Category Archives: publishers

January 04, 2010   DG&B   advice, Lauren, publishers, queries, selling, submissions, what we're looking for  
9

Questions to ask yourself

by Lauren

Just came across this really handy item that SCBWI’s Kathy Temean posted on her blog: Top Ten Questions Dutton Editors Ask Themselves When Looking At A Manuscript.  Very useful for all writers, especially novelists, whichever market they write for and whether or not Dutton would be interested.  I recommend you consider these points about your own manuscript before you share it, because most of these are questions that’ll be asked down the line throughout the publishing process, in many cases all the way up to readers buying your book.

(via Janet Reid)

January 04, 2010   DG&B   e-books, future of publishing, Jane, opinion, optimism, publishers  
6

Three New Year’s Wishes

by Jane

Over the holiday, I thought long and hard about what I wish for our business in 2010 and here are three things I would love to see happen:

For those who believe the readers of electronic books are the same readers as for hard-copy books, let’s experiment and see. Try publishing both versions simultaneously and with another equally marketable title, publish the hardcover first and the electronic version 4 to 6 months later. It seems to me this is far more sensible than just speculating endlessly on the subject.

I hope that in 2010 editors will take more time to consider projects submitted to them. During the last year, perhaps because of the publishing economy, perhaps because of cutbacks in personnel and increased workloads, it seemed to me that editors were more than ever before “programmed” to say no. Many of them even admitted just sending the proposal back after reading the cover note because they were “sure” it wasn’t for them. Authors and agents work very hard on these proposals and consider carefully to whom they are submitting. If we are going to improve the quality of the books being published, editors need to take more time in considering the submissions they receive.

Finally, I hope the New Year brings a renewal of respect and collegiality in our business. In the last couple of years, for whatever reason, I have seen less of both between author and agent, publisher and author, and even among peers within the industry. If our business is to survive, we have to communicate better, more honestly and more respectfully with each other.

I wish all of you a prosperous 2010–may it be filled with peace, good health and lots of bestselling books.

December 15, 2009   DG&B   Authors Guild, e-books, future of publishing, Jim, Miriam, opinion, publishers, subsidiary rights  
3

E-book rights wars are on!

by Miriam

Continuing the theme of Jim’s post yesterday, the e-book rights wars are on! Clearly Markus Dohle’s announcement that Random House has a retroactive claim on electronic rights that weren’t in existence when certain of their contracts were signed (as well as your grandma’s china and your first-born), has raised quite a stir in some circles–authors, agents, people who don’t like legal documents manipulated to mean whatever a powerful corporation decides they mean…

As PW reports, the Authors Guild is, rightly, miffed about this power play by one of the industry’s biggest players, not just because of the immediate implication to RH authors but because of the precedent such a move may set.

My sense is that Mr. Dohle’s move will not have legal legs to stand on and will engender a great deal of ill will within the publishing community. What do you all think?

December 14, 2009   DG&B   e-books, future of publishing, Jim, opinion, publishers, subsidiary rights  
7

Random House’s e-book rights grab

by Jim

The Wall Street Journal has an article on a letter that Random House CEO Markus Dohle sent out to agents on Friday. In the letter, Dohle casually mentioned his belief that Random House owns the digital rights to their entire backlist. Slow down, Smokey!

There’s a reason that almost all good publishing contracts include language that rights which are not specifically being acquired are reserved to the author. That language was placed there for the author’s protection specifically in the event of developments like electronic publishing technology—forms that couldn’t be foreseen at the time of the contract’s initial signing.

To say that electronic rights are suddenly included in the phrase “book form” is disingenuous. If that’s the case, why did later contracts go on to specifically list electronic publishing rights as negotiable terms in addition to the printed book rights? It’s also impossible to argue that ebooks were considered part of traditional book rights well before they were even a twinkle in Amazon’s eye.

We’re seeing a lot of publishers engaging in these sorts of rights grabs now and a lot of them are using semantics to pretend they’ve always had rights that were not, in fact, included in the purview of the original contract. And it isn’t just limited to ebooks. It makes sense that in times of economic troubles, publishers will be trying to hold onto absolutely every potential source of income that they can. But that doesn’t make it right or acceptable.

There’s a whole lot more conversation that’s a’comin’ on this one. Stay tuned.

