GENREALITY

While at Comic-Con a few years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Sean O’Reilly, the CEO and founder of Arcana Comics.   Arcana is not only the largest comics publisher in Canada, but also works in other mediums, including video games, short-form animation and live action shorts, toys, merchandise and the like.   At the time I was shopping the rights to turn my Templar Chronicles trilogy into a comic series and while that project just didn’t seem right for Arcana, it gave Sean and I the chance to get a feel for each other’s work and to form a basis for doing some work together in the future.  Several months later, when he needed a writer for a new comic series he was envisioning, he gave me a call.

Candice Crow, a five issue comic mini-series about a young woman who discovers she has some rather unusual powers (and limitations) was born. 

Sean already had a basic idea, as well as an artist attached to the project.  He needed someone to flesh it out and write the scripts for the five issues.  After talking it over a bit, I signed on and worked on the series as time permitted in between novel projects.  It took a while, but eventually all five scripts were written and were passed on to the artist.  At that point, there was nothing more for me to do but sit back and wait.

Recently, I was able to see the fruits of my labors.  Completed copies of each issue – drawn, inked, colored, and lettered – were sent to me for review before they went off to the printer.  The series won’t be officially released until the Fall, but I was excited with what the team as a whole had come up with.  For the first time I’d been involved in a project that I couldn’t just sit down and handle all on my own and I found the experience artistically satisfying, to say the least.

So with this year’s Comic-con just around the corner, I thought I’d share the first few pages of Candice Crow Issue One with you all.  (Concept by Sean O’Reilly, Script by Joe Nassise, Artwork by Angel Angelov)

I’ve spent the last four weeks negotiating a new three book contract for my Hunt Chronicles trilogy.  Publishing contracts are usually long, convoluted, and written in legalese, making them a pain in the neck to wade through but wade through them you must.  In order to help me make sure I’ve covered all the major bases, I have a short little checklist of clauses that must be in every contract that I sign.  I thought I’d take my column today to share that list of clauses with you.  They are by no means the only clauses that will be in a contract, but represent rather the baseline minimum that I’m looking for in the document. In no particular order, these are…

Description clause: This section of the contract spells out just what it is you are selling to the publisher.  It can be very detailed (including things such as an attached synopsis or chapter outline) or it can be rather vague, with just a working title and a short description of the work.  For instance, the description for my novel HERETIC simply stated “a contemporary horror novel based on the legend of the Knights Templar.

Delivery and Acceptance clause: This section of the contract spells out what is being delivered and when.  It should state how long the manuscript needs to be and the date on which is is due.  Sometimes it will also define just what procedures are necessary for the publisher’s acceptance of the manuscript.

Grant of Rights clause: The grant of rights defines what geographical territories are covered by the contract.  For U.S. contracts, this will typically be English language rights in a given territory (say, North American rights) or world rights.  This is a particularly important part of all of my contracts as I write original novels for publishers in multiple countries and need to be certain that I don’t give up rights that can earn me additional income down the line.

Subsidiary Rights clause: Subsidiary rights are any rights in addition to the print rights defined in the Grant of Rights clause.  These can include print rights in other languages and territories, electronic/digital rights, audio rights, film and theatrical rights and the like.   Remember that every set of rights you retain and later sell to another publisher can earn you additional income and so you want to be careful about including too many of these in the primary grant of rights.  If you do release subsidiary rights to the primary publisher, any sales made on your behalf will then credit against your advance, however.

Advance clause: What I like to call the “show me the money” clause, the advance clause stipulates how much you will be paid for the work in question as well as the schedule on which that money will be paid.  Typically, an advance is broken into multiple payments – an example would be 1/3 when the contract is signed, 1/3 when it the manuscript is delivered and accepted, and 1/3 on publication.

Royalties clause: The royalties clause defines the royalty percentage based upon type of publication (hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback) and the number of copies sold.  Most publishers will pay royalties on a sliding scale – the more copies have been sold, the higher the royalty percentage.  For instance, my very first contract with Simon & Schuster had a royalty percentage based on the first 150,000 mass market copies sold and a different percentage for everything over that.  Rates for hardcover and trade paperback publication were included, but never came into play.  This clause should also spell out when royalty statements and checks will be issued.

Out-of-Print/Termination clause: This clause is an extremely important one as it defines just when the rights to the work revert back into your control.  With the advent of electronic publishing and print-on-demand publishing, it is technically possible to keep a work “in-print” indefinitely, so care should be taken to be certain that a specific definition is included herein.

Duty to Publish clause: The duty to publish clause basically outlines just how long the publisher has to put the work into print and what happens if they fail to do so.

There are quite a few other clauses that you will see in a contract – option clauses, clauses that govern how and when you can examine the publisher’s books, copyright clauses, correction of proof clauses, indemnity clauses, etc – but those noted above are the ones that I focus in on first when looking at a contract for the first time, particularly since they are the type of clauses that can make or break a deal for me.

