Ten things I've learned from writing ten books (part 1)

I’ve been a writer for eleven years. In that time I’ve had ten books professionally published. My career started small—co-authoring an update of the Insiders’ Guide to Phoenix. That gave me the credibility to get my first solo title: Byzantium: An Illustrated History and I’ve been under contract for one or more books ever since. Currently, my main sources of income are writing military history books for Osprey Publishing and blogging for Gadling.com, the most popular travel blog on the Web. How did I do it? By quickly learning the following ten facts.

Networking is essential. I got my first book because a colleague recommended me. I got my blogging gig because a colleague recommended me. My recommendations have gotten other colleagues work. What goes around comes around. Of course you have to be a hardworking professional before anyone will recommend you, and you have to network with other professionals. Writers’ newsgroups and discussion boards are good support for beginners, but once you start writing professionally they aren’t so valuable.

The publishing world isn’t collapsing, it’s changing. Publishing is always changing; this just happens to be a bigger change. The major publishers aren’t going away. They have the capital and the clout and the bestselling authors. Magazines and newspapers aren’t going to all disappear either, although they’re losing a lot of market share to websites, like the one that pays me to write travel articles. Change means opportunity.

Steady work is essential. Constantly hustling for freelance gigs is exhausting. Find something that offers steady work and steady income. For me that’s blogging at Gadling. They pay me on time every month. Manna from heaven! Some publishers like having house authors who do one or two books a year. Focus on pitching those publishers.

Much of your work day is consumed by tasks other than writing. Networking, answering emails, editing, sending queries. . .the list goes on and on. Sometimes I think unpublished writers with day jobs actually have more time for writing than professionals! These tasks are essential, however, and can’t be ignored.

Work for hire is a good thing. My first guidebook and all my books for Osprey were work for hire. Some writers shun such contracts, but if it pays decently and advances your career, why not take the job? Elsewhere I’ve discussed the advantages of work for hire, as well as a surprising benefit of work for hire.

Tune in tomorrow for five more things I've learned from more than a decade in the publishing industry.

The Indie Press: Saviors of the Midlist?

It's tough being a midlist author these days. The big six New York publishers are cutting back and demanding every publication be a hit. They no longer want to invest in an author who can only sell 10,000 copies in the hopes that she'll either become famous with time or (horrors!) keep a loyal following that ensures she'll sell 10,000 copies of each of her next dozen books. It's feast or famine with the big boys these days.

But now small and independent presses are stepping up the the plate. Publishers Weekly has had some interesting articles about how midlist authors are being saved by the smaller guys.

An article titled Smaller Presses, Bigger Authors reveals the big six want 20,000-30,000 sales per book or you'll get dropped. Established writers, even famous writers, are having a tough time selling books that are a bit out of the box, a bit too experimental. Alice Walker went to indie press New World Library to publish a collection of her poems. It sold out its 7,500 copy first printing. Great sales for an indie, a financial flop for a big publisher.

Oh great. I have a hard enough time getting my books published even at indie presses, and now I have to compete with Alice Walker!?

But seriously, this is good news for the midlist too. Small and indie presses are more open to unestablished authors and experimental work. If they think a book can sell 5,000 copies they'll give it a shot. Some really small presses are happy with less than that. Your advance will be much lower, but you'll generally get a bigger percentage of the royalties and you'll be under less pressure to become a big name. It appears the smaller houses have a more realistic view of the marketplace. That's why they're blossoming right now.

Indie presses report seeing more manuscripts from established authors, as well as debut literary fiction from unknowns. This has been going on for some time. Back in 2007 PW profiled Night Shade Books. In that article they tell how the company has done well with good choices of authors, good distribution, and taking on sf/f books that are cool but not bestseller material. Even successful sf author Liz Williams moved from Bantam to Night Shade after her sales weren't good enough for such a large publisher.

Night Shade has a solid reputation, pays an advance, and can sell thousands of copies. Not hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands, but thousands. That's realistic, and they won't dump you if you "only" sell 7,000 copies. I met the owners at World Fantasy Con a few years back and they're very approachable and down to earth. That's a big plus too.

So maybe this isn't such a bad time to be a midlister after all.

Another advantage of work for hire

A while back I did a post on the relative merits of work for hire vs. getting an advance on royalties in publishing contracts. If you're unclear on these terms check out the link.

After being a Gadling travel blogger for more than a year I've discovered another advantage of work for hire--when you sign away your rights you don't have to defend them. Gadling, or more precisely AOL Media, pays me a flat fee and then owns total rights to my posts. I agree to this because their flat fee is good and they have the most popular travel blog on the web. Once my posts go live, they are their property.

What a relief! With so many people stealing stuff from online sources I'd spend half my day tracking down copyright violations. For example, one blogger reused a photo of mine without permission, others have taken articles, and the Somaliland Times, a weekly English newspaper, reprinted my entire Somaliland travel series. Actually I don't mind that last one, because how many people in Hargeisa read Gadling?

So I can sit back and watch the plundering of my work with a serene detachment. Sure it's wrong, but it gets me more readers, and if AOL Media's lawyers want to do something about it, that's their job. I hope they don't go after the Somalis, though. The Somali people showed me so much hospitality they deserve to get my articles for free.

Going out of print

At the first of this month I reached a new milestone in my writing career--one of my books went out of print. Strangely, it wasn't my earliest book, but rather a book I only wrote three years ago, Moon Handbooks London. The story is a sad one and a warning for aspiring guidebook writers.

Back in 2005 I saw on a jobs board that Avalon Travel Publishing wanted to expand their Moon series, already popular for Asian and South American destinations, into Western Europe. I applied for the London gig and got it. The advance was good, the royalties generous, and I was really over the moon, as it were.

