oliver yeh

Chip MacGregor posted some bad things to look out for in a contract.

5. Royalties that DROP when more copies are sold. (No kidding. Read the fine print.) Take a look at the contracts of some publishing houses — if your book is sold at a reasonable discount, they’ll cut your royalty in half, leading the sales team to SUGGEST THAT VERY IDEA to accounts. Great plan.

If your limit for the Picasso was $106,499,999.99, cry not.

Kristin Nelson over at Pub Rants posted a reminder that Brenda Novak’s 6th Annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research is on.

There are plenty of offerings for writers.  What I find most interesting are the opportunities to have your work critiqued by an agent.  Note that a critique does not guarantee representation or sale.

I just have one word: mulligan.

Kristin Nelson’s, “Starting A Novel In The Wrong Place,” is a good read.  It’s humorous in that I’m certain she’s thinking to herself, “Shit… nothing changes.”

The two main issues displacing the proper start?

1. Back story
2. Minutiae (overelaborate “set-the-stage” before the story really begins)

If you’re thinking to yourself after reading the above, “Check, and check,” you might want to put your pencil down, and toss out the first few pages.

In a recent Chip MacGregor blog post, he talks about what an author needs to expect when it comes to marketing a book.

I dare say, while the information is important to ingest, nothing in the post is new.  The way I see it, the process of writing a book and seeking publication necessitates forethought into the actions required post-publication.  You’re quest, dear writer, doesn’t end when the book hits the shelf, right?

So my egg for the morning is: do not think of this road as strictly linear.  While you are writing, editing, and preparing for the query process, it’s okay to set aside a bit of time to think forward: how will you get people to buy the damn thing?  While you scour the ‘net for writing information, keep all this in the back of your head.  When it comes time, you will have a jump on it.

Just remember: if there is no completed and edited book, there’s nothing to market.

As a so-called writer, I’m reminded of one of the dangers of all this time we spend with our work.  We’re so deep into it, know the twists and turns, expect the reactions of characters, and ultimately know the direction we aim to take.

But does the reader know all this?  Have we left out (or deleted) key elements that set the stage, or come full circle with the seeds we’ve planted?  I know that often, in the quest for really tight writing, I have reduced the sauce a little too much.  And when that’s the case, it’s time to step outside and look through the window.

Jessica Faust posts in relation to queries,

Believe it or not I get a number of queries that I just do not understand. I think the biggest problem with queries like this is that the author is too much in her own head. She knows the story so well that she forgets she’s talking to an audience who knows nothing. It’s either that or the query has been edited so much that the author left in only her favorite lines and they don’t necessarily match or make sense.

Kristin Nelson, over at Pub Rants, brings up an interesting point that is little discussed (at least from what I’ve read so far) in the arguments over whether one should self-publish, (and as an aside) if one should post work online.

Recently, we were presented with two opposing viewpoints on posting work online.  Strike that — one viewpoint seeks to clarify and refine why it may not be a good idea.

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