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Agents and publishers spend a lot of time creating subtitles. In fact, if you were to measure how many man- and woman-hours go into the process you would say they spend an inordinate amount of time in these deliberations. I say "deliberations" but as often as not they are debates, and some of them turn into donnybrooks with noses bent far out of shape and people not talking to each other. Publishing folks take subtitles seriously, and we advise you to do the same.
There is a lot at stake. A confusing or amorphous title desperately needs to be sharpened and focused with the help of a handful of explanatory words. But subtitles are not merely any words. They have to be perfect words. Subtitles are not composed so much as they are distilled like acid so that every syllable etches an indelible impression in the mind of a customer gazing at a stack of books. A word out of place can well mean a sale lost.
Though subtitles are usually worked out in a dialogue between editor and author, the influence of the publisher's sales representatives is always in the room. The question What the hell does the title mean? coming from a sales rep is a command to go back and come up with a better one.
These remarks are prompted by a blog by Robert McCrum in London's Guardian.co.uk urging publishers to drop subtitles altogether. McCrum is incensed that the publisher of John Carey's biography of William Golding felt compelled to add this subtitle: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies.
McCrum waxes positively bilious over the spineless editorial crew that came up with that one. "Picture the scene at Faber & Faber," he writes. "Carey's manuscript has been delivered, and the book is in production. Then, at some routine sales meeting, the worm of doubt starts to creep in. Up pops some bright young spark. Excuse me, says the BYS, I'm not sure that some of our younger readers will actually know who William Golding is. I mean, he's been, like, dead since 1993, and most of his books are out of print." The fact that Golding won a Nobel Prize for Literature and his masterpiece is required reading at countless colleges does not seem to have assured the publisher that readers will identify him without having to be hammered on their heads.
That's why McCrum wants to do away with subtitles entirely. "The truth is, if you have to justify your book with a subtitle, the game is up," he says. "Buyers pay scant attention to them; librarians and bibliographers often forget to catalogue them. They linger only as fig leaves of authorial shame. Who now remembers, or cares, that George Orwell's Animal Farm bears the subtitle A Fairy Tale, or that Herman Melville's Moby Dick was also known as The Whale?"
Author and English professor Ben Yagoda agrees with McCrum. In 2005 he published an article on the subject for the New York Times Book Review section. "Nobody really notices subtitles," he wrote. "They are a sort of lottery ticket in the economics of nonfiction book marketing. Publishers throw all kinds of elements in them - vogue words and phrases, features of the book the title didn't get around to mentioning, talismanic locutions like 'An American Life' - in the (almost always) vain hope that something will pay off." In fact he thinks the convention has become a crutch for publishers: "What's changed recently is that the subtitle has been asked to bear ever more weight. So many books are published nowadays that each one needs to proclaim its own merits; and with advertising budgets shaved away to nothing, the task falls to subtitles. As a result, they have become ubiquitous, hyperbolic and long... Once you've read the cover of 'Shadow Divers:The True Adventures of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II', is there really any need to crack open the book?"
On the other hand, some subtitles dare you to resist cracking open the book. I'm thinking of The Bad Guys Won! by Jeff Pearlman. He follows that title with a veritable millipede of a sub: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball With Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put On a New York Uniform, and Maybe the Best. We dare any sports fan to pass that one by without at least picking it up.
If you think today's subtitles are long and convoluted, read Yagoda's The Subtitle That Changed America and discover some historical predecessors (including the one for Robinson Crusoe pictured above) that cannot be uttered in a single breath. You will also match the following book subtitles to titles:
The Story of a Man of Character
The Ambiguities
A Novel Without a Hero
The Modern Prometheus
Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love
A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
After a recent bruising negotiation with an author over trimming his 22 word subtitle, I definitely agree with Yagoda's conclusion: "I miss the time, not so long ago, when it was possible for a book to go out into the world with only a strong title followed by a few hundred pages of outstanding writing."
Richard Curtis
Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times.
Authors: Are Your Readers Zoning Out on You? It May Not Be Your Fault
Like many publishing professionals I've trained myself to step outside of my mind while I read a manuscript and monitor the intensity of my involvement in the work. In a perfect reading experience my disbelief, in the famous phrase of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, will be willingly suspended from beginning to end and I will never become conscious that there is a world outside of the one I am reading about. Unfortunately, perfect reading experiences are as rare as perfect experiences in every other field of endeavor.
And so, sooner or later as I turn the pages of a manuscript, I will become aware of a police siren or the sound of a television program in the next room, and the spell of the book I'm reading will be broken. If it's a good book I'll plunge back in and soon lose myself again. If it isn't, my monitor will sound with growing frequency. I will make a mental note of the places where my attention flagged so that I can help the author analyze where he or she lost me.
Non-professional readers - the public at large, that is - may not have the same powers of self-observation, but they have little trouble speaking up when a book fails to hold their attention. "Boring." "Couldn't finish it." "Put it down, never picked it up again."
In most cases the responsibility for failure to keeping readers interested rests with the author. But not always. An article by Carl Zimmer in Discover magazine informs us that distractability is far more normal than we may realize. Zimmer cites an experiment conducted by a team of University of California Santa Barbara psychologists led by Jonathan Schooler. The test had to do with a book, and not just any book: "In 2005 he and his colleagues told a group of undergraduates to read the opeing chapters of War and Peace on a computer monitor and then to tap a key whenever they realized they were not thinking about what they were reading. On average, the students reported that their minds wantered 5.4 times in a 45-minute session."
Wandering minds are one things, but zoning out completely is quite another. Here's what Schooler and his colleagues discovered:
"Schooler and Smallwood, along with Merrill McSpadden of the University of British Columbia, tested the effect of zoning out by having a test group read a Sherlock Holmes mystery in which a villain used a pseudonym. As people were reading the passages discussing this fact, the researchers checked their state of attentiveness. Just 30 percent of the people who were zoning out at the key moments could give the villain’s pseudonym, while 61 percent of the people who weren’t zoning out at those moments succeeded."
One of the most striking discoveries repoat imbibing a moderate amount of alcohol actually sharpened concentration. However, before you reach for the vodka bottle, note that there is evidence that a wandering mind offers many significant benefits. "The regions of the brain that become active during mind wandering belong to two important networks," Zimmer explains. "One is known as the executive control system. Located mainly in the front of the brain, these regions exert a top-down influence on our conscious and unconscious thought, directing the brain’s activity toward important goals."
"The other regions belong to another network called the default network. In 2001 a group led by neuroscientist Marcus Raichle at Washington University discovered that this network was more active when people were simply sitting idly in a brain scanner than when they were asked to perform a particular task. The default network also becomes active during certain kinds of self-referential thinking, such as reflecting on personal experiences or picturing yourself in the future."
So, next time you find your mind drifting off while reading a book, it is appropriate for you to ask yourself whether it's the author's fault for failing to keep you involved; or is it, rather, just you reflecting on a matter of great importance or solving a problem you couldn't master before you started reading.
Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by Discover magazine.
Asked to Donate Work for Nothing, Artists Flip Google the Bird
"I should do a freebie for Google? What's the matter, do they have a tin cup and an eye patch on the street? F**K NO!"
Though none of the artists solicited to donate their work for nothing to Google Chrome actually said that, they might well have paraphrased Harlan Ellison's foaming-at-the-mouth rant against Warner Bros. and all other corporate patrons that think they're doing writers and artists a favor by displaying their work.
Canadian-based illustrator Gary Taxali's written response to Google was slightly more printable than Ellison's, but the writer would certainly agree with the graphic one issued by the artist (left). Here's what Taxali had to say:
DON’T CALL ME In the last little while, there has been a MAJOR backslide in the industry. Poor rates have been an issue for a while but things are becoming worse. Clients fees are getting even lower and the rights theyre demanding are even higher.
You want examples? How about SWATCH calling me and asking me to design a watch. They wanted a complete transfer of copyright for a paltry fee. As if thats going to happen. Google calls me and wants my work for their new search engine all over the web, the fee? Nothing. Editorial clients are slashing 1999s fees almost in half and citing the bad economy as an excuse. You know what? My excuse is that the economy is bad so you have to pay me MORE for an illustration. Hows that for an economic stimulus package?
So heres to every client with shitty fees and terms. Do not waste my time or contact me. I am very busy working with clients who respect artists and youre wasting my time with your solicitations. So for you, I give you a special salute that I hope will keep you away because I dont need your work.
According to Andrew Adam Newman writing in the New York Times about the Taxali-inspired uprising, his posting on Drawger "drew more than 200 responses, many from other illustrators who also had rejected Google’s offer." Newman quotes another illustrator, Brian Stauffer, who also turned Google down. “When a company like Google comes out very publicly and expects that the market would just give them free artwork, it sets a very dangerous precedent.”
