Tag Archive - Publishing

Many Happy(?) Returns!

June 27, 2011 in Business, Contracts, Publishing, Steve with 11 Comments

by Steve Laube

Every first-time author is confronted by the reality of “Reserves Against Returns” as part of publishing economics. It is usually a shock and elicits a phone call to their agent crying “What happened to my money?”

Did you realize that book publishing is the only “hard goods” industry where the product sold by the supplier to a vendor can be returned? This does not happen with electronics, clothing, shoes, handbags, cars, tires…you name it. If it is a durable good the vendor who buys it, owns it (which is why there are Outlet Malls – to sell the remaining inventory). Except for books. Somewhere along the line the publishers agreed to allow stores to return unsold inventory for credit. In one sense, publishers are selling their books on consignment. Bargain books are actually resold by the publisher (after getting returns or to reduce overprinted inventory) to a new specialty bargain bookseller or division of a chain (which buys the bargain books non-returnable).

Consequently book contracts have a clause allowing the publisher to establish “a reasonable reserve against returns.” By “reserve” they mean a pool of money withheld from the author…holding that money in “reserve.” The intention of the clause is to protect the publisher against paying the author for books that have been shipped and billed to a store but may eventually be returned to the publisher.

Imagine if Walmart purchased 10,000 copies of your book. Everyone celebrates. If you are earning $1.00 in royalty (on average) for every book sold, that means you will receive $10,000 from your publisher at some point. Hooray! Steak dinners for every one!

But wait.

What if Walmart doesn’t sell all the copies they purchased and returned 5,000 of them?

And what if your publisher had already paid you for all 10,000 sold copies? That means your publisher overpaid you by $5,000. Do you have to give that money back? You really don’t want their collections agent (his name is Guido) to come to your door to get their money back.

Thus the publisher will make an estimate on every royalty statement and withhold a “reasonable reserve against returns.” It seems that some publishers abuse the word “reasonable.” One author I know had 70% of their revenue withheld for a complete royalty cycle because their publisher had made a big sale to a big box chain. But is that really abuse?

The Big Box retailers are notorious for returning over half of what they purchase.

I don’t begrudge a publisher for holding a reserve. I’d rather they not demand the money back later!

There was situation, many years ago, where an author’s book sold 8,000 copies to a single big-box retailer as part of the initial launch. Six months later, the author developed a new proposal and the editor was going to present it to the committee because the author had already sold 12,000 units (including the 8k to the big-box retailer). The day before the committee meeting the big-box retailer returned the books. All of them. All 8,000. The warehouse said it looked like the cases were untouched, in other words they never made it into the stores. Thus the author’s total sales went from 12k to 4k in one day. The editor walked into that committee meeting and was ambushed by the sales manager with this news. The publisher declined to contract a new deal. Author had to switch publishers.

The author was crushed, the publisher stunned, and everyone lost. So before we get all huffy with publishers and their accounting practices we have to realize that history tends to dictate accounting policy.

However, there is a practice regarding reserve against returns that is quite frustrating. There are some publishers that roll the reserve over every cycle….forever. No matter how old the book, if it is still in print, they hold back a reserve. And the new reserve they choose is suspiciously consistent to the amount the book had sold in the previous royalty accounting period. In other words the author never seems to get a respite because the reserve keeps rolling forward. This is just plain nasty.

If a publisher is savvy (and most are) they put that “reserve” in an interest bearing account. And they can sit on that float for six months earning interest on what is technically the author’s money. And if the returns do not use up the reserve the difference is credited back to the author. Let’s use the above example:

Books sells $10,000 worth of earnings in July-December.
Publisher creates a reserve of $5,000 in January in case there are returns after Christmas, so they only send the author $5,000.
In Jan-June there are $3,000 worth of returns sent back which is charged against that reserve.
So the publisher gives the author the $2,000 balance in their next check.
But the publisher, in essence, made some additional interest income on that $2,000 because that reserve sat in a bank for six months. Smart business!

Now all you accountants out there, please don’t criticize this example. I know there are new sales and new reserves and all sort of other nuances and the interest rates are currently pathetic (and therefore little incentive), but I’m trying to make a different point.

Therefore let me use real numbers for you. I won’t tell you who the publisher is, or what the book is, or how many copies were sold to generate the numbers. You won’t be able to guess, so please don’t try. These numbers are taken from an author’s last two actual royalty statements to show you what I’m illustrating. I can tell you that the author’s book was published more than three years ago… And publisher is still withholding returns each cycle.

