By John Gilstrap
Last week, our friend and frequent-poster Terri Lynn Coop posted the following comment:
“You’ve talked about becoming agented and querying. However, what happens once your novel or non-fic is sold to the publisher.
What kind of deadlines are there? How firm are those deadlines? What role does your agent play after the publishing contract is signed? What sort of public face does your agent and publisher expect you to maintain from contract to release (is there a difference between fiction and non-fiction)? When do you see your advance?”
It’s a great bunch of questions. I’m going to take a shot at some answers. The underlying assumption of my answers is that this is a first published book we’re talking about. The rules don’t change a lot after you have a chip in the game, but they do change a little. I’m also going to juggle the order of the questions a little:
What role does your agent play after the publishing contract is signed?
Understand that a lot of negotiation goes into what a publishing contract looks like. What rights will be sold? More importantly, what rights will be retained by the author? Is this a one-book contract, or a multi-book contract? What will the pay-out schedule be? If it’s a multi-book contract, will they be individually accounted or jointly accounted? (Joint accounting means that Book #1 would have to earn back its advances before you could start earning advances on Book #2. It’s by far the least preferable method, but first-timers often don’t have a lot of heft there.)
The agent is the go-between for all uncomfortable transactions. For example, in fifteen years, I have never discussed money issues with an editor, and no editor has had to tell me to my face that I wasn’t worth the money I was asking for. The agent keeps the creative relationship pure. Beyond that, if everything goes well, the agent doesn’t have a lot to do after the contract is negotiated.
But things rarely go well. What happens if your editor quits or gets fired? What happens if you really hate the cover, or if the editor is getting carried away with his editorial pen? On a more positive note, the agent will continue to pursue foreign publishing contracts, movie deals, etc.
What kind of deadlines are there? How firm are those deadlines?
Deadlines are part of the negotiation process. You’ll have to agree to respond to your editorial letter by a certain date with a corrected manuscript, and then you’ll have copyedits and page proofs, all while making your commitment to deliver the next book in the contract if it’s a multi-book deal. I consider deadlines to be inviolable. I’ve had to push the delivery date by a couple of weeks once, but I hated doing it because it inconveniences so many people, and it makes me look unprofessional. Here is another instance where a track record of performance keeps people from losing faith in the author. For first-timers, blowing a deadline can kill a career. Remember, by blowing the deadline, you technically violate the contract, which the publisher would have the authority to void.
Writers need to understand that publishing calendars are set 12 to 18 months ahead. Working backwards from those dates are the in-house deadlines for the production side of things (cover design, copyedits, publicity, ARCs, reviews, and a thousand other details). If a deadline is blown by as little as a month, publishers may pull the author’s book from the calendar and replace it with another, thus potentially adding months to the publication date.
When do you see your advance?
This is another negotiated deal point. Advances are paid out in pieces. There’s always one piece on signing. After that, the milestones vary from author to author, often depending on the horsepower of the agent, and on the “importance” of the author. Other payment milestones can include: submission of edited manuscript (this is the “D&A payment–Delivery & Acceptance); hard cover pub date; softcover pub date; and even, in some cases, some period of time after the pub date. If there’s a second book in the contract, there’ll likely be a payment milestone for the submission of an outline for the second book, followed by submission of an acceptable manuscript.
Meanwhile, if you’re happy at the publishing house, sometime while writing the second book of a two-book deal, your editor and agent will start negotiating the next deal.
What sort of public face does your agent and publisher expect you to maintain from contract to release (is there a difference between fiction and non-fiction)?
This is where the issue of an author’s platform comes in. If you’re a celebrity writing your autobiography, the pressure will be high to be out there to flog it. Similarly, if you’ve written a book about a presidential candidate during an election year, the publisher will press hard for you to have media face time.
On the other hand, if you’ve written a novel featuring a feline crime solver (or about a freelance hostage rescue specialist), chances are that you couldn’t buy publicity outside of your local newspaper. In that regard, an author’s public face is only as public as the author wants it to be.
I think that’s all of it. Okay, Killzone comrades, let’s hear from you.