Sadly, there are plenty of artists who need the exposure and will take Google up on its offer.
And of course, Google may feel it needs an eye patch and tin cup. It only squeaked by the first quarter of 2009 with a $1.42 billion profit.
Richard Curtis PS: This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times. I want to acknowledge the newspaper's invaluable contribution. A free society cannot endure without its newspapers. We must strive to find a way to rescue the industry. Until then the least that caring individuals can do is buy a paper on the street or purchase a subscription. Support the New York Times.
My Life in Titles, or The Title Game, or Adventures of a Title Maven, or Titles: The Writer’s Indispensable Tool, or What’s in a Title?, or...
Among the immortal literary classics to be found on the bookshelves of every civilized person are such books as Trimalchio in West Egg, My Valley, Pumphre, and Tom-All-Alone’s the Ruined House.
Do you mean to say you’ve never heard of them?
Actually, those were the titles before the author or publisher thought better of them. You undoubtedly know them as The Great Gatsby, East of Eden, Babbitt, and Bleak House. It’s hard to know whether they would have endured despite their dreadful original titles, but it does make us wonder. In fact, book editor and author Andre Bernard wondered so much about titles that he produced a whole book about them, Now All We Need Is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way.
The first problem most authors face when commencing a book or story is what to call it. Many writers cannot start writing until the question of title is settled, for among its many functions, the title helps an author focus on the point of his tale, its theme, mood, tone of voice, and the nature of the audience that will be reading it. Each version of the title of this article represents a different solution to the challenge of how to approach this subject. Do I play it straight or cute? Grimly academic, pedantically classical, or cleverly metaphorical? Luckily, for purposes of illustration, I was able to use all of them. I doubt if we shall see such an opportunity again in our lifetime.
I am a connoisseur of very few things, but I do consider myself one on the subject of book titles. It is certainly not a form of expertise I deliberately set out to develop. But even if you have a tin ear, over decades of immersion you do become something of a maven in this sub-sub-sub-species of literary endeavor.
There are worse things one could be. The first impression you form of a book is the one evoked by its title, and its impact on you is no less significant than the one you form upon first setting your eye on a stranger. Your bond with a book commences with its title: your mind and heart are subliminally conditioned by a title to anticipate the book’s message and respond to its contents.
The title of a book is its most important sales feature; you are often intrigued or put off by its title long before you see its cover, study its jacket blurbs, or browse through its contents to decide whether or not you want to purchase it. It is therefore not hyperbolic to suggest that many consumers make their decision to buy a book or pass it up on the strength or weakness of its title. Perhaps you can't tell a book by its cover, but by its title? I think you can.
Little wonder, then, that authors, editors, and agents spend an inordinate time seeking les mots justes for the titles of their books. I keep a file of terrific titles for which no books have yet been written, and when a client complains about being stumped for one, I haul out my list and see if I can make a match. When I was a freelance writer, I collaborated with Elizabeth Hogan on a Doubleday book describing the dangers of nuclear power plants that were then beginning to proliferate in the United States. We took our title from Robert Frost’s poem "Fire and Ice": Those Who Favor Fire. We thought it was a brilliant choice.
Doubleday’s sales reps didn’t. Every publishing company sales department has a Vice President in Charge of Rejecting Great Titles and Substituting Mediocre Ones, and that’s how our book ended up being called Perils of the Peaceful Atom.
The original title went into my Terrific Titles file, however, and when, years later, my client Marta Randall turned in an apocalyptic novel for which she lacked an appropriate title, I resuscitated Those Who Favor Fire and suggested it to her, and this time it passed muster.
Actually, it’s not fair to make fun of the sales reps, for it is they after all who have to go out and sell the book to the accounts. If a sales rep is not confident that your title makes an immediate and forceful impact on the buyers – which translates into lost commissions for him – he is going to lobby his publisher to get it changed.
And what for authors is an inspired title may be seen in a very different light by the sales grunts slugging it out on the front line. Among the most common complaints publishers hear from sales reps are vagueness (“What the hell does Attitudes mean”?), insipidness (“Alien Attackers sounds like a million other science fiction novels”), and inappropriateness (“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance sounds like it should go in the how-to section of a bookstore”). Sales reps are therefore the conservative party in any publisher’s legislature, and they usually control a majority vote. But if I love a title enough I will fight like a devil for it, even with my own authors. In 1984 my clients psychiatrist Stanley Turecki, M.D. and co-author Leslie Tonner delivered to Bantam Books a contracted book advising parents how to understand and manage particularly difficult children. The authors and I had spent a long Saturday poring over Bibles, Bartlett’s, and other reference books, and had at last distilled a splendid title drop by drop: Parents Under Siege.
It did not pass muster with Bantam’s Vice President in Charge of Rejecting Great Titles, and we ended up with – well, what else? – The Difficult Child. Talk about difficult children, I was so bitterly disappointed I almost threw a tantrum. But the sales department felt that there are times when a title should simply state, without poetic flourish, what a book is about, and this was one of them. We ultimately acceded to this line of reasoning, and several dozen printings later I must grudgingly admit that Sales had a good point. (In the 1996 edition of my book How to Be Your Own Literary Agent, in which this essay was published, I wrote, “If you’ve written a book for which the title Parents Under Siege is appropriate, take it, it’s yours.” I don’t know if authors James Garbarino and Claire Bedard read this invitation, but in 2001 they brought out a book with that every title.)
Brilliant titles are not always desirable, however, and may actually hurt sales if they point the potential book buyer in the wrong direction. This is particularly true in genre fiction. Every category of books has what might be described as its own characteristic title “profile,” a word or phrase that blatantly declares the book’s genre. An obvious example is detective fiction, where you have The Case of the . . . or something with the words “murder” or “death” in it. Although these catch phrases have become clichés, they help everybody down the line, from editors to bookstore buyers to consumers, to immediately classify the book and make the selection process easier. The title, in other words, is a key element of the package, and guarantees the slot in which the book is to be displayed. A title that deviates too far from its appropriate genre can be a liability, no matter how clever or mellifluous it may be. If you don’t think you’ve been mentally conditioned to respond to titles, take any mainstream title and marry it to a genre formula one and you’ll see what I mean. Pretend you’re a bookstore clerk and determine in which department you would display the following:
The Valley of the Dolls Sanction The Dragons of Valley of the Dolls Dollsworld Showdown at Valley of the Dolls Mistress of Dollsvale Love’s Virginal Valley of the Dolls The Dollsdale Horror A Woman of Uncertain Valley of the Dolls Murder on the Rue Valley of the Dolls
It works for nonfiction, too:
The Valley of the Dolls Syndrome Tighten Up Your Valley of the Dolls The Thirty-Day Valley of the Dolls Slimdown
Even in mainstream literature, titles can give confusing and misleading impressions, and the results can be funny. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance really did get placed on how-to shelves, and the New York Times once ran an apology for referring to Evan Connell’s biography of Custer, Son of the Morning Star, as a novel. If you didn’t know better, you might very well place on the wrong shelves such ambiguously titled books as, Exit the Rainmaker, White Mischief, and The Dancing Wu Li Masters. It’s no laughing matter when these mix-ups cause lost sales, however.
Like everything else in modern culture, titles tend to go in and out of fashion. The revolutionary ’60s temporarily loosened strictures against long titles and book authors took their cue from the stage. Plays like Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Momma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad, and The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the- Moon Marigolds had lengthy runs despite jawbreaking titles, and authors and publishers tried the same on books. Which is how we ended up with titles like, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. The problem with titles longer than five words, however, is that they crowd the cover and must be reduced to an unacceptably small typeface. The counterrevolution restored short titles, and many best-selling authors went on to employ one-word titles to good effect. There's nothing like Jaws or Roots to instill confidence in succinct titles!
Juvenile and young adult titles have become particularly inventive in the last few years, and it seems that the wackier they are, the more the kids love them. No more Treasure Island and Little Women for today’s boys and girls. They want Jelly Belly, There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom, Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang, Hershell Cobwell and the Miraculous Tattoo, How to Eat Fried Worms, Wonder Kid Meets the Lunch Snatcher, Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice?, The Alfred G. Graebner Memorial High School Handbook of Rules and Regulations, and the like.
Every publisher’s dream is to have a book that sells by the truckload on the strength of its title alone. Of course, it’s impossible to know with any accuracy what attracts buyers to a book. After reading The One Minute Manager or Swim with the Sharks, you may wonder whether the contents lived up to the brilliance of the titles. But you probably plunked money down at a bookstore to find out.
