Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Art Idea

I have to credit Mick with what I think is a great idea for acquiring novel illustrations. When I wrote about an author's financial responsibilities to the publisher, I mentioned that the writer is often required to provide artwork or pay someone else to create it. I somehow forgot about the legions of university art students struggling to build their portfolios.

Mick's suggestion was to approach a student artist with a proposal to draft illustrations for a soon to be published book, which would add to the artist's body of work while increasing his exposure. Even if the publisher rejected the artwork, it would give their in-house design department visual aids to realizing the author's vision.

And of course, a student would be far more likely to work for the experience alone, or at least at a far lower cost than a professional.

Monday, July 25, 2011

No Rest for the Wicked

As everyone who's been following this blog knows, I've been slogging through the process of revising Souldancer. In the meantime, additional feedback has been coming in on Nethereal. These comments have been very helpful, and have pointed out to me that there are still plenty of ways for the manuscript to be improved.

Because I want to submit the strongest manuscript possible, I've decided to put SD on the back burner and concentrate on re-editing the first book. The aim is to further streamline the descriptions, trim superfluous expository text, and make the whole narrative more accessible.

I'm setting a daily goal of ten pages. At that rate, the revisions should only take about ten weeks.

Friday, July 22, 2011

My Blog Has Forgotten Who I Am

After several failed attempts to post a reply to the comments on my own blog, I've opted to use a hammer in place of a brush.

Thanks for the tips everybody.
Kaze, I'll try those adjustments.
Merrilee, which word processor do you recommend for novels?

Weapon of Choice

Update to the previous post: with the help of a couple friends, my system is now running Windows 7 Professional and MS Office 2010, also professional.

I was told there would be a bit of a learning curve to deal with, and truer words were never said. However, I found myself able to carry out the tasks for which I most often use the PC without much difficulty.

The most noticeable improvement is the banishment of those annoying, irremovable footers that Open and Libre Office automatically inserted into my manuscripts whenever I added a header. On the other hand, the book that I'd pruned down to 1295 pages is now in excess of 1400 due solely to the act of opening it in Word.

Oh well, give and take...

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

It's a Poor Craftsman Who Blames His Tools

I'll now be discussing my ongoing ordeal with word processors. Fair warning to anyone who doesn't find that topic fascinating.

This PC never had MS Office, so I started out using Open Office. When various weird formatting errors popped up, I switched to Libre Office. That program worked slightly better but still, you get what you pay for.

I finally bought Windows 7 Professional as well as MS Office 2010. Upon trying to install Windows 7, I was informed that I couldn't simply upgrade from Vista Home Basic, adding another snag to my plans. Plus, I'd been running the 32 bit version of Vista due to the mistaken belief that my processor couldn't handle the 64 bit version. Now if I want to upgrade to Windows 7 64, I'll have to erase all of my settings and data and start over. So I'll be sticking with Windows 7 32.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Choosing an Agent: Commissions and Fees

If there's one hard and fast rule for selecting a literary agent it's this: all money should flow toward the author.

There's much more to the process, which Writer Beware can tell you much better than I can.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Souldancer Progress Report 3

Total page count: down to 1295.

Currently editing: page 251 (sort of).

I said before how the difficulty of this project has exceeded my expectations. That comment was made back when I was mostly replacing troublesome phrases, trimming down excessively wordy sentences, condensing rambling dialogue, and occasionally deleting a few paragraphs.

Now I've stumbled upon a situation that is wholly unprecedented in my short literary career. What I'm currently up against is a section of the book spanning several chapters in which roughly half of the extant material doesn't work; the other half does, but it's in the wrong order.

To borrow a parable, I'm now undertaking a grueling labor requiring me to meticulously pull weeds scattered amid a wheat field while also transplanting the healthy crops to more advantageous locations. There's also the necessity of sowing new plants to fill in the vacated spaces while reducing the overall acreage. For the first time, I'm starting to wonder whether farmers have it easier than writers. Sure, the former involves more manual labor, but I don't have the luxury of waiting till harvest day to separate the good from the bad. I doubt any editor would appreciate proofreading the resulting incomprehensible manuscript.

