Guide to the Book Deal, Which Includes Ten Articles Packed with Insider Tips and Information to Help You T Navigate the Publication Process
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ABCThe toGuide theBook Deal he essential guide from the authoritative source on everything you need to know about the book deal, including an overview of the publication process; how editors work with authors; a look at inde- Tpendent presses, commercial presses, and self- publishing; a breakout of the most important clauses in an author agreement; and more. ABC HANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER. We hope you enjoy The Poets & Writers Guide to the Book Deal, which includes ten articles packed with insider tips and information to help you T navigate the publication process. Please note that all the information contained in this docu- ment is copyrighted and is intended for your individual use only. Distributing this information, partially or in its entirety, in any way—including e-mailing it, posting it online, or photocopying it—is infringing on the copyright of Poets & Writers, Inc., and the authors of the articles. If you’d like permission to distribute this guide, please contact us at [email protected]. For the best viewing and printing experience, open this PDF through Adobe Acrobat (available here: get.adobe.com/reader). To save color ink, change your printer setting to grayscale. We hope you find our guide informative, and, as always, we appreciate your interest and your support. The Staff of Poets & Writers, Inc. ABC GUIDE to 23 UNLIKELY ALLIES An Indie Press and a the BOOK Major House Join Forces to Make a Best-Seller DEAL By Eryn Loeb 6 28 17 ACQUISITION TO THE TWO-BOOK PUBLICATION THE INDIE ADVANTAGE CONTRACT How a Manuscript An Argument for Life Preserver or Becomes a Book Writers’ Taking Charge Straitjacket? By Eleanor Henderson By Johnny Temple By Joanna Smith Rakoff 11 20 32 A DAY IN THE LIFE THE AGENTS SOPHOMORE SLUMP OF A PUBLISHING AND EDITORS The Perils of Publishing a HOUSE SERIES... Behind the Scenes at Second Book Simon & Schuster By Jack Riggs By Michael Bourne 36 47 PAPERBACK THE ONLINE BOOK ORIGINALS LAUNCH How Format Affects Self-Publishing Your Way Reviews and Sales to a Book Deal By Quinn Dalton By Cathie Beck THE VARIOUS PLAYERS IN A 40 BOOK DEAL—AGENTS, PUBLICISTS, ANATOMY OF AN SALES REPRESENTATIVES, AND AUTHOR AGREEMENT AUTHORS THEMSELVES—ARE An Agent Deciphers the BECOMING INCREASINGLY INVOLVED Most Important Clauses in a Publishing Contract AT EVERY STAGE OF PUBLICATION. By Julie Barer THAT COLLABORATION CAN LEAD TO WELL-PUBLISHED BOOKS. 42 THE BIG COVER-UP A Writer’s Role in Book Jacket Design By Timothy Schaffert POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO THE BOOK DEAL dent and executive editor at W. W. Norton, says she’s met authors at ACQUISITION TO conferences, through recommen- dations by other authors, and has contacted them herself after com- PUBLICATION ing across their work in magazines. But while Norton, the oldest and How a Manuscript Becomes a Book largest employee-owned publisher, also has a “slush pile” of unagented BY ELEANOR HENDERSON manuscripts—mostly “e-mail slush” these days—Mason admits that she can’t recall acquiring a purely unso- licited manuscript. hen an ordinary The Submission Process So unless you find a publisher shopper walks into a It is because the process of publishing with an open submission policy— bookstore and pulls a book is often so complex that many independents such as Milkweed a book off the shelf, writers depend on literary agents Editions and Sarabande Books Wshe encounters it—with its textured to navigate the business for them. are a couple examples, and re- paper, its boldly designed cover, its Poetry is the exception. In most sources such as WritersMar glossy jacket splashed with blurbs— cases, beginning poets can expect ket.com and LiteraryMarketPlace as a fully formed product, fallen from to submit full-length manuscripts .com may be useful in identifying the publishing heavens. But behind straight to editors—either through others—or unless you have contacts the ISBN and that new-book smell is contests or during open reading peri- who are willing to put you in touch a story: not just the one told by the ods. Ugly Duckling Presse, a Brook- with editors, an agent is usually the author but the one cowritten by the lyn, New York–based nonprofit that best way to make that connection. agents, editors, proofreaders, publish- focuses on poetry and translation, Finding an agent can be a chal- ers, art directors, publicists, and sales has virtually no contact with agents. lenging process in itself. Sites such as force who worked together to bring “We generally work directly with AgentQuery.com