Most lucrative of all is the title that starts a copycat fad, such as 101 Uses for a Dead Cat, Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche, and Thin Thighs in Thirty Days. For years after publication of those books, publishers brought out variants on the titles to take advantage of the public’s infatuation. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the ripoff titles merely fueled the success of the original ones. Patricia Matthews’s romance Love’s Avenging Heart launched a veritable flood of Love’s Something Somethings that did not subside for years.
Nonfiction writers are luckier than novelists because they often get a second chance in the form of a subtitle. If your title is a bit poetic or obscure, don’t worry, your subtitle will correct any ambiguities. What does Final Cut mean? It could signify anything until you couple it with author Steven Bach’s subtitle: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of “Heaven’s Gate.” Similarly, Merle Miller’s Plain Speaking doesn’t give one a clear idea of his book’s contents until you couple it with its subtitle, An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman. Note that after you read the subtitle, your attention returns to the basic title, and you are now able to understand and appreciate it much better.
For authors struggling to come up with a good title, I advise you to make a long list of words and phrases that have any bearing, however remote, on your story. Some of these may come from the text itself: a description of your hero or heroine, a reference to the plot, theme, or action. Mix and match words until you arrive at the precise formula. If your title doesn’t jump out at you, go through your thesaurus for related words that might be more felicitous than the ones on your list. Or use the index of your Bartlett’s to locate passages in classical literature that succinctly, cogently, and lyrically evoke the appropriate image of your book.
Titling is an essential element of the writer’s craft and requires as much thought as plotting and characterization. Some authors do have a special genius for it, however. I have, for instance, always admired Gregory Benford’s ability to select monumental titles that capture the stupendous profundity of his stories of time and space: In the Ocean of Night, Beyond the Sea of Suns, Timescape, Against Infinity. You read his titles and you know this writer is grappling with nothing less than imponderables, immutables, and ultimates. If you are a romance fan you may find Janelle Taylor’s titles fatally irresistible: First Love Wild Love, Whispered Kisses, Sweet Savage Heart, Passions Wild and Free. The titles of Father Andrew Greeley’s books guarantee that you will be witnessing the torments of sinners: Thy Brother’s Wife, Patience of a Saint, The Cardinal Sins. And John Saul’s titles portend suspenseful tales of creepy kids: Suffer the Children, The Unloved, The Unwanted, When the Wind Blows. Some authors get a lot of mileage out of a title. Lawrence Sanders went through all the deadly sins for his titles, James Patterson through nursery rhymes, and Harry Kemelman’s mystery titles lured readers from one day of the week to another, starting with Friday, the Rabbi Slept Late.
Our love of great books is often enhanced by the great titles that go with them. How Green Was My Valley, From Here to Eternity, East of Eden, Crime and Punishment, One Hundred Years of Solitude, King Solomon’s Mines, Forever Amber, The Magic Mountain, Lord of the Flies – how often are unforgettable titles married to unforgettable books!
If, try as you may, you simply can’t come up with an apt title for your book, don’t despair, you’re in good company. Margaret Mitchell had a hard time coming up with anything more engaging than Tomorrow Is Another Day for her novel of the Civil War. Luckily, a better one did occur to her before the book went into production.
Copyright Asteroid Hurtling Toward Earth, Impact Due 2013
Evan Schnittman observed it as a smear of light on the fringe of our galaxy, but it took media guru Mike Shatzkin to fully articulate its significance. And significant it is, a possible game-changer in the internecine struggle among authors, publishers, and Google. It has to do with a little-known provision of the US Copyright Act of 1978.
Schnittman, a Vice President of Business Development and Rights for Oxford University Press, mentioned it almost as an afterthought at the end of "There Will Be Disintermediation", the final installment of a brilliant three part analysis in his Black Plastic Glasses website. "Mark your calendars, folks," he declares, "the disintermediation begins on January 1, 2013. What happens on January 1, 2013? See for yourself in the US Copyright Act of 1978, section 203. {…Termination of the grant may be effected at any time during a period of five years beginning at the end of thirty-five years from the date of execution of the grant…}" [bold print is Schnittman's.]
"What if this change," asks Schnittman, "was so significant that it could possibly even spawn an industry wide reset of the way we do things?" He leaves us panting for an answer, and Shatzkin provides it:
"It turns out there is a clause in the 1978 copyright law that allows any author to reclaim any copyright despite any contract with a publisher, simply by serving notice. The copyright can be reclaimed no less than 35 years and no more than 40 years from the book’s original publication. So books published in 1978 can be reclaimed by their authors from 2013-2018.".
"One wonders" Shatzkin ruminates, "how many agents are aware of this law and are preparing for it."
Actually many agents have been aware of it for years, and a number have invoked it. It's commonly referred to as the "Widows and Orphans Provision," because it entitles immediate family members to recover from publishers or certain derivative licensees (like movie companies) the copyrights to works published by a deceased author. (Don't worry, men, widowers are included!) What some agents may not be aware of is that an author doesn't have to be dead for the reclamation to take place; he or she simply has to live long enough to take advantage of the provision. For books licensed to publishers after January 1, 1978, the law is effective "thirty-five years from the date of publication of the work under the grant or at the end of forty years from the date of execution of the grant, whichever term ends earlier."
What surprises Shatzkin is that Article 203 has not come up in discussions about the Google Settlement, and we owe him and Schnittman a debt of gratitude for placing it on the table.
Until recently we'd have said that (except for a small number of evergreen backlist books) most titles coming up for reclamation under the Act are worth little or nothing. But with Google's push to monetize old books, even moribund ones may have value either to their authors, their publishers, or Google. As Shatzkin puts it, for some old books "it looks like a new payday has been set up."
For the full text of Article 203 of the 1978 Copyright Act, click here.
For the first edition of my book How To Be Your Own Literary Agent I produced a down-and-dirty precis of book contract terms, "Is It a Good Deal?" This synopsis was intended for use as a handy reference when immediate action is called for, such as a surprise phone call with an offer from a publisher to whom you submitted your manuscript so long ago you'd forgotten about it. I urged authors to practice reading the guidelines with one hand cupped over the telephone receiver while their family jumps up and down shrieking, "They’re buying the book! They’re buying the book!"
Since then I've received many calls and emails from authors thanking me for this synopsis, but here's the odd thing. Since 1983, when the first edition was published, I've scarcely changed a thing! Sure, I added electronic rights to one of the updates. I also raised the bar a notch for trade and mass market paperback royalties, reflecting a shift (I'm happy to report) from a buyer's market to a seller's.
But advances? Each time my publisher requested an update (the most recent was 2003) I was asked if advances had risen since 1983. The answer was no. And here, 26 years later, that's still my answer and I'm sticking to it.
Read the summary below and then let's talk.
Richard Curtis ********************* Hardcover
A Poor Hardcover Deal
Publisher gets world rights in all languages.
Publisher controls movie, television, electronic and multimedia rights.
Advance under $5000.
Royalties under 10 percent on first 5000 copies sold, 12 1/2 percent on next 5000, 15 percent thereafter.*
Publisher gets more than 25 percent of British and translation licensing revenue.
Publisher gets more than 10 percent of first-serial, movie, television, and multimedia revenue.
Publisher gets more than 50 percent of reprint, electronic, book-club, and other primary subsidiary-rights revenue.
* All royalties in these examples are based on the list price of the book. If your publisher’s royalty structure is based on net receipts instead of list prices, double the royalty percentages given here. In other words, a 10% royalty based on the list price should be a 20% royalty based on the net.
A Fair hardcover Deal
Publisher gets English-language rights in United States, its territories and possessions, Philippine Islands, and Canada.
Publisher does not control movie, television, electronic and multimedia rights. Publisher may control first-serial, British, and foreign-translation rights if author has no agent. Otherwise, these are reserved by author.
Advance between $5000 and $10,000.
Royalties at least 10 percent on first 5000 copies sold, 12 1/2 percent on next 5000, 15 percent thereafter.
If publisher does control first-serial rights, it gets no more than 10 percent of revenue.
If publisher does control British and foreign-translation rights, it gets no more than 25 percent of revenue.
Publisher does not participate in movie, television, electronic or multimedia revenue.
Publisher gets no more than 50 percent of reprint, book-club, and other subsidiary-rights revenue.
A Good Hardcover Deal
Publisher gets English-language rights in United States, its territories and possessions, Philippine Islands, and Canada.
Publisher does not control movie, television, electronic and multimedia rights. Publisher may control first-serial, British, and foreign-translation rights if author has no agent. Otherwise these are reserved by author.
