The Case for Pursuing a Traditional Publishing Deal Without an Agent

From Jane Friedman:

Securing the services of a literary agent has long been the gold standard for authors pursuing a long and successful career in publishing.

It’s easy to understand why. At the turn of the twentieth century, the so-called “author’s representative” emerged as the figure who would help authors cut a better deal with publishers. Most publishers were unhappy about this since agents who skillfully leveraged their clients’ hot properties forced publishers to shell out more money on better terms.

By mid-century, the agenting game was well established. Legendary agents like Sterling Lord (Jack Kerouac and Doris Kearns Goodwin were among his clients) and Robert Gottlieb (Toni Morrison, Robert Caro) impressed writers with their ability to champion talent, nurture genius, and land lucrative publishing deals. Needless to say, authors couldn’t accomplish half so much on their own behalf. The gatekeepers had won—and were here to stay.

Fast forward to today. Agents still function as gatekeepers, especially to the Big Five publishers and many top-tier smaller publishers, such as Tin House (whose open-reading periods are limited to a few days a year). Breakout debuts by authors like Jessica George (represented by David Higham) and stratospheric careers like Bonnie Garmus’ (repped by Curtis Brown) would not be possible without agents in the mix.

But, dear authors, securing an agent is not the only path to getting happily published (outside of self-publishing).

One big reason to consider other strategies (especially with a first book) is that the agenting business model is showing serious signs of wear-and-tear. Many agents readily admit the industry is in flux.

According to the latest member survey by the Association of American Literary Agents, an overwhelming majority of agents report feeling burned out and are working too much uncompensated overtime. And no wonder, as roughly a fifth of them receive 100 or more queries per week. Many also feel underpaid, given that roughly two-thirds depend in part or entirely on commissions—and making a sale can take months, if not years. (Do you imagine this is an elite group? Roughly 30 percent of American agents earn less than $50,000 annually.)

There’s no need to put all your editorial eggs into this one (turbulent) basket.

Scores of traditional small presses operating professionally and ethically in North America (and the UK, Australia, and elsewhere) are open to reviewing manuscripts year-round or seasonally without charging a fee.

Before getting into nuts and bolts on this, let me anticipate some objections that I know are out there, because the lure of agent-magic is strong:

But going directly to a publisher is less prestigious than going with an agent!

Even if that were objectively true, by the time your book is out in the world, readers have no idea how it got there and aren’t thinking about who reps you. The means justify the ends.

But an agent will fight for a better contract, or a bigger advance, than I’d get by negotiating with the publisher myself!

There may be some truth to this, but the tradeoffs are worth considering. For one thing: you’re getting published! A small advance, or no advance, may be offset by your efforts to successfully market your book when it comes out. Secondly, consider spending a few hundred dollars for an attorney to review your contract. The Authors Guild does this for free, and some states (such as Maryland) offer pro bono legal services to artists.

But a small press can’t market my book effectively!

It’s true that the Big Five publishers have bigger marketing budgets for ads and other forms of publicity. But will they put any of that money behind your book? And even big-name authors are increasingly expected to help market their own books and participate on social media.

The best small presses will submit reviews to the same outlets as the Big Five, from Kirkus to Publishers Weekly, and will engage in guerrilla marketing techniques to get you noticed. The gap in marketing efforts is not as wide as you think—and you’ll be expected to self-market with any publisher.

Link to the rest at Jane Friedman

PG says 99 out of 100 small presses have most of the drawbacks of large publishers with even more downside risk.

A large publisher will generally offer to pay a respectable advance. Most small publishers can’t afford those kind of up-front expenditures.

A small press, by definition, doesn’t sell very many books. A small press has to really fight to get one of its titles selected by a major reviewer with lots of readers.

Yet, the terms of a typical small press publishing contract almost always follows New York publisher patterns of demanding everything without a binding commitment to generate a respectable number of sales.

None of the small presses PG has examined vary from large publisher results of an occasional blockbuster, but mostly books that get launched, then flame out.

Time for the Query Critique. First I’ll present the query without comment, then I’ll offer my thoughts and a redline.

From Nathan Bransford:

Now then. Time for the Query Critique. First I’ll present the query without comment, then I’ll offer my thoughts and a redline. If you choose to offer your own thoughts, please be polite. We aim to be positive and helpful.

Random numbers were generated, and thanks to Dan, whose query is below.