Statement A (first six months)
Royalty earnings from Sales – $941
Reserves withheld in previous cycle credited back to Author – $940
Reserves withheld this cycle – $626

Total Earnings this cycle – $1,255  ($941+$940-$626)

Statement B (second six months)
Royalty earnings from Sales – $825
Reserves withheld in previous cycle credited back to Author  - $626
Reserves withheld this cycle – $688

Total Earnings this cycle – $763

The publisher has kept about $600 of the author’s money in their “reserve” pocket in case there is a return, for a full year. But if this were multiplied across every title in this publisher’s warehouse think of the amount of that reserve. If they have 5,000 titles in their warehouse and they are only floating a reserve average of $400 per title, they are earning interest on two million dollars. (At 2% that is $40,000 in earned interest.)

Again, I do not begrudge the publisher of the necessity of withholding a reserve. But when it starts to appear to be a form of clever accounting I get a little testy.

My preference would be to have a clause in the contract under the Reserve Against Returns section to read:

Publisher has the right to reserve for anticipated future returns. Reserves are never established to avoid paying royalties, but to eliminate the situation where royalties might be paid out on sales that are ultimately reversed. Such reserves will be used only when the publisher is aware that inventories exist in the marketplace that are not selling through and will likely be returned. Reserves are not limited to a certain percentage of sales, but in all cases must be defensible by the publisher.

Agents can dream too, can’t they?

By they way? Lest you think I’m ignoring the E-elephant in the room? Ebooks technically do not have returns since there is no physical inventory on a shelf to handle. Consequently there should never be a reserve against returns on e-books. But I’m still trying to track down the oddity of a recent royalty statement where the author had negative 3,000 e-books sold. How can you unsell 3,000 e-books? Yes, you can return an e-book bought by mistake on Amazon. I’ve done it to see if it is possible. It is. But all that does is counter the sale made the day before. So to have thousands of returns boggles the mind. Even the accountants are flummoxed. Maybe I’ll tell you the rest of that story when the mystery is solved.

For a brilliant discussion about other implications of returns take a look at this post by Mike Shatzkin and Michael Cader.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News You Can Use

June 21, 2011 in News You Can Use, Steve with 6 Comments

by Steve Laube

Thirty Three Twitter Feeds to Follow – The folks at Poets & Writers put together a helpful list of publishing and writing oriented twitter feeds to follow.

Kindle Spam Clogging Amazon – What a mess. Fake compiled books are being uploaded on the Kindle digital platform and sold to unsuspecting people. Another argument for Curation.

Google Books Creates Affiliate Program – Click this to apply to become a sales affiliate for Google Books. Similar to the Amazon program. At least it gives you an alternative if your state has been shut out by Amazon’s war with State Departments of Revenue.

Turn Off Your Phone – Donald Miller seeks out the secret to productivity. Simple but effective.

How Many of Your Facebook Friends do You Know? – Tech Crunch summarizes a Pew Research Study. They claim, “Facebook users have about 229 Friends, with about 22% of their total Friends list being comprised of people they know from high school, 12% extended family, 10% coworkers, 9% college friends, 8% immediate family, 7% people from extracurricular groups and 2% being neighbors.” I guess I’m not normal.

 

The Myth of the Unearned Advance

June 13, 2011 in Business, Publishing, Steve, Writing with 43 Comments

by Steve Laube

A common myth permeating the industry is that a book is not profitable if the author’s advance does not earn out. I would like to attempt to dispel this myth.

First let’s define the term “Advance.” When a book contract is created between a publisher and an author, the author is usually paid an advance. This is like getting an advance against your allowance when you were a kid. It isn’t an amount that is in addition to any future earnings from the sale of the book. Instead, like that allowance, it is money paid in advance against all future royalties, and it must therefore be covered by royalty revenue (i.e. earned out) before any new royalty earnings are paid.

The advance is usually determined by a series of assumptions that the publisher makes with regard to the projected performance of each title. The publisher hopes/plans that the book will earn enough royalty revenue to cover the advance within the first year of sales.

