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March 28, 2005
California Publishers
One of my biggest frustrations in repping some really interesting (to me) titles with a western bent, is finding a regional bias with New York publishers.
I have one book in particular that would have huge appeal to Californians. The state has an estimated population upwards of 35 million as of 2003, which looks to me like a substantial potential readership, but the biggest trade houses see this as a "regional" title with little national appeal, and have begged off so far. The proposal is great, the author is a very well known journalist and he's one of the most qualified people to write this story, but so far no go.
California (and the West) has plenty of publishers, but they're mostly category publishers: computer book, travel, gift book, spirituality, business, novelty and how-to publishers. We have few publishers who do serious narrative non-fiction: I don't mean to slight U.C. Press or Berrett Koehler, they're both great houses, but I'm looking for someone with more range.
When a California publisher does rise to prominence, they're often sold to the bigger houses back east, editors are let go, and the entrepreneurs who founded the companies retire comfortably to their own pursuits.
Nothing against that. I'm happy that Ted Nace (Peachpit, sold to Pearson), Ben Dominitz (Prima, sold to Random House) and Jeremy Tarcher (Tarcher, sold to Putnam) were able to found thriving companies and succeed here. But I do miss having a publisher like Prima that had such a wide range of interests and was not afraid to tackle serious non-fiction, especially for topics that were important to residents here.
I figured I'd share my list of California publishers of note, with the explicit invitation for comments. Anyone can add to this list and/or especially point me to someone who is publishing serious non-fiction on current affairs. This list is in no way exhaustive. Here are the California publishers of note as I see them:
Gift books, novelty, and reference:
Chronicle Books, though to be fair they also publish many artsy titles and some literary fiction. They've done a great job with the Worst Case Scenario Handbooks.
Ten Speed Press, is the home of such classics as What Color is Your Parachute and great gift titles like Why Cats Paint. Ten Speed has a phenomenal grasp of alternative distribution and sold books in places like National Parks and Health Food stores long before other publishers saw these markets clearly. They also own Tricycle Press, Crossing Press and Celestial Arts.
Big Corporate Houses:
Okay, Harper San Francisco does still have an office in San Francisco and does a very good job with religion, philosophy, and spirituality.
And Harcourt has a presence in San Diego but I think the California group focuses mostly on the children's book market, and houses sales and marketing activities.
Inspiration and Health:
The grandmother of the category, Hay House Press, which publishes Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay, is based in Southern California. Hay House is a great innovator, and they're also doing some interesting things these days with their own internet radio network.
New age heavyweight New World Library, based in Novato, has published Eckhardt Tolle, among others. (Note, I originally included Deepak Chopra here but he was actually published by Amber-Allen, another Northern California publisher).
Travel and Recreation:
Originally a travel publisher, Ulysses Press now publishes much more general reference as well, covering topics such as yoga, health and money-matters.
Computer book publisher Tim O'Reilly co-founded Traveler's Tales with his brother James, and they've published a distinguished list of travel oriented narrative non-fiction for the past ten years.
Former Peachpit ed, Rosalyn Bullas, heads acquisitions at Wilderness Press, which has been in business publishing books for backpackers and outdoor enthusiasts of all kinds for over thirty years.
Houses that Used to Call California Home:
I'm pleased that we still have the old beat house City Lights Books. A few literary houses that used to call California home: Ecco Press (now w/Harper), Black Sparrow Press (now w/David Godine, a great place to be), and North Point Press (now w/FSG). It's sad, or maybe it's telling somehow, that these more literary houses have all moved elsewhere.
Computer Books:
I'll leave off without going into the computer book publishers for now. I have enough to say about them for an entirely new entry. Suffice it to say that companies like O'Reilly, Sybex, IDG, Osborne, No Starch, A Press, the Waite Group and Peachpit were all founded in California. It's proven that there's a wealth of talent here when we talk about high tech and business. I wish we had the same richness of experience and talent working on serious, mainstream non-fiction. And, although I didn't always get along with him or agree with him, I wish we had someone with the energy of Prima's Ben Dominitz publishing in California again.