Category Archives: John Gilstrap
NEWS FLASH: There Are No Shortcuts to Success
The Pain of Rejection
The Pain of Rejection
Technology Scares Me
Technology Scares Me
Lesson From Gun Camp
Lesson From Gun Camp
Pure Coolness
By John Gilstrap
I’m writing this blog post on Sunday, January 15 knowing that when you read it, I will be in the middle of a very, very cool day. Actually, a warm day, I hope. In Las Vegas, where I’ll be signing books this morning at the 2012 SHOT Show. According to the show’s website, www.shotshow.org, “The Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT Show) and Conference is the largest and most comprehensive trade show for all professionals involved with the shooting sports, hunting and law enforcement industries. It is the world’s premier exposition of combined firearms, ammunition, law enforcement, cutlery, outdoor apparel, optics and related products and services.” Last year, over 50,000 people attended.
I was invited to the show months ago by the nice people at 5.11 Tactical, a well-respected manufacturer of tactical apparel–the very kind of geat that Jonathan Grave wears as he charges through my imagination. In fact, in preparation for the show, 5.11 tactical sent me a carton of gear, including shirt, pants, jacket and the best pair of boots I’ve ever worn. I’ll be wearing the attire for the book signings and the press conference.
I’ve never enjoyed this kind of VIP treatment before, so I confess to being a little giddy. Take a look at my official itinerary from yesterday:
6:30am — Firearms instructor will pick you up at the hotel
7:00am — arrive at range, setup/meet with range staff, gear check, etc.
7:00am-7:30am — Orientation, area familiarization, safety briefing, etc.
8:00am-11:00am — Firearms training
11:00am-12:00pm — Knife training
12:00 — depart back to hotel for lunch and classroom training
12:30-1:30 — Prefense Technologies — lecture, PowerPoint presentation, student interactive, etc.
1:30-2:15 — Prep for author panel
2:30-3:30 — Author Panel Press Conference, Venetian Murano Room 3306.
Really, how cool is that? As I write this, I’m hoping that the knife training comes complete with either thick padding or fake knives. You’ll know the answer, I suppose, if you see a post here next week.
Tally ho!
Choosing the Best Point of View
By John Gilstrap
Stories are collections of moments the propel the plot through the eyes of characters. One of the critical decisions that an author has to make dozens of times over the course of a book-length manuscript is to determine which character each moment belongs to. I don’t think this issue applies to first-person narration because the POV is forever locked in the head of the protagonist. For third-person storytelling, though, the decision is paramount.
It’s also a key element of the overall strategy of a book. For example, in my Jonathan Grave books, Jonathan’s is almost always the primary POV for scenes in which he is involved. The exceptions are limited to moments where I want to reveal other characters’ impressions of Jonathan. I never write a scene from the point of view of Boxers, however–Jonathan’s best friend and protector–because his character works better through the eyes of others.
Because these books are a series, I have the luxury of developing my primary characters over a multi-book arc. That’s not the case for the secondary characters–the guest stars, if you will, the people who are the focus of Jonathan’s current adventures. I have to bring these focus-characters to life, make the reader love them (or hate them) and resolve their entire story arc within the confines of the current book. Plus, I have to do all of that without letting the story sag under the weight of obvious characterization. If I don’t plan well, it can become a nightmare.
As an example, whose POV is more compelling during a hostage rescue scene, the hostage or the rescuer? If the bad guy is going to be killed in the shootout, should some of the action be from his point of view, too? If so, then that means I needed to give him some scenes earlier in the story so that I don’t have to introduce his worldview to the reader in the middle of an action scene. (As far as I’m concerned, an action sequence combined with exposition isn’t an action sequence at all–it’s a muddled mess.)
These choices aren’t just limited to chases and shootouts, either. If male and female characters we both care about are meeting for the first time, whose POV is more compelling? If the meeting doesn’t go well, is it better to see the rejection from the point of view of the rejectee or the rejector?
There are of course no right or wrong answers because this writing game has no rules. There’s only what works and what doesn’t, and even that decision is bound only by artistic choice. In my heart of hearts, I think that we all know the difference, but there are few among us who haven’t on occasions stuck with the wrong choice for fifty pages too long.