Is an Agent Worth It? Doing the Math

Full Disclosure: There will be no math in this post, or on this blog, ever, if I can help it (except for that one P&L post).

It's the holy grail, right? You bypass that ol' agent game and go straight to the source! Simon! Or Random! Or Harper...ahem.

This is what it looks like if Simon (not necessarily the publisher in question) gets his hands on you and I'm not in the middle.

Makin' Facebook Fancy

DO YOU KNOW how hard it is to integrate custom code into a Facebook page? VERY. Particularly if you're sort of making up/Googling the code as you go along. Which, most of the time, I am/do. But pretty well, I must say.

Working to customize Facebook is like that rule with chefs: you know that they're leaving at least one ingredient out if they agree to tell you a recipe--the most important one, usually. Yeah. That's what Facebook's instructions are like for coding on their platform.

But, just to prove that stubbornness and several sleeves of Ritz crackers will get you just about anywhere, behold. My custom Exclusive Excerpt tab for THE MARIA PARADOX. http://on.fb.me/wKPrOO

Jumping The Gun

One of the most important skills to develop as an author, particularly an unsigned one (i.e. my favorite type of author) is patience.

patience

It's a beautiful word. It's nigh perfect. It sort of takes a long time to say, too, which sort of fits. Am I hyperanalyzing here? Perhaps. 

But I can't explain how much better and easier your writerly career will go if you also treasure this virtue. Do your research. Give that manuscript one more week to sit, so that you can read it one more time with fresh eyes. Take care with your queries so that the list of agents is right, you have your personalization planned, and you make a good impression. If you're think about going the self-pub route, get all the information and plan out what your journey will look like.

You'll be glad you did.

Is your book melodramatic?

How does one know when his or her writing crosses the line from emotionally compelling to just too much?

For me, it's often in "the twist." Something that's merely intense veers into soap opera territory when an author adds that one. more. thing. The twist in these cases is often highly salacious or verboten rather than subtle and surprising.

For instance: pregnant terminally ill main character discovers she has to solve a murder--of her baby daddy.

Or: Small town guy realizes he's gay and must face coming out to his Bible-belt family and friends--but then his father dies in a plow accident and CAN HE REALLY RISK TEARING HIS FAMILY APART MORE?? Oh, and then he discovers his father's stash of child porn when going through his effects.

No joke, those were in my inbox.

Trust yourself, writers. The above stories have great hearts: facing one's own death as a new one is starting. Navigating prejudice of those close to you. Tell those stories; you don't have to throw the kitchen sink in, too. 

Online Author Marketing: Your Book Is Pubbing!

You're living the dream, man. An agent, a book deal...now your book is about to come out!

This is going to be AWESOME.

Publishers dedicate marketing and publicity staff to your book, with their biggest push focused around the launch. It's called "event marketing" in the industry.

What that means is that there's one big push, but no long term marketing strategy for the book...and this is where most authors (and some agents) get really grouchy. ("They're not doing anything anymore!")

But before we start Publisher bashing, as is so en vogue these days, consider that just as your book had some launch-time marketing (galleys printed, an ad somewhere, etc.) the next book on that publicist's list has to get the same attention. The publisher has to move on.

Which means that, at this stage, your own marketing efforts have to get more aggressive and your strategy more sophisticated. In post one, we talked about building the foundation of your online presence. On Tuesday, about focusing your online strategy. At this stage, you should focus on marrying your marketing foundation (blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) with specific marketing strategy.

This means getting creative. Your goal should be to keep your book(s) on people's minds in the online space, where attention spans are notoriously short.

This is not done by "selling" your book.

As you've no doubt heard before, broadcasting "BUY MY BOOK" is a quick way to get ignored. Create value for your audience--by being funny, like Maureen Johnson, finding interesting images on Flickr, or marrying your writing interests with something broader, as Sarah Fine does with psychology and YA literature.

Keep them coming back for your digital content and persona (separate from your book) and they'll get your book news (new releases, discounted ebooks, etc.) too. Organically piqued interest has a much greater chance of generating sales and word-of-mouth advertising.

