I’ve always been a fan of both diversification and experimentation when it comes to my writing career. From my soon-to-be-launched cell phone project to making my work available in a variety of digital formats, I’ve tried to examine different ways to bring my writing to the people who value it the most – my readers.

2010 is going to be an adventure in living out that belief; I’m going to try different things and see just what folks respond to the most. And I’m happy to say that I’m here to announce the first of these experimental ventures – The Mirror’s Road.

The Mirror’s Road is a novel I’ve had hanging around in the back of my head for awhile. It’s such a mix of genres that I’ve never even tried to sell the idea to a publisher – it would probably give the guys in the marketing department fits as they tried endlessly to pigeonhole it into one genre or another without success. But it’s a story I want to tell, one I want to share with all my fans, so I’ve been looking for a way to do just that.

I found it through a little site called Kickstarter.

You see, Kickstarter is a site devoted to doing just what its name implies – kickstarting projects with the help of others. People pledge money to a project in return for cool rewards and a behind-the-scenes look at the development process from beginning to end. The site is backed by Amazon.com, which provides an appropriate measure of security to the entire process. It’s all or nothing funding, too; if a project does not meet its financial goal in the timeframe set (between 1 and 90 days) then no money changes hands.

I’ve turned The Mirror’s Road into a Kickstarter project, as you can see from the widget below, and I want to invite you all along to share the ride with me. If you decide to back the project – and there are various levels of doing so from $5.00 to $100.00, with appropriate rewards for each – you’ll get to participate in the project with me, providing suggestions on everything from character traits to plot lines. You’ll get to follow along from development of the intial idea to the actual writing, from the production of the cover art to the final printed product. And regardless of the level of backing you chose, you are assured of getting a copy of the completed book as my way of saying thanks for supporting the project.

So what’s the book about? I can tell you it’s an urban fantasy novel, full of things that shouldn’t exist in a world that doesn’t quite believe in them. And it’s a road story too, about a young man on a journey, searching not only for his destiny but also for the almond-eyed girl that appears in his dreams each night, the girl that calls him on through the darkness. Who they are and what they mean to each other? Well, I think we’ll find that out in time.

If you want to get involved, and I really hope you do, simply click on the widget above which will take you to the project’s home page. There you can read the first chapter and learn more about the project. If you discover that you’re interested in supporting it, simply click on the pledge level you want, select your reward, and follow the Amazon check out process.

And remember, the pledge period runs until April 16, so your card won’t be charged until then and only if we meet our goal.

I’d love to hear what other people think about taking this type of approach. What do you like about it? What do you dislike? Share your thoughts in the comments.

With the rise of less expensive ebook readers and the growing interest in using mobile devices such as handhelds and cell phones to read digital content, the question of how an author should best handle their digital rights is becoming more complex.  Recent changes in how publishers are compensating us for this content has also made it more important for us to understand just what is being offered and by whom.

Back in October 2008, Random House sent out a letter to industry agents informing them of a change in policy regarding ebook royalty rates on all future contracts.  Previously, RH had paid 25% of the suggested retail price of the title.  The new policy was that they would be paying 25% of the amount received for all titles.

What, exactly, did this mean for writers?  Under the old policy, if a book retailed for $10.00, the author earned a royalty of $2.50 on every book sold, regardless of any discounting the publisher might do on the title.  Under the new policy, the writer would only receive 25% of what the publisher took in instead.  So if the book retailed for $10.00, but the publisher had to discount that 50% for the distributor, the author would only receive 25% of the 50% the publisher made, or somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.25.

That was a significant drop, any way you look at it.

Shortly thereafter, Simon & Schuster followed suit, adopting the same policy as Random House.  Thankfully, the vast majority of other publishers continued to offer what was at the time the standard 25% of list price royalty rate.

Now we have another bump in the road.  MacMillan, parent of such companies as St. Martin’s, Farrar Straus and Giroux, Henry Holt, Picador, and Tor among others, announced this week that they would be making changes in their ebook royalty rates as well.

