Here’s a very brief overview about book contracts.
One thing to keep in mind when reviewing your contract is when the book is considered out of print. Make sure that you are able to produce ebooks (or even printed books) within a reasonable amount of time after the printed version is no longer available. If publishers retain all the rights through the creation of an ebook version, you can be hung up forever waiting on their publicity department to do anything.
So many of my clients want to know how to get their books turned into films. There are several pathways for fiction authors.
First is to allow your publisher to set up the deal for you. This is the most common way books are turned into films. However, it’s much more common with the top six publishers. If you’re with a mid-sized or smaller publisher, they might not have the same connections.
Second, you can approach movie agents with a treatment. This means you’re offering the book to publishers and the movie to film agents at the same time. It’s one way to increase your overall changes of success in one or the other field.
Third, you can use your network. A perfect example is in this article about a guy with very little experience who approached a bestselling author. It’s a reversal of how an author would go about approaching directors and producers but it proves the power of persistence!
Here’s an interview with that most elusive of creatures, an agent who accepts juvenile works…children’s books through young adult.
No one doubts that electronic devices have dramatically changed the face of publishing today. For years, doomsayers brayed that print would shrivel and blow away. I’ve always held that the new devices would generate shifts but that print would still be alive centuries from now.
In particular, the bad-news prophets claimed that tablets, cell phones and ereaders were all supposed to suck subscribers from print versions of newspapers and magazines. For a time, that appeared to happen.
Now, however, there’s a big shift. Esubscribers are generating new and stronger sources of income for magazines and newspapers. This article presents yet another new way for readers to access their favorite journals…by paying MORE for the eversions than for print.
The Oprah Channel has struggled since day one to reach the numbers it had hoped for. Part of the reason is that Oprah doesn’t show up in much of the programming. Another very real issue is simple oversaturation…the channel can’t offer the same thing all the time.
She’s trying a reboot by building on this interview with Armstrong. The struggle she’s facing is just a reminder that even the biggest celebrities can’t market just anything…and they can’t rely on their name along. Quality must always come first.
Takeaway: Know your audience and what they want. When you deliver it, you’ll automatically provide quality content.
Conde Nast magazines like Wired, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair have a new contract that changes the film option agreement (think about films based on articles like Argo, Brokeback Mountain, and Eat Pray Love This article warn writers about some of the pitfalls.
Very good overview article on thinking about your writing career. When the time is right, my clients and I discuss the business aspects of writing. This ranges from our first contact when they’re wondering whether their work is marketable to considering their audience’s needs during editing or rewriting. When the final product is done, we then discuss market trends that will impact their choice of agents and publishers.
Publishing is a business and, as the author, you must consider yourself the CEO of your book. From start to finish—the germ of a book idea to publication (and beyond)—you must take charge. If you make good business decisions, you will surely experience greater success. If not, then, you could be one of the nearly 78 percent of authors who fail.
Writing the Perfect Query Letter with Laine Cunningham, presented by Alice Osborn
Location: Center for Excellence, 3803-B Computer Dr. Suite 106, Raleigh, NC 27609
Saturday, March 9 Time: 1:30-4:30pm
Fee: $55 (Early Bird till March 1st)/$75 after
Registration: Click here
Your query letter is every bit as important as the opening pages of your novel. It’s your first opportunity to show your writing skills to a prospective agent or editor. Make it count! Make it shine! A good query letter should make that editor and agent want to read your material…and it should grab their hearts in the thirty seconds or so they give each query in their pile. In this class, publishing consultant and owner of the Writer’s Resource Laine Cunningham will discuss the three important elements to inject into your query so you can get published. Fiction and nonfiction authors writing books, stories or articles will benefit from this class.
Laine Cunningham’s clients consistently garner attention from the nation’s top publishers and agents. Several of her clients’ books have been shopped around Hollywood and have received film options. She has been quoted on CNN Money, Media Bistro, and The Writer Magazine for her opinion on the end of the Harry Potter series, the “Oprah Effect,” and Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter. She has presented workshops and lectures for The Loft, the nation’s largest independent literary organization; the National Writer’s Union; The Writer’s Workshop in Asheville and writing conferences across the country.
Great look at two brothers, the sons of Frank Rich and Gail Winston, and their own paths as writers.
When my first novel, Message Stick, was selected for the James Jones Fellowship, I met his daughter. She was kind enough to take me along to view some of her father’s archives, a moment that was reflective and moving. She has written about this same journey at different times of her life. Look up her essays and memoirs for more.
This article from Review Review is probably familiar to those of you who write short stories. Too often authors hear from agents and publishers that their collection is fantastic in so many ways…but they aren’t interested unless the author also has a novel.
I’ve sponsored a writing contest for the last four years. When I first approached the literary magazine that administers the contest, the publisher and senior editor both agreed that short story collections, linked or not, would be accepted and encouraged as submissions.
Last year a collection won first place, and in previous years, collections have placed second, third, or as honorable mention. The Blotter and I are very clear in our support of short stories as viable, living art.
More on the trending of literary magazines: growth and shrinkage.
From Hubpages:
Recently I found a master list of online literary magazines I had printed out in 2005, and I wondered how many of them were still in action.
Here’s good news on the magazine front from The Guardian newspaper.
The death of journalism has been grossly exaggerated, according to a band of ambitious young New York writers and editors who are shaking up the publishing world
The New York Times has a great article about how some self-publishers are making it. Nowadays authors have two general routes to follow: sending to traditional publishing houses or self-publishing. Often I recommend that my clients take both paths at once. That recommendation can depend on the genre in which they’re writing but for many, it reduces the time and frustration of publishing.
Quite an interesting look into book sales in India. They’re nearly all pirated copies. And yet the demand is really of note. In one of the poorest countries in the world, books are so important there are whole industries dedicated to providing them one title at a time, one street sale at a time.
Some basics to remember when planning your submissions here.
Writer's Resource/Sunspot Lit 