Question about Agent Negotiation w/ Publisher

Luzoni · Jul 14, 2015

Ok, so after over a year, almost two in fact, with my first novel out on submission, I finally had a smaller press bite. They contacted my agent and sent her a contract that she described as a template. She said she was waiting on the official offer. A week goes by before I asked for more info, having expected more news by then, and she told me the template was the official offer after all. She's waiting to hear back from editors who still have the book right now I guess before beginning negotiations with the publisher.

My question about this is that at this point it's been a week and a half roughly since she told me about this publisher being interested. I have not yet seen the contract they sent so I know zilch about this. She's busy this week and still waiting on responses. Is this normal for this process? I always imagined things would move much faster once a publisher decided they wanted the novel. But the truth is I don't know squat so I came here to see what anyone here knows from their experiences. I went from ecstatic when I first learned of their interest to doubting it'd happen after a week went by. I know it's a slow business...this publisher had the novel a full year before expressing interest. So...any thoughts?? Is this normal?

Dennis E. Taylor · Jul 14, 2015

Oh, man, this never gets any better, does it? Each milestone is just an invitation to a new level of stressing. :e2hammer:

mayqueen · Jul 14, 2015

My understanding is that it is normal. I have no actual experience, but from what I've heard, publishers can move quite slowly, even at the contract stage.

Becca C. · Jul 14, 2015

Normal! If it had been a month, I might be more worried, but a week and a half to gather replies from other editors before proceeding with an offer is totally normal. Good luck!

Luzoni · Jul 14, 2015

Thank you guys for the input! I thought it was likely normal but my family are all sitting around mouths agape assuming this is taking an inordinate amount of time. While it's tough to wait, I shouldn't have let their doubts get to me.

Oh, and Angry Guy, you cracked me up. :ROFL:

I also went and read your thread. Congrats! But take heart that my experience may not be like yours at all. I have encountered some people here who had rapid sales. But overall my advice would be to take a deep breath and continue practicing that most hated of virtues: patience. I thought I was getting really good at it and then this came along!

Captcha · Jul 15, 2015

I agree that it's normal. I've had contracts that have taken months to finalize, even though we weren't asking for any huge concessions - it just doesn't seem to be a big priority at the publisher end. I had one recent contract where the editor was sending me revisions and I still had no contract! If I'd walked away then, I guess they'd just have had to eat that editor's wasted time?

WeaselFire · Jul 16, 2015

I've had this even without an agent, negotiating myself or as part of a writing team. It's pretty normal. Note that you aren't necessarily getting anything better or worse by this happening, but you are keeping yourself from being limited by jumping on the very first bite.

Jeff

Luzoni · Jul 17, 2015

Thank you again everyone for sharing your experiences! It's been really reassuring. I do have another question, or something I've been wondering anyway: Has any one here had another publisher nudged into action by the first publisher's interest? I ask because my agent had this novel out with several other publishers who she's now waiting to hear back from first before responding to the first publisher's offer. Some of those publishers are a lot bigger than the one who offered. So..has anyone had another fish decide to take a bite once there's been a first nibble? I'm wondering how likely or unlikely that will be...

Captcha · Jul 17, 2015

Luzoni said:
Thank you again everyone for sharing your experiences! It's been really reassuring. I do have another question, or something I've been wondering anyway: Has any one here had another publisher nudged into action by the first publisher's interest? I ask because my agent had this novel out with several other publishers who she's now waiting to hear back from first before responding to the first publisher's offer. Some of those publishers are a lot bigger than the one who offered. So..has anyone had another fish decide to take a bite once there's been a first nibble? I'm wondering how likely or unlikely that will be...

Yes, I've had that. Once you get one offer, everything else seems to get kicked into gear at other publishers, and other offers can come out of that.

It's an interesting process, but pretty nerve-racking the first time through!

Becca C. · Jul 18, 2015

Luzoni said:
Thank you again everyone for sharing your experiences! It's been really reassuring. I do have another question, or something I've been wondering anyway: Has any one here had another publisher nudged into action by the first publisher's interest? I ask because my agent had this novel out with several other publishers who she's now waiting to hear back from first before responding to the first publisher's offer. Some of those publishers are a lot bigger than the one who offered. So..has anyone had another fish decide to take a bite once there's been a first nibble? I'm wondering how likely or unlikely that will be...

I have no concrete offers yet, but any time an editor tells my agent she's loving the book so far or wanting to talk to her boss about it, my agent updates all the other editors saying "We've got interest over at Blah Blah Books..." So it's definitely something that can happen, and something agents try to make happen!

Perks · Jul 18, 2015

Yeah, it's actually really slow. Or it can be. I was so antsy for the paperwork to be signed and filed once the offer had been made. It took quite some convincing me, but it would be quite rare for a reputable house not to follow through. It might just drag on for weeks, even months, before you get the papers in your hand.

I was reassured over and over that the rest of the gears were still grinding away - the scheduling and even sometimes the editing start before all the papers are signed, once all the terms are agreed to, that is.

Luzoni · Jul 22, 2015

Ugh the waiting is KILLING me. My agent told me she had written off the remaining editors as they never got back to her and had been silent for a year about the MS. So she started official negotiations on Friday, suggesting changes to the contract. Haven't heard a peep since then and I'm trying really, really, really hard not to badger her for news when I know she will tell me when I need to know. It's just really hard cuz at this point I know nothing! *grumble grumble*

Luzoni · Aug 7, 2015

And...still waiting.

