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June 28, 2005

Non-fiction tip: Pitch your book before you write it

I see lots of pitches from writers who have written complete non-fiction manuscripts for all variety of books.

Sometimes that works out fine, and I've certainly repped and sold complete manuscripts. But for the most part, considering that the great majority of proposed books are not placed with a publisher, writing your book before you have a publishing contract can be a misuse of your time and energy. Most agents certainly think so.

I always encourage prospective non-fiction authors to focus their attention on first writing a strong book proposal and sample chapter, a process that in itself than can be a long haul, but very useful in terms of clarifying your purpose and answering the kinds of questions a publisher will have for you.

Don't kid yourself, a great idea or manuscript goes only so far, and publishers will look as closely at the market, the competition, your platform, and your credibility as they do at your writing sample. Not only that, even if your idea is just right for a particular house, you may find that they've already signed something similar from someone else who got in the door first with a proposal while you toiled away on your manuscript. Or you may find that an editor loves the concept but wants to tackle it in an entirely different manner, and so you end up re-writing anyways.

If you write for love -- and maybe even if you've pitched your book once and it didn't fly, but you're determined to see it published one way or another (on demand for instance) -- feel free to work on it, but don't assume that a finished manuscript is any more marketable than a great proposal.

The exception proves the rule disclaimer: there are a number of books that have defied this wisdom and were ultimately self-published before making it to the big time, The Celestine Prophecy, and Mutant Message Down Under among them.

Posted by matt at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2005

The Varieties of Co-Accounting

Author Michael Thomsett posted a comment in a previous entry about cross accounting, he says--

I would recommend every author cross out the infamous "cross collateralization clause" - a mouthful, but important stuff. This is usually some reference like, "Author agrees to that any amounts due on this or any other agreements may be withheld from earnings..." This means that if you write two books and one doesn't earn out its advance, the publisher can apply earnings from the second book to the first.

This is good advice and it's probably one of the best tools in an agent's arsenal, something that authors might not learn on their own until they see lots of royalty statements. I thought I'd offer a little more perspective on co-accounting (a.k.a. cross accounting or cross collateralization) because it comes up in a variety of scenarios.

What is co-accounting?

Just what Michael said. You might have two books with $10,000 advances, but if one does great and the other poorly, you still won't see any money until the entire $20,000 advance earns out. The "tell" is when you see the words, "under this or any other agreement" in your contract.

Co-accounting is a tool publishers use to reduce their risk, and we all want to reduce risk so it's not really a surprise that it's in your contract. You should be able to remove or modify this clause, but some publishers will balk at this with a new or unproven author. If you decide you can live with it on your first book, you should certainly address the issue before you sign a second book with that publisher. You might also ask that co-accounting be limited to future editions of that book only.

Co-accounting of advances

Co-accounting of advances is usually a bad deal. There are rare circumstances where it might work okay: for instance, an author and agent may agree to cross accounting on a series contract because they are sharing the risk on a full list of titles, but this is usually balanced by a strong royalty and large advance.

Co-accounting and returns

Even if you strike the co-accounting of advances, your publisher will want to keep the right to take "overpayments" from future earnings. You can make sure that "advances are not considered overpayments," but it's unlikely that your publisher will say the same of returns. In general I think this is fair. Returns hover at 20% for computer books, and most authors don't expect to be paid for books that were subsequently returned.

Co-accounting and subsequent editions

If you're dealing with books that are revised and re-released every few years -- something that invariably triggers returns -- you'll find that your publisher may want to reserve the right to co-account your first edition against your second edition advance, and so on. Again, this protects a publisher from the cost of returns on the first edition.

What about reserves, don't they cover returns?

Sure, over time they should. But something funny can happen when you have both co-accounting of editions and a certain reserve clause. Ideally, a publisher would deduct the returns from your reserve, but some will try to deduct the returns from books with positive sales, and keep the reserve pool flush for a period of time. This invariably delays your money. 20% of your sales are held in escrow, as it were, and your returns are debited against your other books. It doesn't mean that you won't get paid, but it forestalls that payday.

Publishers without reserves

A few publishers don't hold a specified reserve unless they see a wave of imminent returns, but they do typically co-account advances and royalties against future editions to protect themselves from the returns on the first edition.

Success is your best weapon

In the best scenario, your books are doing so well that your returns are more than offset by multiple streams of income across multiple books that are not co-accounted. If you're successful as an author, you can convince your publishers to limit co-accounting and also to release reserves when they climb too high. Cross accounting clauses hurt the mid-list authors of oft revised books most of all, since some of these books are only eaking out their advances before they need to be revised and updated. It's worth asking whether they're really worth the effort.

At the very least, make sure you understand what your contract says, and ask your editor as many questions as you can about the royalty accounting and payment system up front, especially before signing that contract for book two if you didn't already manage it with book one. Otherwise you may not learn what your contract really says until you see the royalty statement in your hands.

Standard "I don't know everything disclaimer"

Your mileage may vary. This post is most germane to computer books, textbooks, and reference titles. Every publisher's system has its own wrinkle, and I'm sure I've missed a few points here. Please feel free to post your comments, questions, or pointers to other resources that may cover this topic as well.

Posted by matt at 8:30 AM | Comments (1)

June 10, 2005

Former "for Dummies" Editor Rules Roost at Rodale

The title is as Variety might put it ;-)

Congratulations to Tami Booth Corwin.

Posted by matt at 10:11 AM | Comments (1)

You've Signed A Book Contract, Now What?