December 11, 2009   DG&B   e-books, future of publishing, Lauren, Miriam, opinion, publishers  
1

Power, not sales

by Lauren

Adding to the discussion of e-book pricing earlier this week, the always insightful Mike Shatzkin of The IdeaLogical Blog rethinks the controversy and comes to the conclusion that the move to delay e-books is not about fear of cannibalizing hardcover sales (which, as Miriam argued, does not sound like an effective strategy) but about wresting control of the future of e-books from Amazon. Publishers cannot collude on e-book pricing legally, and thus far Amazon has been in charge of the whole shebang. But if publishers withhold product, they take back some of the power from retailers and put it back in their own (and, as an extension, the authors’) hands, not just on those specific books, but for the future. I’m still thinking this through, but I’m intrigued by the argument, and I’ve long agreed with many people that we as an industry have been heading down a dangerous path here—one that puts publishers at risk in the same way MP3s damaged music studios that underestimated and responded poorly to a change in the way their world worked. So what do you think? Is Shatzkin giving the publishers too much credit here for the hidden agenda, or is it a very savvy move that’s been a long time coming? Or, alternatively, is this as nonsensical as doing it for fears of siphoning sales?

November 30, 2009   DG&B   editor/agent lunches, future of publishing, Jane, opinion, publishers  
4

Cutting expenses effectively

by Jane

Recently I learned that a major publisher was severely limiting the amount each of their editors could spend taking agents to lunch. And then there was another major publisher who eliminated editor/agent lunches for a month at a time and cut all T & E expenses in a significant way. Finally, there are those publishers who have totally eliminated the editor/agent lunch.

I have to ask why, in a business that is really a “people” business they chose to do this? For decades the editor/agent, editor/author lunch was where real work got done. Ideas were exchanged and concepts were developed. Indeed, I know that many great books resulted from these relatively inexpensive forays.

At the same time as these lunches have been cut out (or cut way back), publishers still continue to:

  • Send significant contingents to enormously expensive international book fairs, some traveling first class.
  • Use town cars to travel to and from appointments.
  • Insist upon delivering signature contracts in the mail or even by messenger rather than electronically.
  • Send covers by hand rather than as jpegs.
  • Fed-ex documents and books hundreds of times weekly (a publisher I spoke to recently told me this).
  • Keep their lights on overnight.
  • Use messenger services to return proposals and manuscripts which have originally been e-mailed to them.
  • And, of course, cut very good personnel from their staffs.

My question is why? Why not change all of these things immediately so that exciting new book ideas and important relationships can develop again? Yes, over lunch. 
 
Can you think of any other ways publishers can cut current expenses to enable them to operate more efficiently and less expensively without costing them the creative exchange of ideas our business depends on?
November 19, 2009   DG&B   e-books, future of publishing, Michael, opinion, publishers, self-publishing  
12

Blurring the lines

by Michael

Yesterday, Harlequin announced their new Harlequin Horizons program, a joint venture with Author Solutions, “the world’s leading self-publisher.” Basically, you can now pay to have your unpublished romance novel published by Harlequin…Horizons. The reaction from authors, both aspiring and those published by Harlequin, has been fairly negative.

What seems to concern published authors the most is that this new venture actually uses the Harlequin name, and that associating Harlequin with self-publishing will hurt the brand. I’m not sure how legitimate this is, only because those self-published books aren’t going to be popping up at B&N or Borders any time soon. The Harlequin brand will still mean something to buyers. And as they’ve said, the books will have their own HH branding.

My personal concern, and one that is shared by unpublished authors, is about what seems like a conflict of interest. Are we moving to a place where authors will have to pay to play? In the follow-up FAQ to their original announcement, they say, “All standard/form/template rejection letters will include a short note about Harlequin Horizons as a self-publishing option for the aspiring author.” And in the first announcement, they describe Horizons as, “an innovative and original approach to discovering new authors to add to our traditional publishing programs.” It’s hard to say exactly how all of this will work until they start operating, but I’m very wary of this idea.

How do you feel about this? Is this just the future of publishing that we all have to deal with?

