Posts from — July 2010

Welcome back to your Do-it-Yourself MFA program.

This installment assumes that you’ve signed with an agent.  If you’ve exhausted your list and you haven’t found an agent and still wish to publish, you’ll need to wait for the next installment.  Similarly, some will decide to skip the agent step altogether and you’ll find the next installment on small presses and self-publishing more helpful.

So, you’ve signed an agency agreement–now what?  Sometimes, an agent will ask you to do an edit on a manuscript or proposal and it’s in your best interests to do so.  They are trying to make it as strong as possible for the sale.  But after that, your work is somewhat done for the moment.

Up until this point, you’ve been taking a very active role, and now is your time to step back and let your agent guide the sale.  This is not to say that you can’t help brainstorm and throw out a few publishers you’d love to work with, but if you trust your agent (and you should), you’ll know that she is putting together the best list possible of publishers who might want your book.

Your agent will have a particular method–she may make a few calls to specific publishers and offer them a first look.  She may send it out to a list of ten possible publishers and wait for offers.  Your agent will probably keep you in the loop by telling you which publishers are looking at your manuscript or proposal.

I have always found this part of publishing the worst part.  On the first day, you’re really excited over the idea that this! could! be! it! but after you get your first rejection, the reality that having an agent doesn’t guarantee a sale and that all you have now is a new hoop to jump through can be a bit nerve-wracking.  My advice–let yourself feel whatever you’re going to feel and remind yourself that this is a finite space.  Either the book will sell or not sell, but you will not need to endure this anxiety indefinitely.

If your agent receives more than one offer, they may auction the book, taking the best offer.  If you receive one offer, your agent should still close up loose threads with other publishers still holding your book.  Again, your agent will keep you in the loop and ask your opinion before they make any binding decisions.

If you are publishing with a small press or big six publisher (in other words, anything other than self-publishing), your offer will come with an advance–that’s pretty much the only information you learn with the offer. Your advance can be tiny–$1–or enormous–$1 million.  You may be thinking that everyone obviously wants the million dollar advance, but not so fast, my friend.

An advance is money you can live on while you work on the book.  It is an advance payment of money the publisher believes the book will earn once it hits the shelves.  Usually, the larger the advance, the more money the publisher believes they will make in the long-run.  But what if the publisher is wrong and the book tanks?  Just because the publisher thinks the public is hungry for this book doesn’t make it so.  If the author can’t produce sales that warrant the big advance, their next book will receive a small advance…or no advance at all.  In other words, their career may somewhat be over before it has begun.

As an article in New York magazine points out, it’s better to have no sales record than a bad sales record.

With smaller presses, the advance will probably be smaller as well, but the trade off is passion and personal attention.  It’s not that the big six publishers don’t bring that passion to their authors, but it is difficult to be a midlist author at a large publisher and not get lost in the shuffle.  Think of it like the coins in your purse–you don’t put a lot of thought into the pennies, though you probably care about your quarters–and all of those coins are jumbled around together.  Publishers also need pennies–all those pennies add up–but they don’t put their energy and marketing dollars into pennies.

The other thing to consider is royalties.  You do not begin to see royalties on the book until the publisher recoups the advance.   Which means that the advance may need to last for a very long time–more than two or three years from the signing of that contract depending on the size of the advance and book sales (and how long it takes a publisher to get the book out on the shelf.)  Hence why I said back in that first installment that book publishing just isn’t a good way to try to support yourself exclusively.

So, you hear the advance amount and you agree to the deal and now your agent’s true work begins.  Your agent will negotiate all the various aspects of the contract, trying to retain as many rights for you as possible and make the contract work in your favour down to how much time you have to do edits to the rate you’ll be paid in the future if the common royalty rate for e-book sales change.  Seriously, there is so much to consider, and this is why I made that point a few installments ago that publishers want to negotiate with agents and not you.  And frankly, your agent is going to do a better job at retaining rights and making your world better than you’ll be able to do negotiating with the publisher directly–even if you think you’re qualified because you have a law degree or an MFA.

After the contract is negotiated (which can take a bit of time), you will sign the contract and start talking directly with the editor and/or publisher.

Um…okay…though here is another possibility and it’s worth talking about in case it comes up.  What if you’re having problems with your agent?  What if everything seemed fantastic when you signed with her and now things are unraveling and you’re not working well together at all?  Not being able to sell the book is not the sign of a bad agent (since not all books will sell), but if you are feeling uncomfortable, getting a sense that your agent doesn’t have your back, or your agent is blowing you off, you do have the right to end that relationship and start over from scratch.

There will be details in your agency agreement stating how to end the relationship (always in writing!) and how long you have to wait to look for a new agent (usually 30 days) as well as what happens if your agent already had a deal in hand for you.  There should be a very good reason for why you are ending the relationship and not a general, “maybe she’s not doing a good job and someone else could do better.”

Okay class, any questions on what was discussed here? Please leave them in the comment section below and I will answer them in the comment section below. Keep in mind that I have a lot of topics to cover so your question may be answered in a future installment (see below). So keep your questions about that period of time when you’re trying to sell the book.

