Publishing Links for 4/19/11

The Making of a Book Cover

Internet Book Promotion

Facebook for Authors

Social Networking and Your Picture

Hoping for a Movie Deal, Part 1 and Part Two

Pitching Effectively

What the Fiction Editor Looks For, Part 1 and Part 2

Switching Genres

The Joy of Revisions

Where “In Perpetuity” (in a contract) Might Come Back…

Book Fair Bewares

Lies (Dishonest) Fee-Charging Publishers Tell

Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing: Which Way Will You Make More Money?

Writing & Publishing Links for Dec. 23

How to establish your characters: openings

Why less detail makes more believable characters

How to use historical figures in your novels

Using the bystander effect in your novels

How settings make or break your characters

Why smart characters make dumb mistakes

Five steps to building a believable character arc

Plot holes

Some Tips on Evaluating Literary Contests

Why a Books Subtitle is So Important When it Comes to Book Marketing and Book Publicity

As large publishers increase their expectations of midlist sellers, indie presses see an influx

Publishing Your Own Book (text of interview, audio automatically starts to download)

Bookscan Numbers on Amazon

Who decides titles and cover design?

Advertising That Works?

Comparison Doesn't Work

Importance Of Tracking World Rights

Listing of Royalty Rates

Seven Tips on Building a Following

Pick Your Marketing Strategy

Marketing Your Book

Should I Tweet?

Launching Your Career Via Kindle, the Unpublished

Building Your Career on Kindle, the Published

Reversion of Rights

Writing & Publishing Links for Nov. 18

Linnea Sinclair on Deep Third Point of View

Character Building Workshop

25 Reasons Why Your Imperiled Character Can’t Call For Help

On sex and swearing in YA novels

Trans-racial Writing for the Sincere

When something isn’t working in the story

Publishing Contracts

Answering Questions on Contracts, Part 1 of 2

Answering Questions on Contracts, Part 2 of 2

Your Option Clause

The top 3 culprits regarding errors in royalty statements

The Agent-Client Relationship

How long various waits take in publishing

What Editors Won't Tell You (But We Will)

Writing Under a (Supertight) Deadline

A Few Hints on Twitter

Writing & Publishing Links for Oct. 7

Defeating Your Inner Critic Part I

Defeating Your Inner Critic Part II

Secrets of Better Writing: The Powers of 1, 2, 3, and 4-or-More

Book Cover Design Resources for Self-Published Authors

To Multi-book, or Not to Multi-book (on multi-book deals)

Working Social Media

Behind the Scenes... "The Call"

In it for the Long Haul

What Do Amazon Rankings Mean To Authors?

Advice on Writing and Book Contracts

Kristin Nelson wrote about bok deals: One Book or Two? Maybe Three? and The One-Book Deal and One Possible Peril Of A Multi-book Deal. She also wrote about average advances for a debut novel.

Nathan Bransford wrote Why I Write Vague Rejection Letters.

Lynn Viehl wrote about Fighting Fatigue.

Delia Cabe wrote about cliches to avoid in your writing.

William Cane summarized Stephen King's 3 Steps to Create Suspense.

Writing and the Business of Writing

Sally MacKenzie wrote about The Business of Writing.

Nathan Bransford wrote about What Makes a Great Setting.

Pitches, Promotion, Contracts, and Technology

Nathan Bransford wrote How to Write a One Sentence Pitch.

Jessica Faust wrote Using Your Galleys to promote your book.

Kristin Nelson wrote eBook Royalty: Another Way To Protect.

Alan Rinzler wrote How an iPad App can add sizzle to your book.

Joanna Penn wrote 5 Reasons Writers Need To Embrace Technology.

Marketing and Contracts

Jessica Faust wrote Author-Agent Agreements.

Rachelle Gardner wrote What's in a Publishing Contract?

Eric wrote Terms to Know: Non-Compete Clause and other Terms to Know.

Christa Allan wrote Journaling Your Way Out of Writer’s Block.

Editorial Anonymous wrote differences in presenting Children vs Adults books.

Alyx Dellamonica wrote Self-Promotion--Starting Too Soon?

Jane Friedman wrote What, Me Market? (Book Marketing for the Clueless)

eBooks, queries, and more

Craig Morgan Teicher wrote The Making of an eBook: Part 1 and Part 2.

Kristin Nelson wrote about how ebooks and iBookstore are changing how the publishing game is played.

Nathan Bransford wrote What Should an E-book Cost?

Jessica Faust wrote about Writing Series and Trilogies and about how you handle revisions.

Rachelle Gardner wrote The Top Ten Query Mistakes and Should You Have a Book Trailer?

How Publishing Works

Jessica Faust wrote Trusting Your Editor.

Kristin Nelson wrote Publicists Help Those Who Help Themselves and Bring Back Term of License? and Sales Thresholds in OOP Clauses and When The No-Compete Clause Comes Into Play.

Rachelle Gardner wrote How Book Royalties Work (including for CBA authors) and more about the costs of publishing for the publisher and Sell-in, Sell-through, and Earn-out and Returns.

Writing, Queries, and your Rights.

Jessica Faust wrote about Licensing Your Rights and Fixing a Stalled Career.

Victoria Strauss wrote Rights and Copyright.

