Month: November 2005

More Dollars and Sense

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There’s a lot of great inside-knowledge on the business of being a novelist from pros to be found on blogs lately, all of it pure gold for aspiring authors. Not so long ago, Alison Kent shared her latest royalty statement with the world. Now author Sara Donati explains  in simple terms how royalties and advances work.

I’m always surprised that many aspiring authors don’t understand how
the money works. A publisher offers you a contract, and an advance. The
amount of the advance doesn’t have to do with how good the novel is, or
how much they like it. A million dollars does not equal an A+. The
advance is their best guess on how many copies of the book they can
sell. No matter how much the acquiring editor loves your novel, the
publishing house does not want to overpay you. End of story.

Not exactly the end. She has a few more interesting observations to share in that post and in another one on the subject as well (UPDATE:  Sara made an error in her figures in her original post, which she has corrected and so have I:).

If you’re talking about a hardcover book, the author generally gets
10% on the first 1 to 25,000 copies sold, 12% on the next 25,000 and
15% on anything sold above 50,000 copies — after the advance is paid
out, of course. And these figures are negotiable. I would guess Stephen
King’s numbers are better.

For softcover, the range is much greater, usually someplace between
6% and 10% of the cover price, again with increases as the number of
sales climbs.

This probably is pretty sobering for those who are hoping to make a living writing fiction.

When Harry Met Ed

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Ed Gorman is talking today on his blog about Harry Whittington, one of my favorite writers. He wonders why the work suddenly dried up for this prolific and successful writer.

Harry was a pro’s pro. He did it all. I can understand how he stopped hitting
the top markets in the mid-60s. The market was changing, his kind of lean, mean
sex-and-murder book was no longer in fashion. But Harry could write anything.
And all his agent could get was flat-fee work for hire? Harry Whittington?

Trolling for Suckers, The Sequel

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The other day I got an email from xlibris.

Dear Lee,
      My name is Tracey Rosengrave, Marketing
Manager for Xlibris Corporation, a Print-On-Demand Self-Publishing company. We
are sending you this email because we have either learned about your passion for
writing or we have had the pleasure of coming across some of your work…

I wrote two replies. One under my own name (which hasn’t received a reply), and an entirely different one under a pseudonym:

Dear Tracey,

I was so thrilled to
get your letter. I’ve been writing for years and was beginning to think nobody
had noticed. I truly have a passion for writing. How did you ever find me??? Was
it my "Scarecrow and Mrs. King"/"Remington Steele" crossover fanfic that you
read on fanfiction.net? I think it’s my best work. I have this idea of a TV
series but I think it would make a better novel so I wrote it. There’s a
publishing company in Maine that has offered me a $500 advance but
it’s not Random House! The book is called "Hollywood and Vine" and it’s about this cop
named Jimmy Hollywood who is something of a rogue. He’s teamed up with Vine who
is half-man, half-plant. I know that sounds silly but it’s not when you actually
learn about this complex character who has many deep levels (and gets his energy
from photosynthesis). Do you think you’d be interested? I would much rather be
published by Random House, even if the advance was
less.

Here is the reply I got:

Xlibris is actually a strategic
partner of Randomhouse. We would love to work with you. Just give us your
complete address and we can send a free publishing kit.

Joe
Tomines
Xlibris
Corporation

You’ll notice that Joe didn’t mention that Random House is a real publisher and that xlibris is a self-publisher, that Randon House pays advances and xlibris doesn’t.  He fell short of coming right out and saying "No, you will not be published by Random House. They have a financial stake in our company but that’s as far as the association goes." He left it up to me, the naive author of HOLLYWOOD AND VINE, to figure out what strategic partner means…

Dear Mr. Teriyaki, The Blowback

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Here are some of the reactions in the blogosphere to Dean Koontz’s "Mr. Teriyaki" speech.

From It’s Matt’s World:

It should be kept in mind that Koontz isn’t some anonymous man wearing
a white sheet over his head. He is a mainstream American author, whose
books have sold in the (probable) millions…
Koontz didn’t utter the words "chink" or "jap." Yet can it be disputed
that his speech was racist? It’s important to realize and understand
this, and not shy away from labeling it what it is. This is the only
way we can move forward and progress as a society.

