[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with Literary Agents, Carly Waters, and CC Lyra.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you'd ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug, and pull up a chair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, welcome back to our part two of our money episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I could sing, I would sing that like money, money, money, money, money, that type of song would be our little like theme song for this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is part two.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who knows, maybe we'll have a part three someday if you guys still have burning questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I hope this is a series of episodes that you guys can kind of come back to or bookmark or find away to save so that you have access to all this good information because this is one of those super curiosity inducing topics and we're going to kind of go through a new series of questions on things like advances and royalties and marketing and can writing via job and business questions and all of that sort of stuff and how agenting works from a financial point of view.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are listening to this and you haven't listened to part one of our money series, you can go back two weeks and you'll see it as our shooting the shit bonus episode two weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can refer back to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to have listened to that episode to enjoy this episode, but if you want to listen to both, that is where we are answering all of your questions about money.
[SPEAKER_02]: And happy New Year, everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Speaking of money and a happy New Year, I think, yeah, we should.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have a coffee in front of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just have like my little
[SPEAKER_01]: Happy New Year, the happiest of New Year's, may it be a wonderful year for everyone, filled with good health and good surprises.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as you guys know, these episodes come out on Mondays.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you are a sub-stack subscriber, you will be getting one of our Tuesday editions, which is one of our subscriber editions tomorrow, and just a couple things to look out for.
[SPEAKER_02]: Beyond God Thought, it would be fun to share our baby pictures, our co-host baby pictures for you guys to think about
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm looking forward to you guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just try to figure out which was it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think they're gonna have trouble figuring it out?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be the easiest thing ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is such.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, but this is such a silly idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the sharing that maybe pictures is adorable But like you're gonna know it instantly who's who no one's going to have even like even like a shred of doubt Okay, I promise it is the most obvious thing in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_01]: So hard like like no everyone's gonna know
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, well, if you want to do this, keep keeping babies and you will see them in the subscriber issue tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So definitely check those out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our newsletter crew also put together a company of all the Q and A's that we've done over the years, which are paid subscribers can now download a number for to at any time.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is like possibly hundreds of hours of content.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be honest with you guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: So definitely make sure you go check that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so excited for that one because now and ever someone asks me a question I can go hi.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go look at our compendium of Q&A, so I'm going to say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also have an excellent essay written by Mickey Yishensky, author of Adventures of Max Spitz Cough.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes, about the art of Eve's dropping.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big Eve's dropper.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have so much fun, like I love eating by myself in places because I'm always Eve's dropping into people's conversations and I look like I'm not looking like I'm busy writing a
[SPEAKER_01]: So this sounds exciting to me, and then we have an essay by Taylor Heuton, author of Acts and Grind about tossing narrative curve balls.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know anything about tossing balls, but narrative curve balls sounds interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So some fun things to check out in our subject tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's jump back into our money questions now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've tackled a number of questions already.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, refer back to those, but we're going to I'm going to throw to see see with another question here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to throw to her for writers early in their careers.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the biggest misconception about how money actually flows after signing a publishing deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think the biggest, okay, the biggest.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the biggest misconception might be how much time everything takes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, let's imagine that you get an offer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you got an agent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yay, agents admitted to your project.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yay, you got an offer all the days.
[SPEAKER_01]: You accept an offer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's a contract negotiation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you, that can take a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's fast, nothing in publishing is fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, you get paid like the first,
[SPEAKER_01]: installment of your advance, typically gets paid after the contract is signed, which brings me to probably the second biggest misconception I have had multiple people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're in fairness, they're like publishing newbies, which is fine, we all were publishing newbies at one point or another be like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my advance!
[SPEAKER_01]: So I get it in advance, actually these days, advances are broken up in installments, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So at first installment when you sign, second installment when you deliver all the edits and changes, and that's accepted.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then third installment when your book is published, but speaking of curveballs from our newsletter,
[SPEAKER_01]: There are publishers and not gonna call out names and who started this penguin random house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who started paying in fourths?
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes you get an extra, not an extra, but like sometimes this is split up into four, it's and then the fourth installment happens when your after publication or when the trade paper back comes out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've also heard of people, I've never actually experienced this myself, but I've heard of people trying to get away with fishes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, what I'm getting at is that the misconception is,
[SPEAKER_01]: once you accept an offer you can count on money coming in and it takes a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and once you start earning royalties that takes a long time to a royalty season, it's not like you're making money every month unless you spend with Amazon in print, which I'm just getting confused now, so I'll stop you.