Here’s a direct quote from CEO John Sargent’s cover letter:

“It won’t surprise you that we have looked at the growth of development of digital delivery of the content from our books.  A number of the new contract’s provisions, specifically in the grant of rights and royalty sections of the contract, reflect our response to those developments.  Our starting premise is that digital rights in the content we publish in print book formats must be included in the basic grant of rights that we receive from authors.  In addition, as the methods for dissemination of content rapidly change and the distinctions between sales and licenses blur, we have determined that a single royalty rate, based on the amount received by the Publisher, should apply to all exploitation of the content of the book in digital form.”

That standard royalty rate Sargent is talking about?  Turns out it’s 20% of monies received.

Back to our example.  If that $10.00 book is published by one of MacMillan’s companies, that $2.50 royalty is now reduced to $1.00.

As both a Tor author and one who is highly interested in digital rights, let me give you my honest opinion.

That sucks.

To show you what I mean, let’s compare that to my recent deal with Blackbetty Mobilemedia.  Under that contract, I get a royalty rate that is 20% of the catalog retail price of the book.  Each episode of The Cerberus Protocol (the first book in the HELLstalkers series) will sell for $2.99.  There will be six episodes – one will be free to bring people into the story and the other five will be at the above rate.  The cost to buy the complete book is therefore $14.95, or roughly the price of a trade paperback.  Of that $14.95, I walk away with $2.99.

$1.00 versus $2.99.  Which would you take?

But there is another issue here that needs to be examined and that is MacMillan’s insistence that digital rights be included in the initial sale.  That clause means I can’t sell the print rights to the HELLstalkers series to any MacMillan subsidiary, since I’ve already licensed the rights elsewhere.

Question is, should I be upset by that?

Let’s say Tor bought the rights and decided to bring the book out in paperback. Standard royalty rates on a paperback run 6% on the first 25K copies, 7% on the next 25K and 8% thereafter.  To make things easier, let’s just use that higher royalty rate.

Paperbacks typically sell for $7.99 now.  8% of $7.99 is 63 cents.

What becomes the determining factor now is not the royalty rate but the distribution model.  If I can get the book in front of as many people in digital form as I can in print form, I am far better off doing it the non-traditional way.

Something like 450% better off, in fact.

Part of my reasoning in accepting the recent offer from Blackbetty was to test if that distribution model is in place yet.  By partnering with a major telecommunications giant like Vodafone (who, incidentally, also own Verizon here in the States) I’m betting that we can put this book in front of as many pairs of eyes as I could if I sold it to a traditional publisher.  If I take into account the fact that it will be published in seven different territories simultaneously, I believe that I can even beat that pre-existing model.

Time will tell.

(Note – MacMillan did include a higher royalty rate on direct-to-consumer sales in the new contract – 10% of net receipts on the first 10K copies, rather than the old 5% industry standard, but I’m not giving them any credit for that because they don’t make any kind of commitment to changing how they market direct to consumers.  The higher royalty ate does little good as a result.)

Most publishers require an editor to put together a profit and loss statement, or a P&L, when they are interested in acquiring a book.  The P&L helps the editorial board or acquisition team decide if the project is a good investment for the publishing house.  Understanding just what goes into a P&L statement can be a key factor in getting your book approved or not.

As I’m not an expert on P&L statements by any stretch of the imagination, I’m going to point you all over to Eric at the Pimp Your Novel blog.  Eric works int eh sales department of a major publisher and his four part series on P&L statements is not to be missed.  Be sure to read the comments after each of his posts, as there is a lot of good information to be found in the answers he gives to various questions there as well.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Next month a press conference will be held at the Frankfurt Book Fair announcing the pending launch of HELLstalkers, which is that super secret project I’ve eluded to several times both here and on my personal webpage.  More information on the project itself – what it is, who’s publishing it, how people can get it – has been posted on the official series website, http://www.hellstalkers.com.

I’m not going to repeat all of that here, but instead take RockYourWritingCareer.com members behind the scenes and into the birth and production of the series itself.  How did it come about?  What hurdles did we have to go through to get it approved?  How are we incorporating mobile and web technology to expand and build upon the text of the novels themselves?  We’ll be examining these and other issues over the next few months as decisions are made and the project is launched.

So let’s begin with the most obvious question – how did all this come about?

