Publishing A-Z

Happy Birthday Winnie-the-Pooh!

By Steve Laubeon October 14, 2024

On this day in 1926 the book Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne was published by Methuen in London. Our household has celebrated this day each year with my wife baking Winnie-the-Pooh shaped cookies. (Yes, it is a scary thing to be a man in a house of Winnie-the-Pooh celebrations.)

Some say the real birthday is the day Christopher Robin Milne was given his stuffed bear (August 21, 1921). But since I’m in the publishing business, I prefer to mark the date with the publication of the book that started it all. And if you collect rare books, I once found a listing where Ernest Shepherd’s own copy (he was the illustrator) was available for purchase for only $95,000.

So, “Happy 98th birthday!” to Winnie-the-Pooh. (Go bake some Winnie-the-Pooh cookies and celebrate.)

J Is for Just-in-Time

By Steve Laubeon October 30, 2023

The economics of bookselling are complex and ever-changing. There is a method of inventory control called “Just-in-Time” (or JIT) that revolutionized both the retail and manufacturing industries. When I began as a bookseller, there was no such thing as computerized inventory, at least not in the Christian bookstore business. We used a method called “Stack ’em high and watch ’em fly.” Because “If …

Category: Book Business, Marketing, Publishing A-ZTag: Book Business, Economics, Publishing A-Z, Technology

P Is for Preemptive Offer

By Steve Laubeon October 16, 2023

It can be exciting if more than one publisher is interested in your book. The publishers gather their calculators and prepare to make their offers on the book. Depending on how many publishers are involved in the bidding process (we’ve had as many as nine at once for a property), it can quickly become complicated. (I talked about the “auction” in a previous post.) Some will bid solely …

Category: Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: Book Business, Preemptive Offer, Publishing A-Z

A Is for Auction

By Steve Laubeon October 9, 2023

When an agent has a client who is wanting to shop for the best deal available from publishers or if there is a particular project that is bound to garner significant interest from more than one publisher, the agent can hold what it called an auction. Or if a project attracts multiple offers from different publishers a “bidding war” can ensue. The word “auction” is tossed …

Category: Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: auction, Publishing A-Z, publishing auction

I Is for ISBN

By Steve Laubeon September 25, 2023

978-0-7852-6400-2 978-1-62184-113-5 978-1-4245-6490-3 No, these are not the plays being called by a quarterback during a football game. They are the ISBN numbers on the back of three different books by three different authors. Kudos to the first person to identify the three titles in the comments below. Origins In the mid-60s, a major British bookstore chain (W.H. Smith) moved toward a …

Category: Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: Book Business, ISBN, Publishing A-Z

L Is for Libel

By Steve Laubeon May 9, 2022

by Steve Laube

To libel someone is to injure a person’s reputation via the written word (slander is for the spoken word). I wrote recently about Indemnification but only touched on this topic. Let’s try to unpack it a little further today.

First, be aware that the laws that define defamation vary from state to state, however there are some commonly accepted guidelines. Anyone can claim …

Category: Book Business, Contracts, Publishing A-ZTag: Libel, Publishing A-Z

B Is for Buy Back

By Steve Laubeon February 28, 2022

by Steve Laube

Many authors are also speakers and as such usually have a book table in the back of the room where the audience can purchase a copy of their book during an event. This can be a very valuable source of income for the author if they have negotiated a “buy back” price (also known as the author’s discount) at the time of signing their book contract.

Check Your Contract …

Category: Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: Author Buy Back, Author Purchases, Author Sales Tax, Book Business, Publishing A-Z

C Is for Noncompete

By Steve Laubeon February 7, 2022

by Steve Laube

Both Tamela and Karen wanted “C” to stand for coffee or chocolate since both seen to be must-haves for any writer. Instead I’m going to fudge a little (pun intended) and write about the “non-Compete” clause in your contract. This clause has become the latest playground for negotiations.

Here is a simple version of a non-compete clause:

The Author will not publish or …

Category: Contracts, Publishing A-ZTag: book contracts, non-compete, Publishing A-Z

A Is for Advance

By Steve Laubeon November 22, 2021

by Steve Laube

Whenever I lecture about money the room becomes unusually quiet. Instead of a common restlessness from listeners there is a thrumming impatience to reveal the punch line. The punch line that declares every writer will be rich.

Now that I have our attention let’s turn to the topic of the day. The Advance. This is defined as the money a publisher pays to the author in …

Category: Agency, Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: advances, Book Business, Publishing A-Z

Inside a Publishing Company

By Steve Laubeon June 18, 2012

by Steve Laube

I just returned from three days at the Write! Canada writers conference outside Toronto. During my time there I presented a six session lecture series on the Complete Publishing Process: From Idea to Print.

When the entire process is compressed into a short series like that it becomes evident how many people are involved in the publishing of a book at any given publishing …

Category: Book Business, Defense of Traditional Publishing, Marketing, Steve, The Publishing LifeTag: publishing, Publishing A-Z