There are
those who would argue that racism exists today only in the form of the
occasional march of men in white sheets, or whenever the "n" word is
uttered, or some member of a minority is dragged from the back of a
moving vehicle. But all that does is insulate us from the reality that
still exists. Racism is not dead, it is simply more insidious than it
used to be. It comes in the form of kids beating up on other kids
because "the Asians are smarter." It comes in the form of a popular
novelist stirring the pot of racial tensions and the bitter past. It
comes from comedians making jokes based upon racial stereoypes and bad
impressions of various ethnic accents. To ignore all of this and not
call it what it is, is to be complicit in the racism of the 21st
century. Surely, we can do better?

From Amy Ridenour:

Get a clue!  Black people were victims of slavery.  Jews were victims of the Holocaust.  Japan conducted the Bataan Death March.  Personally,
I’m not one for Bataan Death March humor. Doesn’t strike me as funny,
but not because I would fear offending the perpetrators, but because I
would not wish to make light of the horrors experienced by the victims.  The
difference between a victim and a perpetrator is a very clear one. It’s
odd, and rather worrisome, that some people don’t seem to see it.

From LAist:

Koontz doesn’t see anything wrong with his personal story of writing to
a Japanese movie executive and addressing him as Mr. Teriyaki while also
referencing low points in Japanese history to try to get his point across. He calls it George Carlin-esque. The difference may be though that a comedian
is just making jokes while, if Koontz’s anecdote is to be taken at face value,
Koontz really engaged in this behavior.

From Galleycat:

Steven Barrie-Anthony reports that "Koontz blames the brouhaha on
‘some sort of an agenda,’" and dutifully records the author’s
explanantion that he can’t be a racist because "I was a poor kid with a
Jewish grandmother and a great-grandmother who was black, [and] I grew
up in a dirt-poor family." Koontz also describes the letters that
prompted the controversy: "There’s some political incorrectness in it,
but nothing mean." 

Right. "We could have a few sake and reminisce about the Bataan
Death March" is absolutely not a mean thing to say to a Japanese
executive, just good-humored political incorrectness.

The Brothers Goldberg on Writing

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The first part of an interview my brother Tod and I conducted with each other has been posted on Beatrice.com, a popular lit-blog.  It’s a (mostly) serious discussion about breaking-in, the craft of writing, our work habits,  and sustaining a career as a novelist and/or screenwriter. Here’s an excerpt from one of my replies to one of Tod’s probing questions:

"For the last twenty
years (My God, am I actually old enough to start a sentence with
that?), I have made my living as a TV writer/producer. I spent most of
that time…okay, all of it…working on shows that other people created.
That’s true of most TV writers. You are hired, for the most part, for
your ability to articulate someone else’s vision and, at the same time,
bring your own unique voice to the writing. So I am quite comfortable
writing about characters and worlds created by others. I look at my
tie-in novels as the publishing equivalent of working on an episodic
television series."

UPDATE 11-18-05:  Part Two of the interview is now up. Here’s an excerpt:

"Given a choice between
reading a literary novel or a thriller, I’ll choose the thriller most
of the time. You’ll choose the literary fiction. That’s not to say I
don’t read non-crime/non-genre novels…I do. We share some of the same
favorite authors. But I love thrillers, mysteries, and
westerns—basically, escapist fiction—with a passion that you clearly do
not.

Maybe it has to do with TV. I was a voracious reader as a kid, but I
also grew up watching a lot more TV than you did and developing a true
love of the four-act structure. Maybe watching all that TV shaped what
I expect from a story…a kind of narrative engine, conflict, and
personal stakes that aren’t always found in literary fiction. Or I’m
just superficial."

Is this an Elmore Leonard Character or What?

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From today’s Los Angeles Times:

A Los Angeles judge who tried out for a reality television show by arbitrating a
dispute between an erotic dancer and a strip club was removed from the bench
today for ethical violations and lying to the state commission that reviews
complaints against judges…

…Ross improperly used his judicial office for financial gain when he hosted two
pilots for a possible television series called "Mobile Court," where the judge
goes on location to decide small-claims cases.