A NY Times essay a couple years ago casually claimed “the fact that 7 out of 10 titles do not earn back their advance.” Of course they did not cite a source for that “fact.” But I have seen it quoted so often is must be true! (and it isn’t.) The implication then is that a book isn’t profitable if it doesn’t earn out its advance. The publisher overpaid and has lost money. The author is the happy camper who is counting their cash gleefully celebrating the failure of their publisher to project sales correctly.

Let me try to explain why that isn’t always true. And to do so means we have to do math together. This may be a little complicated, but realize that these calculations are critical and each publisher runs these kind of scenarios on your books. To dismiss this conversation and claim you “don’t do math” is to ignore the lifeblood of your profession.

Realize that this is a generic model. Each and every number below fluctuates from title to title. That is the weakness of the exercise, but bear with me.

Assumptions:

Advance paid to author: $10,000
Retail price: $13.00 (paperback)
Net price: $6.50 (this is what the publisher receives when they sell the book – to dealers, big box retailers, distributors, etc. )
Copies sold: 10,000

Scenario one: Author earns 14% of net for each book sold. ($6.50 net x 14% royalty x 10,000 sold)
Thus, after selling 10,000 copies the author has earned $9,100.
Leaving $900 of the advance unearned.

Scenario two: Author earns 16% of net for each book sold ($6.50 net x 16% royalty x 10,000 sold)
Thus, after selling 10,000 copies the author has earned $10,400.
The publisher writes a royalty check to the author for $400. The amount above the original advance.

The myth says that scenario one equates a failed and unprofitable book , while scenario two is a profitable book.
But wait! Let’s do some more math.

New Assumptions. (remember these are all estimates based solely on this scenario.)

BOTH scenarios have the publisher making the same amount of revenue. ($6.50 net x 10,000 sold.) Both scenarios generated $65,000 in net revenue for the publisher.

To determine profitability we have to subtract costs.

Fixed costs

Editorial expense: $8,000 (includes all stages of the editorial process)
Design (typesetting/cover): $4,000
Printing and warehousing:  $15,000 (the approximate cost of printing 12,000 copies)
Marketing and PR: $10,000 (an average of $1 per book)
Administrative costs: $13,000 (20% of the net revenue)
Advance paid to author: $10,000
TOTAL COSTS: $60,000

Profit for the Publisher: $5,000 (or 7.7% of revenue before tax)
or the $65,000 in revenue minus the $60,000 of total costs.

Are you with me so far?

Now watch this.

Scenario one – (with the unearned advance still on the books) has a profit of $5,000 for the publisher.

Scenario two – (pays the author $400 for earnings beyond the advance) has a profit of $4,600 for the publisher.

In this comparison it is the book that didn’t earn out the advance that actually makes more money for the publisher!

Why? Because scenario one pays a lower royalty per book sold. The advance itself has NOTHING to do with it. The advance is a fixed cost that is covered by the revenue generated by the publisher.

_____

Pause and reflect on that for a moment.

_____

The advance is a cost of acquisition. If that cost of acquisition in the above scenario were $50,000 of course neither scenario would have been profitable because sales would not have been enough to cover all the costs. And it is likely, if there was a $50,000 advance, the publisher would have spent more on marketing and PR.

So this is not an argument for bigger advances. Instead it is an attempt to show, albeit using controlled statistics, that an unearned advance does not necessarily equate the failure of a book!

So when is a book profitable if there is a bigger advance?

Let me do one more set of numbers to illustrate:

Assumptions:

Advance paid to author: $75,000
Retail price: $13.00 (paperback)
Net price: $6.50
Copies sold: 45,000
TOTAL REVENUE ($6.50 net x 45,000 sold.) = $292,500.

Fixed costs

Editorial expense: $8,000
Design (typesetting/cover): $4,000
Printing and warehousing:  $55,000 (the approximate cost of printing 50,000 copies)
Marketing and PR: $75,000
Administrative costs: $58,500 (20% of the net revenue)
Advance paid to author: $75,000
TOTAL COSTS: $275,500

Profit for the Publisher: $17,000 (or 5.8% of revenue before tax)

If you are an experienced person from the publishing side of the table it is obvious that this is a very generic scenario that has only an echo of reality. For example, the net revenue for a publisher is usually less than the 50% of retail that I used above. That is because distributors and specialty vendors (like the book racks you see in the airport) command a much higher discount off the retail. Thus the true picture is highly complex. And we don’t even touch on ebooks or ebook sales or royalties here. This exercise is merely to show a business model where the advance is a fixed cost. Not a cost that has to be earned out for the book to be profitable.