Advance over $10,000.
Royalties better than 10 percent on first 5000 copies sold, 12 1/2 percent on next 5000, 15 percent thereafter.
If publisher does control first-serial rights, it gets no more than 10 percent of revenue, and passes author’s share to author upon publisher’s receipt.
If publisher does control British and foreign-translation rights, it gets no more than 25 percent of revenue, and passes author’s share to author upon publisher’s receipt.
Publisher does not participate in movie, television, electronic or multimedia revenue.
Publisher gets less than 50 percent of reprint, book-club, and other primary subsidiary-rights revenue, and passes author’s share to author upon publisher’s receipt after publisher has recouped advance.
************************** Trade Paperback
A Poor Trade Paperback Deal
Same as poor hardcover deal, except royalties are less than a straight 7 1/2 percent .
A Fair Trade Paperback Deal
Same as fair hardcover deal, except royalties are at least a straight 7 1/2 percent/
A Good Trade Paperback Deal
Same as good hardcover deal, except royalties are better than a straight 7 1/2 percent.
Same as poor hardcover deal, except royalties are less than 8 percent on first 150,000 copies sold, 10 percent thereafter.
A Fair Mass-Market Paperback Deal
Same as fair hardcover deal, except royalties are at least 8 percent on first 150,000 copies sold, 10 percent thereafter.
A Good Mass-Market Paperback Deal Same as good hardcover deal, except royalties are better than 8 percent on first 150,000 copies sold, 10 percent thereafter.
****************************** In the last few years, as the publishing marketplace contracted, many agents have complained that the lot of authors is getting harder and harder. In particular, they say, publishers are reducing advances for all but superstars, who are getting higher advances than ever before. What's fascinating is the way some of them define "average". Here's an example from an October 2008 blog on Publexicon.com:
Super-agent Richard Abate with the Endeavor Talent Agency believes that publishers are trending toward acquiring books by celebrities, books that will command six-figure advances as opposed to the midlist advance of approximately $50,000, give or take. Athletes, movie stars, and just about anyone who is mega-famous will get the ear of agents, such as Tina Fey, who is reputed to have signed a book deal for $6,000,000. [Italics mine]
I suspect that if I were to poll authors who consider themselves "midlist", most of them would feel they'd died and gone to heaven to get $50,000 advance for their books. The fact is that in most fiction genres such as romance, science fiction and mysteries the starting pay is still in the four-figure range (not counting decimal points, thank heaven), and it stays there for quite a number of books until (and unless) the author's royalties justify increases to five-figures and beyond. Mainstream fiction and nonfiction is a little harder to categorize but here too I'd be surprised to learn that the average debut novel garners anything close to super-agent Abate's figure, which in any event refers to celebrity books. And we all know that celebrities are not made of the same stuff as common mortals such as professional writers.
And so, reluctantly and sadly, I have to stand by the figure stated in my 1983 book, a figure made even sadder because inflation has reduced it by more than 50% according to one calculation.
Some time ago, the Community for Creative Non-Violence, an advocacy group for the homeless, commissioned a Baltimore sculptor, James Earl Reid, to create a sculpture. In due time, his skilled hands produced a piece called Third World America, celebrating the dignity and suffering of homeless people. It was a work that both the advocacy group and the sculptor could be proud of, and they were. But then, as both began making plans to take it on tour, a question arose that nobody had bothered to explore in any depth: Who owns Third World America? The Community for Creative Non-Violence claimed the sculpture was a "work made for hire." Not only had the group hired the sculptor, but had also imparted to him its vision of what the piece should look like, and had even given him much input on details. Be that as it may, claimed Reid, he was the sole creator of the work and he should retain the copyright.
The dispute triggered a legal battle culminating in a Supreme Court decision that has important implications for writers. For, if you substitute "publisher" or "packager" for the group that hired Reid, "writer" for "sculptor," and "book" for "sculpture," you have a perfectly analogous relationship to one quite commonly found on the publishing scene. Under the "work-for-hire" provision of the Copyright Act of 1976, publishers, packagers, magazines, newspapers, and other persons or businesses may copyright in their own names works that they conceive and "farm out" to freelance writers. Like the Committee for Creative Non-Violence, these parties originate the writing projects, furnish writers with detailed specifications, and offer writers abundant editorial guidance. Are they not, then, entitled to claim ownership of copyright to those works? Are they not entitled to exploit those works in whatever way they wish, with no further obligation to the writers?
According to the Supreme Court, which ruled on the dispute on June 5, 1989, the answer is no. The decision was unanimous.
The court's ruling hinged not so much on the amount of time, effort, thought, vision, and money the advocacy group had invested in the sculpture, but rather on whether or not the artist could justly be described as an employee of the group that hired him. It seems that when Congress created the revised copyright law, it left the definition of work for hire somewhat ambiguous, describing it as "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment." Had the sculptor gone to work on salary for a company that mass-produced plastic Buddhas, he would obviously have no claim to the product he helped to manufacture. But Reid's relationship to the organization that commissioned his sculpture was nowhere so simple, and his attorneys attacked the vagueness of the terms "employee" and "scope of employment."
"Under the broadest alternative," wrote Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times, "a freelance artist was an 'employee,' and therefore forfeited the right to copyright his or her work whenever the party commissioning the work, like a magazine publisher, retained the right to 'control' the final product." Greenhouse reported that a group of major publishers had filed a brief as friends of the Court, supporting this definition. That should come as no surprise, considering how much is at stake for them. Until the sculpture decision, most freelance work was considered work-for-hire. The result of the Supreme Court's decision, however, is that freelance writers and artists may enjoy, to a far greater extent than before, the benefits of copyright to the work they produce for others. "The fee that these businesses pay to a freelance artist will be a fee for one-time use of the work and not, as has been common practice, for the right to reprint and reuse the material without further compensation," stated Greenhouse.
Reid, the Court asserted, is an independent contractor and not an employee, and therefore his sculpture was not a "work made for hire." Because of the ambiguity of the origins of the work, however, the Court sent the case back to a lower court to consider whether the sculpture might fall into yet another category of copyright law, a joint work to which the copyright was owned by both claimants coequally.
It's interesting that this development comes at a time when the question of "moral rights" has begun to raise writers' consciousness about the status of freelance work they perform for outside contractors. I have speculated on the changes in the relationship between contractors and freelancers if American courts should adopt the principle that authors and artists are entitled to moral rights protection of their creations even though they have sold their copyrights to other parties. The Supreme Court's decision on Reid's sculpture is not a moral rights one, but it does give artists and writers a beachhead to wage further battles to protect work that they have sold—or thought they had sold—outright.
What seems to have been glossed over in the press's coverage of the sculpture battle is the extent of the contract between the commissioning party and the sculptor or, indeed, whether there was a written agreement at all. The relationship between the parties might not have stirred up such bitter conflict had they "perfected" it, to use a legal term, through a clearly worded contract in which the status of copyright ownership was spelled out. The deal between them, however, seems to have arisen in a spirit of good will and genuine compassion for the poor and homeless, but very little else in terms of a tightly structured contract. What seems to be implied in the Supreme Court's decision is, If you don't want any misunderstandings about ownership of copyright, you'd better write a good contract.
There are many cautionary lessons in this legal case that should be of particular interest to writers. For instance, inadequate grasp of the legal implications of arrangements writers make with book packagers has caused a great deal of grief for many authors. Book packagers copyright in their own name the projects they create, and writers they hire to develop those projects are denied proprietary interest in the work they perform for packagers. Packagers, in other words, are in a position analogous to that of the Community for Creative Non-Violence, the outfit that engaged the sculptor and subsequently claimed copyright ownership of the piece he did for them. "Packager" is, for some writers, a loaded term, connoting exploitation. I have stated elsewhere that I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with book packagers, but writers entering into contracts with them should do so with their eyes open and be aware of the nature of their relationship to packagers. There are fair packagers, not-so-fair packagers, and wicked packagers, but central to their activities is the copyrighting of literary creations in their own name. This process can be perceived as unfair if one party feels that he or she has been taken advantage of by the other.
Even harder for many writers to grasp are the implications of so-called shared-world series or anthologies. Shared worlds are generated out of popular books or series. The authors of these works, and their publishers, exploit the popularity of the books' characters by licensing or commissioning other authors to write new works featuring those characters and the world they live in. An example of this is the series of anthologies created in Andre Norton's Witch World. These collections of stories by other authors extend and elaborate on the fantasy world originally created in a series of books by Norton. Shared worlds, though we don't always think of them that way, may be found in categories outside of science fiction and fantasy. In the male action-adventure genre, for example, authors created new stories for the world of The Executioner originally created by Don Pendleton. Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels were produced by writers for hire long after the deaths of the authors who created these characters. The sequel to Gone with the Wind, when you strip away all the hype, was essentially a shared-world novel.
