I'm going to cancel the redirect to stroppyauthor.com so the blog reverts to stroppyauthor.blogspot.com. Then I'll wait a week until the deadline for payment has passed; then I'll redirect it with the new payment scheme.
If it fails, please look after my reindeer-skin sleeping bag.
Good luck. May the Force be with you.
ReplyDeletePlease don't get frostbite! I need you!
ReplyDeleteSeem to be still here so far......
ReplyDeleteHi there-absolutely love your blog. I was wondering, with this redirecting business, if we have a quick question for you how do we go about asking it :)
ReplyDeleteRedirecting is now all sorted, Gabs. Blog should be in its normal place from now on :-) Just post a comment below with your question
ReplyDeleteHi! Thanks a lot. I posted on your ´How to read a publishing contract´post, so I´ll just copy and paste. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteStroppy-I´ve just started reading through all this and it has been a huge help. I´ve been approached by a publisher and had a contract sent through and am trying to understand it-I´ve not got an Agent (still debating whether or not to get one). The Publisher is a small one. One question I have-what is your view on not being offered and advance? And, as a first time author, what should you expect for Royalties. As Chris said above, the small percentage was quite a shock.
Thanks in advance and, again, thanks for the information-it´s been great reading. I have the feeling I´ll be on this site a lot!
Hi Gabs - sorry for the delay (I was away for a few days).
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your contract! Some small publishers can't afford to pay an advance. I have worked without an advance on rare occasions, so I won't say 'never do it' but you do need to be careful. Can you speak to an author who has already worked with the publisher? You need to make sure the publisher will publish the book in a decent time frame and will declare and pay royalties promptly (ie within the terms of the contract). You should get 10% on paper sales and at least 25% on ebook sales. Try to licence the ebook rights (if at all) for a restricted period of, say, 2-3 years. We don't know how that part of the market will develop. Make sure there is a reversion clause, so that all rights revert to you if the publisher goes out of business or if the book is out of print for a certain period (eg a year).
Royalties are generally paid on net receipts - ie, what the publisher actually gets, not the cover price. Depending on the type of book, that can be 50% of the cover price or less. If there is an illustrator the 10% is split between you - often50:50 so you will have a royalty of 5%.
Hope that helps!
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