GENREALITY

Back in April when I posted and discussed the royalty statement for Twilight Fall, my top twenty New York Times mass market bestseller, I promised I would post the next royalty statement that came in for the book. That arrived this week, so today I’d like to take a look at that and share some thoughts on how the book performed in the eleven months since the initial release.

First, the actual statement, which you can view here.

As before, the only thing I’ve blanked out is Penguin Group’s address. This statement represents the sale period from November 30, 2008 through May 31, 2009. It was issued on August 18, 2009 and I received it on November 2, 2009.

On the statement my publisher reports sales of 7,550 copies and returns of 10,812 copies. The publisher released credits of 21,140 copies or $13,512.69 from reserves held against returns, but at the same time reserved credits against another 13,790 copies or $8,814.57, which reduces the credit adjustment to 7,350 copies or $4698.12.

Total sales for the novel now stand at 89,142 copies, minus returns of 27,479, for net sales of 61,663 copies. My credited earnings from this statement was $2,434.38 with no money due; it will probably take another six months to a year for the novel to earn out the last of my $50,000.00 advance.

So how much money have I made from my Times bestseller? Depending on the type of sale, I gross 6-8% of the cover price of $7.99. After paying taxes, commission to my agent and covering my expenses, my net profit on the book currently stands at $24,517.36, which is actually pretty good since on average I generally net about 30-40% of my advance. Unless something triggers an unexpected spike in my sales, I don’t expect to see any additional profit from this book coming in for at least another year or two.

One thing I didn’t mention in the last post is whether or not my sell-through, advance, and royalties are typical of an author with a top twenty Times mass market bestseller. Very few authors offer up their numbers, and even when they do they either go the anonymous survey route and/or don’t post statements, and publishers rarely give us any information at all, so it’s difficult to know. But based on my estimation of comparitive print run sizes, placement, distribution and a couple of other factors, I’d say no; my numbers overall probably run lower than most of the other authors on the list (of course if any other Times bestseller authors out there want to post their royalty statements, we’d all love to see the real numbers so we can establish a range.)

Speaking of comparisons, the publisher’s portion of sales on this book has grossed them around $453,839.68. I don’t have any hard figures on the publisher’s net, so I can’t give you the bottom line there. If I had to make a guess, I’d say they probably netted around $250K on this one.

What I’m taking away from this statement: returns were about what I expected; booksellers have been keeping these books on the shelves due to steady sales, and that helps.

My export sales are up, and they’re now constituting about 10% of my total sales, which is great. I’ve been reaching out to overseas readers for a couple of years now via blog promotion and I’m seeing a growing return on that investment. I’d love to see some foreign rights sales so that more of my readers could have the books in their native language, but unfortunately that doesn’t happen very often, and I can’t do anything about it because it’s all decided and handled by the publisher.

My income per book always reminds me of how tough it is to make at living at this gig, especially for writers who only produce one book per year. If I did the same, and my one book performed as well as TF, and my family of four were solely dependent on my income, my net would be only around $2500.00 over the income level considered to be the U.S. poverty threshhold (based on 2008 figures.) Yep, we’d almost qualify for foodstamps.

I finished this novel’s series in January of this year with the seventh book, which debuted eight spots lower than TF on the Times extended list. I’ve since moved on to writing a spin-off series, the first book of which is Shadowlight, which debuted at #17 on the Times list, two spots higher than TF. Shadowlight is now my bestselling novel to date.

What it boils down to is that you never know. I won’t find out for another six months how well Shadowlight initially performed or if TF will earn out in the next six months, which keeps me from obsessing over my sales. Either the books sell or they don’t; I have zero control over whether or not they appear on any list. My focus has to be on the writing (and Carrie did an excellent post this week to celebrate her series anniversary and to discuss excellent reasons to focus on the work; check it out when you have a chance.)

The overall response to the last statement I posted in April was quite positive and supportive, especially here at Genreality. A few places elsewhere, not so much. Several times since April I considered forgetting all about this follow-up post because I knew if I did it I’d be painting another great big target on myself, and no one wants to volunteer for that kind of duty. But I did promise my writer friends and you guys that I would do this, and I keep my promises. So I will duck and dodge one more time.