December 19, 2023

Ms. XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX Literary Agency

Dear Ms.XXX,

I hope this letter finds you well. I see that you are registered for the upcoming Thrillerfest 2024, and I would like to introduce my novel, ONCE A DETECTIVE…, and express my interest in securing your representation.

ONCE A DETECTIVE… is a work of commercial fiction in the private detective genre. In present time, Detective Dan Burnett, with 30 years of experience with the NYPD, fails his physical and chooses retirement over desk duty. At fifty-five, he’s too young to do nothing, so he becomes a private investigator and learns the ropes from a P.I. with a similar history. Divorced, his one source of true happiness is his college-aged daughter. After assisting his new partner with some ongoing cases, he lands a case of his own: a beautiful woman whose brother was murdered. After two years, the NYPD had given up on the case, so it’s now up to him to find the murderer. The suspects are Las Vegas casinos, where the brother owed a million dollars, and his second wife, who inherited millions upon his death. He doggedly works the case using his life-long skills with the help of a former colleague, the NYPD detective originally assigned to the case. Tracking a mob hitman leads him on a chase across the country, searching for the truth and ultimately finding it.

Inspired by my favorite novels by Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, and others, I have woven a story of mystery, suspense, and romance.

I have recently retired from a life as a real estate developer and ocean sailor, and I finally have the time to pursue my longtime passion for writing and storytelling. To promote my work, I am in the process of creating an author’s web page that will link to social media.

Following is the first chapter for your review. I am happy to provide the complete 61,000-word manuscript at your request, and am also open to discussing revisions to align with your publishing vision.

Thank you for considering ONCE A DETECTIVE… I look forward to the opportunity to discuss this project with you further. Feel free to contact me by phone or e-mail to arrange a meeting or provide feedback.

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXX

As with so many queries, this one could benefit from more vivid details. The plot here feels extremely standard (retired detective becomes PI and investigates murder). That’s not necessarily an issue, provided the details, style, and setting feel fresh.

. . . .

Here’s a pretty simple formula you can use to stick the landing:

[PROTAGONIST(s)] must [DO X AND/OR Y AND/OR Z] in order to [GOAL/REWARDS] / or else [CONSEQUENCES].

Not every final line needs to follow this precise formula. Maybe in some plots you want to spell out the rewards a bit more, others to clearly articulate the consequences. But if you utilize this formula, you’ll quickly give the agent a sense of what’s ultimately at stake for the protagonist as the novel heads toward the climax.

. . . .

Here’s my redline:

December 19, 2023

Ms. XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX Literary Agency
 [This is almost assuredly an email, not a business letter]

Dear Ms.XXX,

I hope this letter finds you well. I see that you are registered for the upcoming Thrillerfest 2024, and. I would like to introduce my commercial fiction novel, ONCE A DETECTIVE…, and express my interest in securing your representation.

ONCE A DETECTIVE… is a work of commercial fiction in the private detective genre. In present time, After 30 years with the NYPD, Detective Dan Burnett, with 30 years of experience with the NYPD, fails his physical and chooses retirement over desk duty. At fifty-five and divorced, with a college-aged daughter as his one true source of happiness, he’s too young to do nothing, so he becomes a private investigator and learns the ropes from a P.I. with a similar history. [Missed opportunity to portray the other P.I. more vividly] Divorced, his one source of true happiness is his college-aged daughter.

¶After assisting his new partner with some ongoing cases, he lands a case of his own: a beautiful woman whose brother was murdered two years ago [Be more vivid/specific about both the woman and the brother]After two years, tThe NYPD hads given up on the case, so it’s now up to him to find the murderer. The suspects are Las Vegas casinos, where tThe brother owed a million dollars to Las Vegas casinos, and his second wife, who inherited millions upon his death. HeDan doggedly works the case using his life-long skills with the help of a former colleague, the NYPD detective originally assigned to the case. Tracking a mob hitman leads him on a chase across the country, searching for the truth and ultimately finding it. [Very flat final line. Consider something more like “Dan must do [X AND Y] in order to [GOAL/REWARDS] or else [CONSEQUENCES].]