In one episode, "Beauty
and the Beast," the erotic dancer whose stage name is Angel Cassidy sued a San
Diego adult club for cheating her out of prize money when a security guard,
known as "Wolverine," disqualified her from the final round of a "Miss Wet on
the Net" contest.

Ross arbitrated the dispute for television inside a
Los Angeles strip club with "zebra carpet, neon, mirrors, pole" and asked the
plaintiff for details of the wet T-shirt contest she lost.

(Thanks to LA Observed for the heads-up)

Trolling for Suckers

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I got this email today:

Dear Lee,
      My name is Tracey Rosengrave, Marketing Manager
for Xlibris Corporation, a Print-On-Demand Self-Publishing company. We are
sending you this email because we have either learned about your passion for
writing or we have had the pleasure of coming across some of your work…

I guess she’s never read my blog, where I indulge "my passion for writing" by criticizing print-on-demand self-publishing scams. Or maybe she’s read my books, and thinks I’m ready to make the switch from being paid by publishers to paying to be published. I don’t know. So I asked her.

Tracey,
 
What a nice surprise to hear from you. Where did you learn about my passion
for writing? Which of my books did you read? I’d love to know how you discovered
me (I’ve been waiting so long to be discovered) and why you think xlibris would
be the right publisher for me.
Lee

I’ll let you know how she replies…

Speak Up

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As a novelist on the signing/promotion circuit, I end up going to a lot of readings, conferences and seminars…and I hear a lot of authors speak. What I’ve learned is that someone could make an awful lot of money teaching public speaking skills to authors.

It’s amazing to me that people who are so good at expressing themselves on the page can be such dull, uninspiring, and clueless public speakers, whether they are in front of five people or five hundred. They give meandering speeches while mumbling into the microphone (if they even remember to hold the microphone to their mouths), completely unaware that no one is listening to them. It seems to me like they aren’t even trying to engage or amuse their audience, to connect with them in any way. They just stand behind the podium and blunder along, reciting in mind-numbing detail the plot of their latest book, oblivious to the fact that people are jamming forks into their legs to stay awake.Leespeak

So many authors look at giving a speech or being on a panel as an opportunity to sell books. It is. But people aren’t coming to hear your sales pitch or an hour-long, meticulously detailed summary of the book. They are coming to learn something about you. To get a sense of the man or woman behind the words on the page. And if what they get is a huckster aggressively trying to sell his book or, worse, someone who sucks the soul out of every single poor person in the room, then your appearance has been counter-productive. You will actually lose readers. The next time someone in that audience sees your name on a book cover, all they will remember is that boring speech that felt like a root canal without the pleasant distraction of the drill.

I’m not the world’s greatest public speaker but I can immodestly say that I don’t suck, either. While I am up there, I try to enjoy myself. I try to be energetic, to speak loudly, and to make eye contact with the people in the audience. If I can, I get out from behind the podium. I look at people’s faces and if I see I’m losing them, I change subjects, pick up the pace, or abandon my intended comments altogether and go with something else.

I like to make my audience laugh, but laughter isn’t what’s important. Your job is to be interesting and enthusiastic, to communicate your
ideas and point of view clearly and in an engaging way. You are there to entertain, educate, amuse and even provoke the audience. You aren’t there to numb them into a persistent vegatative state.  Also, don’t try to be an infomercial for your book. It turns people off. They may be awake, but they hate you. They will be reflexively hitting a fast-forward button with their thumb. No one likes sitting through the commercial.

I don’t use my time at a podium or on a panel to sell my book but
to indirectly sell me,  a nice, interesting and perhaps amusing guy who
has written some things you might enjoy reading or watching on television.

Mystery2You can learn to be a good, self-taught, public speaker.  Many speaking engagements and conference panels are recorded. Buy the tapes. Listen to yourself. It can often be a cringe-inducing experience…but do it anyway. It’s important that you know how you sound to others. Take note of what parts of your speech, or which of your comments on a panel, worked and those that fell flat. Zero in on those places where you rambled, or blundered along aimlessly, and come up with a sharp new way of articulating the same point or answering that same question next time.  And most important of all, listen to the other speakers as well.  Pay attention to how they succeeded or failed…and learn from it.

