Scott Pratt's Blog, page 4
April 25, 2012
The Writer's Predicament
Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Noah Wylie. All those guys have read my work and showed an interest in playing Joe Dillard in a television series. That humbles me, to some extent. It also makes me wish they’d been able to pull it off. They might still pull it off. We’ll see.
Here’s how it started. My New York agent, Philip Spitzer, has a professional relationship with an agent in Hollywood named Joel Gotler. Philip, who was the first to read the re-re-re-written manuscript of “An Innocent Client” and want to represent it, subsequently sent it out to Joel, who is a big shot at the International Property Group – Literary Management (IPGLM) in Los Angeles. Joel’s agency represents books to the Hollywood machine: producers, executive producers, writers, actors, and ultimately, studios.
Joel’s first pitch of my work was to Alexandra Milchan. Alexandra is a beautiful, high-energy, wonderful human being who just so happens to be the daughter of Arnon Milchan. Arnon Milchan is what a lot of people would call a sketchy guy, but I don’t care. I’ve been called a sketchy guy. He’s been involved in arms dealing and the international underworld as a “spy” for the Mossad, which is Israel’s version of the CIA. He’s also a multi-billionaire who has produced more than fifty movies and who developed and owns a studio in Hollywood called New Regency. I didn’t give a thump about his politics. I actually admired him. Talk about a tough SOB. I admire tough SOBs. I was just hoping he’d back what the agents were talking about. So Joel went to dinner with Alexandra in a posh Hollywood restaurant and put “An Innocent Client” in her hands. She read it, loved it and wanted to develop it into a television series. Joel let me know that she wanted to develop it, which was exciting, but he didn’t say anything about money. He didn’t say anything about an option.
I received a phone call from Alexandra in early 2008, not long after Philip Spitzer had sold “An Innocent Client” to the Penguin Group. I had trouble understanding Alexandra on the phone, to be honest, because she’d been raised in France and her accent was a bit difficult to comprehend, but I listened closely, and what she told me was that she LOVED “An Innocent Client” and wanted to turn the Dillard character into a television series. A couple of weeks later, she called me again, but this time it was a conference call between her, me, Rod Lurie and Marc Frydman. Lurie and Frydman owned and operated a production company called BattlePlan. They’d done movies together before and Lurie had been a showrunner on a series called “Commander in Chief,” starring Gina Davis. I was absolutely out of my league. I’ll never forget, though, during the phone conversation, Lurie said, “Will you let us use your book for free?,” which meant, can we go out and try to sell it to studios without having to pay you anything?” I said, “Maybe you should talk to my agent about that.”
Alexandra set up a meeting between Rod Lurie and me at the Madison Hotel in Memphis and we talked for hours in the restaurant. He was one of the brightest men I’ve ever met. We talked about story ideas for a Dillard series for hours. He told me that if they could develop a series based on Dillard and get it renewed for three years, the producers would make upwards of forty million dollars. My take of that as the pissant writer who had developed the characters and the ideas for the show would be in the low hundreds of thousands, but hey, I was willing to take hundreds of thousands. I was in.
My agent, Joel Gotler, was enamored by Alexandra Milchan’s father’s incredible wealth and the opportunities that might present him in the future, and he definitely didn’t want to do anything that might compromise his relationship with Alexandra. So my book got shopped, by Alexandra, in Hollywood, for free. I never received a dime for an option. I can’t really say I regret it, though, because Keifer Southerland, Kevin Bacon, Noah Wylie, and a host of other folks read the book. Noah Wylie was the first to come on board and say, “Yeah, I’d like to play Joe Dillard.” But for whatever reason, when Rod Lurie and Marc Frydmann and Alexandra started pitching the show to networks, the networks passed.
I think they passed because the novel, and the Joe Dillard character, was set in Northeast Tennessee. Lurie wanted to set the show in Memphis. He, as well as others who have pitched the show to networks over the past few years, wanted to change the relationship between Dillard and Caroline. They wanted Dillard to have an affair, or they wanted Caroline to have an affair. They thought it would make the show more “edgy.”
I thought it was bullshit. The appeal of Dillard has been that he’s a good guy and a good husband. He might have been involved in a crappy world, but both he and his wife were good people. They’d raised good kids to the best of their ability but the kids made mistakes along the way, just like every kid makes mistakes. The Hollywood folks tried to explain it to me thusly: “You need a high-concept story.” A “high-concept” story to them is something akin to Joe and Caroline having been unfaithful to each other but working it out after Joe’s girlfriend has been charged with murder and Caroline’s boyfriend has been impeached and removed from the United States Senate. They call that “high concept.” As I mentioned above, I call it bullshit.
So for the past several years, Alexandra Milchan has been on my side in Hollywood, but unfortunately, she’s passed the salesman pitch off to people who want to change the fundamental message of what I’ve tried to convey with Joe Dillard. Maybe they’ll get it at some point, like they got it with “Justified” or with “Breaking Bad.”
We’ll see. If it happens, you’re all invited to a the biggest-ass party that’s ever been held in these parts.
April 24, 2012
The Writer’s Predicament
Let’s talk about the writer’s dream — Hollywood — and how that whole thing works.
Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Noah Wylie. All those guys have read my work and showed an interest in playing Joe Dillard in a television series. That humbles me, to some extent. It also makes me wish they’d been able to pull it off. They might still pull it off. We’ll see.
Here’s how it started. My New York agent, Philip Spitzer, has a professional relationship with an agent in Hollywood named Joel Gotler. Philip, who was the first to read the re-re-re-written manuscript of “An Innocent Client” and want to represent it, subsequently sent it out to Joel, who is a big shot at the International Property Group – Literary Management (IPGLM) in Los Angeles. Joel’s agency represents books to the Hollywood machine: producers, executive producers, writers, actors, and ultimately, studios.
Joel’s first pitch of my work was to Alexandra Milchan. Alexandra is a beautiful, high-energy, wonderful human being who just so happens to be the daughter of Arnon Milchan. Arnon Milchan is what a lot of people would call a sketchy guy, but I don’t care. I’ve been called a sketchy guy. He’s been involved in arms dealing and the international underworld as a “spy” for the Mossad, which is Israel’s version of the CIA. He’s also a multi-billionaire who has produced more than fifty movies and who developed and owns a studio in Hollywood called New Regency. I didn’t give a thump about his politics. I actually admired him. Talk about a tough SOB. I admire tough SOBs. I was just hoping he’d back what the agents were talking about. So Joel went to dinner with Alexandra in a posh Hollywood restaurant and put “An Innocent Client” in her hands. She read it, loved it and wanted to develop it into a television series. Joel let me know that she wanted to develop it, which was exciting, but he didn’t say anything about money. He didn’t say anything about an option.
I received a phone call from Alexandra in early 2008, not long after Philip Spitzer had sold “An Innocent Client” to the Penguin Group. I had trouble understanding Alexandra on the phone, to be honest, because she’d been raised in France and her accent was a bit difficult to comprehend, but I listened closely, and what she told me was that she LOVED “An Innocent Client” and wanted to turn the Dillard character into a television series. A couple of weeks later, she called me again, but this time it was a conference call between her, me, Rod Lurie and Marc Frydman. Lurie and Frydman owned and operated a production company called BattlePlan. They’d done movies together before and Lurie had been a showrunner on a series called “Commander in Chief,” starring Gina Davis. I was absolutely out of my league. I’ll never forget, though, during the phone conversation, Lurie said, “Will you let us use your book for free?,” which meant, can we go out and try to sell it to studios without having to pay you anything?” I said, “Maybe you should talk to my agent about that.”
Alexandra set up a meeting between Rod Lurie and me at the Madison Hotel in Memphis and we talked for hours in the restaurant. He was one of the brightest men I’ve ever met. We talked about story ideas for a Dillard series for hours. He told me that if they could develop a series based on Dillard and get it renewed for three years, the producers would make upwards of forty million dollars. My take of that as the pissant writer who had developed the characters and the ideas for the show would be in the low hundreds of thousands, but hey, I was willing to take hundreds of thousands. I was in.
My agent, Joel Gotler, was enamored by Alexandra Milchan’s father’s incredible wealth and the opportunities that might present him in the future, and he definitely didn’t want to do anything that might compromise his relationship with Alexandra. So my book got shopped, by Alexandra, in Hollywood, for free. I never received a dime for an option. I can’t really say I regret it, though, because Keifer Southerland, Kevin Bacon, Noah Wylie, and a host of other folks read the book. Noah Wylie was the first to come on board and say, “Yeah, I’d like to play Joe Dillard.” But for whatever reason, when Rod Lurie and Marc Frydmann and Alexandra started pitching the show to networks, the networks passed.
I think they passed because the novel, and the Joe Dillard character, was set in Northeast Tennessee. Lurie wanted to set the show in Memphis. He, as well as others who have pitched the show to networks over the past few years, wanted to change the relationship between Dillard and Caroline. They wanted Dillard to have an affair, or they wanted Caroline to have an affair. They thought it would make the show more “edgy.”
I thought it was bullshit. The appeal of Dillard has been that he’s a good guy and a good husband. He might have been involved in a crappy world, but both he and his wife were good people. They’d raised good kids to the best of their ability but the kids made mistakes along the way, just like every kid makes mistakes. The Hollywood folks tried to explain it to me thusly: “You need a high-concept story.” A “high-concept” story to them is something akin to Joe and Caroline having been unfaithful to each other but working it out after Joe’s girlfriend has been charged with murder and Caroline’s boyfriend has been impeached and removed from the United States Senate. They call that “high concept.” As I mentioned above, I call it bullshit.
So for the past several years, Alexandra Milchan has been on my side in Hollywood, but unfortunately, she’s passed the salesman pitch off to people who want to change the fundamental message of what I’ve tried to convey with Joe Dillard. Maybe they’ll get it at some point, like they got it with “Justified” or with “Breaking Bad.”
We’ll see. If it happens, you’re all invited to a the biggest-ass party that’s ever been held in these parts.