feature databases the book into the world. As writers, authors,” says Matvei Yankelevich, of agents’ specialties and submission we know that the words between the one of twelve members of the Edito- guidelines, and The Poets & Writers covers didn’t just drop from the sky; rial Collective, a volunteer staff that Guide to Literary Agents, published they were born from years of sweat. oversees all areas of publication, from by the nonprofit that published this What we sometimes don’t know, how- acquisition to publicity. He estimates guide, offers extensive advice from ever, is what happens to a manuscript that about half the books the press agents about how to find and work after we send it off to the publishing acquires are solicited (meaning the with one. Once you discover the gods, and, if we’re lucky enough to get editors seek out projects themselves) right fit, and once you have a manu- a book deal, before it reaches the shelf. and half are unsolicited (meaning the script that you both feel is ready to authors submit manuscripts “over the submit, your agent will send it to a transom”). number of editors, most likely those Eleanor Henderson is the author Fiction and nonfiction writers whose tastes he knows well. of the novel Ten Thousand Saints and editors do sometimes find each If the manuscript is fiction, the (Ecco), which was named one of the other without an agent involved. A agent will usually submit it only top ten books of 2011 by the New York number of independent and univer- after it is complete. Sarah Knight, a Times and was a finalist for the Art sity presses offer contests for novels senior editor at Simon & Schuster, Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and story and essay collections in says that she’s hesitant to bid on a from the Los Angeles Times. She is an which publication of the winning “partial” fiction manuscript unless assistant professor at Ithaca College manuscript is part of the award, for she’s worked with the author before. in New York. example. Alane Mason, vice presi- “I’ve seen too many novels fall apart PW.ORG 6 in the middle or the end,” she says. put on top of my pile. I’m constantly The way an editor makes an offer Most nonfiction books, on the other making these calculations: ‘Oh, I also varies. Sometimes, an editor hand, are submitted as proposals— like this. Do I love it? Can I not put will be so eager to buy a book that approximately twenty to sixty pages it down? Can I imagine a year from she’ll try to preempt it. “A preemptive that include a couple of sample chap- now or eighteen months from now offer,” Mason explains, “is when a ters and a detailed outline of the when we’re publishing it being in- publisher feels that they have a strong remaining ones. Because these man- credibly proud and still excited about sense of what the right price for the uscripts are unfinished, “nonfiction it?’ All those things go through my book is and they’re going to offer it to writers are accorded a great deal of head before I ask other people to the agent in the hopes that the agent trust,” says Knight. “You’re saying, spend their time evaluating it.” will think, ‘Yes, it’s the right price for ‘I’m betting on the idea and I’m hop- Often the editorial board will hold the book and it’s the right publisher ing the execution will live up to it.’” weekly meetings to consider new and I don’t need to go elsewhere.’” Today whether fiction or nonfic- manuscripts, during which the acquir- But if you’re fortunate enough to tion, agents typically e-mail manu- ing editor makes her pitch in support gain interest from more than one scripts along with a short pitch letter of the book, other readers share their publisher, your agent may schedule to editors, who will most likely read responses, and the team discusses the an auction, in which one house makes them on an e-reader. The transition amount of money and marketing re- an offer and the next raises the offer from paper to screen makes it easy sources the company is willing to put until a single house is left standing. to instantaneously circulate those behind it. At some houses, the pub- Mason estimates that, when she manuscripts editors are interested lisher has the final say about whether is attempting to buy a book, she is in acquiring among an editorial to buy a book; at others, the decision competing in an auction roughly half board—a group that includes not lies with the acquiring editor. Ideally, the time. A traditional auction takes just editors, but often those in sales a book will gain broad support from place in a single day, but sometimes, and marketing, too. For Corinna the house as a whole; if not, the editor when auctions occur spontaneously Barsan, senior editor at Grove/At- may end up letting it go.