Heads Up and Looking Back: topics that will be covered in future installments or that were covered in past installments

1. Before You Even Get Started

2. Are You Ready to Be an Author?

3. How to Write a Non-Fiction Book Proposal

4. Why You Need an Agent

5. How to Get an Agent

6. Querying Agents

7. THIS POST

8. No Agent? Other Paths to Publication

9. What to Expect After You Sign a Book Deal

10. Be Your Own Publicist

11. A Mishmash of Leftover Questions and Answers

When I wrote the title of this post, I realized we were only three posts away from the 300th Roundup.  Remember?  It’s the one where we were going to show our work spaces.  Are you currently saying, “oh crap! I meant to do that?”  Well, you should be saying that, slackers.

Though I am just as guilty for not writing numerous reminders.  And by now, I simply don’t have enough time between now and when the 299th post goes up to upload more videos if they come in (I think I have 5 in hand).  The question now is do I post the paltry 5 that I have in hand (doesn’t feel like quite the milestone marker worthy of 300 posts celebrating the community)?  Ask people to upload them on their own to YouTube or Vimeo and just send me the html to embed?  Skip this celebration entirely or do something else?

Help.

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The Weekly What If: What if you only had 5 videos in hand for Blog Marks the Spot (hey…wait a second…this what if sounds a lot like the question she just asked above…).  Would you post the paltry 5 that you have in hand (doesn’t feel like quite the milestone marker worthy of 300 posts celebrating the community)?  Ask people to upload them on their own to YouTube or Vimeo and just send Melissa the html to embed?  Skip this celebration entirely or do something else?

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One reason the reminders didn’t happen is that there are already too many items on my plate.  I have been having a few too many 15 hour work days in a row, which is a tad stressful, but I really like being busy.  It’s sort of one of those when-it-rains-it-pours moments after a dry spell.

One of the coolest things on my plate at the moment is that I’m going to be the keynote speaker at the Resolve of New England’s conference on November 6th.  If you’re anywhere close to Boston (and by close, I’m counting Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine), I would love for you to come.  It sounds like a wonderful conference and I’m excited to be back up in Massachusetts.

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Another thing on my plate which hasn’t gotten done is planning an exciting meetup for BlogHer.  And I’ve got to be frank, I’ve been working 15 hour days and moving my parents, so…er…this is something that seems to keep getting pushed to be back burner.  But the beginning of August is quickly approaching so…

I am going to propose repeating something we did last year that worked very well.   BlogHer attendees can grab their lunch on Friday (the 6th) between 11:45 am–1:15 pm and bring the plate to the hotel lobby.  That way, people who are not part of the conference, but live in the area, can mingle with people who are.

Not everyone can slip out of work or get down to the city on Friday, so I propose that people start brainstorming a cheap and easy place for a bunch of people to meet on Sunday morning.  Coffee?  The lobby of the hotel again?

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And now, the blogs…

Dear Stevie has a post about a date night that she went on with her husband.  I loved the everydayness of it, but the reader is always reminded of the backdrop it rests against.  She writes, “Of course you were the topic of conversation for most of the night last night, but it was a lot more of the reminiscing about the good times we had with you talks, and a lot less of the being sad and depressed about you dying talks. I liked that, a lot.”  It’s beautiful and her photographs are gorgeous.

Fertility Foibles has a post about the Crinone that is lurking in her bathroom drawer.  The post manages to be both funny and wistful at the same time.

Peesticks and Stones has a post about dealing with her father’s things after his death and what she learned about him through the objects as well as about her own past.  There is a letter she finds on the computer, written to a woman who may be her birthmother.  The writing is gorgeous, and the moments she has captured will make you hold your breath as you read the post.

So Dear and Yet So Far has a post collecting people’s emotions surrounding infertility after loss.  It struck me because this is what social media can do that other mediums cannot–it can provide validation.  It’s not a long post, but the question pack a punch.

Lastly, Serenity Now has a post about returning to the RE–what has changed and what is still the same.  She writes, “But. I was as nervous as ever when we were waiting to see my doctor. I tried to tamp the irrational panic from choking me by breathing and pretending to be involved in work issues on my blackberry.  I never wanted to go back there.”  It’s that blunt honesty that makes this a wonderful post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Remember that Blog Marks the Spot celebration?  Answer the Weekly What If with your suggestion of how we should mark the 300th Roundup.  I’m going to be the keynote at the Resolve of New England conference.  What to do about the BlogHer get together.  And lots of great posts to read.

Avoiding real emotion by discussing lighter topics.  Puppies!

In addition to stress-reading Harry Potter, my go-to stress food is nutella.  It’s something that just tastes good.  That has dubious nutritional value despite the fact that the label tells you that orange juice, nutella on wheat bread, and a glass of skim milk makes a healthy breakfast.  When I eat it, I am instantly back in my great-uncle’s kitchen.

When I tweeted about eating nutella, it immediately got dozens of people emailing and tweeting and facebooking about nutella.  When I write about half-sour pickles, a few people half-heartedly jump into the conversation.  People may like pickles, but it doesn’t mean enough to them to let me know. When I tweet about nutella, there is a collective orgasm across the blogosphere.

