E-book Revolution Podcast Ep11 - Contracts & Agents For Traditional & Self-Published Authors

When you are trading in ideas, creativity and intellectual property, the legal waters can get murky, as many writers have had the misfortune to find out. Whether you are traditionally published, accepting the terms and conditions of self-publishing platforms like Amazon, Kobo or iBooks, or a self-published author about to sign your first traditional publishing deal, you need to have some understanding of what a fair contract looks like and what rights you should (or shouldn’t) be giving away. For writers who are looking to build online communities or use digital platforms to enhance their stories, basic knowledge of how to cover your arse from a sue-happy world is vital. 

In this podcast we’re going to delve into the world of contracts and agenting, but I promise you, we avoid jargon, incomprehensive phrases and snore worthy discussions like the plague. I’m a simple girl, I prefer to learn from experts I can understand and actually stay awake with, and I’m sure you’d prefer that too! In this lively conversation with Alex Adsett about the business of writing - which writers tend to avoid only to have it come back to bite them in the arse when they realise their money is ‘missing’ – we talk about the things traditional, self-published and hybrid authors need to know about contracts, legalities and rights.

Alex Adsett is a consultant offering publishing contract advice to authors, publishers and booksellers, and has more recently expanded into the more traditional role of literary agent.  She has fifteen years experience working in the publishing and bookselling industry, as well as a solid background in legal research and contract drafting. She worked for three years in the Rights and Contracts Department of Penguin Books in Melbourne, before moving to the Contracts Department of John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. Alex has managed Alex Adsett Publishing Services since 2008. She relies on her experience and passion for book publishing to offer sensible publishing business and contract advice. Separate from her freelance consultancy work, Alex has also taken on the role of literary agent.

In this podcast we discuss:

• The benefits of having a publishing consultant
• What self-published authors, moving into traditional publishing, should look out for in a contract
• The importance of escape (reversion) clauses
• Why you should make your publisher aware if you have previously self-published the book they are buying
• Three things any author should keep in mind when signing a contract
• What rights you should give a publisher
• Why advances are not the be-all-and-end-all
• Whether or not you should give a publisher world e-book rights or split the rights by country
• Why authors should look at rising royalty rates for e-books
• What the dangers of an ebook retailer contract are (eg. Amazon, Kobo, iBooks)
• Why you should hold onto your film rights
• Why exclusivity is not in the best interests of the author
• How authors creating online communities and interactive projects can cover their arse
• Why authors should be careful about using photos and videos on their blog
• Whether agents are still relevant for today’s authors
• Why you don’t need an agent to negotiate a fair contract
• And the most successful way to approach an agent.

Enjoy!

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I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com. Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb (Australian e-book store).If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb.The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com

Self-Publishing & Speculative Fiction

I was re-reading a post I wrote at the end of last year for ACT Write magazine (The publication from ACT Writers Centre in Canberra, Australia) and thought there were several points there that I hadn't yet addressed in this blog. What are your thoughts on why YA speculative fiction indie authors are doing so well?

It’s not a coincidence that some of today’s best known self-published authors are speculative fiction authors. 

Many put it down to spec fiction writers just being lucky, still riding the wave of Harry Potter crazed Twi-hards if you will. Or their ability to write trilogies of books within the same time span it takes a literary writer to create one chapter. While both have definitely contributed to the five figure per month pay checks of self-published e-book authors like Amanda Hocking or Brian Pratt, I find myself shaking my head and switching questions. Diluting their success down to trends, timelines and repeatability is a very shallow way to categorise why they have such a strong impacted with the audience. What we should be asking is why them specifically?

It is an unfortunate reality that speculative fiction inspires some fairly disastrous spin-offs from readers who believe a spec fiction story should be easy to write because everything can just be imagined, it doesn’t have to exist.  There are hundreds of self-published spec fiction authors out there with tens of titles to their name; the market is saturated with bad Superman wannabes, Tolkien look-a-likes and elves in every conceivable incarnation (evil, good, tall squat, dirty, rainbow coloured, smelly, technologically advanced, shooting laser beams out their bellybuttons, accountants). Poorly written, stereotypical, one dimensional stories that sink like a stone in the digital swarm. At the same time, the brilliant stories must also fight the swarm of middling tales to reach the top. Getting noticed is a source of anxiety for many self-published spec fiction authors. So why did the likes of Amanda Hocking and Brian Pratt make it, when their e-books are riddled with self-confessed typos and grammatical mistakes?

There are two reasons. The first is very simple, these authors are YA authors. It’s the old, you-can’t-teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks-without-a-cattle-prod analogy; children and young adults have the ability to accept new concepts easier than adults and as such it is inevitable that they would take to e-books more naturally. Many YA speculative fiction novels are known for their ability to ‘crossover’ to an adult age range furthering the popularity of self-published YA e-books.

Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, for all the typographic faults, their stories fire imagination, strike a chord of truth, and move at a cracking pace that holds a young adult’s attention and engages them. Young people are very creative for they don’t have the barriers in the mind that tell them something is impossible. It is a matter of latching onto an idea they think is ‘awesome’ and making it happen. As children we use imagination all the time, it is how we entertained ourselves in early life, and this ability to fantasise bleeds into the mindset of young adults and is part of the reason why the genre is so popular.  However, at the same time the tale needs to be relevant to them and the fantasy must make sense. In a way, while there is always some kind of subconscious sense behind a child’s play or idea, a successful speculative fiction story is one which is able to teach the reader how to make that idea work, make it seem - or actually be - a reality.