A tremendous amount of confusion exists about shared worlds, and misunderstandings about the relationship between creator and sharers have caused strain and even enmity among formerly warm friends and colleagues when arguments over money, byline credits, and copyright ownership developed. Perhaps many of these problems would take a proper perspective if all parties realized a fundamental truth about shared worlds: the moment an author attempts to share his world with other authors, he becomes, in effect, a packager. At the heart of most such grievances is that sudden change in the way sharers and "sharees" relate to each other. Writers who, up to then, were on what might be called a communistic parity with other writer comrades, suddenly become capitalists, and they don't always handle their new role very well. The tasks of apportioning money and credits produce conflicting feelings in authors who for so long have themselves struggled in the position of the exploited. "I felt," one writer told me, "like an assembly-line worker who had suddenly been made foreman. In negotiating contracts with authors sharing my world with me, I had to pull rank on some of my former co-workers, and none of us was happy about it."
Thanks to the Supreme Court's ruling, conflicts over money and credits may not be the only sources of contention between the participants in shared-world deals. Serious questions of ownership may be raised by contributors of material to shared-world series or anthologies. If you write a sequel or prequel to somebody else's novel, are you entitled to claim ownership, or co-ownership, of your contribution? Unless you clearly waived such a claim when you signed an agreement with the original author, the answer may well be debatable.
If you're not sure what's at stake, consider the lawsuit brought by Lynn Thomson, a dramaturg (a sort of script doctor for plays), against the estate of Jonathan Larson, author of the runaway Broadway hit musical, Rent. Before his tragic death, Larson had asked Thomson's advice on aspects of the show's script. Thomson subsequently claimed a co-authorship role entitling her to a share of the millions the Larson estate has earned, and will earn. In July 1997, a federal trial judge found that she was not a "joint author" under the U.S. Copyright Act, because she had not, in his opinion, contributed copyrightable material to the work, and because there was no evidence that she and Larson intended to be joint authors. Evidence—as in contract. The case is on appeal as of this writing, but whichever way it's decided, one could not ask for a more graphic illustration of the need to spell out the copyright implications of any arrangement, however casual, that authors make with those advising them on their texts.
Another ongoing lawsuit (at the time of this writing) concerns Fay Vincent, former commissioner of Major League Baseball. He was under contract to write his autobiography with a co-author, but presently thought better of publishing some revelations and decided to cancel the contract. His collaborator, however, claimed equal ownership of the manuscript under U.S. copyright law, meaning he has as much right as Vincent to bring out the memoir. The co-author's relationship to Vincent was apparently not writer-for-hire, but rather collaborator, and he does have a point. Another case of: Think before you share.
Up to now, too many authors have relied on the Golden Rule in reaching understandings with fellow authors about exploiting each other's worlds. If legal developments continue on the path they currently are following, it will be advisable to trade in the Golden Rule for an airtight contract. - Richard Curtis
Behold the two books I place before you. Both are thrillers by authors whose names are unfamiliar to you. But attached to the one on your left is an endorsement by one of today's bestselling thriller writers. The other has no such recommendation. Which will you be inclined to purchase and read?
The obvious answer to that question formed the eye of a tempest that swept through the publishing industry some years ago, leaving in its path a shattered deal, damaged credibility, and a dazed author and his agent wandering through the rubble seeking something to salvage. The only good to come out of this event is the possibility that the rest of us may learn something from it.
We take for granted that a plug from a star can give an enormous boost to an obscure author or an undistinguished (or even distinguished) book. That is why publishers go to considerable lengths to solicit quotes - commonly called "blurbs" in the publishing industry - by big-name authors for books they are soon to publish. "When 55,000 books are published each year, you are desperate for ways to distinguish your books from everybody else's," a publisher told the New York Times's media reporter. "The right person writing a blurb for the right audience can sometimes make a tremendous difference in sales."
What it was that inspired Peter Lampack, a leading literary agent, to put blurbs on an unsold manuscript, I do not know. But when I read in the newspaper that he had used the ploy to garner over $900,000 in an auction for a first novel, I could have kicked myself for not having thought of it first.
Lampack's strategy was simple but inspired. If he used the blurbs to sell the book to publishers, he would certainly arouse far more interest in the book than in a book supported only by his own enthusiasm. Because enthusiasm is as commonplace among agents as it is among mothers, it is subject to heavy discounting by skeptical publishers. If, however, an author of world-class reputation offers an enthusiastic quote, it all but guarantees that publishers will highly prize the work to which it's attached.
There are two important reasons why a plug from a star would give a big boost to an unsold book by an unknown author. The first is that it validates, for editors, the book's quality. Given the cost of publishing and promoting first novels, editors today are extremely nervous about committing their companies to investing hundreds of thousands or even millions or dollars for them. Not a few would rather pass up a good first book than overpay for it, for many an editorial head has been impaled on the pikestaff of poor judgment. If an author who is a proven moneymaker raves about that book, however - particularly an author seldom given to promoting the work of others - much of the uncertainty about its quality is taken out of the editor's hands. And so is the responsibility, thus freeing the editor to spend the company's money with confidence.
The other reason why an enthusiastic blurb by a star author is of such inestimable value is that it validates the book for the consumer. As the average list price of a hardcover novel is well into the $20.00 range and mass market paperbacks closing in on $10.00, bookstore customers have become more discriminating than ever about what they plunk their money down for. It is likely that they will be inclined to pay that kind of money only for a proven commodity - a book by a brand-name author. If, however, a brand-name author declares adoration for an unheard-of book, and permits a publisher to feature his statement on cover and advertising copy, the publicity value of that plug will overcome consumer reluctance. After all, the next best thing to a book by your favorite bestselling author is a book that your favorite bestselling author loves and recommends. The late publisher Donald Fine stated in that same article that "there's a presumption among marketing people that blurbs are especially important for the sales reps and booksellers." Fine cited the time when he asked bestselling author John D. MacDonald to read galleys of a book by Elmore Leonard, who was at that time considered a midlist mystery writer. MacDonald called Fine and exclaimed, "Who is that guy? He's terrific." Fine asked MacDonald if he could use those very words in advertising for Elmore's books, and the rest is history.
Understanding these psychological principles so well, agent Lampack must have jumped for joy when Derek V. Goodwin, pseudonymous author of a first novel entitled Just Killing Time, furnished him with blurbs by two leading thriller authors, John Le Carré and Joseph Wambaugh. Lampack loved Goodwin's novel, and successfully solicited a quote from a famous client of his own, Clive Cussler. Thus armed with three dynamite blurbs, Lampack put Just Killing Time up for auction, and when the dust settled, Simon & Schuster walked off with the book with a high bid of $920,000.
I had scarcely had time to compose a congratulatory letter to Lampack when the newspapers announced that both Le Carré and Wambaugh had repudiated the blurbs attributed to them, Le Carré characterizing the one written over his name as "straight fraud." After an agonizing week, Simon & Schuster withdrew its offer. "We must be able to rely on the validity of what is submitted to us," stated the president of Simon & Schuster's trade division. The author claimed that he was "completely duped" by whoever it was that had issued the phony blurbs.
My heart went out to my colleague, a first-class agent and a gentleman of the highest character, and I waited breathlessly to see who, if anyone, would come forward to claim the orphaned book. During the month or so that it took for that question to be answered, the debacle set off a fascinating debate: How much was Goodwin's book worth without the quotes?
As I listened to the arguments, I thought of the ancient dispute as to whether a tree that falls in a forest makes a sound if no one is present to hear it. Goodwin's book after the deal fell through was the same one that existed before. The only difference was, two of the three star blurbs had been dropped. So had the price. Simon & Schuster's winning bid had been withdrawn, and it didn't seem likely that the runner-up in the auction, Bantam with $850,000, would stand by its offer. How much was Goodwin's book worth stripped of its glamorous advocates? Even more interesting to me was: How much were the big-name author blurbs worth? I said above that they were of inestimable value, but if you look at it in a certain way, you will realize they can indeed be estimated.
As it turned out, Lampack was able to resell Goodwin's book for approximately a $500,000 advance to Dutton Press/New American Library, a division of Penguin and an underbidder in the original auction. Can it not be argued, then, that the blurbs by Le Carré and Wambaugh were therefore worth $420,000, the difference between what Simon & Schuster would have paid for the book with blurbs and what the new publisher was willing to pay without them? That would mean that Le Carré's and Wambaugh's blurbs could each be valued at $210,000.