Yes, this "online stuff" takes time. Or money (you can certainly pay some very talented professionals to do this for you). The online space has become a hugely important marketing and sales environment. If you choose to ignore that online space, you risk dooming your book to the "Launch and Fizzle" pattern so many books fall into.

Online Author Marketing: Pre-Agent

On Friday, I participated in an amazing interactive interview on Krista Van Dolzer's Mother. Write. (Repeat.) Blog. One of the questions asked, concerning author online marketing, was too complex to discuss in the comments section:

How can a writer get the most out of the Internet at each stage of the writing journey (pre-agent, post-agent, pre-book release, post-book release)?

Since we couldn't talk about it on Friday, it'll be the subject of a series on the blog this week.

First, we'll cover pre-agent online marketing and platform-building tactics.

Since your online presence is the foundation for your online marketing in the future, you should have a strategy before you just jump on Blogger. What brand are you trying to build? What other people are already talking about what you want to? How can you possibly collaborate with them? Unfortunately, blogging about "your writing process" or "your publishing journey" is not going to cut it if you really want to build a following--too many are already doing it. For tips on blog topics, check out this post here (and the surrounding posts).

I suggest a blog and a twitter account as a good online foundation for an aspiring writer.

You don't have to be super active on Twitter as soon as you sign up. Go ahead and find 20 or 30 people to follow--a mix of writers you admire, agents, editors, and non-publishing people--and just lurk. Listen to conversations, jump in where you feel like you have something to say. As you get more comfortable with the platform, you can tweet more. A fully active account should be tweeting no fewer than three times a day.

The hashtags #askagent and #yalitchat are examples of ways to find others interested in the things you're writing about: both agents/editors and beta writers. You can search those terms on Twitter and read the transcripts of the chats, which are always full of great info.

A blog is another good way to get started building an online presence. As you'll see as you get your feet wet with Twitter, the writerly blogosphere is incredibly interconnected. Bloggers guest post, start series together, and share thoughts on books they loved (And hated). But here more than anywhere else you have to worry about oversharing.

Many writers serialize their work on their blogs. I cannot encourage you strongly enough to avoid that. Authors nearly always list "getting an agent" as the reason they put "teasers" on their blogs. But there is already a mechanism for showing your work to agents: the query. Trust that process; it is highly unlikely that an agent will just stumble on your blog. They usually find it by clicking links in a query. So why put it on the blog?

If you choose to do so anyway you may put yourself breach of the warranties and indemnities clause of the publishing contract that you haven't even signed yet. I like Krista's strategy: she has a widget on her sidebar that lists a logline for her book. That's interesting without crossing any lines. Kathleen Ortiz has a great author website post here that lists website elements you should focus on.

You should try to post about twice a week on your blog--a link with a caption is still a post, but try to make a habit of producing real content--between 100 and 400 words.

So what do you think? Any questions? Tomorrow we'll talk about changes you should make once you're an agented writer.

If nothing happens...

First line in a query today:

"What happens when everyone expects the apocalypse--and nothing happens."

Well, this agent stops reading, for one. If you say the words "nothing happens" in your query you're just sinking yourself.

Your query should tell me what happens. Not what doesn't.

Agencies with Separate Publishing Divisions

I got word recently that yet another agency has decided to set up a side-project to handle "ePublishing." This division will not serve (1) clients self-publishing themselves (no commission taken) or (2) clients who bring the agency ready-to-upload files that the agency then uploads and monitors for royalties/earnings (15% commission taken). It's for (3)clients for whom the agency will handle all aspects of the epublishing.

Sounds alright, right? That's got to be a lot of work!

Except when you consider what actually goes in to converting and publishing a book online.

Unless the agency has undergone some MAJOR personnel changes and hired cover designers and converters, the work of converting and designing the cover of the ebook will be done by outside freelancers.

AKA the agency has a list of a couple of people they know who convert books and/or design covers and they send your book to them, get it back a couple weeks later, then proceed as with client-type (2).