Kristin Nelson wrote Why I Don’t Like Net Amounts Received.

Janet Reid posted Notes from the Effective Query class at SCWW.

Rachelle Gardner wrote Giving Your Characters Life and Foreshadowing vs. Telegraphing.

The Publishing Biz and Writing

Kristin Nelson wrote about Earn Out, Does The Size Of The Advance Equal Success?, and Not Lost In Translation.

Rachelle Gardner wrote Tell Me the STORY and Is Your MC Proactive or Reactive?

Jessica Faust wrote When to Update Agents, Series Contracts, The Anatomy of a Coauthor, and talked about how much an author might make on romance novel.

Kate Elliot wrote about strategies for getting writing done.

Publicity, Writing, and Query Letters

Colleen Lindsay wrote about the differences between publicity and marketing and How to work effectively with your publicist.

The Rejecter wrote The Death of a Contract about how a publishing contract signed by both parties can still be severed.

Toni McGee Causey wrote How Do You Know When To Quit?

Chuck Dixon wrote about Stupid Gun Mistakes EVERY Writer Makes.

Jane Friedman wrote about Avoiding Red-Flag Mistakes on Your First Page.

Rachelle Gardner wrote about Giving Reasons for Rejections.

Jessica Faust wrote more on when to stop submitting a Query Letter.

Nathan Gransford wrote about Be An Agent for a Day: The Results!!

Publishing, Promotion, and More

Kristin Nelson wrote a blog post on E-Book Royalties and on What Makes A New York Times Bestseller?

Nathan Bransford wrote a blog post on The Difference Between Mysteries, Suspense and Thrillers.

Shrinking Violet Promotions wrote about How Elizabeth Gilbert Sold One Million Copies of Her Book and on Finding Your Cyber-Niche.

Jessica Faust at Bookends wrote What Titles Evoke about choosing a title and Does Your Hook Match Your Genre? in your query letter.

Jo Walton on Tor.com wrote an article on Bloat: threat or menace? about bloat in writing

Editing, Working with Agents, and Doing Contracts Yourself

Jessica Faust at Bookends wrote two good posts, one about the Stages of Editing after the publishing contract is finalized and one about You Have an Agent . . . Now What on what happens once the author-agent relationship is established and what an author can do if problems arise.

Janet Reid, Literary Agent, wrote a blog about what to do if you intend to negotiate a contract for your book without an agent.

Writing and Money

Jennifer Jackson wrote about deals may be about more than money - the agent perspective and Royalties.

Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants wrote about Royalty Statement Time, Payment Schedules, and Payments on Pub.

Miss Snark wrote about Split Royalty Checks and Royalties on "Net".

Managing Money

John Scalzi wrote a very, very good article about how to manage your money if you wish to be a full-time writer. Heck, it even has good advice for those writers who already know they don't want to quit their day jobs.

Inspired by Scalzi's article, Jennifer Jackson wrote on writers spending their advances. As in, they shouldn't spend their advance before the money is in their hands. I'd recommend reading the whole post, but here's a part of it:

From the time the offer was received to the time the author was paid the full advance, you can see that 15 months have elapsed, and that was with very prompt editorial revisions on the part of both the editor and the author, and really nice turnarounds on the agent's part for payments.

And, finally, for those sci-fi/fantasy writers out there, how much can you reasonably expect to be paid as an advance? Tobias Buckell ran a survey on How Much Does a Science-Fiction or Fantasy Writer Make. The survey also compares the advances of agented authors versus and unagented authors. Victoria Strauss also wrote a post on how much money writers make. Interesting stuff.

More on Publisher-Author Contracts

Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants blog wrote more on publisher-author contracts in Boilerplate Item Du Jour and Boilerplate Item Du Jour (take 2). She also wrote about how getting the final publisher-author contract signed takes an Interminable Length Of Time.

The Rejecter briefly wrote about contract language in Why You Need An Agent.

Advances, Royalties, and Contracts

Here are some more links on contracts and the monetary side of having a published book.

Miss Snark wrote articles on:
Agency/Author contracts: How Long?
Agency/Author contracts: Hold Harmless
Agency/Author contracts: Fees
History of Royalties and Agents
Royalties
Royalty Checks
Joint Accounting
What Percentage of the Net Really Means

The Rejecter wrote on her blog about:
The Joy of Low Advances
That Second-Book Clause
Update on the Simon & Schuster Issue
The Deal with Deals for a Series

Jonathan Lyons wrote on his blog about:
Net Royalties
Satisfactory Manuscript

Books on Contracts

In reading a number of agent blogs, I've come across the following books on contract negotiation that were mentioned by agents and published authors. These books would be useful reading for anyone wanting to understand contracts better or who want to negotiate their own contract. I'm reading the Kirsch book right now because Miss Snark recommended it.

Kirsch's Guide to the Book Contract: For Authors, Publishers, Editors and Agents
by Jonathan Kirsch

A Writer's Guide to Contract Negotiations
by Richard Balkin

Business and Legal Forms for Authors and Self Publishers
by Tad Crawford
(More of a book of fill-in contracts for writing-for-hire and such.)

And, finally, a book that wasn't recommended on an agent blog, but is recommended on Amazon despite its age:

Negotiating a Book Contract: A Guide for Authors, Agents and Lawyers
by Mark L. Levine