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing I wanted to add about this in terms of biggest misconceptions.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things I find, it's this is obviously all correct and everything she said.
[SPEAKER_02]: is the concept of delivery and acceptance.
[SPEAKER_02]: So CC touched on that second payment there, which so the first is on signing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that means both party signing, counter signature, getting processed through the system, the money being sent to the agency agency sent, send somebody to the author.
[SPEAKER_02]: The second payment is the delivery and acceptance payment.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so people really focus on that first word, delivery.
[SPEAKER_02]: The author's like, hey, I handed in my manuscript.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, where's my check?
[SPEAKER_02]: Delivery and acceptance, acceptance means.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the definition of this also varies between publisher but acceptance means that the publisher has accepted all of the edit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've gone back and forth through the full editorial process.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some punctures hold on to this money until the book is like fully transmitted.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the copy edits are done then.
[SPEAKER_02]: They send the money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I prefer obvious, you know, the DNA payment to come when the structural edits are done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's fair.
[SPEAKER_02]: The author has done their part.
[SPEAKER_02]: The copy edits, which is job obviously the author has to approve those, but I don't think acceptance should be on copy edits.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it should be on the development level.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, but so authors will say, hey, you know, I've delivered my manuscript today, the day of recording is December 17th.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, while I'll get my money in a couple of days, but then again, your editing process can take weeks.
[SPEAKER_02]: It can take months.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't know how much is back and forth is going to take to get to that right manuscript.
[SPEAKER_02]: The publishers trying to make your work for right.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why they're holding on to this payment.
[SPEAKER_02]: They
[SPEAKER_02]: want to make sure that you're holding up your end of the bargain.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so anyway, that delivery and acceptance piece, I find a bit of a misconception because off there sometimes, thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: A delivery versus is the okay, accepted.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we didn't get this question, but what you just said now reminded me of if I had a magic wand and I could wave the magic wand what is something I would do like I'm not saying this is the top thing I would do but something that's always bugged me is how publishers they keep the advanced money and they don't have to put it in escrow where it's earning interest for the author right like they're just keeping the money and they're earning interest on it themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's always bothered me and I always wish we could have an escrow situation like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would make me so happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's probably never going to happen because there is not enough bargaining power on the author side to make that happen again, all the gaps in me, but it's always bugged me like always bugged me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, that money should be an escrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should be earning interest for the author.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a very valid point.
[SPEAKER_02]: We should have hold episode of what CCD, I think, should be changing the publishing.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should write that out in a very fun episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it would bring me a lot of joy because we would get to live in our imagination land for a full hour, and that would be wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm writing that right down right now so that we don't forget.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm writing that out as a future episode idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: All righty, let me now pick a question for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if you can answer this,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if you can answer this because she was a previous client of yours, but can you discuss Taylor Jenkin's reads 40 million five book deal with Simon and Schuster?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does this mean for publishing industry slash writers?
[SPEAKER_01]: How much would an agent make on a deal like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Karly has graciously agreed to address this question.
[SPEAKER_02]: properly address this question.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do want to talk about, yes, she was my client for five years.
[SPEAKER_02]: We work together over the course of five books and, you know, we still have a working relationship and one of the reasons that I don't talk about her.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just I want to talk about maybe why don't talk about her because I get requests.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get media requests from very large publications asking me for quotes about her.
[SPEAKER_02]: about her early career.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually decline them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason is she is a famous person, you know, and I feel a great deal of protection and respect for her and, you know, we don't work together actively on current and future projects, but we actually have a continuing working relationship because of the books that I sold for her.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the sub rights that the agency continues to sell for her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we do still have a working relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I feel very protective of her.
[SPEAKER_02]: She is a famous person.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I am not going to talk about her out of respect for her.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, you know, as I said, we still kind of work together in that capacity.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of why I don't talk about her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just kind of want to talk about why I don't know why I don't talk about her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That I don't know if that answers anybody's questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's move to a question for CC.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think a two book deal is a good financial choice?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, this is where the publishing is institutionalized gambling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bit comes in, all right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to first start off by saying, a lot of authors, is a lot of writers here, two book deal, and think that is superior to a one book deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: because two is more than one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have two cookies, not just one.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not how it works necessarily.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two is not necessarily superior to one in this context.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is actually one of those situations where, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like we can probably play a drinking game.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time I say, it depends, you guys drink, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna drink water.