In order to answer that, we have to go back a few years.  My second novel, HERETIC, was released in 2005 by Pocket Books.  Just a month before it hit the streets, my editor left S&S and moved to Random House to handle non-fiction, leaving me effectively “orphaned.”  (Orphaned means you have no in-house champion to fight for you or your work.)  My lack of internal support left me hanging high and dry and as a result, Pocket passed on picking up books two and three in the series.

My career might have ended then and there if it wasn’t for the fact that I’d already been cultivating overseas contacts.  An editor from Droemer-Knaur made an offer for all three book in the Templar Chronicles and I’ve been writing for them ever since.  (December will see the launch of my fourth novel for them, with at least two more still under contract.)

Why am I telling you all this?  Because it is the fact that I was writing for a German publisher, and enjoying some decent success while doing so, that made the HELLstalker series possible.

You see, a few months before the 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair, I was doing some research on publishers who planned on being in attendance so that I could suggest editors for my agent to meet with at the Fair.  I stumbled upon an article about a multimedia company in Vienna called Blackbetty MobileMedia GmbH that was going to be launching a new mobile books platform for the German market.  The same article also noted that the company intended to expand into the US six to twelve months later.

Given that I had a bestselling series currently on the shelves in Germany at the time, I tracked down the company’s website and, unable to find an email address, used their contact form to send the following message:

I’m an American author published in Germany through Droemer-Knaur.  I’m interested in speaking to someone about having my German works available through your company.  Could you let me know who I should have my agent contact?

To my surprise, the company CEO wrote back that very evening, stating that he was familiar with my series and asking that my agent get in touch so that they could talk about licensing it for the mobile phone platform.

Several months went by, with discussions taking place between Blackbetty and my publisher, Droemer-Knaur, but nothing solidified during the process.  While all that was going on, I began corresponding with Blackbetty’s VP of Development, talking about the mobile books industry in general and Blackbetty in particular.  I knew that I wanted to find a way to do business with them and while chatting one day I asked if they might be interested in having me write something original for them instead of licensing my already existing work.  To my delight, they jumped at the opportunity.

What, they asked, did I have in mind?

Stay tuned for Part Two, where I pull a story out of my, uh…hat right there on the spot.

As you’re no doubt aware by now, I’m always watching what’s going on around me, both in and out of the publishing industry, looking for ways I can expand my general readership and the success of my writing projects.  By paying attention and then reaching out when I think it appropriate, I’ve added all sorts of new endeavors to my list of publications – from comics to role-playing games to independent film productions.

Later this week, I’ll start sharing a series of posts related to an entirely new endeavor, one that I hope will take my career to the next level.

The reason I’m telling you all this in advance is because, just as I did with the recent series of posts where I walked you step by step through the process I use to secure foreign rights sales for my novels, I’m going to take you right into the heart of this new project.  I’m going to give you an inside look at the process as it unfolds step by step – from the original development of the idea to the pitch to the contract negotiations and finally the launch.  Most importantly, I’m going to be showing you how you can take advantage of similar opportunities should they come your way.

Contracts are currently being signed, press releases are being written, and I should be able to take more freely about the entire project in just a few days.  In the meantime, let me just leave you with a title:

Hellstalkers: The Series

(Stay Tuned!)

How, exactly, does a book get accepted?  And what happens after that? These two questions are vitally important to understand if you want to make a living as a novelist.  When I first started out the entire process was a bit of a mystery to me and it is something that comes up time and time again whenever I teach a workshop or make a convention appearance.  So, as part of the launch of Rock Your Writing Career, I thought I’d give a short primer on the steps from proposal to publication.

Step One:  Submission

You’ve polished the novel proposal as best you’re able.  If you’re a first time author you already have a completed manuscript ready to go the moment an editor or agent requests it.  If you’ve been previously published (and no, self-publishing doesn’t count unless you’ve sold several thousand copies) you’ve only written the proposal and a few sample chapters to accompany it, but that’s enough.  Now it’s time to do your research, pick the best targets, and send out those submissions.

Step Two: Editor Review

Your proposal package has landed on your targeted editor’s desk and they’ve read enough to know they want to read more.  It is at this point that the first time author receives a request for the complete manuscript.  If you’ve got a proven track record, the decision on whether or not to publish your manuscript depends on the contents of your proposal and whatever information the editor can dig up regarding your past sales.  At some point the editor does one of two things – either reject your submission or let you know that they are ready to take it to the next step.