ONCE A DETECTIVE… is complete at 61,000 words and will appeal to readers of Inspired by my favorite novels by Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, and others, I have woven a story of mystery, suspense, and romance[Consider more current comp titles]

I have recently retired from a life as a real estate developer and ocean sailor, and I finally have the time to pursue my longtime passion for writing and storytelling. To promote my work, I am in the process of creating an author’s web page that will link to social media[This isn’t going to inspire an agent’s confidence that you are at the baseline competency for technology usage as an author]

Following is the first chapter for your review. I am happy to provide the complete 61,000 word manuscript at your request, and am also open to discussing revisions to align with your publishing vision. [Goes without saying] Thank you for considering ONCE A DETECTIVE… I look forward to the opportunity to discuss this project with you further. Feel free to contact me by phone or e-mail to arrange a meeting or provide feedback. [Goes without saying]

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXX

Link to the rest at Nathan Bransford

Is Self-Publishing a Good Choice for Authors in 2024?

Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris:

Talk about self-publishing has diminished in the last few years.  Most of the “Kindle Millionaires” that surged onto the scene a decade or so ago have evaporated from indie writing communities.

Some of them are, of course, busy writing their next bestseller. But a lot either got traditional publishing contracts, like Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking (remember them?), or they moved on to more lucrative careers.

Writing about self-publishing isn’t wildly fashionable these days. Formerly prolific indie advocate Joe Konrath has only updated his blog, The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, once since 2019. D. D. Scott, of the Writers Guide to E-Publishing dropped the blog long ago

But the hottest phenom in publishing last year, Colleen Hoover, started as an indie author — and she still self-publishes some of her books. You can’t argue with her amazing success.

Why Self-Publishing is No Longer Big News
Here’s the thing: The Self-Publishing “Revolution” of the previous decade was tied directly to the “Ebook Revolution.” Indie publishing was sparked by the advent of the Kindle.

When Amazon launched the Kindle in the late ‘oughties, customers needed ebooks to read on it. And Amazon opened up a marketplace for self-publishing to flourish. Indie authors who sold their ebooks for under $5 became bestsellers when they competed against trad-pubbed ebooks priced at $10 and up.

And wise indie authors still price their books below the Big 5 prices. They can afford to, because there are no agents and publishers to skim off the bulk of the profits.

The fact self-publishing isn’t big news now is exactly because it’s so successful. It’s zooming along with no roadblocks, so there’s no news. Authors who take their indie careers seriously are making a lot of money self-publishing. They’re doing their own marketing and turning out books quickly for their growing fan bases.

They also write in genres that sell to voracious readers who generally buy ebooks, like Romance, mystery, thrillers, and sci-fi/fantasy.

These genres do well in subscription services like Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, Kobo Plus, Scribd, etc. Subscription services are growing fast, according to The New Publishing Standard. Kindle Unlimited paid out $575 million to self-publishers last year.

However, children’s, literary, upmarket fiction and “book-club” women’s fiction still tends to sell better in hard copy.

. . . .

I see that a lot of new writers who are planning to self-publish will immediately start talking about book signings and getting books into physical bookshops.

But that’s not where an indie should be putting their energy. Book signings can be fun, and a physical book launch party can be an important celebration for the author. Swag like bookmarks, mugs and T-shirts can be a blast to design and prepare.

But these things are about fun, not making big sales.

That’s because in-person events are not the way most indies sell their books. (With the exception of nonfiction self-help books. If you’re a motivational speaker, you can sell a lot of hard copy books at your speaking engagements.)

. . . .

Self-publishing does mean giving up some fantasies. Self-published authors rarely, if ever, are interviewed on NPR or reviewed in The New Yorker. Chances of being invited to participate in a TV talk show are minimal.  You probably won’t see your book in the window of your local Barnes and Noble, and you won’t be chosen for Reese’s or Oprah’s book clubs.

If these things are essential to your image of being a published author, either let them go, or keep slogging on that query-go-round and get yourself an agent and traditional publishing deal. Not a lot of traditionally published authors get national radio interviews or reviews in prestigious magazines either, but you’ll have a fighting chance.

. . . .

If you’re self-publishing, you’re going to be selling mostly ebooks, you are going to need to do most of your marketing online. Online marketing means establishing a major social media presence, as well as having an enticing website (and preferably, a blog. ) You’ll also want a strong email list of subscribers.

If you’re not interested in online marketing, self-publishing probably isn’t for you. The slow death of X-Twitter has made online marketing more difficult. If your demographic is over 40, Facebook can still help, but for most genres, you need to be on Instagram, and if you write Romance or YA, you definitely need Tiktok.

Link to the rest at Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris

The OP was generally right about the facts, but PG wonders if serious indie authors have the sort of “fantasies” the OP describes.

PG has known a great many indie authors, including more than a few who hired him to break out of their traditional publishing contracts with large New York publishers.

(Reminder: PG is retired, so he doesn’t this sort of thing any more. Please don’t ask.)

