sales mark, you're really not a massive liability anymore. So at about 30K sold, you never earnout your advance, but you're a bestseller, and you've made your publisher money. And you've made MORE money then you would have done under straight royalties.

You'll never earn out your advance, but with those figures you may get something similar $$ next time you sell...

I'd go for the reasonably large advance. It essentially DOUBLES your upfront check. By the time your net earnings break even you are the publisher's golden goose. If you fail miserably, you can still console yourself with the cash you would never have got, or deserved.

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This is accurate. It does depend on how close to the earn-out you are. That's where subjective decisions would be made. It does really depend on the figures.

BunnyHopkins said:

Advances have actually been trending down in the past few years. Houses that commonly offered a $20,000 advance have dropped to $10,000. The flattening is pretty much across the board with fewer mega deals being made. The days of King like paperback rights (haha) are also over. In the 70's the hardcover was considered almost a loss-leader for the paperback and the number of paperbacks sold was huge. Not so much anymore. This is a hard and grinding biz, and not one we get rich at. Which is why I occasionally buy a lottery ticket....

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You're on the money with this one--pardon the pun. Yeah, the days of the super deals are on a downward slide, aside from some special exceptions. Publishers have been cutting back on their staff and publishing less debut authors. Newspapers and mags have eliminated review sections. Borders went belly up, but didn't B & N take over many of those store locations? The financial emphasis is turning more and more toward the A-list author series and celebrity bios. BTW, non-fiction still outsells fiction 3--1. That's why I started out in non-fiction. When I made the jump to fiction I got slaughtered.

We have it tough. No doubt about. But we can weather it. I think I'm bias, but I believe AbsoluteWrite has the best and most respected writers/authors in the industry. We're pulling more deals, major and minor, than any other group or writing site. You would not believe what agents and editors cruise these threads, looking for gold.

angeliz2k said:

Yeah, it's sobering. We work for literally years on a manuscript and are lucky to get maybe a few grand out of it. The book business is totally whacked.

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That's why they say keep your day job.

As a writer, I hide away. I've been called a bum more than once.

To be honest, negotiation terrifies me. I'm just the kind of person that deals well with it (thus why I definitely wanted an agent in my corner who's good at that sort of thing!)

Wendy; if you don't have an agent, fear not the God-like publisher who offers you a deal. They're humans. You're selling a product. You get right in there and pitch. Kay?

triceretops said:

Wendy; if you don't have an agent, fear not the God-like publisher who offers you a deal. They're humans. You're selling a product. You get right in there and pitch. Kay?

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Oh, that goes for ANY type of negotiation. My dad and my brother could both negotiate themselves out of a paper bag (wait... does that metaphor work? you get what I mean), but I freeze up. Needless to say, I always take backup to flea markets.

Wendy, I'm like you. I hate having to negotiate when it comes to my own personal stuff. But the great thing about the agent is the agent is your advocate. So you can state what you want to do (whether it's something specific in mind or just listening to your agent's advice and agreeing with him/her) and then your agent will go out and negotiate for you.

I can't talk about money at all. Even when I went to African markets and I knew haggling was expected, I just paid what they asked. Couldn't do it.

I knew I needed an agent to get anywhere!

You guys are funny. I love to haggle. It's fun! "No, no, no, no, no, I cannot pay your price! Do you want me to starve? I must feed my children!" (all said while holding my hands to my face)

Dickering with a publisher, though? No way. That's what agents are for.

Meanwhile, I'm at the next stall:

Me: "Hello Mr Seller. How much is this carved animal? I think it's a giraffe but could equally be a hippo... it's hard to tell what with the broken bits. Anyway, I like all animals so it doesn't matter."
Seller: "Ninety seven pounds."
Me: "Oh. I don't have any coins... well, alright, take a hundred."

You guys are hilarious. I'm with Wendy, Funaek and Earthling, though: I hate negotiating, suck at it and that's one of the reasons I really wanted an agent.

(tl;dr - Earthling totally described me at a market. Luckily, Mr. Moonchild is the complete opposite--though it does make me feel mortified when I hear him haggling. I much rather he does it when I'm not within earshot. )

Earthling - that's totally me too!

My mom is the complete opposite. To her, everything is negotiable. Even things I would never have considered trying to negotiate. And she's persistent about it. This is why anytime I have to deal with a contractor, I try to bring her along. That way I can play good cop while she plays bad cop.

My husband haggled with the salesman over the price of my engagement ring. I was mortified but married him anyway.

I dislike bargaining when I go on vacation. I often don't know what a good price is for something. My best technique is to say I only have X whatevers. They'll try to bring me up. I pull all the money out of my wallet -- "See -- X whatevers." Something about seeing the money causes them to accept what they won't otherwise.

I hate bargaining. And I'm terrible at it . Like Earthling, I'm a "keep the change!" person.

My hubs is a different story--like Moonchild, I prefer to slink away while he's haggling (especially when it's over engagement rings ).

Yeah, pretty sure when we had a rummage sale a few years back, some of our neighbors got REALLY good deals bc they'd ask me, "Would you take $10 for that?" and I'd be like, "Um... sure?"

Did any of you have an author website before you were published? What did you put on it?

My agent is going to assign me a PR person so I'm sure she'll have ideas, but at the moment I'm floundering. I've put a bio, contact information, and a bunch of short stories (already "published" on the web) because I couldn't think what else to do.

Another pass this morning. Supporting Female characters were weak, female MC opaque.

I called my agent to talk about next steps even though we still have 9 out. She said she's in it for the long haul, that's she's still hopeful but she'll come up with smaller presses or e-publishers, but we're not there yet. So on we go.

I'm sorry, Whip.

Sorry about the pass, whip. *hugs*

Can you guys revise at all before the next round? It's good to hear she's in it for the long haul with you. Hang in there!

Tri, thanks so much for all of your insight! It's very useful.

Sorry, whip! But glad to hear you got some reassurance from your agent.