Lisa Tener

Book Writing Coach

Publishing Contract

Questions to Ask a Publisher and How to Negotiate a Publishing Contract

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your book writing coachAs we prepare for the final class of my Bring Your Book to Life® Program–a bonus call with literary agent Jody Rein–a participant sent in one of the most exciting questions you can imagine. A traditional publisher is interested in her book after reading the proposal. They had a few questions for clarification before bringing the book proposal to the editorial board.

She wanted to know what’s next. In particular, she wondered what questions to ask a publisher once you have a book offer in hand. Here are a few questions I recommended:

1. What’s their vision for the book? Are there things they would like to change? If so, what are they?

2. What will they do in terms of marketing the book?

3. Are they placing any limitations on how you can market and promote the book?

4. Do you, as author, have any say in title and cover design? How much?

There are other questions you will want answered–most of them will be spelled out in the contract, such as:

1. What is your advance and how will payments be distributed?

2. What is your royalty percentage and how is it calculated?  (Usually it’s 10% but make sure that’s on cover price or cover price minus transportation costs; if it’s on profit, you’ll likely never see a dime!)

3. Are there any bonuses in the contract when sales hit a certain target?

4. Who owns foreign rights, rights to other media? Who own copyright?

5. When is the final manuscript due?

6. What happens if the book goes out of print or the publisher goes out of business? Do the rights to publish revert to you?

I firmly encourage you not to negotiate any of this yourself. If you are going with a trade publisher, try to get an agent first. If you are going with a smaller publisher, an educational press or a professional press, it may be harder to get an agent (particularly for any book that has a smaller audience). In that case, hire an intellectual property attorney who has a good deal of experience negotiating book deals and they can negotiate a publishing contract for you.

book cover favorite child
Dr. Libby’s agent, Regina Brooks, negotiated for a longer turn around time for edits, among other things.

Quite a few of my clients have recently received an offer to publish with a traditional publisher  without having an agent and I have either found a literary agent whom I know well, who was willing to negotiate their contract or referred them to an IP attorney. Without such representation, it is too easy to end up stuck in a situation where you have little control over your fate–your book can go out of print, you might just not make any money, despite the book selling well, or you give away rights that an agent or attorney would have kept for you to negotiate at a later time (and likely with a different company).

Years ago, I worked with a client who gave her proposal to a colleague who sent it directly to a major publisher. The publisher immediately made her an offer and my client completely hit it off with the acquisitions editor.  She knew this was the person to bring her book into the world.

I strongly encouraged her to get an agent to negotiate a book deal. She felt uncomfortable and asked the acquisitions editor at the publishing house, “Should I get an agent?” Some publishers would have said no and had her sign a book contract that was written in favor of the publisher, but fortunately this publisher said, “Absolutely get an agent. That’s not the kind of relationship you have with me or want to have.”

I asked an agent colleague if she would represent this author and the agent even lowered her own percentage from 15% to 10% since she would not need to do the work of finding a publisher and would only need to negotiate a publishing contract. My client was amazed about how much more of an advance she got, in addition to other points of the contract that got negotiated. Another client shared with me how her agent negotiated for longer turn around times for editing–decreasing the amount of stress my client experienced in the revision process.

I have a colleague who did not have an agent or attorney to negotiate her first book deal. According to the contract, she would get 10% of profits. Guess what? After factoring in “fixed costs,” or overhead, the publisher was able to say that the book never made a profit. The author has published two other books since then and has never made that mistake again!

So, it’s fine to send a query and proposal to a publisher–particularly when you know that your book is unlikely to have a big enough audience to interest an agent (perhaps it’s a small niche market, for instance) or when the trade category is super competitive (a dating book or a diet book, for example) but there may be interest from a smaller or mid-sized publisher. Just be sure that when the offers do come in you, hire a professional to negotiate the publishing contract.

 

They’re Getting Book Deals: Find Out How

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Your Book Writing Coach
Your Book Writing Coach

I’m going to out and out brag here. July is shaping up to be an exciting month for my clients and we’re celebrating. Want to hear their secrets of success?