The agency has probably done extensive work on these projects, even the ones that are self-published, and even tried to sell it in many cases. They've certainly earned their 15%. But I'd be hard to convince that the agency is earning more than that 15%.

You should be hard to convince, too.

Ask a lot of questions before signing up for anything that involves more than a standard commission. Who's doing the work? Who's paying them? Get the facts, and you may feel that an increased commission is justified...or you might not.

Patience is a virtue.

I've corresponded recently with several authors who had good projects. They weren't ready to go out, but they were getting there. After requesting fulls, these authors came back and told me they had already signed a contract of some sort with small presses, but that they were querying A) another project or B) the subrights or C) a continuation of the series under contract with the small press.

My reaction can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

Once a book has been published, whether by an indie press or online (both valid options!!) your road to a traditional publishing deal, should you later choose to see one, gets either a lot easier or a lot harder. Easier if you sell 10K+ copies of e- or p-book. Harder if you don't. Those sales numbers will follow you, and no, agents can't just leave out that it was previously published because that will violate the Warranties and Indemnities section of the contract you might sign with a publisher.

Further, the contracts that these authors signed would never have passed an agent's muster--one never defined which rights the publisher held, meaning that at any time they could veto anything else the book might become. It means royalty splits weren't defined. It means that you're at the pub's mercy. I couldn't take on a project tied up like that, even if it was a slam dunk.

The worst part, in one case, was that the author had been querying no time at all. Like 3 weeks or something. But she got the offer and just went ahead without an agent and, unfortunately, that impatience may have prevented her from getting a better deal.

If you don't want an agent, that's fine. But the truth is that most authors seem to say they don't want an agent, because that's in vogue, and act on that by signing with a publisher or self-pubbing. Then many decide they do want an agent. But if you've chosen to come to an agent in the middle, rather than at the beginning of your career, you're probably bringing baggage to the table.

My suspicion is that authors get that offer, and IT'S A REAL (if small!) PUBLISHER! and they just sign. Or they throw up their hands and THEY'RE GOING TO BE THE NEXT AMANDA HOCKING. And the decision may be a little rash. But by then, it's too late for an agent to get in the game.

If you get interest from a publisher, give the agents you've queried a chance to jump on you!! Tell them. Especially if it's only been a month. Because once you're published, you're published--even if it's poorly.

Down and Dirty Wrap Up

Sort of. I mean it's not like we'll never talk about this stuff again.

A colleague sent me this article: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/aaa-will-not-expel-agents-turned-publishers.html, which I think dovetails nicely with what we talked about Thursday and Friday of last week.

Note particularly the president of AAA's last statement:

"There are certain activities that our code of conduct explicitly prohibits and the practice of agencies offering their authors a way to market their books directly to the reader is not one of them..."

Well, certainlyt. In fact, we'd encourage the marketing of these books directly to readers. Now, how about the question at hand: publishing the book...?

A disappointing side-step of the issue, if you ask me.

Down and Dirty Ethics of Digital Publishing

OK, full disclosure: yesterday's post wasn't *just* a general knowledge "Hey, you should know this, just because!!" post.

Reading that post and understanding what's outlined there is vital for understanding *this* post. So...I'll wait. :)

Now that we're all on the same page:

I'm sure you've heard of the new companies popping up as independent digital publishers. Some are actually integrated into agencies.

Independent ePublishers typically have 50-50 royalty splits and handle new covers, conversions, etc. Most (now at least) do this front-end work for no money down, without an advance. I think this is pretty fair, although there is certainly room for improvement (but that's another post).

Today I discuss the latter--agencies getting into the ebook business. Many people have an immediate negative reaction:

agencies shouldn't be publishers. It's an inherent conflict of interest (how can someone negotiate against herself in your best interest?). But if agencies aren't allowed to epublish on their authors' behalf, then how can they, for instance, put an out-of-print backlist online, which is in their client's best interest?

Are they forced to go with one of the indie ePublishers, even if, for whatever reason, they don't think it's best?