I know how important writer dreams are — sometimes they’re the only thing that keep us going — but I think they also have to be tempered by facing reality. To me, sharing an uncomfortable truth is better than perpetuating a myth. I know Publishing will never rise up to meet our expectations, but fiction belongs on the page, not in what we tell each other. Otherwise we risk becoming characters uttering lines of dialogue instead of working writers helping each other make good decisions.

So there you have it. If you’d like to share the info, please do; a link back to this post in return would be appreciated. If you’d like to express any gratitude, you can buy one of my books (or if my work doesn’t appeal to you, buy a book written by one of my blogmates. They’re all very talented folks.) And if you have any questions about the statement, let me know in comments.

I try very hard to be organized. Organized is good. Especially when you’re trying to run a business, which is how you should think of your writing. When you’re organized, life is much easier, and you have more time to spend doing what you should be doing (writing, promoting, relaxing), instead of trying to remember what you did, or wanted to do.

There are many aspects of running a business. For a writer, keeping track of what you’ve written, where you’ve sent it, when you sent it out and how it all ended is important.

When I first started writing I used index cards to keep track of things. Then I started using notebooks, the small ones you buy at the dollar store. heap and easy, but that way of doing things can get wieldy, and just plain tiresome. Some friends suggested using Excel and making a spreadsheet, but, for me, creating any sort of spreadsheet is hours of frustrating hell. Which is why I gave up about three years ago and simply started to email myself reminders and notes on things.

It was easy because my Mac Mail program allows me to create folders for each of my publishers, and my agent. When I want to check on something I just search through my stored emails. Despite this not being a full-proof method, I’d never really thought about finding a better way of keeping track of it all until I posted a call for Topics to Blog about on my Facebook page. Thanks to Sheila Lee for this topic suggestion, because it made me go looking around the net for other options and wow, I’ve found some great things.

I’ve chosen to try out the WRITERS DATABASE. It’s an online submission tracker, and it’s free. I chose an online program instead of a desktop one because I switch back and forth between my laptop and desktop often, and I travel a lot and want to be able to access my notes from anywhere if I have to. Plus, this program offers ways to input more than titles, dates, and adresses. Since I’ve just started using it I don’t have much to say, except it seems pretty simple, which I like.

(There’s a downloadable Desktop version Here, but it only works on Windows.)

Here’s some other options to check out. You need to find the method that works best for you, or you won’t keep it up.

Microsoft Word – It’s simple, easy, and chances are you already have the program. Take a look at this YouTube video installment of A Writers Guide TO Office:

SLUSHOMATIC: This is a test version of the program, but it works for PC’s and MACs.

WordHustler is something I found that’s very interesting. It’s an online storage and tracking system, that does so much more. It will also print and mail your submissions, including SASE’s and postcards if you want. I took a look around the sight and saw that they only charge you a fee when they print and mail out a submission for you. It might be something to think about, especially as a way for for those that don’t live in the US to save on postage.

WritersPlanner is also an online storage & tracking site. Be sure to read the Terms and Conditions before you start loading up your projects.

I hope you find something that works for you, because the longer you’re at this gig, the more you need to keep track of. And if you’re like me, you want to be at it for a long time to come.

I encountered a concept last week I’d never heard of before — the author platform.  I read a thing on a blog, clicked through to another article and, intrigued, I googled, and came up with thousands of hits.  Apparently, everyone’s talking about it, and it’s the new big thing in promotion.  Who knew?  I’d somehow missed the bandwagon.

Let’s see if I can describe it.  This appears to be another term imported from the world of marketing (like “author branding”).  The idea is that an author isn’t just an author, but a brand, and your platform is everything you do to promote yourself and build your brand — your online presence, your network, the interviews you do, your advertising, and so on.  A lot of the people talking about the author platform insist that you need to promote yourself even before you’ve sold a book, the idea being that if you don’t have a “platform” from the beginning, if you haven’t established some kind of identity or angle for yourself, publishers won’t buy your manuscript in the first place.  (One article even recommended setting your novel in a particular city with an eye toward marketing to residents and fans of that city.  What happened to story again?)