First, here’s the good news. In July alone:

– Three of my clients signed contracts and/or received offers from publishers for their books.

– Two other clients are in discussions with three major publishers each, including several in person meetings.

– Two others signed contracts with top agents.

So, what can we learn from these successful authors? What are they doing right in this market where people are saying it’s harder than ever to publish a book? Here’s what these seven authors have in common:

1. They’ve worked on their platforms. Some of them had powerful platforms to begin with, but many did not. They grew their platforms while writing their book proposals. They’ve done everything from subscribing to Help a Reporter Out (which is free) to PR Leads to starting a wordpress blog to tweeting.

Note that not all of them have huge mailing lists–some have gotten great pr (TV, radio, print, internet), some do a great deal of public speaking and some demonstrated the potential to take their public speaking to the next level–and that was enough because of the strength of other aspects of their proposal.

Dr. Terri Major-Kincade went straight to her target audience to get feedback throughout the process.
Dr. Terri Major-Kincade went straight to her target audience to get feedback throughout the proposal writing process for her upcoming book, Early Arrival: 10 Steps to Bonding with and Celebrating a Premature Baby.

2. They clearly thought about their market.  Several, including Dr. Terri Major Kincade, went to their potential audience directly and asked for feedback–what were readers looking for to solve their problem? What were the biggest challenges they faced? Which chapter titles worked for them? Which did not?

3. They performed a thorough comparison with other successful books on their subject. They focused on both what was similar to these bestsellers and what was different. They clearly demonstrated that their books had something unique to offer, something timely, catchy and compelling, and that their books also had much in common with bestsellers and very successful books.

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Dr. Eric Pfeiffer just signed a contract with Sunrise River Press for his book Happy, Healthy, and Wealthy: 14 Winning Strategies for Successful Aging. While he has impressive credentials, as founder of Suncoast Alzheimer’s and Gerontology Center, he still spent significant time establishing his platform and crafting his promotion plan in order to create an airtight proposal. He also included an extensive analysis of competing titles.

4. They demonstrated why they are the ones to write their books, because of their expertise, their interesting stories and the unique gifts they alone have to offer…and, yes, back to platform–many of them have a following.

5. They opened their proposal in a compelling way. You have to grab agents’ and publishers’ attention in your first paragraph or they probably won’t even read further. Ideally, in the first paragraph, the reader gets the sense that you have a highly marketable book concept, a good size market, a significant platform. Sometimes, it also works to start with a compelling story that draws the reader in.

Of course, this is just a starting point. To write a truly solid book proposal, you need a proper road map. I recommend Michael Larsen’s How to Write a Book Proposal for its winning format and specific details, as well as sample proposals, and Terry Whalin’s Book Proposals That Sell, for helping you get into an editor’s (publisher’s) mind.

What are your concerns about your book proposal? Ask your questions here. Or share why your book proposal got you a publishing contract or agent. And good luck with publishing your book.

Small Publisher or Work on My Platform & Hold Out for the Majors?

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What would you do in her shoes? Today I received an e-mail from a client asking me “writing coach” advice. I’ve changed a few details to protect her anonymity. It’s the kind of question you might be asking yourself, even if you don’t have a publisher yet.

“Lisa, I was offered a “direct” publishing contract for my book by a small independent publisher.  They were very excited about the book…(came to me through a friend) and though they don’t do a lot in my genre, they want to use my book to break into this market.

“They offered me a very small author’s advance ($16K).  My agent advised that I turn them down…and work to build my platform [national audience, mailing list, reach]– then go to a bigger, brand name publisher, where I might get better attention and more money.

“What do you think?  I’m torn…would love to get the book published and ‘out there’ … but also like the idea of getting a better known publisher behind me…even though this will take more time and effort on my part.”

My answer isn’t cut and dry.  Is $16K a bad advance? Not for a first book. In fact, a typical advance for a first book is around $3K – $4K. Could this author get a bigger advance? Yes. Is it worth waiting? Maybe. Let’s look at the issues: effort, money, timing.

Effort: Either way, she’ll need to build her platform– before or after the book deal–if she wants to sell books.  So the platform will need to be built. That effort remains equal.