(And for the curious among you, The Hunt Chronicles – EYES TO SEE, HANDS TO HEAL and A SOUL TO LOSE – will be published in hardcover by Tor beginning next year.)

While doing some blog reading recently, I stumbled upon a post by Kevin Kelly over at The Technium entitled “1,000 True Fans.”  Kevin starts the article by discussing how the long tail (the niche business strategy used by such companies as Amazon.com in selling vast quantities of products to relatively small numbers of consumers per product) does not do much to creative individuals earn a living.  Individual artists, producers and creators are overlooked in the process, he says, because it focuses on satisifying the needs of vast numbers of people with decidedly different tastes.

Kevin goes on to suggest a very simple solution:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

By his definition, a true fan is someone who will purchase very single thing you produce.  They will drive two hundred miles to see you do a book signing for three people in a bookstore at the east end of nowhere.  They have Google alerts set up for your name, hunt for your out-of-print editions as if they were the Holy Grail, and will defend you vociferously in forums and chat rooms wherever they can.  These fans not only buy the T-shiort, but they get the mug, the mouse pad and the baseball hat while they are at it, too.

Kevin suggets that True Fans will spend one full days of wages on your books (or products) per year.  He sets that days’ wages at $100.00, which means that if you have 1000 true fans each spending $100 per year, you’ll be bringing in $100,000.00 per year, which is a darn nice living for most people.

He goes on to say that these 1000 True Fans are surrounded by several thousand lesser fans.  They might not spend a full days wages on you during any given year, but they will buy something.  Even more importantly, they have the potential of becoming True Fans as well as bringing in more lesser fans.  If the process is working correctly, your number of fans continues to grow and before you know it you have a major hit.

Kevin correctly notes that the key here is connection.  If you want your True Fans to stay True Fans, and your lesser fans to become True Fans, you have to connect to them directly in an authentic fashion.  Luckily for us, we have a whole host of methods by which to do that.  Social media sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Friendfeed.  Microblogging platforms like Twitter and Tumblr.  Video messages through YouTube and Vimeo.  Bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg.

Websites, blogs, and mailing lists also become key tools of the author when considering how best to reach your True Fans and maintain relationships with them.  They also us to show them what goes on behind the curtain, to bring them into our world just a little deeper, and make them feel a part of the creation process.

For the most part, I agree with Kevin.  I think reach and fostering a relationship with a set group of True Fans is an excellent idea.  It can provide not only longevity to one’s career, but also motivation and enthusiasm for writing longer series or books with repeat characters.  I disagree with him only slightly, in the sense that for a writer, I don’t think 1000 True Fans are enough.  Due to the nature of publishing, we are only getting a small percentage of the money spent on our books and therefore the number of True Fans must be proportionately higher to make that magic $100,000 figure.  (To be fair, Kevin does state this is likely – I just wanted to emphasize that it is necessary, not just likely.  In addition, the issue of an advance must be factored in here somewhere, as it could be seen as the publisher’s agreement that there are already X number of True Fans out there for that particular writer.)

At any rate, I found the article interesting and wondered how the rest of you viewed the situation.  If you are a reader, do you consider yourself a True Fan of a partuclar writer?  Why?  What do they do to maintaint hat relationship with you?   If you are a writer, how do you reach your True Fans?   What suggestions do you have for cultivating those relationships?

At a writers’ conference recently, I was listening to a group of writers lamenting the current state of the publishing industry.  One constant theme seemed to be the idea that they had no control over their careers.  They were dependent on editors who they didn’t know and rarely got to talk to for the acquisition of their books.  They were dependent on a nameless, faceless sales person (or, if they were really lucky, sales team) to sell their books to the retailers who will carry them on the shelves.  They were dependent on the publicity department to…well, you get the idea.

The bottom line seemed to be that everyone else has a bigger impact on the success of the writer than the writer themselves.

I didn’t say anything to that disgruntled group of writers, but if I had, it would have been one word.  Bullsh*t.

Yes, there are outside forces that impact our careers, certain things that we can’t control when it comes to the publishing industry.  We can’t make an editor acquire a particular book.  We can’t control the size of the offer they will make or the number of copies they will eventually print.  We can’t control the size of the buy the major chains will make for that title or how it will be displayed in the stores once it is available.

They are right – we can’t control those things.  But there are plenty of things that we can control.

• We can control the quality of the writing we produce. If it isn’t good enough, get back to work and fix it. If you don’t know how to fix it, go learn how.

• We can control the creation and development of our personal brands. How we are perceived online is an important aspect to our growth and development as a brand. I don’t believe that it is enough now to just sit back and let the publisher put out your book – people want to interact.

• We can control the agent we select to represent us in the marketplace. Agents work for you, not the other way around. If your agent isn’t accomplishing things on your behalf, fire them and get another agent. It’s that simple.