It would not surprise me to learn that it had crossed the minds of these distinguished authors, or the minds of their distinguished agents, that there is big money to be earned in selling their endorsements. Movie stars and other celebrities get big bucks for endorsing all sorts of products. Why shouldn't star authors get them for plugging books? Requests for blurbs are an imposition on an author's time, and for a big-name author, time is not just money - it's a lot of money. On those grounds alone, then, it can be argued that an author ought to be compensated for writing a blurb. But more importantly, there is the obvious fact that the author's name helps to sell the merchandise. Robert Ludlum and Stephen King were paid handsomely to star in American Express card commercials; would they have been out of line demanding money to do a "commercial" for someone else's book?
Our instincts rebel against the notion because it seems dishonest—-and our instincts are correct. Unlike commercials undertaken for pay, the author who writes a blurb is assumed to genuinely like the product he or she is promoting. There is thus an aura of sincerity about blurbs that would be fatally tarnished if they were written for pay. Of course, one could be cynical about that sincerity, for it often appears that the blurbing industry operates under the motto, "One hand washes the other." The now-defunct Spy magazine carried a feature called "Logrolling in Our Time," which cited the suspicious frequency with which an author who plugs another's book finds his or her own book praised in return by the pluggee of the first part. In one issue, for instance, after George F. Will called Henry Kissinger's The White House Years "an elegant literary achievement," Kissinger called Will's The Pursuit of Virtue and Other Tory Notions "a delight." Similarly, Barbara Ehrenreich and John Kenneth Galbraith, Richard Ford and Joyce Carol Oates, and Diane Johnson and Francine Prose were shown to be mutual admirers of each other's books.
Such possible abuses notwithstanding, the point is that blurbs are traditionally undertaken as favors, and are therefore a form of barter. And though publishers and agents who request them from their authors don't usually offer specific inducements, the good will generated by a cooperative author inevitably pays off down the road in one tangible way or another. As an editor once said to me, "It's good business to caress the hand that feeds you."
But good will is a fragile value, and the lofty tradition of exchanging favors cannot always be counted on to prevail over the temptations of hard cash. A day may well come when a famous writer will demand a big fee for endorsing someone's book, and a publisher will pay it. Anyone naïve enough to think it can't happen has never attended a baseball card convention, where star ballplayers who used to autograph memorabilia out of the goodness of their hearts now charge hefty fees for their appearances and signatures.
The fact is that just as light is bent by the gravitational pull of celestial stars, our ethics seem to get a little bent by the attraction of human stars. Take for instance what might be termed the "Dead Author's Society," wherein publishers go on issuing works by authors long in their graves. The bylines of such illustrious writers as V. C. Andrews and Cynthia Freeman continued to appear on books long after the passage of their namesakes to the Great Book Expo in the sky. You would be surprised how many fans were under the impression that the authors were still alive, an impression the publishers did not go out of their way to correct. Is this ethical?
I don't particularly deplore the practice, as I'm not sure I see that much difference between books packaged by dead authors and those packaged by living ones - and living ones do it all the time. Whether the spurious books are as good as those created by the original authors is another question, but if most fans never notice the difference, the issue of quality is pretty much beside the point.
In England, it's considered not just unethical but downright illegal for a publisher to issue a book with the byline of a deceased author. Of course, the British have always been a bit dotty about their dead big-name authors. Would you believe they actually enshrine some of them in their cathedrals?
Early in April a few years ago I got a call from a client who was preparing his income tax. This author wrote erotic fiction and wanted to know whether he could legitimately claim as a deduction his pharmacological treatment for a little affliction he had contracted in the course of “researching” one of his novels.
I told him I imagined the treatment would probably fall under medical deductions rather than research expenses, but the story does illustrate that even the most untrammeled literary spirits have to pay their obeisance to Uncle Sam sooner or later. With more and more authors incorporating, purchasing expensive computer equipment, seeking shelters for their taxable income, and in general being more businesslike in their approaches to the art and craft of literature, the accountant is becoming as important as the literary agent in guiding the destinies of writers.
The chances of a writer being audited by the Internal Revenue Service are a little better than those of the average working stiff because most writers are freelancers, and taxes on their income are not usually withheld as they are from persons on company payrolls. Thus, even though the odds that anybody will be audited are going down because of staff cutbacks at the IRS, a free-lancer’s tax return may be more provocative than that of someone who works for Boeing or IBM. Your best defense, should the fickle finger of the IRS single you out, is a well-kept set of records, primarily your canceled checks, your receipts, and a journal or ledger recording details of every transaction for which you are claiming a deduction, particularly those for which receipts are not ordinarily given, such as public transportation, certain tips, and the like.
In general, authors are entitled to “write off,” or deduct from taxable income earned from their writing, certain costs incurred in pursuit of that income. Among those costs are agent’s commissions; rental of office space; editorial and secretarial assistance; purchase or lease of computers and other office equipment; office supplies, such as toner cartridges and paper; travel; the cost of entertaining editors, agents, producers, collaborators, and others related to their professional endeavors; and books and other research material.
Naturally, not all expenses are deductible; other expenses may be deducted over a period of years; others are only partially deductible; and still others are deductible only at your peril. Because of the feast-or-famine nature of the freelance life, you don’t necessarily have to earn money in any given year in order to write off expenses. You may be working on a long-term project and a whole year or more may go by without income. Yet you may still claim the costs incurred that year and deduct them from whatever other income you received, such as interest or stock dividends, your spouse’s income if you’re married and file jointly, and the like. Even if you’re not a professional writer at all but simply a would-be writer who has yet to realize a dime from his work, you may nevertheless write off your expenses for a period of years before these activities come under the definition of hobby, the costs of which are not deductible.
So much for famine. But there’s also tax relief for those who feast. One form of it is the government-sponsored IRA's and other tax shelter plans, which are designed for freelancers and other independent breadwinners who do not earn regular wages. By putting some of your income into such a shelter, you in effect lower the amount of income you claim for that year and pay taxes on it only when you draw that income later in your life, at retirement age, when you will presumably be in a lower tax bracket. Meanwhile, your tax shelter account will be appreciating through interest or dividends or (if you invest the money wisely) through capital gains on investments.
When it comes to taxes, the name of the game is deductions. Let’s talk about some.
Capital purchases. Capital purchases are major items such as machinery and furniture. These might include your personal computer and printer, a desk, photocopier, file cabinets, a fax. The government considers such purchases investments, and because investments are subject to depreciation, you are usually not permitted to deduct their purchase price in full the year you purchased them. Rather, you have to spread the cost out over several years for tax accounting purposes. Thus, if you buy a PC and a printer, you may only be able to “depreciate” them over five years; that is, deduct a portion of the price from your income each year for five years. On the other hand, you may be entitled to an “investment credit,” a direct credit against your tax liability. Investment credits are a form of reward the government gives businesses for buying capital equipment. The principle is that such investments pump money back into our economy and keep it healthy, so investment credits encourage you to buy furniture and equipment.
Straight deductions. Most day-to-day necessities of the writing profession come under this category. Assuming you can furnish receipts, these are fully deductible, and deductible wholly in the year in which you pay them. They include paper and other stationery; pens and pencils, paper clips, rubber bands, and other office supplies; postage; messenger bills; photocopy bills; legal, bookkeeping, and accounting fees; dues and professional organization fees; editorial and secretarial assistance; agent’s commissions and expenses; phone bills; interest on loans; and certain state and local taxes, such as unincorporated business taxes, city rent or occupancy taxes, and the like.
Although many of these costs are indisputably business expenses and are seldom questioned by the IRS as long as you furnish solid documentation, some of them do fall into a gray area where eyebrows might be raised or IRS computers, programmed to seek variations from certain norms, might “flag” the questionable item. Writer’s Digest is a pretty safe magazine subscription to deduct, but Vogue? Sports Illustrated? Well, if you can demonstrate that you wish to write for those markets or that the information they provide applies to a writing project you’re developing, those subscriptions will be arguably legitimate. The same might be said of a television set. If you hope to write for television or consider TV a good source of information for your books, stories, or articles, you may be able to get away with writing off all or some of the cost of the television set.