I am now more glad than ever that I've probably got several years before this thing is due. Not only will the project take that much time at my current rate of progress, I'll have to grow and mature as a writer in order to meet the challenges this work presents.

At least I won't come up short on blog material.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Short Story Submission Update

I submitted my short story to Title Goes Here: yesterday. Their submission guidelines page said that I'd receive an automatic reply from their system in short order, which occurred almost instantly. They further advised me that I could expect to hear from an editor when the story went in their pile. The stated response time for the second notice was up to two weeks, so I was pleasantly surprised to get a personalized message from the co-editor in chief later that same day.

The third and final notice I'll receive will of course be the rejection (or failing that, acceptance) letter. The magazine's web site claims that the final word may not come for 120 days. However, considering the target time to actual response ratio I've experienced in my correspondence with them so far, there's reason to hope for a much speedier resolution. I'll keep you in the loop.

Mick over at This Is a Music Thing enlisted my help with the labels on his posts, so I'm off to see what I can do. I'm open to advice from anyone who cares to give their two cents on this subject.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Collaboration

Negotiating a contract between a publisher and a single author is complicated enough, but how are publishing agreements handled in the case of a work produced by two or more collaborators? Though such arrangements can take as many forms as there are creative teams, three general standards exist.

1. Co-authorship: the collaborators enter into an arrangement wherein each receives equal credit, compensation, and responsibility for the work. Ideally, co-authors enjoy a 50/50 split of royalties and advances, but the proceeds can be divided in differing proportions as long as all of the authors agree on the terms.

The catch is that, while co-authors are entitled to all of the same rights as a single author, they are also bound by all of the same obligations. A collaborator named in a book contract as co-author is legally required to provide or pay for additional art and front/back matter along with the other writer(s) and is equally subject to the penalties and costs of litigation and/or breach of contract. As a rule, a contributor to a particular work should only be named a co-author if he understands and accepts these duties and is willing to make a long term commitment to the project.

2. Work for hire: pieces produced on a work for hire basis are legally treated as though the contracting party were the original author for all intents and purposes. The actual creator receives some form of payment but is not entitled to royalties and reserves no primary or subsidiary rights in the project--sometimes not even credit.

Copyright law provides very strict rules regulating the conditions under which work for hire agreements can be made. The most important guideline is that the party producing the work first be made aware of and agree to the conditions listed above (a piece commissioned on other terms cannot be made work for hire after the fact).

As the name implies, the vast majority of works made for hire are produced in the normal course of an artist or writer's employment. For example, an illustrator working at a graphic design firm is probably hired with the explicit understanding that all art produced during the term of employment will belong to the company. Instead of royalties, the artist is paid a salary.

3. Grant of rights: in the case of an author who receives limited material assistance from one or more collaborators with no desire to take on the burden of a book contract's warranties, indemnities, and obligations, the parties involved can privately negotiate a grant of rights.

The mechanics and legal effects of such a grant are very similar to what happens when an author sells the rights in a book to a publisher. Suppose for example that a third party contributor created a setting, character, or unique item that the author incorporated into a book. Such a collaborator probably wouldn't be entitled to the 50 percent share of a co-author (and probably isn't invested enough in the project to relish taking on the professional and legal responsibilities involved). Instead, the collaborator can sell some or all of the rights to his creation to the author, who will then deal with the publisher directly and leave the contributor free of any further obligation.

There doesn't seem to be an established precedent dictating the rate of compensation for an independent collaborator. The value of the character or setting rights is tied to the value of the whole manuscript, which can't be known until a publisher bids on it. However, such arrangements should be formalized in writing before the book contract is signed, because the publisher will want to be sure that the author possesses all the relevant rights to the work before finalizing their own agreement.

One rule that does govern agreements between authors and third party contributors is that something of tangible value should be paid by the author in exchange for the collaborator's rights--whether said compensation takes the form of a share of the royalties, a one-time payment, etc. Still, an independent contributor probably isn't going to earn as much as a full-fledged co-author.