The issue is more complicated than just "Agencies should never publish." And to get to the bottom of that, you have to get at the financials: who's getting paid for what.

In a traditional publishing deal, the author pays both sides: the publisher takes a revenue split on sales (your royalty rate is the other portion of this split) and the agent takes a standard 15% commission on the gross (total amount before taxes) of all monies received.

The publisher gets paid for publishing the book, the agent gets paid for working on the book, getting it sold, and monitoring the publication and sales forever.

So let's say the backlist is small, and it's better to leave out the ePublisher, do the conversion through a freelancer, and get a 70% royalty for the author (in their best interest!) by publishing directly with Amazon, etc. The agency handles everything. Of course, they should still get their 15% commission. They got the book sold in the first place, and they're facilitating the ebook.

But I've heard of agencies, here and abroad, taking a 50% instead of 15% cut in the name of all the "extra work" they're doing on the ebook. To someone who doesn't know the steps (unlike you who does know the steps), that probably sounds reasonable. Who the heck knows how HTML works, anyway?! It's probably some sort of voodoo.

Those agencies seem to be saying "pay us 35% for publishing this ebook, and, of course, we're still entitled to our 15% for working on and getting the book sold in the first place." So a cut for a "Publisher" function and one for an "Agency" function. This is where we cross the ethical line, in my opinion.

There's no publisher involved.

"But," you might say, "don't they deserve some more dough for the extra work they're doing that a publisher normally would?"

Well, back to yesterday's post: There are 6 steps (roughly) to getting an ebook online. 3 of those are probably going to be done by a freelancer (the conversion). Your agency, unless they've made some big personnel changes recently, is probably going to contract this work out. After all, they've had a full-time gig being agents for some time now; more than likely they don't have time to integrate ebook coding themselves.

So, you should be paying the freelancer, not the agency, for the conversion. A simple referral to a freelancer doesn't justify a 35% cut of sales (forever).

Step 4, the upload, takes vigilance and attention to detail, but it's a one-time deal. And it takes about 30 minutes. I've heard of and support agencies charging a (small) flat fee to perform this service, but a 200%+ higher commission rate?...not so much.

Step 5 is a step that agencies already do for all of your books. Monitor sales and royalties. So that definitely doesn't justify 35% more money--or any more money.

The final step, marketing, is and always will be a split labor. I do foresee agencies charging to do marketing for their authors. We are, after all, really good sales people. But marketing services should not affect commission rates, which are tied to sale of books only. (Marketing helps sales of books, but it is not sales of books)

So 50% of the process is done by someone else, 16.67% is one-time "extra work" for the agency, 16.67% is what they've always done, and 16.67% may not be done at all by the agency, and isn't related to sales, which are what we typically commission. I'll leave you to make the final decision, but that doesn't sound like it adds up to a 50% cut for the agency.

Agencies stand to make money on the sales of books. There are opportunities for agencies to provide new services to their clients in the marketing arena: setting up and managing a social media presence, for instance. And for those, they should certainly be paid.

But the publication of clients' books online should not be considered a new revenue stream for agencies. Royalties, sales, are an agency's revenue stream. It's not that agencies shouldn't facilitate the publication of clients' books online, it's that they shouldn't be paid as publishers.

A client's book going into ebook format is the same, for an agency, as having the book come out in mass market (as far as commission). Someone gets it into the new format and the agent monitors the publication and sales, and continues to take 15% for services rendered.

And, dash it all, we still have to figure out the marketing.

Interesting...

...relationship between book, short fiction, and TV series. Of course, it doesn't hurt if you're Elmore Leonard, either. Read about it here.

I think we're going to see a lot more of this type of reverse- or laterally engineered content. Where a book idea may come from an idea for a screen or teleplay, spawning app or enhanced ebook ideas, etc. I also think it's going to change how we think about packaging a book for sale, whether to an editor behind the scenes or in public on the B&N table or web.

Hmm...

