Questions about Publishing© by Holly Lisle
All Rights Reserved
How do I pick a publisher to publish my book?
The best way to find the publisher who will be right for you is
to find the books that you read that are most like the one you have
written (in genre, in style, in tone) and see who publishes them.
If they bought books like yours, the odds are vastly improved that
they will buy yours, too.
Don't waste time sending off your book to those "publishers" who
advertise in the backs of magazines. (Not even the ones who advertise
in the back of Writer's Digest.) They'll accept your manuscript.
I almost guarantee it. They'll also charge you for the privilege
of being "published." This is not the way the business works.
Never send a manuscript to a publisher because you "noticed that
you don't have any romance novels out there---my book will fill
a hole in your list." Your book will fill an out-slot in the publisher's
mailbox. A key rule in publishing lists is "same, but different."
If the publisher does romance novels, then your romance novel with
a new twist on a favorite theme will be right on target. Your shoot-em-up
western, however, will stand out like a drunken gunslinger at a
debutante ball, and will be kicked out the door just as fast. Fantasy
publishers publish fantasy. Religious publishers publish spiritual
tomes. Literary publishers want The Great American Novel. No publisher
wants a manuscript that is completely different from anything else
it has ever put out there---and there aren't exceptions to this
rule, either.
So the key to success here is to know what you write, find out
who is already putting books out there like it, and from that list,
pick the publisher or publishers whose books you like best to query
first.
How much do I pay a publisher to publish my book?
Nothing. Not a dime, not half the expenses, not "a modest sum,"
not anything. Not ever. You don't pay to have your book published.
The reason you don't pay to have your book published is as follows:
If you're a writer, then writing is your job. People get paid to
do their jobs---nurses get paid to nurse, ditchdiggers get paid
to dig ditches, and writers get paid to write.
(For more on this, also see WriterBeware [offsite, opens new window])
How much should I charge a publisher to publish my book?
I love this question. It is the flip side of "how much should
I pay to have my book published?" The droll answer is "you should
be so lucky..."
Again, this is not the way the business works. You want to have an agent
represent you in the negotiation of how much you're going to get for your
book (and how many rights you'll keep and how many you'll sell), but how
much the publisher pays for the book is, in the end, entirely up to the
publisher. Don't expect a fortune. Don't expect, in fact, to make more
than you would have made from flipping burgers part-time for the same
number of hours of work for your first novel. $250,000 first-novel advances
like the one my previous agent, Russ Galen, got for Terry Goodkind are
rare indeed. Much more typical is the $5000 I got for my first book, back
before I had an agent.
What are rights? Which ones do I sell?
Rights are what you hang onto with insane, frothing-at-the-mouth
determination.
Okay. I'll be a little more specific. Rights are what publishers,
movie-makers, book clubs, and so on, buy (actually lease) from you
on your book. When you sell your book, you are not actually selling
the book. You are selling to the publisher his right to publish
that book in a limited format for a limited amount of time, and
the more you can control the limits, the better off you'll be. Standard
rights sales for books permit the publisher to print the book in
your country, or perhaps in the region that speaks the same language
as you wrote it in. Foreign language rights are separate, and a
good agent will help you hang on to them. Movie rights are separate,
and again, a good agent will help you keep them. Internet publication
rights, compilation rights, book club rights, all of these are rights
that BELONG TO YOU from the second that you write the book. They
are YOURS, they are WORTH MONEY, and there are unscrupulous publishers
out there who would just love to grab them all up in one neat little
"World rights, all formats, for all time" clause that essentially
robs you of ever being able to resell them, while telling you that
the sale of world rights is standard. It isn't. It isn't even close
to standard.
Worse, there are publishers out there who will claim that their
publication of your book under their copyright is a standard business
practice. These people are thieves. Never sell your copyright on
an original work. Never. Your copyright says that you wrote the
book. If you sell that, and the publisher (or agent) puts his copyright
on the book, then he in effect wrote the book. It's his, and will
be his forever after. You can never get anything from that book
again, you cannot fix this, you cannot get reparations for it. Legally
the publisher can buy copyright, and legally you can sell it, but
you'd be insane to do so.
You may at times write books for which you do not own the copyright---for
these (movie novelizations, media tie-ins, series books packaged
by a packager, etc.) make sure that your agent sees that you are
well-compensated up-front, and that you are going to get lots of
royalties, because you will never see a dime in subrights sales,
and for a writer, that is a Bad Thing.
How do I sell my book in foreign countries?
I don't know. That's one of the many reasons I have an agent. She does
know.
Questions About Literary Agents>>
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