This whole concept really bothers me for a lot of reasons.  It also makes me really glad I’m not trying to sell my first novel now, because if someone told me I had to figure out how to market myself via a “platform” in addition to writing a slam-bang sellable book, I’d probably have curled up and imploded.

However, after reading one of the “how to” lists I encountered (“8 tips for building your author platform!” “10 steps to an unbeatable author platform!”), I realized that I actually did have an author platform before I sold my first book.  It’s just that nobody called it that back then.  (All of five years ago. . .see how fast these things take off?)  I had a website, a dozen short stories published, and I’d managed not to make an ass of myself at science fiction conventions, so I even had a rudimentary network built up.  Those were all just clearly defined steps I’d taken on the way to getting my novel published.  But slap a fancy marketing label on it, and those steps become intimidating and scary.

I asked a couple of publishing-savvy acquaintances for their thoughts on the idea of an “author platform,” and they answered that a platform is pretty much required in non-fiction — you need to be an expert in the subject, have some sort of credentials, or some sort of story behind the story in order to get a non-fiction book out there.  Fiction, however, is different.  Fiction writers build their reputations — their platforms — by writing good books that people want to read.  Fiction writers build their platform as they go.

What worries me about these lists and articles about building an author platform is that none of them include “write the best novel you can.”  None of them advise authors to improve their craft, to write every day, to seek out critique groups, get advice, and learn how to revise their rough drafts.  These articles seem to make the “author platform” sound like a magic bullet that will help an author break into publishing, and that the novel itself is peripheral.  Selling a novel isn’t easy, and it sometimes seems like everyone is looking for that magic bullet or secret handshake that will make it easy.  But like I tell myself almost every day, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.  It isn’t supposed to be easy.

Write the novel.  Make it the best you can.  Write another book.  That’s what you should be spending the bulk of your time on.  All that other stuff, like a good website and meeting other authors at workshops and conventions, may be helpful for building a career, but it isn’t going to replace what a writing career is really about — the writing.  Go ahead and work on building an author platform.  But remember that a platform is just a stage to support the show.  Make sure your show is the best.  Otherwise, the platform is useless.

In a recent issue of Photo Journal the editor’s letter to the reader is about being organized amidst chaos. It sounds smart, right? A great topic that goes beyond photography to writers, hell, to life. But it wasn’t about simply keeping your head in the middle of a chaotic shoot or how to deal with the elements when shooting outdoors, or crazy, temperamental models or equipment-it was about using the chaos of the crappy economy to get yourself organized. And that struck a chord deep within for me.

Right now, the news is full of unemployment rates, layoffs, and bankruptcy. The economy isn’t flush, and the publishing industry is feeling the crunch, just like everything else. We all want to survive these lean times, we want to sell our stories to publishers, and then to readers, but what do you do when sales are few and far between?

My advice is to take this time to think outside your normal zone. Dig deeper and take some risks with your writing. Try a genre you’ve always wanted to try, give that nagging secondary character a story. Write the one you’ve always wanted to write but thought will never sell. Not only will this keep you working, but it will keep you wanting to write. It’ll boost your creative juice up a notch and, in the end, you’ll have a product. And when the upswing comes, you’ll be more than ready. You’ll be ahead of the game. When editors start looking for more, you’ll have completed projects to pitch.

When everyone else is either too busy trying to keep their day job to write, or perhaps too stressed about keeping their editor/publisher/readers happy to venture too far from their status quo, you can make the best use of this time. Work harder. Write more. Don’t despair over what’s selling or not selling right now. Instead, I urge you to look to the future. Things will hit an upswing again. It’s bound to happen, and you want to be ready when it does.

I decided over a year ago that I needed time off from writing full-time. I had my reasons, but those reasons don’t really matter right now. What matters is that when I knew the economy was starting to get rough, and I knew publishers might not be buying for a while I had to think seriously about what my next step would be. Part of me wanted to get my ass in gear, pound out a few ideas/proposals, and get them into my editors ASAP with the hope that I’d once again be contracted and not have to wonder if I’d ever sell again. The other part of me wanted to use the turn of events as an excuse to go back to the regular job and never write again. It was a battle between, I tell you. One that I never really resolved. I feel like I’ve floated through the past year, and to be honest, I have. But it’s become clear to me that I needed to. You see, a few months ago I bid on one of the getaways Cherry Adair had donated to the Brenda Novak online auction for juvenile diabetes, and I got it. I quickly rounded up 5 author friends and we planned a writers’ retreat. I was ready and eager to have it in July, but working out a time when 6 people who all have other things going on in their life besides writing took a bit of effort. But we did it. And this week it’s happening. Last week was when I picked up the copy of Photo Journal.

