Publishing...
Oct. 12th, 2006 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayeneThere are a bunch of writers on my friends list. If you aren't a writer, this might not interest you to much, feel free to skim over. Back Junish I posted a bit on Barbara Bauer and her scams and publishing scams in general ( http://jayene.livejournal.com/2006/05/27/ ). I am not a published writer. But I have spent years researching the industry. The reason I am not published is entirely my own fault. I don't finish things. I am trying to change that. But for those of you on my list that have actually finished things here are some of the answers, some of the questions and some of the places I get the answers.
Still with me? Great!
First I will reiterate, money flows from the publisher to the author. For short stories this isn't always cash per say. Some magazines pay in copies, some in presteige. But you the author do not pay to have your works published. There are a few exceptions, http://www.girlondemand.blogspot.com/ logs it pretty well. But most self publishing are not going to fufil your dreams of being an author for a living.
Which brings me to another thing. Most authors don't make their living writing. One book does not pay the bills. Your six months, six years of work... well from what I have seen 3,000 to 10,000 is about average. And that doesn't come at once. Publishers break it up or try to give you the payment as late as they can. Publishing is a business and the publishers want to make money on your book. Anna Louise, a editor at Tor, wrote a wonderful post explaining the math http://alg.livejournal.com/84032.html#cutid1 (she also as a Q&A post where you can ask her publishing questions http://alg.livejournal.com/74060.html#comments ). Very few people pull a Divinci code or a Harry Potter.
And another thing. You aren't going to get discovered. There are some cases where an agent tracks someone down and says "you have a great voice or story we want you!" Very very few. Usually you are a celebrity of some sort. The process begins with querying either publishers or agents. I am going to deal with that in a later post.
The last thing I am going to cover today is agents and publishers. There is a big difference. An agent does not publish a book. The reason I support getting an agent is this. I didn't go to law school. In the years I've been studying I have learned a bit about the language in a contract. Like north american rights, media rights, film rights audio rights, web rights, serialization rights. An agent knows how to keep as many of these right as they can for you. An agent is the one who will go to bat for you on editorial changes, who is going to know which publishers will rep your book best and what the best plan is. Most importantly an agent (a good agent, for bad agents see Barbara Bauer) is going to help you with your career, beucase just cause you get one book published does not mean the next one will sell. Especially if it doesn't sell through (see Anna's P&L post).
I want to get published. I would love to write for a living. Might never happen, but I am going to finish my stories and give it a try. In the end it's the the story that is important and telling it.
Here are some resources... I'll write more soon but if this is what you want to do these can help. And you have my permission to copy this post or link to it(and probably clean up my spelling). Please credit me Denise M. Beucler though... ;)
http://www.sfwa.org/beware
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/
http://www.evileditor.blogspot.com/
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/
http://www.bksp.org/
Still with me? Great!
First I will reiterate, money flows from the publisher to the author. For short stories this isn't always cash per say. Some magazines pay in copies, some in presteige. But you the author do not pay to have your works published. There are a few exceptions, http://www.girlondemand.blogspot.com/ logs it pretty well. But most self publishing are not going to fufil your dreams of being an author for a living.
Which brings me to another thing. Most authors don't make their living writing. One book does not pay the bills. Your six months, six years of work... well from what I have seen 3,000 to 10,000 is about average. And that doesn't come at once. Publishers break it up or try to give you the payment as late as they can. Publishing is a business and the publishers want to make money on your book. Anna Louise, a editor at Tor, wrote a wonderful post explaining the math http://alg.livejournal.com/84032.html#cutid1 (she also as a Q&A post where you can ask her publishing questions http://alg.livejournal.com/74060.html#comments ). Very few people pull a Divinci code or a Harry Potter.
And another thing. You aren't going to get discovered. There are some cases where an agent tracks someone down and says "you have a great voice or story we want you!" Very very few. Usually you are a celebrity of some sort. The process begins with querying either publishers or agents. I am going to deal with that in a later post.
The last thing I am going to cover today is agents and publishers. There is a big difference. An agent does not publish a book. The reason I support getting an agent is this. I didn't go to law school. In the years I've been studying I have learned a bit about the language in a contract. Like north american rights, media rights, film rights audio rights, web rights, serialization rights. An agent knows how to keep as many of these right as they can for you. An agent is the one who will go to bat for you on editorial changes, who is going to know which publishers will rep your book best and what the best plan is. Most importantly an agent (a good agent, for bad agents see Barbara Bauer) is going to help you with your career, beucase just cause you get one book published does not mean the next one will sell. Especially if it doesn't sell through (see Anna's P&L post).
I want to get published. I would love to write for a living. Might never happen, but I am going to finish my stories and give it a try. In the end it's the the story that is important and telling it.
Here are some resources... I'll write more soon but if this is what you want to do these can help. And you have my permission to copy this post or link to it(and probably clean up my spelling). Please credit me Denise M. Beucler though... ;)
http://www.sfwa.org/beware
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/
http://www.evileditor.blogspot.com/
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/
http://www.bksp.org/