In the above case, a book with a $75,000 advance makes money after only 45,000 copies are sold.

So what do you think? Is the math realistic? Does it make sense? What are the implications (either to the publisher or the author)?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Defense of Traditional Publishing: Part Two

April 20, 2011 in Defense of Traditional Publishing, Publishing with 27 Comments

CURATION

The word “curation” embodies one of the key activities of a traditional publisher. My understanding of this word has been forever enriched by Steven Rosenbaum, the author of the fantastic book Curation Nation: Why the Future of Content is Context. (You owe it to yourself to read this book.)

We usually associate the curator with a museum. Our daughter worked for a family where the father was the curator for a major Art Museum in Fort Worth. We attended one of the exhibits he put together. Each painting and sculpture was there for a reason and he had spent a year traveling the world to select the best pieces for the event. He didn’t simply do an Internet search for “French Impressionists” and click through the top 100 search results. He hand-picked each piece. His job was all about selection, organization, and presentation.

In much the same way the publisher (and literary agent) carries the vital role of choosing which books and which authors are the best and have the most likely chance of commercial success. That is “curation.”

Rosenbaum says, “First, curation is about adding value from humans who add their qualitative judgment to whatever is being gathered and organized. And second, there is both amateur and professional curation, and the emergence of amateur or pro-sumer curators isn’t in any way a threat to professionals.” (Curation Nation, pages 3-4)

Before the Internet allowed for the proliferation of information the process was “curate first, then publish.” The ease of self-publishing has created a “publish first, then curate” mentality. The thinking here is to let the market decide. Let the word-of-mouth or viral community determine what works and what doesn’t. While there is considerable merit to this, in practice, obscurity is a more likely outcome.

I was stunned to read a couple weeks ago that in one day there were 16,000 new ebooks made available on the Kindle platform…all of them free to download. Think about the implications of that for a second. Sixteen thousand free books dumped into the system in one day. That would fill a good sized bookstore or even a regional library. This is the perfect example of “publish then curate.” Granted, it is likely these are all public domain titles uploaded from the Gutenburg Project and aren’t really commercial competition, but the point is still valid.

Our book purchasing patterns have shifted from a browsing activity to a searching activity. When you are online you cannot scan dozens of titles in a second to see what jumps out. Online we usually type (or click) a specific word, genre, or author name and search from there. The bestselling authors are placed in our peripheral view by the algorithms created by the vendor. The unknown author remains in obscurity. But in a brick and mortar store we stand in front of 500 or more titles in a section and browse where there is a chance that a new author or title will catch our eye. This is not a defense of one way versus the other, merely how we have shifted in our patterns.

The implication is that it is that much harder to stand out among the crowded data online. There are always exceptions like Amanda Hocking or J.A. Konrath in the ebook world and The Shack in the paperback book world. But exceptions do not make the rule. Without curation books like Radical by David Platt or Crazy Love by Frances Chan would not have been placed front and center for your attention.

Many authors bristle at this notion of curation saying, “What gives them the right to say yes or no to my manuscript?” Not everyone is understanding when our agency says “no.” Today’s technology allows that writer to still make the material available with little cost. But is that always a good thing?

Put it another way. What if all 10,000 applicants to American Idol were given recording contracts and their music uploaded on iTunes today? How would you know what is worth your time, not just your money? Watching the early auditions of Idol makes one thankful there is someone curating.

Another criticism is that traditional publishers are not doing a good job of curating. “Their choices are weak” and “the books they acquire are only by the already established authors.” The mid-list writers are being cut out of the herd and slaughtered. Only the big names or the fresh newcomers are being given a chance.

While not all publishing choices are good ones at least there is a measure of reasonable decision making going into the process. I know a lot of these editorial curators. They are pretty savvy people, many of them long time veterans of the publishing wars.

In my opinion, Curation is one of the major reason to embrace the traditional publishing model. For all its warts, it is still better than the alternative.

Part One: Introduction

Part Two: Curation

Part Three: Editorial

Part Four: Design

Part Five: Infrastructure

 

A Defense of Traditional Publishing: Part One

April 12, 2011 in Defense of Traditional Publishing with 22 Comments

INTRODUCTION

There has been a plethora of new developments in the publishing industry causing the blogosphere, writers groups, and print media to light up with opinions, reflections, and advice. Some of it has been quite brilliant, other parts, not so much.