Is this still normal???

Captcha · Aug 7, 2015

Luzoni said:
And...still waiting.

Is this still normal???

I don't think it's unusual for the negotiations to take this long, but... are you going this long without hearing from your agent? Have you tried to contact her to check in?

It wouldn't take her long to send a "everything's in process, don't worry about it," e-mail.

Luzoni · Aug 7, 2015

No, I've checked in with her about every week. She said she was still waiting to hear back from them about contract changes.

Captcha · Aug 7, 2015

I wouldn't worry, then.

I mean, it's not impossible that things have gone wrong, but it's a lot more likely that it's just sitting in a pile on someone's desk, waiting to be looked at. It's like they don't realize that the fate of the damn world depends on getting that contract signed!!!

Jamesaritchie · Aug 7, 2015

I'd start to worry. This doesn't sound normal from word one.

Captcha · Aug 7, 2015

Jamesaritchie said:
I'd start to worry. This doesn't sound normal from word one.

Of course I don't expect you to return to the thread to engage, but in case you do - which was word one, and what seemed abnormal about it?

DerekReiner · Aug 10, 2015

August is supposedly a dead month in publishing...so part of the delay could be that. Vacations and such.

BethKLewis · Aug 11, 2015

Don't worry about it. Contracts take ages. I got my US deal in early March and I haven't seen the contract yet. I'm also making books at my day job where I've been waiting 2 years for a contract. It can take AGES, especially if your agent is negotiating terms. Don't panic and don't nag your agent, she's doing her best. If it gets to October and you don't hear anything, then get worried.

MandyHubbard · Aug 11, 2015

BethKLewis said:
Don't worry about it. Contracts take ages. I got my US deal in early March and I haven't seen the contract yet. I'm also making books at my day job where I've been waiting 2 years for a contract. It can take AGES, especially if your agent is negotiating terms. Don't panic and don't nag your agent, she's doing her best. If it gets to October and you don't hear anything, then get worried.

This thread seems to be conflating two different things-- closing a deal, and negotiating a contract.

An agent negotiates all the key deal terms up front, usually within an offer memo. Then a contract is generated and the boilerplate negotiated.

Sometimes the small pubs do just send a contract as the offer, which I hate, because I don't want to negotiate nitty gritty boilerplate if I can't get the deal I want.

A few weeks or more for a CONTRACT NEGOTIATION, okay, that's normal. Several weeks just to negotiate the deal itself is pretty long.

And I find it odd that your agent "never heard from "several editors, when she has an offer in hand. I chase down every last editor within a few days of an offer.

Luzoni · Aug 12, 2015

Mandy, thank you for your insight! My agent was confused with this one I think because she was waiting for a while for them to send the "offer." They'd sent a boilerplate contract but no offer. She learned that was the contract or something and so she began negotiating on that. So this is contract negotiation, I think. Does that sound right to you?

My agent said the editors she wrote off had had the MS for a year and though she nudged them had never responded. I assumed that was silent rejection and I think so did she. I assumed agents can get silent rejections. Is that not so?

MandyHubbard · Aug 13, 2015

Luzoni said:
Mandy, thank you for your insight! My agent was confused with this one I think because she was waiting for a while for them to send the "offer." They'd sent a boilerplate contract but no offer. She learned that was the contract or something and so she began negotiating on that. So this is contract negotiation, I think. Does that sound right to you?

My agent said the editors she wrote off had had the MS for a year and though she nudged them had never responded. I assumed that was silent rejection and I think so did she. I assumed agents can get silent rejections. Is that not so?

Well if they send a contract they've certainly offered, you don't THEN wait for an offer. If I got that, and it was as pub I'm willing to work with, I would then notify all the other pubs with a week deadline to offer or not. If everyone else bowed out, I would comb over the contract for key deal points and reach an agreement on those with the first publisher. The main points-- advance, royalties, rights, option, etc. If we agree on the basic deal points, then we have a deal, and THEN I'd go through the contract nitty gritty.

Not that everyone would do it that way. But I don't like to waste my time if I am only willing to send them X rights and expect X advance/royalties and they won't budge.

I don't assume it's a silent rejection, but I do assume those are blackhole editors and I don't submit to them again. But if they had an MS and I had an offer in hand, I do call and email and call and email, before moving on... and never sending them a new submission.

Luzoni · Aug 26, 2015

Is checking in with my agent once a week too often? I know theres no news because I haven't heard anything from her, so I let about two weeks go by just twiddling my thumbs, then broke down and sent an email asking how things are, but I've not heard from her yet a day later. Sometimes I think she misses my emails in her always swamped inbox, but I don't want to be a pest so I'm still twiddling my thumbs.

The wait is KILLING me. Anyone have any good suggestions for distractions and stress relief for this kind of thing??

Luzoni · Sep 21, 2015

So, here I am, almost a month later, and almost two months after negotiations began...still I've not had any communication with the publisher. My agent tells me she's heard they're still working on it and are interested in looking at another of my manuscripts, but that anxious voice in the back of my head can't help but panic. So many of you said you worked on MS with the publisher before signing, but I've not talked with them at all. What in earth can they be doing that'd make this take so long?? Don't they know they're killing me?!?! Even my agent seems to think this is getting extreme.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. IS there anything I can do? HELP!

Question about Agent Negotiation w/ Publisher

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