Even though I didn’t have anything firm in mind to work on this week, I was still eager to come and brainstorm and spend time chatting with others that are at various points in their careers. And okay, I was also eager to sit on the deck by the lake, drink, eat and laugh with my friends. Some really creative story ideas come about that way!

Anyway, back to my point. I’m sitting in the Seattle airport right now, waiting for my ride, writing a blog post that I tried to find the time to do all weekend. Why didn’t I get it done earlier like I’d planned? Why am I doing it now, last minute as usual? Because when I started to think about what to bring here, I collected the many notebooks strewn about my condo that I’d jotted down every crazy and out of the box idea I’d had in the last year. Then I started reading those notes, and the editorial from Photo Journal came back to me and I was hooked. I’m sooo ready for this retreat it’s scary. I’m going to plan my whole year, or two, or five with all these crazy ideas I have. I’m not even going to start looking for a home for any of them until I feel the market has improved enough that I can sell more than just one book. The goal is to build a lasting career, and for me, right now, that means looking to more than the next book. So my plan has become to get my ideas written and proposals polished and when the publishers start buying like crazy, I’ll have some stuff already done and ready to roll.

The message; Don’t stress about things that are beyond your control. Focus on what you can control. Your work, your writing, and what you do with your time.

“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

From Sasha White
*For Mark Henry who said that the RSS feed never tells you who wrote the post.*

I found my agent using a one-page query letter.  People often seem surprised that I did so.  In fact, the process worked pretty much like all the Writers Digest and how-to advice tells you it’s supposed to work.  And yet, some people don’t want to believe it.  They’ll spend large amounts of time and money going to conferences, attending pitch sessions (I heard someone was even starting up a workshop to teach people how to pitch at pitch sessions), schmooze in person, because they believe that without that personal, aggressive networking, they’ll never land an agent.  I’ve never heard an editor or agent say that they took on someone’s manuscript after an in-person pitch session.  It’s simply not necessary to go through that.  It doesn’t give you a leg up.  You’re better off with the query letter.  It’s the established system by which agents find new clients.

No, it’s certainly not easy finding an agent with a one-page letter.  This is mostly a function of there being lots and lots and lots of people looking for agents.  It took me four tries — I landed an agent with my fourth novel.  It still took a dozen letters before I got a nibble.  This is where the persistence really comes into play.

Here’s the letter I used:

[my address]
[my email address]
[my website URL]

November 22, 2003

[The Agency's Name and Address]

To Whom It May Concern:

I am seeking representation for my novel, Kitty and the Midnight Hour, which is complete and available for review.  A sequel is in progress.

My short stories have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, Talebones, and Polyphony and have received Honorable Mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and The Year’s Best Science Fiction.  I am a 1998 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop.

Kitty and the Midnight Hour is supernatural/dark fantasy, in the spirit of works by Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff.  Short stories featuring the main character have appeared in Weird Tales:  “Doctor Kitty Solves All Your Love Problems” in Summer 2001 and “Kitty Loses Her Faith” in Fall 2003.  I recently sold “Kitty and the Mosh Pit of the Damned” to the magazine.  The first story is available on my website, www.carrievaughn.com.

Twenty-four year old Kitty Norville is a werewolf who hosts a late-night call-in radio show, The Midnight Hour, offering advice and opinionated conversation to her audience of supernatural beings and non-supernatural listeners looking for a vicarious thrill.  The show brings her fame, and fame brings its own headaches.  Rivalries threaten to tear apart her pack, a werewolf hunter sets his sights on her, and a police detective persuades her to help solve a series of gruesome supernatural murders.