I would like to attempt to address the positive elements of traditional (or legacy) publishing as a defense of the latest round of assault.

The source of the overall criticism can be found in the e-book revolution and the invention of print-on-demand (POD) printing. Book Publishing used to be a difficult and expensive proposition but has become a valid do-it-yourself option. Consequently anyone can publish a book, so why be beholden to the major publishers?

Please realize that I understand both sides of the equation. After all I founded ACW Press in 1996 B.G. (“Before Google”) to help authors self-publish (the company was sold quite some time ago). I can effectively argue for the choice to self-publish as well as argue for the choice to pursue traditional publishing. Both have their place.

What has troubled me these past few months has been the vociferous rejection of the traditional publishing method as antiquated, inefficient, top heavy, corporate-driven, and uncaring about author’s financial well-being or their content. A vocal few have declared the “system” broken and walked away, either as a rebel, angry at the “man,” or as a risk-taker believing that going alone is the key to publishing success. Whether their rebellion has merit only time will decide.

Meanwhile over the next few weeks (one per week) I would like to recite the things traditional publishers are doing right. There is no agenda other than creating a conversation and a counter to some of what is being written about our industry.

Part One: Introduction

Part Two: Curation

Part Three: Editorial

Part Four: Design

Part Five: Infrastructure

 

 

Promotion: Faithful or Self-full?

February 1, 2011 in Marketing, Publishing with 10 Comments

“What’s the difference between promotion and self-promotion? How do we promote ourselves/our books so that we honor God, respect others, and use common sense?”

The constant tension between marketing and ministry has plagued the Christian author, speaker, bookseller and publisher forever. Why? Because Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple. Because we are commanded to die to self and to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord….

And yet, our society…our culture insists, even demands, that we market and promote our message.

Hanging on my office wall is the following saying from Ignatius Loyola:

Work as if everything depends on you.
Pray as if everything depends on God.

And another one is from James 5:16:
…the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Maybe that is the beginning of the balance. People in business, not just publishing, must work hard and make every effort to excel in their field of expertise. We never question a bank needing to marketing their wares, but if a “Christian” bank were to do so the critics would surge with vitriol. The principles of a successful business come into play with regard to our profession. We are in the “business” of communicating the message of redemption to a world that doesn’t read. Thus we are called to excellence in our craft for we have a message that can change lives. If we do not make every effort to be an “evangelist” (see marketer) of that message, the message will likely not be read or heard, and thus ministry would rarely occur.

Even the Mother Teresas, Thomas Mertons, Richard Fosters, John Eldreges, and Henri Nouwens of the world were “out there” in the public eye. They had a message of change that they were called to deliver. Thus they took the speaking engagements, they worked with their publishers in publicity, and they wrote absolutely stellar books that nearly sold themselves. Our challenge is to avoid the “Publican” attitudes of “I”, “Me”, and “My”. Instead we should strive to incorporate the “Us”, “Our”, and “We”.

How do you keep your balance?

Amazon Rank Obsession

January 21, 2011 in Publishing with 4 Comments

Admit it. You’ve checked your Amazon.com sales ranking at least once since your book was published. You feel the need to have some outside confirmation of the sales of your book. And Amazon’s ranking are free to look at.

I’ve even seen book  proposals where the author has gone to great lengths to include the Amazon ranking for each title that is competitive with the one the author is proposing. A prodigious amount of wasted effort.

Publishers rarely pay attention to Amazon rankings unless yours gets below 1,000 or if you get in the top 100.

I’ve known authors who have gone into deep depression because their Amazon numbers aren’t very good.

Consider for a moment how those rankings are calculated. Amazon is very secretive as to the exact formula (and some have gone to great lengths to figure it out) but consider looking at it as “the number of sales in a given period of time.” Much like the bestseller lists with USA Today and the New York Times a book has to sell x number of copies to somehow “hit the list.”

This fascinating article by Morris Rosenthal guesses that to get into the top 10,000 on Amazon your book needs to sell at least 2 copies a day. And to get in the top 100 you may have to sell 100 copies a day.

I know of a case where a book sold 700 copies with Amazon (based on publisher’s information) in one week and got into the top 100 ranking. So Rosenthal’s guess may not be too far off.