In terms of effort to get books into bookstores, she needs to get a better sense of the sales force and past performance of this publisher. How big a run are they planning? How effective is their sales force? To whom does the sales force sell? Is it a match? If not, this author may have to spend alot of time trying to get her books in stores.

In terms of publicity, she can probably expect to expend equal effort with either publisher, but she shouldn’t assume that. She should ask the small press what they would do. Perhaps, if they want to get into this market, they’re willing to do more publicity than average.

Money: Yes, she could make more money with a big publisher, certainly in the short run with her advance.

Timing: Does she want to have the book out within a year? Will it help her reach other current goals, such more public speaking, more consulting clients? If so, the small press might be a good bet.

But if she wants to have a bestseller, she probably needs to focus on building her platform before the book comes out. Of course, even if she signs a contract today with the small press, she has some time before publishing to focus on building her platform. Yet the waiting strategy would probably provide time for a bigger, more solid platform.

What would you do in her shoes?

Literary Agents: Worth Their Weight in Gold

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Aspiring authors often ask me whether it’s important to have a literary agent. My answer, as an experienced writing coach, is always yes.  Recently, that answer really hit home when my client, Dr. Ellen Weber Libby, e-mailed me to say that her agent, Regina Brooks of Serendipity Literary Agency, had not only found her an ideal publisher, but had negotiated several unusual and important items in the contract.

But let me step back and tell you just one reason why it’s important to have an agent. Years ago, before I became a writing coach or even a published author, I took a class with Barbara Ganim, an expressive arts professor at Salve Regina University. Barbara has published many books, but her first made her no money, because she signed a contract that paid royalties on profits, not income from the book. Apparently, it’s easy to attribute all kinds of expenses to a book and never show a profit. She learned her lesson and found herself an agent to negotiate her contract for her subsequent books.

We actually did not have an agent on my first book, and it’s possible that a couple of missteps on the part of the publisher (printing dimensions and cover) would have been avoided had a literary agent been involved in the process.

There are several things Regina did for Dr. Libby, beginning with staying true to Dr. Libby’s vision. Dr. Libby envisioned a groundbreaking psychology book, something confirmed by several luminaries and old-timers in the field when they heard about her subject—the favorite child and its effect on different members of a family, the adult who was favorite, and society at large.

Regina sent the book to several publishers who expressed interest in this book, but they envisioned a self-help book for a large, mainstream audience. Dr. Libby was not interested in doing that. Says Regina, “I took my lead from Elly. She said she could do a follow up book that is self-help but that she first needed to define the favorite child complex and provide case studies. I saw that Prometheus was selling books in a similar vein and, sure enough, they were interested.”

Dr. Libby signed a publishing contract with Prometheus, and I was surprised by some of the things Regina was able to negotiate for her:

1. Regina says, “With all authors, I make sure they have consultation on cover design, cover copy, publicity materials, anything going out and representing their brand.” Regina negotiated an opportunity for the author to look at these materials before they went out.

2. Most publishers want immediate turnaround for any revisions to the manuscript. Prometheus wanted 72 hour turn around. Given Dr. Libby’s busy schedule with clients all week, that just wouldn’t work. Her literary agent negotiated an extended turnaround time.

3. The publisher also wanted the book sooner than the author felt she could deliver. Regina negotiated for a more suitable time frame for completing the book.

4. Another thing Regina negotiated was that, if the publisher was negotiating world rights, the publisher would be required to send the agent copies of the contract on behalf of author.

Many agents would have moved on in the beginning of the process when publishers weren’t seeing the same picture as the author, particularly since a psychology book won’t get nearly as high an advance or likely sell as many copies as a self-help book. Here’s where it’s important to have an agent who believes deeply in your project and wants to have a long term relationship with you (they’re not just thinking short-term).

Once you have a literary agent, it’s important to appreciate that person. Acknowledge them in your book and blog. Send them thank you notes!

Have a story of what your literary agent did for you? Please share it and thank them publicly! Post a comment on this writing blog.

Have a question about literary agents? Post it as a comment, too.

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