Typically, the authors who wanted to escape from traditional publishing contracts and the necessary New York literary agency 15% taken off the top wanted to self-publish so they could make more money and run their own shows.

They wanted to make more money because most traditionally published authors don’t make much money from their writing either. “Don’t give up your day job,” is advice a large number of traditionally-published authors hear from their agents.

As with any endeavor, some of PG’s now former clients did very well financially, adding a zero, sometimes two zeroes, to their previous annual writing incomes. Others didn’t have the knack of running their own business and didn’t do so well.

Everybody who escaped from their publishers and agents did share one benefit that was important to them.

They were the boss now.

They ran their own business the way they thought best. They could write what they wanted to write their books in the way they wanted to write them without explaining or justifying their choices to anybody else.

One more simple fact is that traditionally published authors whose last name isn’t Obama or another with similar public awareness also have to do social media marketing. And lots of other chores and homework assigned to most traditionally published authors by somebody at their publisher or their agent.

Who Needs a Literary Agent Anyway? Do They Deserve That Percentage?

From Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris:

As last September ended, a report from the Association of American Literary Agents painted a bleak picture of the American literary agent — working long hours and struggling to pay the bills, worrying for their future.

Among the members of the author community who had ever received a rejection slip from an agent, reactions ran the gamut of emoticon abbreviations, from LOL to RAOTFL to LMAO.*

These people get paid to read books! What are they whining about?

And who needs an agent anyway? One rejected the sample chapters of my interplanetary erotica fantasy, Fifty Shades of Venus, without even reading it, despite me sending a great query letter. I even used the spell-checker! But they emailed back the same day to tell me they only repped children’s books. These people just cannot move with the times!

So the next time, I sent the full 400,000 word manuscript, even though they only asked for the first two chapters. I figured it would save them time later, and helpfully told them that the action doesn’t really start until chapter 38, so they might want to start there. Rejected again. What do agents know anyway?

. . . .

Yeah, we’ve all been there. Most authors only see agents from the rejection slip end. It’s no wonder we don’t like them. And believe me, I accumulated a suitcase full of rejection slips back when I was querying.

Along the road, my books attracted the attention of two agents. One New York agent, having found my self-published book in the best-seller charts in three countries, made vague promises of movie deals and the like. And then they lost interest.

The other agent, a fellow Brit, was really excited, and had the manuscript being read by top commissioning editors at big publishing houses. A gazillion-digit publishing deal seemed to be just an email away. And then nothing.

That was disappointing, of course. But it didn’t turn me off agents. Because years previously I had worked in a London literary agency for a week as part of a journalism deal. My editor was sending me on week-long “job challenges”, most of which were not fun in any way. An abattoir… An undertakers… A fish factory… A sausage factory…

And just when I was ready to quit the magazine and strangle the editor, a literary agency. In London!

I was ecstatic! Every journalist wants to be a book writer, of course. This was my chance to spend a week drinking coffee, reading future bestsellers, mixing with big-name author over expensive lunches, and casually bringing into the conversation the two books I’d got sitting in a drawer at home that less reputable agents had foolishly turned down.

Maybe I could be a literary agent myself? No qualifications needed. Just stick an advert in the paper (yes, this was back in 1999), wait for the unpublished books to arrive in the post, call a publisher with the good news, and collect the commission. Money for old rope! My dream job had arrived!

. . . .

By the end of my first day all my illusions had been shot to pieces. Not a single famous author passed through the doors with a lunch invite at the Savoy. Lunch was a sandwich and a coffee from the greasy spoon café next door. In fact, famous authors never seemed to get mentioned at all.

Watching the daily delivery of unsolicited manuscripts was a revelation. At least 200 over the course of the week (this before email submissions and before self-publishing), and each one was dutifully opened and scanned for potential.

Sometimes the query letter was enough to warrant a rejection slip. As a writer myself, I was initially appalled. A rejection without even looking at the manuscript? A manuscript some poor soul had spent months, maybe years, slaving over, rewriting, revising, honing to perfection? Then I read the query letters and realised the standard of English on just one page was often more than enough to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

This in the early days of home PCs and MS Word, when many wannabe authors were still typing manuscripts through worn-out ribbons and with gallons of correction fluid.

Then came the first chapter reads. So many authors would send the full MS despite clear instructions to only send the initial chapters, but every package was unwrapped and glanced over. One of the agents has a memo framed above her desk: “Think JK, Every Day.” This was the year Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published, and the legend of the agents and publishers who had sneered and told JK Rowling not to give up the day job was discussed in hushed tones in every corner of every agency and publishing house around the world.

