So, @stdennard has written some amazing posts recently for her newsletter (that her agent, @JoSVolpe, has joined in on) and I want to talk about them for a bit because every writer needs to read them 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾
If you've followed me long enough you know I like to talk about how authors *really* need to understand their contracts and their ENTIRE deal (not just the advance). Advance is important, yes, but so are many other things.
That said, let's start with advance. Sooz did this really great (& transparent 🙏🏾) breakdown of income as a writer a while back and then Jo, her agent, added her comments: mailchi.mp/susandennard/b…
Like Jo says, an advance is kinda like a loan. You don't technically have to repay it, BUT if you want to earn royalties (money from book sales) you do have to earn out that advance. The bigger the advance, the longer it takes to earn out. Obvi pros and cons to a big advance.
I am not a fan of joint accounting. Jo explains what it is within the post and I think it makes it really hard for series authors in particular to prosper. These are terms you need to understand. You need to know HOW your deal is structured and WHEN you start earning money.
You also need to understand how advances are paid. When I'm negotiating deals with agents one of the things agents always push back on is how the advance is broken down. Normally it's on signing of contract, delivery and acceptance (D&A) of manuscript, and publication.
Sometimes it's just signing and d&a. Sometimes it's signing, d&a, publication, and paperback publication... sometimes as Jo says it's broken into 5 installments which is CRAY in my opinion.
If you're offered payment on publication your agent should add something that's like on publication or x months after d&a which basically is to say that if for some reason the book is moved or whatever you're still getting what should have been your "on publication" payment.
Any good agent will handle this kind of negotiation, but also let's not forget publishing is a business and writing is your craft sooo when you move into the publishing (aka business) side of things, ya need to understand the contract YOU sign.
The best way someone ever explained publishing is like venture capitalism. When I'm deciding what to offer on a book, it's based on so many factors and one of those factors is "the market" and how I think the book will fare.
I can say, please give me $300k to offer on this trilogy in an auction because it's super unique, for the market and our lists etc. but that has to follow through with what my team + the company thinks. For various reasons, they might not think it's worth that much risk.
And of course it sucks that an author's sales track follows them everywhere. As Jo and Sooz so brilliantly say, when I'm considering an author from another house who has a low sales track, I don't necessarily know the entire backstory of what happened. All I have are the numbers.
Which, to be honest, can make it REALLY hard for authors. We have to "explain the sales track" to our wider team including sales. And so it becomes a question of do you sign on this new author with a new project if their previous one didn't do well? What's the risk?
If it's a different genre or age category we might say well, that was historical this is contemporary let's take the chance, let's put more marketing money behind them to break them out. But again, this varies A TON.
As she says: the fate of [authors] future sales and income is tied directly to their name, and their name only... and it sucks. I completely agree with her.
I will add that some polices are house policies so an agent might want to negotiate some accounting things, for example, but an editor might not be able to budge on that stuff at all. Still though, it's important to know your terms + options.
The second post from @stdennard is kinda a takeover post by @JoSVolpe: mailchi.mp/susandennard/w… It's all about SUBRIGHTS. Which, like Jo says, there aren't as many online resources that talk about them.
"And as the creator of that manuscript, you are the copyright owner." says Jo and this is true. There are many, many rights that publishers ask for such as audio and graphic novel and dramatic and translation. It's really important to understand these.
Jo has a really great understanding of what things to ask for when. And to reference a conversation we've had: what if your editor gets hit by a bus? Okay not great, I know, but you have to have things written down. You have to negotiate allllll of these deal points.
So I highly recommend giving that post a read. She goes through audio and film rights and gives some really solid advice for what to counter with if your publisher is persistent about wanting these rights and just a great rundown about subrights in general!
Happy to take questions on specifics or erm as specific as I can get, haha. Another thing that's really important is option clauses. WHEW. option clauses. that's a paper in itself. Also, @JoSVolpe + @stdennard could teach a great newbie writer/publishing pro contract class.