• We can control just how active or aggressively we promote our subsidiary rights To start with – keep them under your control when you sign a publishing contract. No one else will have as much invested in the process and therefore be as excited and as aggressive in selling them as you will be. And while I’m on the topic, get over the idea that you aren’t a sales person. Every single time you put a book out there, you are selling something.

• We can control the people we surround ourselves with and who influence our daily thinking. Surround yourself with other authors who see nothing but dire problems in the publishing industry, and that’s likely how you’ll see things too. Surround yourself with forward-thinkers who are constantly trying to come up with ways to do things better and you are likely to be caught up in their enthusiasm.

• We can treat our careers as businesses and come at them with an entrepreneurial mindset, actively engaging in their development and growth rather than whining about them.

These are just a few of the ways we can avoid that “woe is me” feeling and the mindset that everything is outside of our control. When people want to get ahead in the corporate world, they work harder, work smarter, and cultivate the right relationships. Why should the creative world be any different?

Get out there and take control of your writing career. Don’t let it control you.

Let’s say you’re a stock boy at the local supermarket.  You put in twenty hours of work during the week.  You are paid at a rate of $10 per hour.  At the end of the week, you’d expect to walk away with a check for $200 (minus a bit for taxes and such.)

Now, for the sake of argument, let’s say that your boss decides not to pay you that way this week.  “I’m going to pay you a third of the money I owe you at the start of the week,” he tells you, “and a third roughly eight months from now, and then the final third somewhere in the next two years.”  As you begin to protest, he remarks, “and by the way, if you want to keep working here, you’ll be happy to get that.”

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishing economics.

Alright, maybe it’s not as bad as all that, but it’s close.  You see, a writer is paid for their work in an often varying scale of increments and understanding the hows and why of it all can be confusing to the newcomer trying to figure it all out.  I know it was for me.  So for the next few minutes, let’s take a stroll down the road of economics publishing style.

Let’s start with two very key terms – advance and royalties.

An advance is the money a writer is paid up front for the time, energy, and effort that goes into writing a book.  Just in case you were wondering, the typical advance for a first time fiction writer is usually in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $15,000, give or take a few thousand.  (In other words, a single book a year will earn you somewhere in the neighborhood of poverty wages.)

Now that advance is just that – and advance against future royalties.  A royalty is the percentage of the cover price that you get for every copy of your book that gets sold.  Again, things vary, but this is usually in the neighborhood of 5%-10%, depending on number of copies sold.  The advance is money given upfront against money you are expected to earn by selling copies once the book is published.  Now a writer doesn’t get the advance money all at once – oh no, that would be too easy.  More often than not it is broken down into three, sometimes four, payments.  This usually means you get 1/3 of the advance when you sign the contract, a 1/3 when you turn in the completed manuscript, and a 1/3 when the book is published.  Given that the time frame from sale to publication date can often be anywhere from one to two years, you can wait a long time for that money to come in.

But Joe, I’m going to sell a ton of copies – won’t I make royalties from all of those?

Sure.  But remember, the royalty income first goes to pay back the money given to you as part of the advance.  You don’t receive a single cent of that royalty money until you have paid back that advance money.  If you received an advance of $10K, you have to earn $10,000.01 before you see any cash in the form of a royalty check.  (For the sake of simplicity, I’m not even going to touch on the concept of reserves against returns in this essay – I’ll leave that for part two on another day.)

When you have earned enough royalties to pay back the money paid to you as your advance, your book is considered to have “earned out.”  Meaning, you made the publisher more than they paid you to produce the book.  The thing to bear in mind is that more than 80% of fiction published does not earn back its advance.  (Which is why most authors try to get as much money as possible in the advance, knowing they might never see a royalty check at all.)

Which is all well and good until a  few months down the road.  Let’s say you are paid an advance of 100K for your latest masterpiece.  You’re excited, the publisher is excited, everyone thinks it will be the next best thing to sliced bread.  Publication day comes and goes.  Six weeks later it is very clear to everyone…

…your masterpiece has bombed.  You’ve earned 30K in royalties, which your publisher deducts from your balance.  Bookstores have stopped ordering copies and have gone on to something else, so your book is pretty much dead.   Except you are still 70K in the hole to the publisher.

The good news is that you don’t have to pay that deficit back.  The publisher took a chance that you would earn that much and more, so the onus is on them not you.  You are free and clear.

Until it comes time to sell your next book.  Then they look at what you were paid, what you earned, and turn you down faster than you can blink.  While they don’t come right out and say it, the story is clear – no one wants a repeat of the last financial mess.  Your career might actually be over (at least under that name.)

Such is the fun state of finances in the publishing industry.  The best bet for a new author is a modest advance coupled with a strong royalty rate, matched to a briskly selling book.  You get a fair pay for your effort, your book earns out and then some, which means you will be getting at least one royalty check.

Oh wait – did I mention that royalties are only paid twice a year, starting one year after publication….

Sigh.