Posted by matt at 11:16 AM | Comments (2)
March 21, 2005
A book to look forward to
Isabel Allende will tackle Zorro in a new novel to be published in May. Allende already wrote one of the better historical novels about California, Daughter of Fortune. I loved her take on the Gold Rush. Often, when we think of the west we're stuck with the baggage of our "Western" canon, with its quiet cowboys and gunslingers, without much insight about the diversity of people who emigrated west, or those who traveled east or north to get here, for that matter.
This hits a nerve for me as we just finished watching the first season of Deadwood on DVD. Creator, David Milch, deconstructs many of the myths and characters of the old west in high, poetic, and profanity-laden style. It's a great series if you can get past the cursing, and made me wonder if there might be room for a similar coverage of my current hometown, Placerville, aka Old Hangtown, aka Old Dry Diggins.
Posted by matt at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2005
The Decline and Fall of VB6
Harold Davis has an excellent post about Microsoft dropping standard support for VB6, and the impact of web languages on the adoption of .Net on his Googleplex Blog. He writes:
"To a very great extent, instead of trying to deal with the move from VB6 to VB.Net (or C#.Net), the mom and pop developer decided to put their applications on the Web, using languages such as Javascript, Perl, and (most widely and appropriately) PHP. It's unwise to underestimate the intelligence of any computer programmer, even the mom and pop developer, and given the choice of the horrendous and dubiously appropriate upgrade, these people probably made a very smart move. The Web is the closest thing we have to a universal platform."
There's a very natural sort of ecology here where the increasingly complex challenge of trying to control a platform is balanced against the almost organic evolution of software made possible by open source technologies and the legions of programmers who contribute to them. I see many authors trying to bridge this gap, either moving to open source titles, or working on books that are platform independent.
Standard weblog disclosure, Harold has long been a client of mine. His Googleplex Blog supports his forthcoming book, Building Research Tools with Google for Dummies .
Posted by matt at 7:59 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
A few blogs from tech book publishers and editors
Here are a few blogs from computer book acquisitions editors. I'll add others as I find them. These might give you a good idea of what these folks publish and what they're looking for.
Microsofty Juliana Aldous Atkinson has blogged extensively about computer books, crafts, and balancing her active work and life. I don't know where she finds the time to write!
"For Dummies" executive editor, and sometime Indy rocker, Steve Hayes, pens Confessions of a Wayward Valedictorian . Steve acquires books on Windows, eBay, web design, the Internet and many top selling categories.
"For Dummies" programming acquisition editor Katie Feltman just started her own blog, Play Doh . (Katie is moving her blog to Geekswithblogs.com, I'll update her link soon)
And Chris Webb, who works with Joe Wikert's group at Wiley, sporadically announces new titles on his extreme tech blog . And although he didn't blog it, he's the author of one of my favorite hit list callouts when he asked agents for "All hardware hackers, alpha-geeks, and mad scientists - looking for folks doing some bizarre, interesting, and "because you can" type of stuff with various hardware and gadgets." Chris is the editor behind the Linux Toys, PC Toys, Geek House and the "Hacking" series.
I'll look for blogs written by trade editors. There are plenty of blogs at Publisher's Marketplace from book sellers, book doctors and quite a few authors, but I'm betting that most trade editors are too busy reading and editing -- they're much too busy trying to filter out the number of proposals they're looking at -- while for the tech folks these tools are second nature and a great way to communicate with a large pool of potential authors.
Posted by matt at 7:46 AM | Comments (0)
March 3, 2005
Do you need an agent in the tech book market?
There's a spirited conversation on Wiley publisher Joe Wikert's blog about whether computer book authors benefit from using an agent. David Rogelberg and Claudette Moore have chimed in, and so have I. Here's my post, though it's probably worth visiting the link and reading what the other agents have to say:
I posted something about this in a response to a question about agency commissions this morning and I'll repeat it here, though admittedly it duplicates much of what Claudette and David say --
"A better question might be "where does an agent earn his 15%?" In the tech book world this is a fair question as we're in a relatively small industry and there are plenty of author listservs, lots of contract info that's readily available, and easy access to acquisition editors.
"I earn my money in prospecting for titles the author might not have found on his or her own, managing schedules and publisher expectations to ensure that my author has very little down time between projects, working out conflicts in the editorial and production process, helping to find a co-author or contributor when we're in a jam, and packaging new ideas for publishers. On this basis on some projects I'm probably overpaid and on others I am most certainly underpaid."