I'm stealing Wiley Publisher Joe Wikert's "Author Tip" category because it's a good one and something I should have been using already. Thanks, Joe!

It's sometimes a long road to signing a contract, but reaching a deal is probably the easiest part of writing a book, you still have to write it. (This goes for reference and tech and much narrative non-fiction, novels are usually finished before they're pitched to publishers, with few exceptions.) Here are a few tips for staying on track.

After you sign your contract, make sure that you have your publisher's guidelines, specs, templates and contact info. Ask for some sample books as well, this will help you to understand the series or approach your editor has in mind. Make sure too that your signing advance has been requested (it will take up to another 30 days to reach you), and that you get your countersigned contract asap.

Be proactive. Ask to be introduced to your project editor as soon as possible. Some acquisitions editors do double duty, and so you might skip this step, but make sure you know who you are supposed to deliver material to, and find out exactly what is expected of you. This isn't rocket science but sometimes an author will tell me that nobody has contacted him, he "didn't know what to do." Don't let that happen, if you don't hear from your editor make sure your editor hears from you.

Look closely at your schedule and decide, with your editor's input, how you plan to tackle the deliveries. Some publishers may want to see chapters delivered sequentially, especially for a tutorial, but if you're writing a reference you can often juggle your chapters and tackle the book in an order that makes more sense in terms of research and time management. One client of mine does this religiously and feels that he can cut several weeks from projects if he manages the sequence of chapters right. Some chapters require research that will inform the rest of the book: tackle those first if you can.

Review your outline, take your subheads down one more level if you can. Good planning and foresight at this point will save you lots of time on the back end. Some publishers like to revisit the entire outline at this point anyways.

Make sure you understand how your publisher tracks your delivery benchmarks. Some publishers go by page count, others by element (which includes chapters, front matter, back matter, appendices, etc.).

Be sure to remind your editor or agent when you hit your advance payment benchmarks.

Ask about author review. Will you see chapters back as you're writing? Or will they wait for the full manuscript before getting back to you? It's helpful if your publisher can at least tackle two chapters and give you feedback on those as you're writing. This can save a lot of time later and it's very common with tech books, especially with series like "for Dummies."

If you're drifting from schedule, even if you're only a day late, be pro-active and contact your editor and agent right away. Explain the delay and explain your strategy for catching up. Once an editor feels that a project is drifting unaccountably, they're much more likely to red flag the book and this will impact not just your current project but the next you bring to this publisher.

Schedule matters. If you lose ground you can lose valuable editorial resources, not to mention your planned pub date. It's a complicated job for a publisher to schedule editorial resources for twenty or thirty books in process. If you're late and your publisher can't adjust their internal resources, you're wasting time and money. If it's so dire that your pub date slips, you can lose pre-orders from the bookstores and often a publisher will simply kill the book at that point.

Agents are often credited with the work that goes into getting a deal but most of our work takes place while a book is being written: managing schedules, finding help, soothing egos, chasing money, and planning for the next project. Be sure to connect with your agent, no matter what. Although rare, after over 1000 books, I've had a client or two disappear into the ether, probably so depressed about their failure on a project that they can't face me, or their editor. That's no help. If you burn bridges in this industry you'll think that maybe you soured your relationship with one publisher, but you'll find that your project editor or acquisitions editor will work at many other houses before you're ready to give up your career.

Not to mention, if you don't finish the project you'll have to repay your advance. Stay in touch no matter what, the worst thing that can happen is that a book is killed quickly, before wasting everyone's time and money, and you may find that with your agent's and editor's help your project is back in the fast lane.

As you near the end of your manuscript you should start planning for publication. Ask your editor who you can talk to about sending out review copies, pitch the publisher some promo ideas and give them any ideas you have for selling your book.

While you're working on a book, always treat your publisher as if they were your only publisher. It will pay off.

Posted by matt at 8:51 AM | Comments (1)

June 2, 2005

Rodnay Zaks has left the building

The Wiley/Sybex deal closed yesterday.

I'm definitely feeling sad about this and I want to wish the best to any Sybex employees who have been let go. Good luck to all, and best wishes to Rodnay -- he was such a force in this industry for a very long time. It's my understanding that Wiley will keep the Sybex name in use as an imprint, and I hope they do so for a long time. The remaining Sybex employees will work out of the Jossey Bass building in San Francisco. Good luck to all that are staying as well, I hope you do well in your new roles.

There's probably no way Sybex could stay in business as a large independent with such a reduced market share and hopefully this was the best result for all in terms of the overall number of jobs lost.

Posted by matt at 9:21 AM | Comments (4)

June 1, 2005

"Shill our books!"

I have an author who's under pressure to include _only_ the publisher's titles in the resource section. I understand the publisher's desire to cross promote titles, and it's not the first time that I've heard a publisher say "point to our books," but the author is understandably peeved. They not only want him to point to their books, they want him to shill books he hasn't even seen.

Publishers, if you want an author to feature your other books, please send review copies and let the author choose what belongs and what doesn't. You have plenty of space in the back and front matter to promote your other titles. It demeans your book if, by design, it doesn't include other credible resources, some classic, that happen to have been published elsewhere.

O'Reilly does a great job of not only encouraging their authors to list the best available resources in their books, they even allow their authors to promote their other titles on O'Reilly blogs. In fact, I remember Tim bragging about this many years ago at the Waterside conference. I'd love to hear about other publishers who are as open.

We live in a transparent world. If an author can't include credible resources the readers will get the picture pretty quickly. A publisher who can confidently point to its competition will gain the confidence of its customers.

Posted by matt at 9:35 AM | Comments (4)