Some publishers will deal separately with third party collaborators, but such circumstances are far from ideal due to the intricacies of subsidiary rights. Imagine a toy manufacturer who wants to make a line of action figures based on a book featuring contributions by one or more collaborators in addition to the author. If the collaborators retain full ownership of their contributions, the toy company will have to approach everyone separately and negotiate several different contracts to acquire the rights they need.

It's far more convenient and expedient for everyone involved with the book's creation to gather all of the rights in one place and agree on a means of distributing compensation beforehand. The likelihood of publication and expansion into other media also increases dramatically under such an arrangement.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Infinite Indenture Loop/Series Rights Paradox

I've mentioned before that I was reading Kirsch's Guide to the Book Contract, which is hands down the most terrifying book I have ever read, surpassing the work of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Ray Bradbury. The reason is simple. The latter are works of fiction while the former is startlingly real.

The driving point of the book is to reinforce in authors' minds the maxim, "never sign anything without reading it." However, if I were allowed to only convey one warning based on my reading of Kirsch's sample contract, it would be for a writer to use any means necessary to delete or mitigate the publisher's automatic option rights and exclusive title/series development rights.

Most standard literary contracts include a clause that, by default, grants all rights to the author's next book-length work to the same publisher under the exact same terms of the initial contract. Almost every option clause also includes a noncompetition rule barring the writer from shopping the story around to any other publisher until after the first publisher has considered and rejected the new manuscript--a process that can take months or over a year.

But perhaps you've spotted the devil lurking in the details up there. Since the option clause specifies that the second book will be subject to the same rules as the first contract, the same option clause will apply to the next work, too: and the next, and the next, ad infinitum until the publisher finally rejects a manuscript. Such clauses are particularly burdensome to authors because they severely limit their output of salable work.

An equally unfavorable yet opposite clause is one that grants all rights to the first book's title, logo, setting, characters, etc. to the publisher for the express purpose of allowing the development of a further series of books based upon the first one. The standard version of such a clause almost always allows the publisher to develop sequels and prequels to the author's work without his consent, creative input, or right to compensation. In fact, Kirsch's version specifically states that the publisher is free to commission other writers to produce additional books in the series, totally preventing the original author from exercising any creative control or receiving royalties for further works.

Each of these clauses is foreboding enough on its own, but combined in the same legal document, they form a mind-scrambling paradox of Zemeckian proportions, wherein a publishing house can force an author to submit the next book to them while simultaneously allowing it to commission someone else to write that book without the original author's creative or economic participation.

Always read the fine print!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Title Goes Here

As promised, I have decided upon the next magazine to submit my story to. This time, the lucky recipient charged with poring over my derivative, pseudo-Lovecraftian scrawl is Title Goes Here.

I'll keep you updated on further developments.

Monday, July 4, 2011

From Bronze to Silver

Merrilee Faber was right when she said that Three-Lobed Burning Eye is prompt. They read and rejected my short story within two days of my submission, which has to be some kind of record. Even better, this time I got a personalized response instead of a form letter. 3LBE's extremely rapid reply has been duly recorded over at Duotrope.

Not only did I receive feedback this time, it was unequivocally positive. The editor said that the story was very well written. It's just not what they're looking for at the moment.

I should be able to start looking for another magazine to submit the story to on Wednesday.

Friday, July 1, 2011

The Week in Brief

Thought I'd provide a week in review post to help you follow the various goings-on around here.

The second submission of the "Reign of Terror" short story has been made to Three-Lobed Burning Eye. Their web site says I can expect to hear back within 90 days.

Mick has properly reformatted and forwarded our Robot Jocks script to someone who's in a better position to know how to query a film agent than we are. We also learned the crucial difference between a montage and a series of shots.

Souldancer revisions proceed apace. Two entire sections have had to be rewritten. The editing process hasn't been nearly as straightforward as I'd expected, but I'm appreciating the challenge.

I'm still trudging through Kirsch's Guide, picking up strange nuggets of information as I go. These insights will be shared in good time. Once I'm finished with that book, my only source of knowledge on the publishing industry will be personal experience, so I'm inclined to parcel out such wisdom sparingly.

End transmission.