MeMeMedia

There was a Comment Section Debacle yesterday on a book reviewer's blog. If you haven't heard about it already, let's just say it involved some pretty defensive reactions from an author whose book got mixed (not bad) reviews. And other commenters thrashed her for it. She was acting cray-cray. But the incredibly hostile reaction was ill advised too.

Neither our disgruntled author nor the self-righteous backlashers were in the right. Both trounced online best practices--you know, the ones where you don't get too personal with questions or overshare or post your bachelorette party pictures. Or freak out on people. Sarah Fine has a great post on the psychology of it all.

Yesterday's display points to a serious tendency among online media users to be short-sighted and self-centered. We're all guilty of it. We're getting used to feeling entitled to say whatever's on our mind: broadcasting with the sense that someone out there must care, and that our opinion matters, even if it's adding nothing to a discussion where the same sentiment has been expressed ad nauseum (They don't, It doesn't). Protected by the quick pace and relative anonymity of the web (getting no response to a tweet or status update is much different than, say, telling a joke at a party and getting crickets), we live more stream-of-consciousness than ever. Stream-of-our-own-consciousness, that is.

Getting outside our own heads is important for a lot of reasons. First off, as I have previously advocated, making content relevant to your audience means thinking of their needs, not just yours. That's about building a following, a brand, etc.

But besides being a good PR/marketing move, taking a step outside of ourselves, as real-world interaction forces us to do, makes us considerate of others and temperate in our reactions. That's about being human.

Don't forget that those avatars represent people, people.

Self Publishing

There's a post from Editorial Anonymous from last week about whether you need an agent. I think it makes some great points. And by that I mean it makes one point: Yes, friend, you need an agent.

The one exception: "if you are an intrepid explorer yourself, of a patient and workmanlike nature; if you enjoy the research involved in plotting your own path through publishing, and are flexible about learning more as you go along, then you may not need an agent."

May not. Even if you are actually all of those things (and independently wealthy to boot--this research takes time, which you probably don't have between writing a book and, um, working.) you still only get a maybe on not needing an agent. Not wanting. Needing an agent.

This is probably frustrating to you. You say "But why should I be beholden to these keepers of the gilt publishing gates?!" I hear ya.

But the truth is that "booby-trapped and pathless jungles" doesn't even begin to describe publishing. Self-publishing is just as fraught with peril, if not more so (yes, I can defend this claim).

For our next series, I think it's useful to talk about agents and their role in the self-publishing world. I hope you guys will comment with some of your more pressing concerns on the matter.

The Stuff That Really Doesn't Go On Ze Blog

Some things are just not interwebz material.

People may debate excerpts on ze blog. I'll reiterate here what I said in yesterday's comments: excerpts are usually part of a sales strategy. This assumes the book is for SALE (or orderable), whether via traditional or self publishing. If it's not pushing people to buy (NOW) or preorder, your excerpt is wasted. In my opinion and many others'.

But barring your copyrighted content, anything is blog fodder! Blog your LIFE! Your PASSIONS!! Right?!?!

YES. Well, no. Almost.

Just because you're blogging about "your life/passions" doesn't mean you don't have to filter. Someone likened blogging to "reality TV" and "car crashes" in the comments, because it's raw and emotional and you can't look away. Eh...not really.

"Feelings" don't belong on your blog. OK, half of them do. The "YAY This awesome thing!!" or "How cool is this?!" feelings are great for blogging. But the feelings that I most associate with car crashes and Reality TV (regret, sadness, anger, etc.) should never make their way onto the internet--anywhere.

Back to the brand. While no one is happy/professional all the time, your blog/Twitter/Facebook should read like you are. Moments when you're down are moments when you need your friends around you, yes. You just need to TAWLK. But your Twitter followers and blog readers are not your friends (barring the ones that were friends first). They're your Twitter followers and your blog readers.

You love them, but it's, like, meta-love. It's binary code love. Not suitable for heavy emotional stuff--too much is lost in translation. Just think about all those text messages that have come across wrong at one time or another. Do you really want that happening on an interwebz scale?? No.