[SPEAKER_01]: It depends.
[SPEAKER_01]: It depends because,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to note that if you do have a two book deal, just because you have that in your contract, does not mean that the publisher is going to invest in the way that you would want them to in the second book.
[SPEAKER_01]: In certain cases, this is rare, but it happens even sometimes cans all the second book.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to pay back the advance that was given, but they might even cancel it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the first book doesn't sell well, if it doesn't do well, if an issue happens again, this is rare.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of people think too like I kind of have like a guarantee and that brings us to the question of do you want a guarantee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, if you accept a two book deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: you are tied to that imprint for two books.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that means that you're already pricing your second book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if your first book does incredibly well, you've already sold your second book for the amount that you've sold it for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you can't leverage that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't be like, hey, excuse me, we need more money now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another piece of this is if you don't like the working relationship with the publisher for whatever reason, including what happens a lot, the editor might have left, you no longer have the option of going to someone else for that second book, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's something that's also a really important piece.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another thing to consider is you might be someone who enjoys the stability and the guarantee of a second book I have heard, not from a client, from an author who's a lovely, lovely author.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was saying, after my first book came out, I was so terrified because all of a sudden, I started like, like, your book becomes a product.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was out in the world that if I didn't have the contractual obligation to deliver a second book by ex-date, I wouldn't have written, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's her take on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was something that was very comforting for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are situations where I look at a two-book deal and I have said this to clients and I say, hey, I personally don't think a two-book deal is right in this case for these reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: These reasons being anything, anything that's super specific to my client.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes I go, that I have this actually makes a lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: A two-book deal with this, with this publisher and this is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's always the client's decision, if my job is never to decide.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is always too advice, but it is so case-specific that it depends.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel currently?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, often you'll see this more for series anyway, right where it's like there's kind of a reason to continue this and if there's going to be a number of books in the series, then it makes them to just do larger contracts, so you're not like reupping these contracts constantly like just remove logistical point of view, but from a strategic point of view, everything CCC said was correct, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to be able to leverage things when you can and you never want to get yourself into a situation where like, oh, I wish that I had to leverage this and
[SPEAKER_02]: and so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing, I don't think that you'd mention this CC so I'll jump on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like the joint accounting versus separate accounts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew you were going to talk about joint accounting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like currently seeing a talk about joint accounting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Five, four, three, two, and then currently mentions joint accounting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Such as sexy topics, such as sexy topic, like joint accounting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Help myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gets me fired up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So join accounting is when in a two-book dollar ball tube book deal that the bucket of the whole advance refers to all of the titles under that contract and so you don't get royalties until you've earned out the entire love sum and it could take one book or two book or three books to kind of get through that love sum.
[SPEAKER_02]: Separate accounting is when each book is accountable to itself and so the advance there's an advance for that one and advance for the second book and a third book and so on and so forth so that it feels more equitable because you know you want to make sure if book one does or no then it is only responsible for itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again there's lots of different theories and strategies about it generally separate accounting makes more sense for most authors and then I think most agents feel that way
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, so anyway, that kind of comes into place.
[SPEAKER_02]: So some publishers might say, yeah, we'll give you a two book offer, but it's going to be joint accounting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it's like, it's their way of kind of protecting themselves and hedging their own bets, because they're accounting these two projects together.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they don't have to account them separately, which for them is kind of like mitigating some risk, where, you know, it's really just something in my opinion that serves the publisher not the author.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I agree with that assessment, it's just, again, one more way in which the publisher is potentially getting, like, the better end of the deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, as agents, we always, typically, I should say, we typically fight for their team, separate account.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am going to...
[SPEAKER_01]: Ask the question to Carly and this is going to be under the Agent Money bucket.