Another author thought that they could make the number jump by asking fans to wait until a specific day and have everyone buy the book from Amazon on that day. Over 100 fans participated. The result was a nice jump but it did not come close to cracking the top 100 sales ranking that day.

It is so fluid that it is hardly worth the obsession. Amazon is only one sales outlet out of hundreds. It doesn’t reflect sales at the local grocery store, the Christian bookstore, the independent retailer in your town, much less sales to Barnes & Noble and other “big box” outlets. In that light consider Amazon as a single snapshot of a single moment from a single sales source.

If you really must track your Amazon ranking here are a couple sites that do the heavy lifting for you:
Novel Rank
Sales Rank Express

To bring levity to the conversation, a husband and wife team created the following  short video that is a hilarious send up on Amazon rank obsession. Make sure you watch past the credits:

All About E

December 17, 2010 in Business, E-Books, Publishing with 3 Comments

This was the year of the E word. “E-Books.” The topic replaced the other “e” word…the Economy…as the number one topic among authors, editors, publishers and agents. And the news media reported every nuance with breathless excitement. The iPad, the iPhone4,  the Droid, the avalanche of tablets, the Kindle, the Nook, and a deluge of e-reading devices, all commanded our time and attention.

But the story is not over. In fact 2011 promises to continue this conversation as our industry writhes in chronic pain from its various twists and turns.

Two articles that you should read to help with some year end thoughts….

First, from Dominique Raccah, the CEO of Sourcebooks, very openly talking about the mistakes they made in trying to do a one-day e-book promotional giveaway of their Jane Austen books.  This is evidence of the veritable labyrinth called the e-book marketing and sales world.

I’ve heard authors express their misunderstanding of publishing by saying, “But e-books are easy to sell. Just make the conversion and put it up on Amazon!” But  this CEO’s article should divest you of that thought.

This past Summer I sat through a two hour presentation from Hachette regarding their Digital initiatives. I came away discovering that it is far more complex than I ever realized. And came away very glad that publishers were working hard to maximize both revenue and opportunities for my clients.

Second is an article that will be published in Sunday’s LA Times but the online version released today.  In it David Ulin claims that “E-books are Good News for the Literary World.” Here is a key quote:

The issue is not what we read on, just as the issue is not what we read. The issue is that we read, that we continue to interact with long-form writing; by altering the conditions of the conversation, e-books and e-readers have already served an essential purpose.

Well said. Note that in the article he admits to rarely using e-readers, but that he appreciates and accepts their use.

Thus 2010 added a new letter to our vocabulary. Instead of just the three Rs (readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic) we have added an “E.”  Bu wouldn’t that make it ER? (an unfortunately pairing of letters when applied to the state of publishing).

The Slush Pile: Enter at Your Own Risk

October 14, 2010 in Agency, Book Proposals, Book Review, Business, Publishing, Writing with 32 Comments


Click the picture to read the caption www.101reasonstostopwriting.com

The publishing world is divided between those who have read the slush pile and those who have not. If you have, then you can understand some of the cynicism and jaded eyes you see behind the glasses of an editor or an agent.

If you have not, then it is difficult to comprehend the unbelievable variety of ideas that can cross our desks. Let me provide you with some recent examples but with a huge caveat. I am not mocking these writers. I’m using them, as a teacher would, as an example of what not to send to an agent. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the writers who create these ideas. In fact I’m impressed with anyone willing to put their ideas out on display. I’m not sure I could ever have that much self-confidence in my own work. I only wish some would spend a little more time to determine if their project is a good fit for a particular agency and learn how to best write a quality pitch (and not overstate their case).

So, with that disclaimer in place…..