Thank you for your time in considering this proposal.  Please let me know if I can send you the manuscript of Kitty and the Midnight Hour.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely:

Carrie Vaughn

Breaking it down:

Introduction:  very short.  That’s the theme for the whole letter.  Ultimately, the manuscript will speak for itself.  The goal for the query letter is to prove that you are a professional who can string grammatically correct sentences together in your chosen language, and that you have a good idea for a book.  Don’t get fancy.

Publication Credits:  I found that my short story credits, while not getting me entirely out of the slush pile, did get me to the top of it.  I got a better response to my query letters after I started selling short stories.  It was a signal that told agents that I was committed to the genre, I had a foot in the door in the field, and that I could create sellable fiction.  However, if you don’t want to write and sell short stories, don’t do it.  This isn’t a requirement.  If you don’t have any previous publication credits, don’t make them up.  Only list credits if they’re from reasonably well-known publications that will tell something about you and your experience.  Otherwise, just don’t say anything.

The Pitch:  This is the Hollywood pitch.  The one sentence description that shows how your work fits in the marketplace.  Also relevant to this particular manuscript was the fact that I’d sold short stories with the same character, showing that there was a market for the stories.  I’ve heard that some agents hate it when authors try to relate their works to other authors, because they see a lot of people comparing themselves to Stephen King and J.K. Rowling in a misguided attempt to label themselves as potential bestsellers when in fact they’re really not.  The authors I chose to use as a comparison have a very specific set of books, and my attempt was to show that there was already an audience for books featuring vampires and other supernatural creatures — just like my book had.  Again, keep this section short and be honest about where your work fits in the marketplace.  (You’ll notice I didn’t use the term urban fantasy, because in 2003 it wasn’t really being applied to these books yet.)

The Summary:  This is the section that gives writers the most trouble.  How on earth do you condense your 400 page manuscript into one pithy paragraph?  I thought of it like this:  What would I put on the back cover blurb?  You’re not retelling the whole story here — save that for the three-page synopsis you’ll include with the manuscript.  The point of this paragraph is to set the tone for your story, get across the gist of the novel, and hook the reader — like a back cover blurb.  And please keep it to one paragraph.  Agents are very busy and you’ll only have their attention for a minute or so.

And a brief sign out.

Why I think it worked:  This query got me requests from two agents to see the manuscript.  The manuscript then sold itself because I’d been working on it for a year and it was as absolutely as good as I could make it (although I spent another year revising to my agent’s and editor’s specs).  I think the query worked because it identified a specific, recognizably popular market for the novel; it described a story that had a specific hook (the werewolf talk radio show); and it showed that I had a track record.  It was enough to get me a chance, and that’s all a query letter is supposed to do — get your foot in the door.

Some other comments:

Life Experience:  I didn’t include this in my query letter because it wasn’t relevant.  But if you’re a former NYPD Detective and you’ve written a police procedural, absolutely include that in the query letter, probably after the novel summary.  If your book is about the lives of astronauts and you work for the NASA astronaut training program, tell the agent, because that’s relevant and interesting.  If your experience isn’t relevant, leave it out.

Follow the agency’s guidelines.  If they want e-mail submissions, send via e-mail.  If they want snail mail, send via snail mail.  Include an SASE.  Do they ask for a partial? (First three chapters and synopsis, usually.)  Send only what they ask for.  Deviating from the guidelines will only piss off the agent and get your query tossed.

Keep records about what you sent to whom and when.  Query, partial, full manuscript, etc.  Record replies.

Actually finish the novel before you start querying.  I’ve heard too many stories about writers who started querying before the book was finished — then got a request for the whole manuscript within days of sending out the query.  Because Murphy’s Law rules the universe.  Save yourself the agony of writing 30,000 words in a week and sending out a crap manuscript, or the agony of admitting to the agent that you aren’t finished yet.  There will still be agents out there when you finish, honest.

Don’t stress.  Really.  Send your queries, move on to the next item on the to-do list.  Some agents that you query will not reply.  That’s just a fact of the business.  It’s not personal.  You’ll get rejected, and sometimes the agent will give you a reason — and the reason will baffle you.  Just let it go.  Move on.  Write the next novel while you’re querying for the last.

Ironically enough, I initially found an agent through a personal connection — a friend had joined a new agency and was looking for clients.  That turned out to be a bust.  It was hunting for an agent the difficult, old-fashioned way that really paid off.