[SPEAKER_01]: Carly, how long after you became an agent that you see your first check from a client book and how long until it turned into a good salary.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a great question, so this requires me kind of mostly going back in my memory because I do have all of this kind of documented, but I didn't go through my old spreadsheets, but I will just again be very frank about my recollection of everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I became an agent in 2010, I didn't sign, I didn't sell a book until 2011, so that was a whole year of not selling anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I sold one book and that advance was split up in three parts and so, you know, again, took a while to obviously to troll that to build up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I, when I kind of recount this again, I don't have to pay for a friend, but when I recount these memories, I'm like, okay, I made like zero dollars, you're fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I potentially made zero dollars of your two because, again, we have to negotiate the contract and then you get that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're talking like, you know, a small amount.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, the way, again, the way I recount it is like, okay, then I make 10,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then is when the extrapolation starts to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: I make 10, that I made 20, then I made 40, then I made 70, and then I made 140.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's when the doubling starts to happen, and I'm honestly double for a while.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's that ability to sell the books, and then I worked on a lot of books that are royalties, which was a huge help.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I wasn't just relying on, you know, advances.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, okay, when royalty season happened, and generally it's kind of spring and fall, but for each public or it's slightly different.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then you start to get some cash flow start to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: that will fill in all of these gaps.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he starts to kind of be able to call it a salary, or call it a career in a way that kind of made sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was a lot of money management of, okay, this is one of what some is gonna come in and this has to last until then.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's really hard of this business to kind of know and payments or ever gonna come in because as I say with like delivery and acceptance, I don't know when the book is gonna be accepted or I don't know when this contract is gonna be finished.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
[SPEAKER_02]: you know that learning how to cash flow that out of really early young age because I've set this before but I started age between when I was like 22.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I had my own list by the time I was 22.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just done this from a very young age and so yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I taught me a lot of good money management skills.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that and I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to read a next one?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we got next?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I'm gonna read one from business questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much do you think Penguin spent on getting and half the way to promote a debut novel Yesteryear?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not crazy for thinking this is crazy, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: LOL.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this question because this speaks to so many things that I love to talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think this person saw Anne Hathaway or, you know, maybe they follow around social media and they see, oh my gosh, a celebrity is promoting a book and novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: What this person doesn't know is that Anne Hathaway is starting in this movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: right and so as a publishing person I know this and so I think okay this book hasn't come out yet what in half the way is doing as a producer or at least she's a producer as well as a producer she wants this book to do really well because if this book does really well then it creates more of a
[SPEAKER_02]: mobilized grassroots fan base.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, this book is set up to do quite well, but now we have this like grassroots fan base and how to always talking about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we build and build and build.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this is also a way for Aunt Hathaway to provide some insurance on the movie that she's making it about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's why you're seeing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that penguin paid.
[SPEAKER_02]: and to do it and actually wants this book to sell a lot of copies because it does, then that helps her movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just wanted to, I thought that was a great question because it just kind of speaks to the the inner working, the behind the scene and how all these things are connected.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's skin in the game, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's skin in the game.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why, like I, again, this is a totally separate situation, but I still remember my mother-in-law, my adore, I was spending, I think it was Christmas with us here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, oh my gosh, did you see that Obama is narrating a really cute documentary about the ocean?
[SPEAKER_01]: And isn't that so nice of him to do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, Mom,
[SPEAKER_01]: It was actually my husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband was like, Mom, of course it's nice of him to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He seems like a really nice guy, but like he's doing it because he has skin in the game.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like his production company is no one that produced the documentary.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's really easy for our brains to be like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Polishing paid this person next to my money and sometimes, yeah, I mean, we've seen some questionable marketing investments, but yeah, I actually remember this is so much fun when I went, when was this I'm pretty sure this was in my
[SPEAKER_01]: When I don't remember, but I visited Jenny, Jenny Jackson, the editor of Yesteryear, who's also an author by the way, if you guys haven't read her book, you should.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was telling me about Yesteryear.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was telling me about this book that she had a company, this was a long time ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was so excited about it, and I remember thinking, oh my God, I really want to read this book because of the way that she was so passionate about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So remember that, there's always drivers of a book success that happened even before the Anne Hathaway's
[SPEAKER_01]: coming to the equation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, and without we are going to take a break for our sponsors.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I want to ask Carly a business question from our listeners.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much should a debut author consider spending for marketing slash PR support and help?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is a good question.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the way that I like to frame this is twofold.
[SPEAKER_02]: I usually say to a client or anybody asking, you know, this advanced money is your money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not presuming to know your financial situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might need to take that money and pay off debt.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might need to take that money and take us about a call from work.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's your funds, basically.
[SPEAKER_02]: But a lot of others will say, again, what should I do?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I will try to say, you know, is there a percentage that you think that you can set aside from this to help with these matters?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it could be, you know, a percentage of the entire advance, it could be a percentage of a certain.
[SPEAKER_02]: section of the advance because the other thing is a lot of these marketing PR kind of companies if you're going to hire them they want to be hired about a year in advance of the book coming out so you kind of got to think okay of this first chart the signing part of the money can I take some of that money and so.