  • A proposal for a book of poems to read to your dog. The book will “help dogs feel more loved and more understood.”
  • A phone call from a fellow who wants an agent for his novel, his screenplay, and his non-fiction books. He said I had to go to his site to see what he had to offer, I replied that I prefer he go to mine first and follow the guidelines. We agreed to disagree…  Afterwards, out of curiosity, I visited the site and discovered conspiracy theory material and advocacy for the legalization of marijuana.
  • Cover letter proclaims that the book’s, “… real author is the Holy Spirit… The book could come next to the Holy Scripture in terms of divine authorship.”
  • A novel that is “made up of multiple lessons and experiences…layer upon layer of actions, emotions and moments…woven together to create an indelible legacy…” (in a long run-on sentence.)
  • A non-fiction study revealing that Moses was Satan in disguise. According to the author, Moses was “the worst serial killer in recorded history.”
  • A letter addressed to The Steve Laub Agency (misspelled my last name)…and then the salutation of the letter began: Dear Mr. Fugate
  • A book titled Cosmic [expletive deleted] described that it “has the audacity to speak the truth. It says, ignore all the [expletive deleted] , believe in your dreams and do what you love– it WILL work out! It is as fearless and fun as it is comforting and inspirational.”
  • A book with a subtitle: Actual Raw Photography of Fairies, Gnomes and More
  • Opening line from a query letter: “Imagine a combination of a romance by Danielle Steele, an epic novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford, and an action novel by Nelson DeMille.”
  • An email that reads in its entirety: “I got your email from your website. I have finished a book and am looking for publishing. I can be reached on email as well. Thank you so much.”
  • In the body of a query letter: “Not since the LEFT BEHIND series has the subject of Christ’s Second Coming been so engagingly addressed.  Not since THE SHACK have spiritual themes been so articulately conveyed.”
  • Letter begins with, “Before my first psychotic break….”
  • Book “based on true experiences” with a subtitle of “Eye floaters as shining structure of consciousness.”

There you have it. A sample of some of the more exotic pieces that have recently crossed my desk.

[UPDATE: Three hours after posting this blog I received a phone call that would have made it on the list if it had come earlier. Person on the phone wonders if we represent memoirs. Why? Because this one is special, caller claims, because caller believes that he/she is the actual person/woman found in Revelation chapter 12. This new development has brought understanding to the caller's experiences with UFOs...and the caller's UFO support group concurs.]

Read these excellent articles about “The Slush Pile”

Laura Miller “When Anyone Can be a Published Author” – Salon Magazine
Rachelle Gardner “Why Oh Why Did I Get Rejected?”
Rachel Funari “Escaping the Slush Pile”
Katherine Rosman “The Death of the Slush Pile”
The Rejectionist “A Good Author is Hard to Find”

Ten Commandments for Working with Your Agent

September 24, 2010 in Agency, Business, Publishing with 36 Comments

By request, here are my Ten Commandments for working with your agent. Break them at your own peril. Thou shalt vent only to thine agent and never directly to thy publisher or editor.

  1. Thou shalt not get whipped into a frenzy by the rumor mill fomented by internet loops, groups, Facebook, or blogs.
  2. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s success. Be content with thine own contract.
  3. If thou hast a dispute with thine agent thou shalt talk to thy agent and seekest resolution. Jumping ship for no good reason is unprofessional…and agents talketh to each other.
  4. Thou shalt consider thy deadlines as sacrosanct. Thy hand signeth the contract, therefore thou art obligated. Thou shalt not expect thy agent to miraculously create extra time, at the last minute.
  5. Respecteth the boundaries of the communication relationship with thy agent. Do not risketh being classified as a spammer or high maintenance by thy agent.
  6. Thou shalt be reasonable and balanced with regard to Facebook, Twitter, blogging, or blogs. Thou art a writer….not a teenager. (Thy social networking and Internet writing shouldeth be related to marketing efforts or to increasing thy platform and readership.) Remembereth…every word written on Facebook is a word not written on thy manuscript. [This commandment was revised on 9/25/10  in response to visceral reactions both public and private. I previously stated that a writer should spend no more than an hour a week with social networking and blogs. Boy did I touch a nerve!]
  7. Keepeth it all in perspective. Selling only eight thousand books still meaneth 8,000 people have “bought a ticket” to read thy work. That crowd would filleth a basketball arena.
  8. Remember thy calling to be a writer and keep it holy. You are in the business of changing the world word by word. Everything else is secondary.
  9. Thou shall rise and call thy agent blessed. (and send chocolates at Christmas and cash on birthdays…)
  10. If thou dost not have an agent, do not passeth “Go.” Instead grabbeth one and bringeth said agent into thy camp ASAP. This industry is a labyrinth and thou shalt someday discover thou needest one, and then it shall be too late. Real life examples available upon request.

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Permission is granted to use this in your own bog or web site, as long as you include the following copyright notice:
© 2010 Steve Laube of The Steve Laube Agency (www.stevelaube.com)

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