. . . .

But despite every package being opened, and every query letter scrutinised, many author careers stalled at this point. Some manuscripts showed no promise, some were simply derivative, some just came in at the wrong time. Agents had to judge what would be hot in the market years down the road. The speed the publishing industry operates at makes the South American three-toed sloth look like an Olympic sprinter.

And then there was the actual reading of the manuscripts – not finely polished books with pretty covers, fine type-setting and all the typos edited out by Spell-Check, but raw paper and faded double-spaced ink drowning in correction fluid on dog-eared pages that had spent days in the postal system in a flimsy envelope.

Then would come the redrafting and the re-redrafting and the re-re-re-drafting for those that cleared the first hurdle, the agent. All while trying not to upset the prospective future bestselling author that still had a lot to learn. This was happening over weeks or months — having to read and re-read the same manuscript.

And the agent all the time was losing the will to live as the wannabe author insisted their work was already perfect and the agents didn’t deserve the commission that at this point was far from guaranteed. And all the time trying to explain to said author that being repped was no guarantee of a publisher agreeing to actually publish. Let alone handing out the mega-advances newbie authors fantasise about.

This was happening in between the existing client representation, fighting for better deals, trying to find foreign rights (and nowadays audio and translation rights – not so common back in the nineties). Plus the agony of having to tell a one-time bestselling author that the market had moved on. Their latest book would not earn out the advance, and that their next book would not find a publisher.

Link to the rest at Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris

US literary agents question the business model’s viability, but some are missing the bigger picture

From The New Publishing Standard:

Today, publishing is a different planet. There is so much opportunity. So much potential. So much agents can offer authors, traditionally-published or self-published. And it is the younger, newer generation of agents, that are best poised to take full advantage and take their careers to new levels.

As September ended, the biennial report from the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) was released, painting a bleak picture of American’s literary agents working long hours and struggling to pay the bills, while worrying for their future, and questioning the viability of the commission model.

I logged the report on my To Do List, where of course it was promptly subsumed in the flood of pre-Frankfurt industry news and reports, and only resurfaced thanks to Porter Anderson over at Publishing Perspectives, who summarised the report during Frankfurt week, to shine the spotlight on the Buchmesse LitAg programme. Anderson took time out to remind us literary agents work hard and are not always appreciated for their pivotal role in bringing authors and publishers together, and looking after author interests.

As an industry professional, there were few surprises in the Association of American Literary Agents report. Those of us who have had dealings with literary agents will know it’s not quite the romantic dream job those outside the industry might imagine.

Ready-to-print future bestsellers rarely arrive on the desk, and those that do, unless from existing clients, go through the slush pile process of being filtered and evaluated, with the AALA reporting some agents handling over 100 submissions a week, often without an assistant.

Separating the wheat from the chaff can be dispiriting, when you know the querying author may have spent years of their life working on a manuscript that they truly believe in, but that sadly isn’t readable past the first few paragraphs. I cannot imagine there are any literary agents who relish the next stage – the rejection email saying thanks, but no thanks.

And then there’s the anguish of rejecting a manuscript that shows promise, but just needs too much work, or a well-written submission that simply doesn’t tick the right boxes for the prevailing market conditions.

All this alongside the lurking fear that the agent might have just rejected what will go on to be the next publishing industry legend. Just ask the many agents who told JK Rowling not to give up the day job.

As an author and one-time editor, being a literary agent is probably the last job I would want to choose in this industry. Although sympathy towards the plight of the literary agents’ struggles as reported by the AALA is tempered by, as always, real life.

There are plenty of jobs out there that pay less, have longer hours, zero job satisfaction, and involve exhausting manual labour. So my gut reaction whenever I see reports emerging like this from any sector of the publishing industry, is to sigh and prepare for a pity-fest of victim-of-a-cruel-world gripes.

The latest Authors Guild report, published the same week as the AALA report, is an example, with Jim Milliot reporting for PW that “Writing Books Remains a Tough Way to Make a Living“, explaining that, “A new Authors Guild survey finds that median book and writing-related income for authors in 2022 was below the poverty level.