[SPEAKER_02]: generally these companies charge for pretty active campaign let's say kind of like four to six months.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're probably going to charge anywhere between the 10 and 20,000 dollars, which is a quite a large amount of money, and especially for a lot of authors who are debuts or they kind of, they don't know how this industry functions and what this money is supposed to be for and, you know, how this kind of flows and works, it can obviously feel like a lot of money because it is a lot of money, but you're hiring somebody to a job.
[SPEAKER_02]: right you're hiring somebody that's kind of the concept and so some others will think oh can i just take five hundred dollars here and throw it there and i'm like well what are we doing with that five hundred dollars there thousand dollars right because there are you know a lot of people who advertise like i can do a blog tour for you or all these other things and you really have to think about what's going to move the needle so it's not so much a matter of can i just take some money and do something with it it's all about having a plan for that so
[SPEAKER_02]: do you want to hire somebody to do a podcast tour for you?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's an active thing where it's like, oh, I want to do a podcast tour.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are the companies that can get me on podcast or I want to do a speaking tour, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I just think it's really important to have a real strong focus on what you want to do or this company has a great reputation for
[SPEAKER_02]: serious nonfiction, getting in more literary magazines.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that's what I want.
[SPEAKER_02]: So to me, it's not so much like I have some money.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do I do with it?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's what is my plan?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are some gaps?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are some opportunities?
[SPEAKER_02]: And what is the amount of money that stuff like that costs?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's quite a bit of money.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: To do with that, what you will, but remember, you only launch your debut once, so just have really active conversations with your agent and your publisher about what potentially some of those gaps might be, and if you want to fill those or supplement those and work together as a team, because that's the thing, y'all want to be rowing in the same direction, especially if you're hiring a third party.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of want to touch on this and it's not a it's not a fun thing to say for anyone who is able to think of the advanced money as money that you will reinvest into the business you've created that is a good thing it doesn't mean any guarantees it's really important to understand that but that is a good thing and
[SPEAKER_01]: If anyone's listening to this and thinking, see, see, that sounds super unfair, because that means that people with financial privilege have a leg up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is exactly what it means.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this capitalist society, having that financial privilege can often give you a leg up in many instances.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything from you have money to, I don't know, higher meal prep services, so you can have more time to write to this big thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like financial privilege affects every single aspect.
[SPEAKER_01]: of being an author and oftentimes does lead to more success because you are able to buy back your time because you're able to invest in PR because you're able to to invest in in many many ways and that is so unfair and it's also so so so reality, you know, like this is reality and when not talking about it doesn't help so if you are able to look at your advance as as money that you are going to use to invest in your business, if you are able to do that,
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, next question I want to throw to CC because it's kind of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can both answer it.
[SPEAKER_02]: This person said, am I being delusional for so fully believing my story has a million dollar potential?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a marketing strategist so I look at everything as investment slash performance slash audience opportunity.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the negative stories on author monies are making me wonder if I'm being too optimistic in this world or scarce chance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you being delusional?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this depends on what you mean by million dollar potential.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you think about it, every book has a million dollar potential.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, every book could earn the author a million dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every book could earn a million dollars to the publisher.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every book could.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It just depends on whether readers will respond to that in that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is not a meritocracy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So much of it is discoverability.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're thinking it has potential?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you're not being delusional because every book does and your book is a book.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're thinking, I will for sure make a million dollars off this story, really fast, and then most likely yes, you are being delusional, though it's possible you're not, but most likely yes, you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that it's important to remember that in life, like you would never, you would never go into a new job, right, without first studying what salaries are paid.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to be an accountant.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to be, I don't know, the archeologist.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you would research what do most people make?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the average salary?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what companies are hiring?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the job market?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you would research all these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so a huge thing that authors need to do is kind of research like, hey, our most authors able to work to make a living off their books.
[SPEAKER_01]: If they have one or two books, no, most authors are not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some are, but most are not.
[SPEAKER_01]: if you, if by that you may like, for sure, then yes, deletional.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if by that you mean, it could happen, then no, not deletional.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will add, though, like, I have seen deletional people skyrocket, because fortune favors the bold, let's just be honest, you know, like I have seen deletional people achieve so much success in their lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have seen deletional people do
[SPEAKER_01]: really crash and burn and not be successful at all because fortune favors the bold but so to failure failure also favors the bold you can go either way I genuinely think that it depends on on whether you're able to look at your own talent and you're able to understand how the marketplace works you're able to understand the hard work that goes into it it is not a stable career I'm telling you right now stability no it's not but it is a career with with with with with with million potential for sure
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing I also want to talk about is this idea of like $1 million potential because you could mean a million dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I think this person's alluding to the idea of like, is this a million dollar deal?