I know a lot of writers are writers because they like the solitude, because they aren’t good in front of a crowd. They simply don’t like public speaking and aren’t comfortable on panels. My advice for those writers is…don’t do it. It’s better not to do the speech or be on the panel than to bore your readers.

Remembering Poppa Cy

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Last night, while looking for something on my computer, I stumbled across my notes for my grandfather’s eulogy. My Poppa Cy spent his life in the furniture business, retired to Palm Springs, and died about eight years ago. I still miss him. So, in his honor, here’s an excerpt from those eulogy notes:

My Poppa Cy was a character. I guess that’s a nice way of saying he had a strong personality.

He could be intimidating, generous, embarrassing, reassuring, terrifying, overpowering and hilarious… frequently all at once.  And if his strong personality didn’t knock you over, his taste in clothes certainly did.  I’d arrive at his house in Palm Springs  wearing  jeans and polo shirt, and he’d be standing there in his orange pants and purple shirt and red sweater, shaking his head in dismay at the way I was dressed.

“What’s the matter with
you?" He’d say. "Haven’t you ever heard of color?”

And I’d laugh. He always made me laugh.

When I was a student at UCLA, I would go and stay with him to study for
mid-terms and finals. I loved those weekends. He’d get me up at 8 a.m., chide me for sleeping in, we’d have a little breakfast, read the paper, he’d criticize the furniture store ads, and then I’d study for a few hours.

Then we’d have fun. Or he’d have fun, and I’d have fun watching him. Maybe I was more of a co-conspirator.

We’d go to a furniture store somewhere and pretend to be customers. Poppa Cy would tell some poor, unsuspecting salesman that he was interested in a sofa. The salesman would show us around the store, Poppa Cy would ask a few questions and basically behave like the cutomser from hell and then, when the guy least expected it, my grandfather would whip
out his Visa card like it was some kind of badge and say:

“I’m Cy Goldberg, United Furniture Company, I was in the furniture business for 55 years… let me tell you about all the mistakes you made trying to sell me a sofa." He’d then lead the poor guy back to all those sofas while I collapsed into laughter.

Or we’d go to a car dealership. Poppa Cy would say he was Harry Himmelfarb or Frank Kales or George Rosencranz and he was shopping for something sporty. He’d torture the salesman,
taking him to the brink of a sale, and then leave.

I think the only thing he
enjoyed more than teasing people was furniture…

Furniture was his world.
His love. His oxygen.

To him, furniture was not
something you sat on, slept on, and ate on… no, furniture was a state-of-mind,
a culture, a language, an art to be admired, studied, and deconstructed. And he
had a furniture analogy for everything – sex, acne, divorce, fast food, you
name it. Anything a human being experienced could be compared to a comfortable
recliner, a sturdy couch, an inexpensive lamp. One of my lasting regrets will
be that I never wrote one of those analogies down.

When he saw my first TV
show, he asked “So, where do they get all that furniture? They aren’t renting
it, are they?”

Whenever I wrote a book,
he badgered me to make the next one about the furniture business. That, he
said, was where the excitement is. And I’m not sure he was kidding.

Poppa Cy was a man who
never had any trouble expressing his opinions which, in an odd way, was how he
expressed his affection. He was not the kind of guy who gave hugs, or told you
that he loved you. I learned early on that teasing, chiding, needling….okay,
criticizing you… was his way of showing he cared about you. Not everyone saw it
that way… and he drove a lot of people out of his life because of it.

Not me.

I loved my Poppa Cy.  Thanks to him, I’m a stronger person. I’m not
afraid to fight for what I believe. And I will never, ever buy a white couch
again.

I know what Poppa Cy is
doing right now. He’s up there, shaking his head in dismay:

“What kind of phony deal
is this? You call those pearly gates? I know where you can get pearly gates. I
got this friend in Portland in the pearly gate business…"

Poppa Cy wouldn’t want us
mourning his passing, he’d want us to celebrate his life. So go out and buy a
recliner or a couple barstools. Preferrably in yellow.