That’s an op-ed in its own right. The idea that book authors can somehow be equated with people who stack shelves in supermarkets, make bread or cars or widgets, serve coffee or pizza, or do some other weekly-waged job never fails to amuse me. Back in the UK I spent many years sat in coffee bars all day, slaving hard to keep the baristas busy replenishing my lattes for a pittance weekly wage, while I pecked away at the keyboard between blueberry muffins, writing books that in their time sold almost two million copies, and fifteen years on, still bring in a trickle of revenue. The barista, who worked far harder than I ever did, got paid for the day’s work and then had to do it all over again the next day to get paid again. My work, all those years ago still earns me something, and if I can ever find the time away from school and TNPS, there’s probably a lot more mileage to be had from them. Real life? No thank you.

Link to the rest at The New Publishing Standard

Of course, there are many ways to be poor. For the large majority of would-be authors who wish to be published by traditional publishers, absent independent means, that path is doomed to failure.

Being poor and young can be a hoot (PG speaks from experience). However, being poor and middle-aged or, worse, poor and old is a different sort of existence altogether (Thankfully, PG doesn’t speak from experience about that sort of life).

PG has helped/tried to help a number of people who have found themselves old or pre-old without enough money to make ends meet. More than a few employers would rather hire young and train than spend more money to get additional experienced employees. While it’s supposed to be illegal, there is more than a little age discrimination that goes on in contemporary US businesses.

Generally, PG advises would-be authors who aren’t able to crash on a friend’s couch each night to not give up their day jobs until they start receiving some actual money in meaningful amounts from their writing.

A literary agent

A literary agent is nothing but a cheap salesman (or woman); while a writer is a cheap salesman (or woman) who also has to actually write the books.

John Hodgman

The brutal truth about earning out

From Blake Atwood:

What does earning out mean?

When an author signs a book deal with a publisher, the publisher pays the author in the form of an advance on future sales, aka an advance against royalties, aka an advance.

Let’s be optimistic and say that your literary agent sold your book to a publisher for $100,000. That means that prior to your book having gone on sale, you will have made $85,000.

Don’t forget: your lit agent gets 15 percent of what you earn. That number isn’t always the same for every agent, but 15 percent is typical.

That advance money may be paid in a lump sum, but it may also be doled out to you at specific publishing milestones, e.g., when you sign the contract, when you submit your manuscript to the publisher, and when the book is published.

Let’s assume that it takes approximately two years for those three events to happen. At that rate, you’re paid $28,333 three times over two years. Can you already see how even a sizable advance may not mean an author can quit their day job? We haven’t even accounted for taxes yet!

To “earn out” means that a publisher sells enough of that author’s book so that the publisher recoups their investment in the author.

In other words, the publisher needs to earn $100,000 before the author will ever see more money as a result of sales of their book.

Considering that an author stands to earn maybe $2.50 per hardcover book and less for other editions, at best, the publisher will have to sell 40,000 books for the author to earn out their $100,000 advance.

. . . .

According to Jane Friedman, 70 percent of authors don’t earn out their advance.

In other words, a majority of authors are paid anywhere between $5,000 and $1,000,000 in an advance and their book sales never match how many the publisher thought they could sell.

Fortunately for these authors, they don’t have to pay the advance back to the publisher. The advance is a calculated financial risk that publishers take on their authors.

. . . .

Literary agent Jeff Kleinman shared an apt visual for advances and royalties: Imagine a jar filled with 100,000 marbles. When you sign a book deal, you and your agent are given those 100,000 marbles. The publisher takes the jar back. Once they fill it back up with 100,000 marbles made through book sales, then the jar overflows and the author (and agent) “earn out” and begin to see royalty checks on top of what they’ve already been paid through the advance.

But that only happens 30 percent of the time.

Link to the rest at Blake Atwood

Here’s a link to Blake Atwood’s Author Page on Amazon. If you appreciate Blake’s insights, you might want to check out his books.

PG notes that it’s not unusual for a wide variety of little nibbles that some publishers and agents sometimes take from the author’s royalties. Some publishers and some agents add little fees for this and that, which can add up. Fedex fees charged by the agent to send you your royalty statements and royalty checks are one small example.

PG regards items such as these as part of the cost of doing business as a literary agent and, as such, the costs should be borne by the agency.

(Note: For simplicity’s sake, the following hypothetical does not include book wholesalers that all large and many small publishers use to warehouse and ship orders to individual bookstores and book chains and whoever else wants to purchase them.)

And don’t forget the notorious reserve against returns. For those who are unfamiliar with this process and how it is sometimes manipulated, PG will provide a quick overview.