[SPEAKER_02]: But they said, a million dollar potential.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there are a lot of books that earn a million dollars in their lifetime because books can be around for a very long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if they're a steady seller that's still, you know, sell you're on year.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they kind of like, you know, come up with different trends is something that's not necessarily topical.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's evergreen.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of books that earn a million dollars over the course of their lifetime or even others that earn a million dollars over their lifetime.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think this person means like a million dollar advance, but yeah, it's totally possible to work on a million dollar ideas, both of us work on a million dollar ideas all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what makes their jobs so exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's hard at what makes their jobs so exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, a question that I'm going to throw to Carly and we'll talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so these are kind of two separate things drawn right in popularity or obviously different, but I think what they're trying this question is probably trying to get at is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do advances trend right like what are the things that make advances trend or what are some more popular buckets than others and that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes advances do depend on genre and popularity and sometimes the combination of the two generally what advances depend on the most is competition.
[SPEAKER_02]: right and so I think the heart of it is competition because with an advanced situation for a debut right so for potentially going to sell something and there's a lot of interest for it then that that drives up the interest for it and kind of drives up the advanced based on the market conditions.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes I would say it advances trend based on
[SPEAKER_02]: genre and popularity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another way to think of it is again categories that are doing really well, publishers want to kind of continue to invest in those because that's a, you know, a diversification of their a lot of all the different prints and they're going to focus on the things to reinvest in the inference.
[SPEAKER_02]: that are continuing to do well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's that like imprint investment advances do depend on so many things and also authors and where they're at their career right if somebody is kind of proving book on book that they are continuing to sell a lot of copies and kind of again rise in that category then yeah that advance is going to turn up so
[SPEAKER_02]: it makes a lot of sense, you know, and I think this person knows that right that if somebody is selling a lot of copies, they're going to get a higher advance if the categories moving a lot of copies, it's going to get a higher advance because that's where the market concentrations.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also like it's important to know because this is a really interesting discussion that because of the subjective nature of publishing and that includes how subjectively publishers can
[SPEAKER_01]: advances can vary widely in an auction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes they don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you see that all the publishers see that book position in the same way, but you know, we've all all agents have been involved in auction situations where you get one offer for 300, another offer for 350, another offer for
[SPEAKER_01]: 370, and then one offer for $50,000, and you're like this person's out to lunch, you know, and I've also seen situations where it's like everyone in the same level and then one person offering like hundreds of thousands more, you know, like it does vary and part of what, you know, the publisher's job at the end of the day, and this is not a secret to my spelling industry secrets here, but it's to protect the publisher.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, like editors are editors love authors and I'm so grateful for editors, but editors are like one person within a big big institutional machine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their job is to offer as much money as they think they can offer to get you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't want to overpay you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not in their best interest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would it be?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like if they can get a book for less money, that's a good thing for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd still remember this was was this last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, it wasn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Simon and Schuster had like a virtual round table.
[SPEAKER_01]: around my birthday so it was in June and it was Yazoon and I had to catch up the recording because it actually happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm pretty sure it was during the day of the uncle's lunch, which is why I couldn't watch live, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, one of the things they talked about is how much they love their, their back list that they didn't pay a lot for, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And they talk about this openly, not in a mean way, but they talk about, hey, it's really great when we can buy a book for not very much money and that book does really well and makes everyone money else, the author, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: So remember, when you're looking at advances and events is too vary, but one of the variables is actually how a publisher sees it.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, like how like do they see that as a lead title?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they see this as a x or y?
[SPEAKER_01]: Z, like that, that also influences it a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, guys, what we hope we kind of covered as many of the hot topics that you wanted to cover, those were the buckets of questions that came in.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was what we last.
[SPEAKER_02]: We really enjoyed this topic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so maybe we'll do, I don't know, up are three in the future, but that's kind of our wrap for today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're so excited to kick off, 20, 26 with you guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: And lots of more shooting the shit topics to come.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wrote down a number of ideas based on some of the spin-off conversations that we've had today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you guys for tuning in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye!
[SPEAKER_00]: CC Lera is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to query CC, please refer to the Submission Guidelines at www.wshuman.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carly Waters is a literary agent at PS Literary Agency, but a work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: are solely that of her as a podcast co-host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS literary agency.