I solely credit my reading of YA fantasy for giving me the ability to realise the crazy ideas I imagine, such as the physical choose-your-own-adventure I ran in 2012 at Adelaide Writers’ Week, the multimedia e-book I sell at the online Bkclb website, or the mentorship I conceived and completed with Isobelle Carmody which took some out of the box creative thinking to make a reality. I started writing YA fantasy in high school and carried the same novel I began through to my adult years, flexing, refining and exercising the imaginative mindset from my childhood that ‘anything is possible’. It is a skill that has opened a lot of doors for me in all facets of my life, not just writing.  

The most important thing I learnt about fantasy writing from Isobelle is it doesn’t matter how many grand battles, fantastic spells or weird creatures you scatter throughout your novel, unless there is an internal logic in how the world/magic/spacecraft/monster works, unless the characters have depth and a motive behind their words and actions, the world will not ring true and the reader’s attention is lost. 

Because young adults will only want to be a part of a world, if they can imagine themselves in it. 

To do that, an author’s world must be almost three dimensional. As an emerging writer, it was wonderful to realise that once you know exactly how things work in your novel then you can choose one right word that’s so strong it can replace ten words and still create the same image. An image that leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind that this scene is real, and if the reader could just reach far enough, they might be able to break through the barrier into that world. To grow in one’s life, a person must strive for a goal or dream; a good story triggers this need to strive in a reader for something more than themselves. As a writer, I hope this will translate to the reader striving for that feeling of truth in their own life, of striving to become more than they currently are.

Good spec fiction, as I mentioned before, must fire the imagination and ring true, but it must also be relevant to a young adult’s life. Spec fiction does this well because it can examine real world truths fantastically, truths which would normally be taboo or not make sense to a young adult if explained in a real world situation. For example, if a reader is attached to the main character of a story who is starving and that character explains the debilitating effects on their sanity ‘first hand’, this has more of an impact than images of a trio of starving children in Africa whom the reader feels no connection to. The reader’s ‘personal’ association to the horror of starvation will produce a stronger reaction and greater idea of the difficulties then they can glean from a single image. Fantasy and speculative fiction translates the world for young adults, if you will, into terms that can be understood and empathised with.

This is why those self-published authors have risen above the rest, they use a vehicle (e-books) which their readers are not prejudice against and they incorporate the elements explained by Isobelle into their story. Basically, they speak to the wants and needs of their audience. 

A young adult can live with typos, because it’s the story and world that matters.

What are your thoughts about why some successful indie authors have risen above the rest? Put your thoughts in the comments below.

E-book Revolution Podcast Ep9 - Digital First ‘Traditional’ Publishing With Jeffe Kennedy

  

Most aspiring authors today are quick to note that the traditional publishing gates are closed to them and that digital is the way of the future. For many authors it has boiled down to self-publishing being the only potential path they are aware of to get their work published. And though the old prejudices against self-publishing are slowly fading (not without a whole lot of bar fighting and knifing of authors with one star reviews) the stigma is still there - digital books/authors = self-published = lesser quality.

Yet, with e-books taking a greater share of the reading markets each year it was only inevitable that traditional publishers would start using digital strategies to solve one of their biggest problems – how they could publish authors they really loved, but had to pass up because they didn’t believe there was a strong enough local market for an author’s odd mix of genre. Enter digital first publishing imprints, all the benefits of a traditional publishing deal (yep, editing provided and no formatting, designing or technical know-how required) with less risk to the publisher and more royalties for the author. In this podcast I talk to digital first author Jeffe Kennedy, a ‘traditionally’ published author with Carina Press (imprint of Harlequin), who has only had her work published digitally. During the podcast we explore this alternate path for authors, who just want to write and be published without dealing with the self-publishing/vanity press rollercoaster.

Jeffe Kennedy is an award winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Starting originally as a highly successful essayist, Jeffe found her career drawn towards fantasy and romance. Finding her feet at digital first imprint, Carina, her fantasy BDSM romance, Petals and Thorns, has won several readers awards. Sapphire, the first book in Facets of Passion has placed first in multiple romance contests and the follow-up, Platinum, is climbing the charts. Her most recent works include three fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns, theFacets of Passion, and the post-apocalyptic vampire erotica of the Blood Currency. Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com or every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog.  She is represented by Pam can Hylckama Vliea of Foreword Literary.

In this podcast we discuss:

• ‘Traditional’ deals in digital (Digital first publishers)
• How the romance community are at the forefront of the digital revolution
• Alternate paths to traditional and self-publishing (No, we’re not talking vanity press!)
• The benefits of submitting to digital first publishers rather than self-publishing
• How Jeffe ended up at a digital first press
• Benefits of online friendships with other authors
• How Jeffe signed with an agent after being published with a digital first press
• How the Harlequin ‘propaganda machine’ works
• Marketing a digitally published book
• What genres lend themselves better to digital first releases
• Appeals of digital erotica to readers
• Whether or not her readers follow her work from romance to ‘sexy’ novels
• How digital first publishers are more likely to give ‘different’ books a chance
• Fairer royalties for authors
• And the more diverse marketing opportunities for erotica writers.

Enjoy!

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Download this episode (right click and save)


I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb (Australian e-book store).If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb.

The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.podbean.com