The gray area gets even grayer with such deductions as travel and entertainment. At what point, if any, a dinner stops being social and starts being professional is often impossible to say, as is the point at which a vacation becomes a business trip. In order to legitimize these deductions, solid documentation is desirable in the form of receipts and canceled checks, a diary or journal, or other written evidence demonstrating intent and purpose. The IRS requires receipts for any claimed business meals of more than $25; for meals costing less (is there such a creature?), no receipt is necessary but a detailed journal entry or other memo is desirable. It should stipulate the date, place, persons involved, business purpose, and price. Home entertainment may be harder to document, since food and drink for business entertainment are often purchased with provisions earmarked for personal use, or food and drink already stocked at home may be used to entertain business guests. But here again, a combination of receipts and memoranda may at least convey to potential auditors the sincerity of your attempts to furnish good documentation. The IRS does assume that a certain percentage of a professional writer’s or freelancer’s income is going to be claimed for entertainment, and within that range it may not raise any questions. But because entertainment deductions are usually among the most inflated found in the average return, any inordinate claims will usually trigger intense curiosity.
The same is true of travel. Business travelers are obliged to document the purpose of their trip and expenses, and even though such trips may in fact be 95 percent play and 5 percent work, orderly records will allow the benefit of the doubt to be given to the claimant. Indeed, no connection between the place visited and the place written about need manifest itself, for who is to say that you did not write a story about Acapulco that was rejected and never published, or that after spending a week in London researching a novel you did not decide to set the book in Paris instead? But there are limits to the government’s credulity. The writer who flies with his family to Miami Beach during Christmas week may have a hard time convincing a gimlet-eyed IRS auditor that it was a research trip.
Probably the most common tax headache for a writer is what to deduct for the office in his home. If you have an office outside your home, you may claim the rent, utility, insurance, and related bills in their entirety. But what if your bedroom doubles as an office or you do your writing on the kitchen table? Until a few years ago, the IRS was liberal in its definition of office space in the home, but it has since become stricter, insisting that a room be set aside specifically and exclusively for professional use. If you have an eight-room home and use one room as an office, you may claim one-eighth of all your house expenses as deductible business expenses.
The telephone is another ambiguous item insofar as personal and professional uses are mingled on the same bill. In such cases you can assign a percentage of the bill to business use and note the long-distance charges for business calls. Perhaps the best way around the problem is to maintain a separate phone for business purposes.
A growing number of writers have become so businesslike about their profession that they have incorporated themselves. What benefits do they hope to derive? Is this something that every writer can or should do?
There are many financial, legal, and other good reasons for individuals to form corporations, but these are not always as clear for writers as they might be for manufacturing or service companies. One major benefit, for instance, is limited liability. With the threat of legal claims perpetually hanging over every writer’s head, what author would not breathe easier knowing that the only assets he’s in jeopardy of losing in a lawsuit are the rather meager ones retained by his corporation?
Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near that simple. The law recognizes how easy it is for wrongdoers to hide behind the cloak of corporate immunity, and thus in the “discovery” process of a trial it may be ruled that the personal assets of the head of a closely held corporation (meaning that only you, or perhaps you and your spouse, hold all the stock) may be vulnerable to a claim.
Furthermore, most publishers signing contracts with incorporated authors require them to furnish written “performance guarantees” that they will honor their contractual obligations and be responsible for the warranty and indemnification clauses of their contracts. After all, a corporation can’t write a book – or, what is more pertinent in this case, it can’t write a libelous, defamatory, obscene, scandalous, or privacy-invading book. Only individuals can do that, so authors must sign a document guaranteeing the contractual obligations of the corporations they own, and vice versa. This so vitiates the limited liability aspect of incorporating as to render it virtually impotent.
There are definite financial advantages for an author to incorporate, but these generally come into play only if that author is making a good deal of money, and making it consistently. Medical insurance can be paid out of before-tax income. A pension plan can be established, enabling you to shelter until retirement far more money than the government currently permits under IRA plans it sponsors. These pension plans usually have life insurance options, meaning that life insurance premiums may be paid out of before-tax income, a distinct advantage over the situation of unincorporated individuals. There are other benefits, too, but there are also disadvantages. The costs of starting and maintaining a corporation are not inconsiderable, and after you have paid legal and accounting costs, or spent so much time filling out and filing federal, state, and local withholding income tax, corporation tax, unemployment, Social Security, disability, pension, and other papers, you may find that you might have done just as well conducting your business as a plain old unincorporated human being. Besides, if the government feels you’ve established a corporation just to dodge taxes, you could get into trouble and end up paying heavy penalties and interest on back taxes. So before you start thinking about vying with Mobil for a place on the Fortune 500 list, consult your accountant.
"The day is coming—and much sooner than you may think—when authors will no longer be able to define themselves simply as creators of literary works. As electronic technology hurtles too fast for even futurists to keep up with, a generation of readers is emerging that will not accept text unless it is interactively married to other media. The twenty-first century's definition of "author" will be as far from today's definition as you are from the town scribe of yore."
I wrote that over ten years ago in an article called Author? What's an Author? I didn't know it at the time, but I was anticipating the arrival of the vook. And now it's here.
Brad Stone, writing in the New York Times, defines it as "a multimedia hybrid that is tailored to the rapidly growing number of digital reading devices. "Vooks, created and named by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bradley Inman, combine traditional fictional storytelling, online video, and other digital media to create an amalgamated art form. "Vook," explains Stone, "tries to address a big problem for book publishers as they expand onto digital formats.
"For all the hype and initial success of devices like the Kindle, they threaten to strip traditional books of much of their transportive appeal. Images on the jacket cover, inviting fonts and the satisfying feel of quality paper are all largely absent, replaced by humdrum pixels on a virtual page.
Even worse, on multipurpose reading devices like the iPhone, more immediately gratifying pastimes like video games are a click away for readers with short attention spans."
Defending himself against traditionalist criticism, Inman says, "Books are finally coming online but they are very one-dimensional. I think we can experiment and do this better.”
His observation would seem bear out an observation I made recently in a piece called Watching Books.
"Reading text on a screen without sound, color, or movement, one develops the uneasy feeling that something is missing. We wonder, Is that all there is? I’m not a psychologist but it seems more than likely that we are bringing to text viewed on screens the same expectations we bring to television, movie and computer screens. Indeed, something is missing! How can we not be disappointed - even, God help us, bored - when these blocks of words fail to stimulate the same intense response as a YouTube video? We are trying to extract a linear experience out of a nonlinear medium."
Okay. We how have a name for the art form. But what shall we call the vook's creator? In Author? What's an Author? I struggled to give it a name.
"As I acclimate myself to the rich atmosphere of computer technology, I hear the word 'author' used less and less and 'producer"'used more and more to describe those who assemble, integrate, and purvey multimedia software packages to consumers. As the trend toward multimedia accelerates, as I predict it will, the role of the author must, without question, become subordinated to that of the producer. Authors will become scenarists, creating story lines for or textual supplements to full-motion video films for personal computers. The real creative stars will be those who can produce brilliant and stimulating programs for display on home entertainment systems."
So where does this leave good old-fashioned writers and publishers? Well, if they want to survive they have no choice but to join the 21st century. In Author? What's an Author? I suggest some ways that authors can find their place in this rapidly evolving world.
Everybody needs approval, but nobody needs it more than authors: approval of editorial alterations of manuscripts; approval of cover art and copy; approval over reprint, book-club, and foreign licenses; approval of titles, ad texts, and more.
New authors quickly discover that they have very little leverage when it comes to controlling the fate of their books. As they become more and more successful, however, they develop the clout to demand the right to approve many procedures. In fact, a concise biography of a successful author might read something like this:
His first contract gave his publisher total control of everything. When he achieved modest popularity, his publisher gave him consultation rights. After he became very popular, he secured “approval not to be unreasonably withheld.” At length he became a star, and his publisher gave him total control of everything.
Which processes are subject to author consultation or consent? And what kinds of concessions may an author expect from his publisher as he rises to the top of his profession? Are there limits to those concessions? Are there some issues so hot that a publisher would risk losing a superstar before yielding the right of approval?
The foundation stone of the author-publisher relationship is the text. Today we take it pretty much for granted that book publishers will make no substantive changes in the text of a book without the author’s express consent. This state of mind is of relatively recent vintage, however. Well into this century Even as late as the 1980s, a widely held attitude was that the editor was the best judge of what an author intended to say and how well he said it. And, though that assumption still prevails at the copy-editing level in such areas as grammar and house style, when it comes to the overall text, today’s editors prefer to reason with authors than coerce them. Even new authors consider it their natural right to review copy-edited manuscripts and galley proofs of their books. In hardcover publishing, where the production process moves at a courtly pace, it is easy to grant this right to authors. In the frenetic world of paperbacks, however, authors are not always granted such courtesy, and books may be rushed into print without review by the author. Few publishers retain, in the boilerplate of their contracts, the right to alter an author’s text without his approval, but in practice it is commonplace, at least on the paperback level.
