Writers Take Heed

That image represents us, imprisoned by our perceptions. Our daughter, Megan, painted this beauty.

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Tonight on the Huffington Post, I ran across an article on literary agents that sounded helpful.I was surprised to find it on HP. Both Rob and I have literary agents, so I read through it because I was curious about the advice an organization I’d never heard of was offering on agents.

It was about shady literary agents who are “looking for a quick buck.” These shady agents charge fees for reading editing, evaluations, or marketing. Okay, good advice so far. Although I’m sure there are shady agents, just as there are shady characters in every industry, I’ve met only two in my nearly thirty years as a published writer. Most agents are honest individuals who love books, love a good story, hope to sell them, and hope that one or more of them will exceed all expectations and hit the NY Times bestseller list.

The shady part in the industry is what’s cropping up now that ebooks are changing the face of publishing:

Third parties:  these guys are like the opportunistic uncle everyone shuns at the wedding. They are the parasites. The offer to scan your book, format it, create a cover and get it into all the outlets for a   steep upfront price. They also take 15% of the ebook price for their efforts and, usually, have a clause about exclusivity. Who are they?

The worst offender we’ve found so far is Argo Navis,  a “boutique” agency that is, unfortunately, signing up a number of literary agencies who have been around for decades and have bestselling authors with large back list titles – books that are out of print. By their calculation, it would cost me nearly seven grand to bring my back list titles into digital format. I can do this task myself for much, much less.

And oh, by the way, they only take agented writers – i.e., writers with extensive back lists who don’t have the time to figure this stuff out on their own and are happy to pay someone else to figure it out for them. Argo Navis will take you to the cleaners, as my dad used to say.

Writers Relief,  whose staff wrote the article for Huffington Post, is the second biggest offender in the third party category. Their site is friendly – we do this and that for you, the writer. We have this and that free service. We support the writer. Yada, yada. We help you get published. Really? How? Oh, they evaluate your manuscript, help you hone your characters, your plot, and send out query letters to editors, but of course they must be paid. They emphasize that they are not literary agents – who take no fees up front – and because they aren’t agents, they must be paid for their work.  Up front. Avoid this outfit. Like Argo-Navis, they’re a plague and are hoping to cash in for doing…what, exactly?

A third offender is the Curtis Agency, which some years ago,  started a branch to the company called e-reads. Rob signed up with his book, Crystal Skull, but first had to work off the $400 fee for formatting and cover design. He has yet to see a penny and it’s been about five years. Here’s the hideous cover they gave the book:

So Rob wrote e-reads to get the rights reversion to the novel. He received a note from Richard Curtis, the president of the agency,  telling him his contract (5 years) with e-reads had expired and if he would like to renew, they would give the book a new cover. BUT it would cost $195 up front and the renewal contract would be for 5 years. Rob told him no thanks, and sent him both an email and a letter in snail mail, requesting the rights reversion. Weeks later, they reverted the rights.

The fourth offender in this muddled picture is that publishers are loathe to revert rights, even when the book has been out of print for years. Kensington, my former publisher, has reverted rights to just 3 or the 12 books I did for them. Contractually, they are allowed to hold onto rights for SEVEN years after the book goes out of print. Hyperion, with whom I wrote three books, hasn’t even bothered responding to the request from Writers’ House (my agency) about rights’ reversions. I had to go through my present agent, who didn’t sell these books, in the hopes the request wouldn’t be ignored, as it was when I wrote them.

The bottom line is really fairly simple: as a writer, you now have many options that didn’t exist when Rob and I started out in the early 1980s.  If you’re a published writer with a back list to which you have the rights, your best bet is Crossroad Press.   Why?

Crossroad: First, there’s the split. Everything Crossroad earns on your books is split 80/20, with the 80% for the writer.  Even Amazon’s publishing program – 70/30 split – can’t beat that.  And with transmission fees for downloads, Amazon’s split actually comes out to about 67%. When you consider that the split for traditional publishers is 8-15% for the author, and the rest for the publisher, the Crossroad split is astounding.

Second: Crossroad doesn’t charge the author any upfront fees. Nothing. Nada. Zero.  They do it all – scanning, formatting for various markets, cover design. And they work with you. If the cover doesn’t suit you, then work with the designer until you’re satisfied.  They don’t create some totally despicable cover and never tell you about it. They do print on demand and audio books, where the split is 65/35.

Third: David Wilson has a vision for his company and it begins with the writers. As a writer himself, he understands the dynamics.

Smashwords: This organization is about writers. Got a book? Publish here. Yes, it’s difficult to wade through their 80 plus pages about formatting your book. And if you don’t want to slog through all that they maintain a list of people who will do it for you and design a cover, for a modest fee. That fee usually runs around $175 for back list titles that need to be scanned, and far less for books that simply need to be formatted and given a compelling cover. Smashwords takes 15% of the cover price you set for your ebooks, for books sold from their site. They also get your book into the various e-reader stores – Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Apple.

Amazon: Like its name, Amazon is the big guy in all of this. Their KDP Kindle publishing program is good. Yes, you can pay for the formatting and cover and all that, you can go through their createspace and put out some bucks to get your book in their store. But you can also do this for less money by hiring one of the smashwords people to format your book specifically for Amazon and their exclusive 90-day program.  We’re about to try out this exclusivity thing and will report back. One thing I love about Amazon: they have a free app that enables you to download a book for any kind of reading device. So even though I have an iPad, I don’t have to buy my books from Apple. I downloaded the kindle app for free and can read the books I buy from Amazon on that app.

Barnes and Noble: Their Pubit publishing program is good. But Barnes and Noble doesn’t sell anywhere near the number of books that Amazon does. Their accounting sheet is easier to read, but as far as I know there’s no app that allows you to buy a book from their store that can be read on any device.

What I Wish: That traditional publishing will survive. The benefits? They pay advances. The detractions? Just about everything else.  Why should any publisher get 90-92% of retail price on any book? Why is it that publishers occupy offices on Fifth Avenue, while most of their writers live in the suburbs and worry about meeting their mortgage payments? About getting their kids through college? What would happen to the industry if writers like King and Patterson,  Nora Roberts and Dan Brown suddenly decided to go it alone?

As my agent mentioned the other day, there are now at least 1,000 fewer bookstores today than there were last year. That number is staggering.

You get the idea here. Publishing as it exists now, publishing -like so many other businesses and industries-  is headed for Armageddon if it doesn’t change its current business model. Writers have a clearer sense of their own power: without them, publishers and bookstore and ebooks would not exist. It begins with the writers, it ends with the writers. If you screw your writers, you ultimately screw yourself.