Joe, your post is great for igniting passions but I'd like to add to this discussion the fact that I, as an agent, and probably the others who have posted here, have often come up with authors to help un-agented authors bailing on their own un-agented Wiley projects. I've worked with every group at Wiley from the trade group, computer group and business group, so you might imagine I would also take some offense. That said, the agents have stated their case quite well.
The bigger question (as far I'm concerned) is do my authors need Wiley? Can we get a better deal, or find more ownership, or more timely advance payments elsewhere? And ultimately, in some emerging markets, do they need an agent or publisher at all? And what can I do to help them deal with this changing landscape?
I have about 5 books in development with various Wiley groups as I speak so I won't pretend that I've made this decision. But you've been with several companies Joe, and you know that as publishers become bigger and more hide-bound they often become arrogant, less creative, and tighter-fisted. In that case it's good to work with someone keeping an eye out for greener pastures. That's what an agent does, and some authors might manage it quite well on their own, ala Mr. Mike Miller, and others definitely benefit from the advice, and counsel of an agent.
On the trade side of things there's no doubt that an agent is almost an essential accessory to help cut through the signal to noise ratio, but even that's changing as editors become more wired.
Posted by matt at 11:40 AM | Comments (2)
March 2, 2005
Agency contracts
Agency contracts are (or should be) pretty straightforward. In fact many agents don't use a contract at all but do a handshake deal and let the agency clause in the publishing contract govern the relationship. At the moment I am working sans contract because by and large I am working with people I know and like and who trust me, and I don't presume that they should be beholden to me if they want to work with someone else on future books. This is a relationship business after all, and if I can't sustain my relationships I should find another line of work.
When needed, I do a deal memo outlining the agent-client relationship. Here's what it looks like: I charge a 15% commission on US sales, a 20% commission on foreign rights sales (where I may use a sub-agent), and in the event the client decides to terminate our relationship while I'm working on a particular project I ask for 60 days to finish up with whatever leads I have. Plus, I reserve the right to invoice clients for copying and/or postage fees on submissions. This is all fairly standard and, I believe, fair.
Someone just sent me a contract for an agency that will go nameless here, but I was amazed to see what some agents get away with. The agent asks for a $500 from his client on signing the author-agent agreement, and further stipulates that the entire agency commission for the advance is taken from the client's first proceeds. So if you have a $20,000 advance and a $3000 signing payment, the agency would take the entire signing advance.
My advice? Never sign a contract with an agent that asks for expense money up front -- there are plenty of legitimate agents who do charge for copying and postage -- but spending hundreds of dollars up front for an agent who hasn't even submitted your proposal is a very bad idea.
And maybe I'm wrong and the practice of taking the entire commission up front is more common than I believe, but if I were an author I would avoid signing with an agent who is paid from first proceeds.
As an agent I have a fiduciary responsibility to my client, and I have an interest in ensuring that my client is paid promptly, paid correctly, and represented in all matters pertaining to the book to the best of my ability. If a book should suddenly go south, an author needs an agent who likewise won't get paid unless the problem is fixed.
Posted by matt at 9:35 AM | Comments (7)
March 1, 2005
An excellent article from Richard Curtis
The eminent agent Richard Curtis has an interesting article at Bookspace that confirms much of what I see happening in the world of publishing: that is, the steady disintermediation of publishers, booksellers, and yes, agents, due to the technologies that allow authors to connect directly at their target market and make a name for themselves independent of the PR machine of the publishing companies.
This might be clearest with the number of bloggers and web authors who have recently signed book deals, but what's most significant is that these successful bloggers were already cultivating an audience and generating income without ever involving a publisher. The book is the icing on the cake.
Point in case, after my last post I went ahead and purchased Adam Katz's ebook on dog training, and it was definitely worth the $50 I spent to get the information instantly and also to have the resources of his extensive site and community. I didn't just purchase a book, I bought into a ongoing relationship with Adam Katz. All in all, this feels like a much better investment to me than five similar books I may have found at the bookstore. And Adam didn't earn a few bucks from the book, he earned the entire $50, less the credit card processing costs. That's quite a return.
Posted by matt at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)