The same thing happens when I write that I want an iPad.  Those words make people who don’t own one start twitching uncontrollably, panting about how they want it too (seriously, being so close to them yesterday almost caused me to faint).  The word “iPad” makes those who do own one already roll around in the words in ecstasy.

Write about a netbook and you’ll have a few people shrug their shoulders and say, “yeah, I like mine.”  Write about an iPad and you’ll have people shriek: I LOVE IT SO FUCKING MUCH THAT I RENAMED MYSELF IPAD LOVER SMITH. I LOVE IPADS I LOVE IPADS I LOVE (and then the words mysteriously stop because the writer faints away cold to the floor).

Puppies.  Kittens in adorable positions.  But not turtles.  Write about your turtle or post a picture and you’ll get a shrug.  Write about your bird and you’ll probably get people to unsubscribe to your Twitter feed or blog.  Write about your puppy and people literally lose control of their bladders as they leap towards the keyboard to shout out a resound, “me too!” or “he is soooooooooo cute!”

I am trying to think up more things that people just love to love.  And yes, I’m well aware that one of my favourite people in the world can never eat nutella and therefore probably doesn’t have strong feelings about it.  And there are people like my great-aunt who probably doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the iPad.  And there are people like me who just don’t have strong feelings about puppies or kittens.

But I’m going for the average person: certain topics elicit gushing for some reason, and other, similar topics elicit shruggy “me toos.”

Muppets.  Everyone loves the Muppets.  Bring up the Muppets and people start singing “Rainbow Connection” or talking like Fozzie Bear. Where the Wild Things Are (the book; not the movie).  Reading on the beach.

What else would you add to this list?

My parents are moving from my childhood home.  They moved there when I was four and I remember having my fifth birthday in the backyard, with kids climbing all over our new swing set.  The move is not really a surprise–they announced their intent last summer, but it has been a long journey of falling in love with a new town and saying goodbye to an old space.

The new town is a little under an hour away, so still close, but a bit farther out.  It’s really where part of my heart is regardless, so it’s special that they came to love this space too.   But I count my parents amongst my best friends, so there is a bittersweetness too in having your best friends move incrementally farther away, even if they are moving to a place you love.

Packing up the house has been both an exercise in excavation, and a series of hard choices of what to save.  Do I really need my old Fugazi LPs if I don’t have any way to play them?  Can my heart handle parting with my old childhood rocking chair?

Every few years, I remember and try to find this old  short story that had a dictator that kept severed ears in a jar that were described like dried apricots.  I can never remember who wrote it, and while I remember the final line, about some of the ears listening to the ground and the rest listening to the sky, the story appears to be un-Googleable.  As I dug through boxes, this short story percolated to the top, finding me rather than a moment where I am chasing it.

I thought disassembling the house was going to be impossibly hard; that I would be breaking down and weeping over every box.  But it isn’t really like that.  There are times when my voice catches or moments where I feel a bit numb, but there is also an important realization in all of this.  One that makes you realize how important people are, and how easy it is to give up the objects and places as long as you have those people.  That the thing I love is my family, and not necessarily my family in that house.

And slowly, as each object is removed from the house, and it becomes more like an empty box than the space from your memories, you realize how much a house is merely a blank canvas, one that can be gessoed over and reused again and again.  And then you walk outside.  And you close the door.

I don’t think you can ever truly be ready for a goodbye, the heart just doesn’t work like that.  It always wants one more minute.  But it also feels right to be there right now, helping put closure on one adventure and sealing boxes so there is room for the next one that is straining to begin.

Josh read this before I finished and he commented on my quiet perspective.  But I’m sure I will cry when I walk out for the last time.  I’m sure I will cry the first time I dial their phone number and it’s not the one I memorized as a child.  I am much more sentimental than most, and I’ve even been crying over saying goodbye to bad memories.  Because even amongst the bad memories are these little kernels of light that remind you that all that came before shaped you into who you are right now.  And I’m glad I grew up in that house, with my parents and siblings.

Last week, I wrote my take on the Jezebel/Daily Show showdown over at BlogHer.  This morning, the New York Times posted a story about Jezebel titled, “The Blog Jezebel is Not Afraid to Pick a Fight,” though the irony in the cries of sexism in the hiring practices of the Daily Show is reflected in the Jezebel newsroom photos.  The first shows Jessica Coen standing in front of several male employees on computers.  The second one shows the mostly male staff of Jezebel at work (helpfully labeled by Josh):

Where are the women of Jezebel?  Why are we mostly seeing men in the pictures?  Is Jezebel engaging in…gasp…sexist hiring practices at a WOMEN’S WEB SITE?

But the fact is that just as you can’t get the whole story of what is happening at the Daily Show simply by speaking to ex-employees and a few people who haven’t been hired by the show, you can’t know how many women or how many men or how important any individual’s job is to the whole of the product simply by examining the tiny sliver of reality contained in a photograph.  No, I don’t believe that Jezebel engages in sexist hiring practices any more than I believe the Daily Show has it out for women.

But I do think it’s a series of interesting photos considering the accusations of the blog.