Step Three: Editorial Meeting

Gone are the days when a single editor at a major publishing house was allowed to decide whether or not a book got published.  Now, it all comes down to committee.  The editor who has decided to champion your manuscript/proposal brings it to the next editorial meeting (schedules vary, but they usually take place on a regular basis, say every two weeks or once a month.)   At the meeting are the publisher, other editors (all carrying the manuscripts/proposals that they intend to champion), representatives from sales and marketing, and sometimes someone from the art department.  Each editor is given the chance to pitch their respective titles to the group.  Discussion (and some would say hilarity) ensue and decisions are made.  Good books get turned down all the time for a variety of reasons – the group doesn’t like the book as much as the individual editor goes, sales says they can’t sell it, marketing says they can’t market it, the company just published something similar, they only have X number of slots and they choose another title over yours – the reasons are endless.  If you’ve made it this far, your manuscript/proposal is obviously up to snuff, so a reject at this point simply means that your work wasn’t right for that house at that time.

Step Four: Contract Negotiation and Acceptance

It’s your lucky day and the editorial board votes unanimously to publish your book.  Your champion is about to become your editor; there’s just one more step before that becomes official.  A contract.  You or your agent (if you have one) will get a contract that includes the standard publishing terms for that house – things like a suggested advance based on your previous sales or what the Sales department thinks your book will earn, a nice sizable rights grab, and all the other fun stuff stuffed into those twenty some off legal size pages full of nearly incomprehensible terminology.  Did I mention your agent?  This is where they earn their keep.  If they are any good, they get you the best possible terms for the most amount of money.  Book deals still fall apart at this stage, so don’t go bragging about that sale until the contract is signed (preferably in triplicate.)

Step Five (a): Write that Book

Your agent manages to get through all the legal hurdles, you’ve signed the contract, and you now have an editor.  If you sold the book on the basis of just a proposal, now you get the joy of actually writing that book, my favorite part of the process (short of cashing the checks, that is!)  Once you are done, you move onto Step Five b.

Step Five (b)Editorial Letter/Review

If you sold the book based on a completed manuscript, it’s now time for your editor to go through it with a fine tooth comb.   Of course, that editor is also responsible for quite a few other authors, so they only have so much time for you and your book, but the good ones will read through your manuscript with a critical eye, making notes and suggestions about how it can be improved prior to publication.  You’ll receive all this in either a separate letter or part of a redlined manuscript and it’s your job to work with your editor to decide what you are going to change, what you are going to tweek, and what you are going to ignore.

Step Six: Revisions

This is where you do the hard work of dealing with all those things you’ve agreed to change, be they straight rewrites or simple additions/subtractions from the manuscript.  Once you are done you send the revised manuscript back to your editor and wait for either another round of revision requests or word that it’s been accepted as is.  For the purposes of our little timeline we’ll assume that things went well, your editor is happy with your hard work and it is time to move forward.

Step Seven: Copy Edits

Your editor will turn your manuscript over to either an in-house or freelance copy editor and it is their job to thoroughly vet the manuscript for in-house preferences with regard to spelling and grammar, consistency of details, and all the other thousand little things you might have missed in that final pass.  I once had a scene were three characters went up to the second floor of a house and came down from the third and that error managed to get by myself, my first readers, my agent, my editor and was only caught once it reached the copy editor.  When the copy editor is done they will send you back a hardcopy covered in notes and it is your responsibility to either make the changes as suggested or send them back with a “stet” notation to leave them alone.

Step Eight: Galley Review

Several months before the actual publication date, publishers will send out bound copies of the finished manuscript (called galleys or advanced reading copies) to reviewers to pump up excitement about the pending release.  Before that can happen, the author has to review the galley to be certain all of the changes indicated in the copy-editing process have been put in place.  This is your last chance to correct things like misspellings, grammatical errors, and the like. (No chance to rewrite here – you’re way past that point now.)  Once you sign off on that galley, the book is all but finished.  All that needs to be done now is the physical printing, binding, and shipping.

Step Nine:  Publication

Congratulations!  You’ve made it.