  1. Publishers are happy to ship bookstores as many printed copies as the store is willing to accept. How can you expect the bookstore to make towering stacks of a book unless they have lots and lots of copies?
  2. All big bookstores and most small bookstores have the right to return any unsold hardcopies of a book the publisher has shipped to them and receive for full credit of the wholesale price the publisher charged them for the books in the first place.
  3. As an example, Bob’s Big Books orders 200,000 printed copies of Lucky Anna’s first book at the wholesale price of of $10 per book. To spare you any arithmetic, this means that Bob is receiving books with a retail price of Two Million Dollars. If Bob sells all 200,000 copies of the books at the suggested retail price, Bob will be depositing Two Million Dollars into his bank account. Of course, out of the two million, he’ll be paying rent, salaries, taxes, etc., but if Bob is a good manager, he’ll make a bunch of money after paying the related expenses involved with selling 200,000 copies of the book.
  4. However, although Bob has plenty of Lucky Anna’s books to stack up in his bookstore, he sells only 25,000 copies of the book.
  5. What is Bob going to do with 175,000 unsold copies?
  6. Under a long-standing system used by traditional publishing in the US, Bob can send his unsold 175,000 copies of Lucky Anna’s book back to the publisher for full credit.
  7. Bob only has to pay for the 25,000 books he sells for a total of $250,000
  8. The publisher then has 175,000 more hardcopy books sitting copies sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

What’s a Publisher to Do?

1. In a reasonable-sounding accounting manner, the Publisher holds a financial reserve against book returns. Lucky Anna is only paid a royalty for amounts the publisher has actually received, less a reserve for returns.

2. Let’s assume hypothetically that a salesperson for a traditional publisher makes a two million dollar sale of a single title written by Lucky Anna to Bob’s Bookstore. The Publisher determined that setting a return against reserves of $1,900,000 would be prudent.

3. Conveniently, even though the Publisher shipped Two Million Dollars worth of one of Lucky Anna’s books to Bob’s Bookstore, after subtracting the $1,900,000, the reserve amount the Publisher set, The Publisher is required to pay Lucky Anna royalties only on the $100,000 remaining after subtracting the $1,900,000, the amount the publisher has set as a reserve against returns.

4. Multiply the calculations for Bob’s Books by 1,000 other bookstores, and you can see the calculations getting very sticky.

5. When Bob’s Bookstore returns $1,750,000 worth of Lucky Anna’s books to the Publisher, theoretically, the Publisher should pay Lucky Anna royalties on the $150,000 Bob sold beyond the amount the Publisher estimated that Bob would return for credit.

6. “However,” the Publisher thinks, “not every bookstore is like Bob’s. Some of the other bookstores will certainly return a higher percentage of books they didn’t sell than Bob did.”

7. Traditional publishing contracts allow the Publisher to withhold “a reasonable reserve for returns.”

8. “Reasonable” is, of course, in the mind of the Publisher.

9. Back to our hypothetical, the Publisher has sold books to a zillion other bookstores. The Publisher reasonably decides that not every bookstore is exactly like Bob’s. Some will sell a higher percentage of the books shipped to them than Bob did and others will sell a much smaller portion of the books shipped to them than Bob did.

10. Theoretically, a smart and highly computerized publisher would have track records on what the rate of returns each bookstore demonstrated for at least a few hundred of the titles the Publisher had released. But that would require the Publisher to spend a lot of money on analysts and statisticians to examine the data and calculate probable return rates for fiction, non-fiction, various genres, etc. And what English major wants to walk into that bramblebush?

11. PG’s understanding is that, to the extent traditional publishers think about the number or percentage of books that will be returned for credit, they either use intuition and listen to the music of the publishing spheres or they just lump almost all books into a big bucket. Rules of thumb prevail to the extent anyone thinks about accurate forecasting.

12. Given this fundamental truth, PG understands that most traditional publishers hold a higher amount of reserves against returns than they expect they will ever need.

13. Whether anyone does an accurate job of recalculating Lucky Anna’s past royalties should reserves for returns be much higher than the number of actual returns would justify, PG doesn’t know. He has his suspicions, however.

14. However, PG is certain that mistakes will be made by the Publisher and its underlings. He suspects that, on occasion, a mistake will be identified and remedied. On other occasions, a mistake will go unidentified or be ignored on the theory that the Lucky Anna will never ask about it.

15. Theoretically, Lucky Anna’s literary agent is double-checking the publisher’s reports for errors and jumping on the publisher when she locates one. Or, more often than not, the agent is out pushing for new business and delegates the arithmetic to the agent’s underpaid staff. This brings in more English majors earning low salaries into the mix.