UPDATE:
Harlequin has sent out an announcement that they’ll be changing the name of their self-publishing program to something without “Harlequin” in the title.  The power of the internet at work.  Doesn’t quite solve the conflict of interest problem, though…

November 16, 2009   DG&B   advice, deals, future of publishing, Jane, opinion, optimism, publishers, selling  
11

Big books

by Jane

I don’t know why I still find it astonishing when publishers tell me they are “only looking for big books,” that mid-list titles aren’t on their radar. How do they know what’s going to be a big book?

This last week, when I called an editor to follow up on a proposal I sent him–by a Pulitzer Prize winning writer no less–he told me how much he had enjoyed reading it. He then said that the new president of his company had told all of the editors there that, for the time being at least, all they should be looking for was “big, front list” titles. But how do they know what “big front list” is?

Think about it, there are literally hundreds of books that were seriously underestimated by publishers but that turned into huge bestsellers. Here is a brief list that I hope that editor and his new boss will note:

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by Mitch Albom
THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant
SAY YOU’RE ONE OF THEM by Uwem Akpan
COD: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE FISH THAT SAVED THE WORLD by Mark Kurlansky
THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini
SIMPLE ABUNDANCE by Sarah Ban Breathnach
EAT, PRAY, LOVE by Elizabeth Gilbert
THE MEMORY KEEPER’S DAUGHTER by Kim Edwards
THE SHACK by William P. Young
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester
LONGITUDE by Dava Sobel
THE NANNY DIARIES by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
THE WORLD WITHOUT US by Alan Weisman
SEABISCUIT by Laura Hillenbrand

Can you think of more?

November 05, 2009   DG&B   Chasya, debut fiction, favorites, fun, publishers, selling  
8

Attention, Authors: John Irving sympathizes

A word–via Big Think–from one of my favorite authors, John Irving, on the challenges of getting published today. Tempted to shoot yourself, John? Hyperbole much? In any case, writers, he feels your pain.

-Chasya

August 27, 2009   DG&B   Michael, opinion, publishers, selling  
16

In Response to "In Response to "In Response to [My Previous Post]""

First, my thanks to Cheryl for starting an interesting conversation that seems to be resonating with editors, agents and authors. I’m enjoying the discussion!

Last night, Cheryl responded to my response here.

I think my issue with the proposal remains the same, though Cheryl is quite right that this enterprising editor making an offer after a few days wasn’t following the terms. Without every agent and every editor following these guidelines, I think we run into some major issues. Say I do give everyone four weeks before accepting offers. If another agent comes along with another great project without that limit, my client’s material will fall to the bottom of the pile to accommodate the no-time-limit project. And again, unless everyone is participating in the proposal, procrastination will reign and the material won’t get read until the end of week four. The fact that someone else might scoop something up is often what makes an editor pick up a manuscript in the first place. While I truly believe that Cheryl would give priority to such manuscripts (she wouldn’t have proposed it, otherwise), I can’t say that I think other editors would react in the same way.

Also, and I’d love to hear from other agents on this, sometimes we DO wait for editors. Sometimes the offer on the table isn’t quite what we were looking for, or another editor pleads for more time. My experience suggests that the editor who needs more time usually doesn’t wind up coming to the table. Their lack of speed in getting to the project often indicates an ambivalence or disinterest. Also in my experience — only once has an editor told me they couldn’t make it to an auction I held because they didn’t have enough time. She explained that she’d really need to get someone from paperbacks to read, because the book was rather literary for them. And you know what? It was too literary for them, and they wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) have acquired it, anyway.

(It’s important now to point out to the authors reading: most books don’t sell at auction, and this isn’t an every day issue. Most offers aren’t made in 48 or 72 or even 168 hours! This is a rare, exciting, you-can-only-dream-of scenario.)

All of this said, I really do want all interested parties to have enough time to come to the table if they’d like to. I want an author to be able to see all of the options, to speak with the offering editors, and to make an informed decision about who would best publish their book. I do not want to generate a feeding frenzy based on hype, as I think most of us can agree that it’s bad for both author and publisher. Though I’m going to continue to submit as always, I do hope I can hold out long enough to have a project land with Cheryl soon. As you’ve probably figured out, she’s brilliant and thoughtful, and she cares deeply for the books she works on. (Speaking of which, please read Marcello in the Real World by Francisco Stork, which she gave me the ARC for some time back when we had lunch — you won’t regret it!) Thanks again, Cheryl!

– Michael

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