Approval over textual changes is about as far as the tyro author can expect to go when it comes to control over publication of his work. Although some publishers may informally consult with new authors about such matters as cover art, it’s considered out of line for them to demand a voice in the selection of the cover artist, or be allowed input in such matters as cover art and blurbs, book design, style, or typeface, or negotiations over subsidiary rights. For a new author, the life of his first book is full of surprises, not all of them pleasant by any means. He sees his cover and cover copy for the first time only after the book is printed, learns about reprint and other subsidiary rights deals only after they have been closed (if then; sometimes he learns about them through inexplicable entries on royalty statements), or first sees the text of an ad for his book at the same time that the public does. If there are embarrassing typographical errors, if the cover is a horrible misrepresentation of the author’s vision, if the subsidiary rights deal is disappointing, if the book ad is dumb – well, tough luck, kid, be thankful we're not asking you to pay us to publish your book.
Actually, most publishers are not callous about authors’ rights in these areas. They simply feel that authors are not necessarily wise when it comes to making those decisions, and I have to say there is some merit in this judgment. Many authors do not hold a strong suit in grammar, have decidedly bizarre notions about what should go on their covers, are poorly informed about appropriate terms for book-club, reprint, and foreign deals, or have little feel for advertising, publicity, and promotion.
Such shortcomings do not prevent them, however, from demanding a say in those activities, and as they gain experience, achieve success and build comfortable relationships with their publishers, some contractual prohibitions will inevitably be relaxed. Veteran authors are assumed to have acquired a degree of professionalism, restraint, and respect for the problems of publishers, and can be expected not to insist that David Hockney be commissioned to paint an original cover, or that the publisher take out half a million dollars in television advertising.
This growing tolerance for author input is reflected in the language of contracts by use of the term “consultation.” Consultation is of course one of those vague words that carries as much meaning and good faith as a publisher wishes to instill in it, so it is not much skin off a publisher’s nose to grant it to an author. It must be understood, though, that while “consultation” might well mean, “We're eager to please you, so if you don’t like what we’ve done we’ll try our level best to improve the situation,” it can also mean, “I called you and you weren’t home, so consider yourself consulted.” The phrase "meaningful consultation" has been instituted in recent times to thwart that particular ploy and give authors more of a legal leg to stand on if the publisher abuses your right to having some sort of say about a procedure.
Publishers’ policies are frequently resistant to the formal granting of consultation rights to authors, but they might agree to what is called a side letter, an informal statement of good intentions. Although such letters are not seldom binding, they are better than nothing, and are particularly useful if there is a change of personnel and an author wants to show his new editor that his former editor wished to accommodate him.
The closer to stardom that an author moves, the more accommodating his publisher is willing to become, and this attitude is manifested in contractual language giving the author explicit approval over certain aspects of the publishing process. For the first time there may be some real teeth in the author’s right to say yes or no to subsidiary licenses, cover art and copy, and ad campaigns. Nevertheless, publishers will fight against conceding absolute power to an author, even an important author, and will hedge their contractual language by granting approval only on the condition that such approval is not to be withheld unreasonably. The adverb “unreasonably” restores a degree of ambiguity to the author’s right of consent, giving the publisher a fighting chance if a dispute turns nasty and ends up in court. By demonstrating that an author withheld his consent spitefully, whimsically, or in some other fashion that injured the publisher’s opportunities to maximize a book’s literary or commercial value, a publisher can negate the power conveyed to the author with the term “approval.” (On reflection, I realize that over the many years I have been in the publishing business, I have never seen the phrase “consent not to be unreasonably withheld” litigated or even invoked by a publisher. I’m not sure why, but I would like to think it speaks well of the reasonableness and responsibility of authors.)
Of course, the hardest victory to achieve is absolute and unhindered approval by an author in the areas we have been discussing, and its stipulation in a contract invariably bespeaks a star author, a tough agent, or an agreeable publisher – probably all three. I should stress that such control is not of necessity the goal of all authors. Some are indifferent to what goes on the covers of their books, or to the design and style, or to the size of ads. Others entrust such matters to their publishers and try not to second-guess or criticize them. They take the attitude, “I write the best books I can, and if everybody else does his or her job as conscientiously as I do mine, I can’t ask for more than that.”
A growing number of authors and agents is not content to cast their destinies to such capricious winds. As one writer expressed it to me recently, “With the midlist emerging as the trash heap of the publishing business, ambitious authors are obligated to involve themselves in every aspect of their publishers’ activities, from titles to typography, to help give their books a big feel and image.” If you feel compelled to get involved in those activities, and to bid for a measure of control over them, there are a number of concrete measures you can take.
The first is to educate yourself about your publisher’s tasks. By studying catalogues, examining the design, typography, and covers of books, scrutinizing ads and ad campaigns, and above all by talking to your editors and other staff professionals, you learn what is possible, reasonable, and economical. You do not want to come on to your publisher as ignorant about such matters as the cost of an ad campaign or the technical difficulties of producing die-cut covers. If you can speak knowledgeably about such matters, your publisher will feel a little more comfortable about soliciting your input or giving you a measure of control over certain decisions.
The second thing to do is learn how to deal with your publisher in a non-confrontational way. Find opportunities to spend some time with your editor and with the various specialists at your publisher, such as the art director, sales manager, and the head of publicity and promotion. If you can’t meet the top man or woman, an assistant will do, as long as you have the ear of someone who might serve to sponsor your wishes at the company. You can accomplish this by having your editor introduce you to these people when you visit your publisher’s offices or attend such publishing functions as parties, conferences, sales meetings, and conventions. It is important to be a good listener, and to couch your wishes as unthreateningly as possible.
Publishing people being among the busier breeds in the corporate kingdom, one-on-one discussions may not always be possible. You may be able to communicate some of your ideas in writing. Publishers’ publicity questionnaires are an underutilized source of persuasion, I’ve observed. These questionnaires, usually sent out with contracts, invite authors to furnish their publishers with suggestions about approaches to exploit the promotional value of their books. By taking time to answer the form’s questions in detail, you give yourself a perfect opportunity to contact the appropriate staff members with offers to implement your ideas. Letters or emails rather than phone calls, at least at the outset, will give your publisher an opportunity to think about your ideas and circulate them among the movers and shakers at the company. Be polite, helpful, knowledgeable, and reasonable, and you may find yourself acquiring de facto control over many publishing decisions that have not been granted to you contractually.
A time may come, however, when all of your graciousness, diplomacy, and reason are incapable of winning your publisher over on an important issue, and you are forced to take a stand. It might be hoped that by now you have an agent who can go to bat for you. That’s fine, but your agent might have reservations about taking a hard stand on your behalf. Talk it over with him and listen carefully. Talk to friends and professional colleagues, gathering as much information as you can in order to make as informed and effective a decision as possible.
It is important that you prioritize the items over which you seek approval. Which are borderline, which serious, and which will you martyr yourself for? Be prepared to trade those of lesser weight in exchange for the dealbreakers. Exhaust all avenues of persuasion before taking the hard stand, but if push comes to shove you must state, as clearly and firmly as you know how, that you cannot sign the contract, cannot permit your book to be published, will not countenance a title change, will not suffer this cover or that advertisement. For most authors, and even for agents, taking a tough stand can be anxiety-making, but once you have made up your mind and prepared to gamble everything to win your point, there must be no backing down. Publishers who discover that your bottom line is not chiseled in granite will quickly find you out, exploit your ambivalence, and never again take “no” for an answer from you.
Though you risk losing a deal, and maybe a lot more than that, by taking a hard stand, you may be surprised to learn that as often as not it is your publishers who back down. Their bottom line may be more flexible than they led you to believe. Or they may not want to risk losing money that they have already paid to you or invested in your work. You never know until you try. If you win, you will push your relationship with your publishers to a higher plateau. And if you lose, you at least walk away with your pride, dignity, and integrity. And nothing is more important than that, right? Right?
Agents and publishers spend a lot of time creating subtitles. In fact, if you were to measure how many man- and woman-hours go into the process you would say they spend an inordinate amount of time in these deliberations. I say "deliberations" but as often as not they are debates, and some of them turn into donnybrooks with noses bent far out of shape and people not talking to each other. Publishing folks take subtitles seriously, and we advise you to do the same.
That's why McCrum wants to do away with subtitles entirely. "The truth is, if you have to justify your book with a subtitle, the game is up," he says. "Buyers pay scant attention to them; librarians and bibliographers often forget to catalogue them. They linger only as fig leaves of authorial shame. Who now remembers, or cares, that George Orwell's Animal Farm bears the subtitle A Fairy Tale, or that Herman Melville's Moby Dick was also known as The Whale?"