But if something looks too good to be true in your writing career, it probably is. I wrote the book and it was published, but it received no marketing. None. Zilch. Nada. Moon, a newcomer to a near-saturated market, assumed their name recognition would allow them to compete with the likes of Lonely Planet, Frommer's, and Rough Guide. Problem was, Moon Handbooks didn't HAVE any name recognition in Western Europe.

I complained to my editor about the lack of marketing, and her only reply was, "But we featured you on our website!" Now catch me if I'm wrong, but in advertising you go to the customer, right? You can't expect the customer to come to you. When I asked if any review copies went out, I received evasive replies.

It came as no surprise to me that the book had poor sales. When it came time to do the second edition, I got the runaround for the better part of a year before my editor finally told me there would be no second edition. Most of their writers in Western Europe got the same news, as did several longstanding writers in other regions.

It was a tough lesson, but one I learned well. Now I only work for publishers who have strong marketing plans, or at least publish books that don't have a huge amount of direct competitors with better marketing plans. Something to think about before you sign your next contract.

Now the rights to the content have reverted to me. I'll be updating and reusing the contents for various projects. One of the ways to survive midlist purgatory is to know how to turn disappointments into opportunities.

Starting Book Number Seven

As I mentioned way back in May, I was in negotiation with a publisher to do book number seven. I can now announce I'm working on Guerrilla Tactics of the American Civil War for Osprey Publishing. I've received the first part of my advance and am well into writing the text. Next week I'm off to Missouri for six weeks to do some research.

Osprey is a well-known publisher of military history books, and one of the reasons I wanted to hook up with them was because I noticed the same names cropping up again and again in their catalog. If they like you, they'll keep giving you work. I'm already discussing a few other titles with them.

In a previous post, I talked about when it was OK to do work for hire, meaning the author gets a flat fee and no royalties. Osprey only offers work for hire, but the contract definitely fulfills my criteria. The money they pay (in pounds sterling, not the Mickey Mouse money American publishers pay in) is sufficient for a decent wage for the time it will take to write the book, it's a reputable company that will look good on my CV, and there's a chance for more work. So all in all, I'm very happy.

When Should A Writer Ask For More?

A magazine signed me up to do an article recently and offered me $375. That's not much, but it's a straightforward article that won't take me much time, so it's worth it. I asked if they could pay me $425, and they came back with a counteroffer of $400, which is what I expected them to do.

It never hurts for a writer to ask for more. I always ask for more from magazines and book publishers, and the worst that's ever happened is they've insisted on their original offer. Some beginning writers are afraid to do this, but any editor worthy of the name isn't going to dump you just because you asked for a bit more money.

There's a technique to doing this right, though. I never ask for a huge amount more than their first offer, and I don't pester regular markets unless I haven't had a raise in a while. I also ask politely, something important in any type of business (and writing is a business, much as I hate that fact). If one of my book publishers won't budge on the amount of the advance, I'll try to renegotiate other things, such as royalties or the number of author's copies.

In sum, always try to get a bit more from your editors. The worst that can happen is that they'll say no.

The Misery of a Midlist Author

Indulging my vanity, I googled "midlist writer" today to see if I could find this blog. To my surprise I was listed second. The only thing that came before me is yet another brutally honest midlister, who wrote this scathing article about the realities of publishing. It's harsh, it's painful, and it's so, so true.

Aspiring authors, read if you dare.

Work for Hire vs. Advance on Royalties

If you read the writing newsgroups, you'll find some writers and aspiring writers have allergies to certain aspects of writing. In the article on Lyphobia below, Dr. Bob Rich mentions how some writers panic when they see adverbs. In yesterday's post I mention I did my first book as a work for hire arrangement. Some writers would howl at the idea, unless, of course, they got offered a decent deal themselves.

Many book contracts offer an advance on royalties. The author gets, say, $10,000 and 6% royalties. As the author, you will get 6% of the profits of the book, but you won't see any more than that $10,000 you got up front until after your 6% comes out to more than your advance. If your royalties never do come out to more than $10,000, you still get to keep the money, but your publisher will be disappointed with the profits and may not hire you for another job.

With work for hire, you get paid a flat fee, and never get any money from that book again. This is because you have signed away your legal status as the creator of the work. You lose syndication and movie rights, and any other potential profits. This is why some writers don't like work for hire contracts.

Personally, I think it depends. The first book contract I was offered was for updating the Insiders' Guide to Phoenix. The flat fee they offered me was good enough to cover the time I spent writing it, plus it got me an important line on my resume that opened up the door to my career as an author. Besides, it wasn't like Hollywood was going to option my Phoenix restaurant reviews.

So if you're considering signing up for a work for hire contract, consider a few things:

1. Is the money offered enough to give you a decent wage while writing the book?

2. Does doing this book move your career forward in a significant way?

3. Is there an option to write for advance on royalties? Usually the answer is no, like with the Phoenix guide, but sometimes a publisher will offer you less money up front in exchange for giving you royalties later. Do some math to see how many copies they'd have to sell before you see any royalties, then figure out if it's worth it.

4. How important are the other rights you lose? If you have a smacking good novel, you might not want to lose film rights, but if you look at the left-hand column, you'll notice that none of my published nonfiction is exactly blockbuster material.

5. Are you acknowledged as the author? While you will not legally own the work, does your name at least appear on the cover? In the case of the Phoenix guide, the answer was yes. I would hesitate to write a book for which I'm not given credit. I'd have to get a lot more money for that. Of course, you can always put it on your resume, but it's nice to see your name in print, isn't it?