16. More than a few agents have lots of turnover of back-office staff and not a lot of time to train newbies thoroughly. Or they have close to no back-office staff.

17. In the United States, there is no official set of requirements that must be met before an individual hangs out a shingle saying they’re a literary agent and are accepting new submissions.

18. Someone can get out of prison after serving a ten-year sentence for accounting fraud on one day and open up shop as a literary agent the next day.

19. What could go wrong?

20. PG acknowledges that there are some very hard-working and dedicated employees in at least some publishers and at least some literary agencies. He has no intention of slandering such individuals. However, he will say that for most authors, accurately assessing who will do a good job on their books and who will not is effectively impossible.

Anatomy of a Fake Literary Agency Scam

From Writer Beware:

Among the most common scams targeting self-published and small press authors these days are fake literary agency scams.

These are slightly different from the agent/agency impersonation scams I’ve written a number of posts about, in that they don’t appropriate the identities of real people (most of the time). But that doesn’t mean they’re not equally deceptive.

They work like this.

  • You’re contacted out of the blue by phone or email by someone describing themselves as a literary agent, offering to represent you or endorse you or otherwise transition you to a traditional publishing contract or have your book made into a movie. Sometimes they’ll even tell you they already have interest from a Big 5 publisher or a major film studio. The agent claims to work on commission only–no upfront fees!
  • But wait–there are things you need to do in order to access that coveted contract or movie rights offer: re-publish your book, have a screenplay written, undertake a PR campaign, buy “book insurance”…the list goes on. If you don’t have those things on hand, or don’t know how to access someone to provide them, the agent just happens to know of a trustworthy company that can provide them for you. Of course, there’s a fee. But you have to spend money to make money, right?
  • You hand over the payment: anywhere between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars. Sometimes that’s the last you’ll hear from your “agent”. More often, your payment tells the scammer you’re a willing mark. And so….
  • You’re bombarded with offers to spend more money on book fair representation, bookstore promotions, book-to-screen services, New York Times ads, pay-to-play radio and TV interviews, and more. Every time you pay, you incentivize the scammer to ask again. The prices get higher, the services more fraudulent–all supposedly in aid of obtaining the coveted contract you were promised at the start. Eventually you may receive forged contracts from Big 5 publishers or production companies–always, somehow, requiring you to pay enormous sums of cash.
  • Once you get suspicious and start asking questions, or balk at payment, or the scammer decides you’re tapped out, they ghost you.

I’ve heard from writers who’ve spent $70,000, $100,000, $300,000, and even more on such frauds.

There are three components to a fake literary agency scam.

  • One (or more) fake agencies
  • One (or more) “trustworthy” service providers
  • A parent company overseas, usually in the Philippines, that runs the scam with a brigade of sales reps using American-sounding aliases. This is where your money ultimately goes.

Here’s a real-life example.

Acquisitions NY purports to be a literary agency with a mission of “Empowering Authors Everyday…by providing contemporary solutions that have been tried and tested throughout time.” Its web domain was registered in July 2022.

If you visit Acquisitions NY’s website today, you’ll note that it’s bare of certain things a reputable agency’s website typically includes, such as a client list and a list of recent sales. In an earlier incarnation, those things were present…but oops…

Tweets from editor Virginia Lloyd about her clients' books and testimonials appearing on Acquisitions NY's website with her name removed from testimonials

Acquisitions NY removed the pilfered book images and testimonials, but continued to use them in solicitations for some time afterward, as you can see from this flashy document they were sending out as late as last December. (Here’s Virginia Lloyd’s testimonial page for comparison.)

In another theft, Acquisitions NY’s Who We Are page for some time falsely claimed real agent Ian Bonaparte of Janklow & Nesbit as part of its team. Again, they got caught out:

Tweet from agent Ian Bonaparte confirming that Acquisitions NY is falsely using his name: "THAT IS NOT ME!"

Ian’s (real) bio and (fake) photo are no longer on the website, but his name is still being used, as you’ll see below.

Acquisitions NY’s solicitations have varied over time, but the ones they’re currently sending out claim that authors have been chosen for “one of the most-coveted 10 spots” in the (entirely fictional) Mark Twain Literary Fund, which supposedly makes it possible for representation to be provided “pro bono” (which of course is not a thing).

Link to the rest at Writer Beware

Lots of links in the OP.