When you start out in traditional publishing, you are very eager. You’ve heard rumors about this other Big Name Author who is “difficult” and is “a bitch” and you don’t want to be difficult. Then you gain experience and realize that bringing a story from the manuscript to the book isn’t the smooth road you
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The Problem of Publishing
Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, so let’s hope I will make sense. Can you explain how the publishing industry has changed in the past two years? I keep hearing about problems and issues and I don’t understand what’s going on (except the obvious toll on authors, but that doesn’t seem to be
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Earning Out and Other Questions
Mod R has sent over November blog prompts. We will be starting with some industry questions. Why do they pay celebrities these giant book advances? They can’t earn out. You don’t have to earn out to be profitable for the publisher. We’ve covered this before, but a quick refresher, so you don’t have to flip
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That Sonovabitch at Piggly Wiggly
We’ve received several questions regarding translations and whether or not we feel they accurately present our work. I don’t know. We’ve been translated to… 18? I think it’s more now – countries and obviously we do not speak the languages of all 18 countries. We are not the best judges of the quality of translation.
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NFT Me, Baby
Have you thought of offering NFTs of your work? This question keeps coming up for some reason. To understand what NFT is, you have to first learn about etherium and blockchains. Etherium is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin. You know how you go to an arcade and you buy tokens? Same principle, but digital. To really
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Deadlines
Are book deadlines normally agreed between writer/s and publisher or imposed by publisher? And are there any consequences for missing them? Is there a way to negotiate deadlines that is mental health-friendly to the author? The deadlines are negotiated at contract stage in broad terms, meaning the contract states that the publisher will bring the
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Effect of Marketing
August blog prompts have arrived, so here we go. How much does marketing count at the release of a new book? I saw a tweet from another author which said “There is no such thing as “your book wouldn’t sell”. There is only “I don’t know how to sell your book”. There is a market
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Assigning Genre: Industry Insiders’ Perspective
Hi. Here’s a question that will hopefully not be too troublesome. When marketing a book do you or the publisher or bookseller decide if the book is a mystery, or romance or science fiction or fantasy?Reason I ask is that frequently I am in a bookstore or library, I find a book in the romance
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Books, Conventions, and Money
Is it worth participating in book festivals? I’m looking at going to one in another state. The cost for a table in Authors’ Alley is $110, and the festival is for one day. The last time it was held in person, attendance was around 9500 people. Maybe. Longer answer: it’s absolutely worth it if you
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Burning money in the digital age
Do you have any marketing and marketing routine advices? Em This comes at a really good time, as I am trying to figure out the benefits of social media vs the drawbacks. To quickly recap, marketing is “paid” promotion while publicity is “earned” promotion. More on that in this blog post. As an author, there
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S-Corp and Other Corps
I’m thinking of incorporating. What kind of corporation are you? I am going to give you a super valuable and totally awesome advice: talk to an accountant. I am not qualified to advise you on the type of corporation that’s best for you. Here is some background information for information purposes only. No matter what
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Advances: How they Work
Advances “So if a writer gets an advance and the book does not sell well do they have to repay part of the advance? Or does it affect future contracts – no contract / no advance etc.? Or it varies per the contract in place?” Short answer is no, advance doesn’t need to be paid
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