April 23, 2012
The Writer's Predicament
That was two months ago. We have yet to hear back from Penguin. It doesn’t surprise me, though, because everything they do seems to take at least two months. It has always taken them two months to send me a contract when we’ve agreed to a deal. It has taken them two months to write and mail a check to me after I’ve signed the contracts and sent them back. It takes them two months to get a royalty statement out after their accounting period ends. It takes them anywhere from six to eighteen months to publish a novel after the final manuscript is approved. Anyone who has ever had an agent submit a manuscript to an editor at a big publishing house knows that it takes them two months to read it.
The people who work at Penguin and the other big houses — especially the publishers and executives and editors — are very, very important, you see. They’re very, very busy. They must be. What other explanation could there be for them taking two months to answer a letter, read a manuscript, write a check, send out a contract? What other explanation could there be for them taking six to eighteen months to publish a manuscript? Have I mentioned that the publishing industry (the Big Six, anyway) basically shuts down twice a year for a month at a time — from August 1 to September 1 and from early December to mid-January — so everyone can go on vacation? The publishers, the executives, the editors, the agents, they all take at least two months off each year. They go to exotic places. They put their email services and their cell phones on auto pilot. They must need down time from all that important stuff they do. They must need a break from the book fairs in exotic locales, they must need a break from all the corporate conferences, they must need a break from all the cocktail parties. They must need a break from all those events they attend where they tell each other how very, very important they are and how very, very busy they are.
It’s no wonder the traditional publishing industry is swirling in the bowl. They’re inefficient, self-important, and they’ve been taking advantage of both their authors and their customers for a hundred years. Amazon is kicking their butts, and they deserve it.
I love Amazon. They offer books to their readers (except those published by the big, traditional publishers who are now being sued by the Justice Department for price fixing) at a reasonable price. They pay authors an excellent royalty. They can deliver a book to you in the comfort of your own home in less than two minutes. They’ve continued to upgrade the Kindle and they sell it for a reasonable price. Amazon, as far as I’m concerned, is a shining light in free market economics.
I don’t work for Amazon and I have absolutely no interest in promoting them. I’m just telling the truth. Amazon is going to do the same thing to big publishing houses that digital music did to big record companies. Big corporate bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Books a Million? Remember the big corporate music stores? The big corporate book stores will be gone. Initially, they will be replaced by niche used bookstores, which will eventually be replaced by niche corporate book stores like Mr. K’s. Eventually, Amazon will become so profitable (if they aren’t already) that greedy shareholders will prevent them from doing what they’ve done to this point.
But they’ve let the cat out of the bag, and I, for one, am glad. Where do I fit in all of this? Hell, I don’t know. All I know is that I’m going to keep writing stories. I’m going to keep trying to get better and I’m going to sell my work for a reasonable price. I feel like a yoke has been thrown off my shoulders, and my hope is that people like you will like my work enough to buy it at that reasonable price. Because if guys like me can make a decent living writing, then the Penguins of the world will die off and stay in their graves. The result of that will be that there will be more stories for you to choose from, and you’ll be able to read them without feeling like you’ve been shafted.
April 22, 2012
The Writer’s Predicament
I was telling you about my efforts to get the rights to my first three books back from the formidable Penguin Group, efforts which have been unsuccessful so far. But at least they made an offer. Like I said, they offered to sell the rights back to me for $32,000. I did a present value calculation based on Penguin’s royalty statements and their balance sheet and made a counter-offer. It was far, far less than $32,000. It was less than $2,000.
That was two months ago. We have yet to hear back from Penguin. It doesn’t surprise me, though, because everything they do seems to take at least two months. It has always taken them two months to send me a contract when we’ve agreed to a deal. It has taken them two months to write and mail a check to me after I’ve signed the contracts and sent them back. It takes them two months to get a royalty statement out after their accounting period ends. It takes them anywhere from six to eighteen months to publish a novel after the final manuscript is approved. Anyone who has ever had an agent submit a manuscript to an editor at a big publishing house knows that it takes them two months to read it.
The people who work at Penguin and the other big houses — especially the publishers and executives and editors — are very, very important, you see. They’re very, very busy. They must be. What other explanation could there be for them taking two months to answer a letter, read a manuscript, write a check, send out a contract? What other explanation could there be for them taking six to eighteen months to publish a manuscript? Have I mentioned that the publishing industry (the Big Six, anyway) basically shuts down twice a year for a month at a time — from August 1 to September 1 and from early December to mid-January — so everyone can go on vacation? The publishers, the executives, the editors, the agents, they all take at least two months off each year. They go to exotic places. They put their email services and their cell phones on auto pilot. They must need down time from all that important stuff they do. They must need a break from the book fairs in exotic locales, they must need a break from all the corporate conferences, they must need a break from all the cocktail parties. They must need a break from all those events they attend where they tell each other how very, very important they are and how very, very busy they are.
It’s no wonder the traditional publishing industry is swirling in the bowl. They’re inefficient, self-important, and they’ve been taking advantage of both their authors and their customers for a hundred years. Amazon is kicking their butts, and they deserve it.
I love Amazon. They offer books to their readers (except those published by the big, traditional publishers who are now being sued by the Justice Department for price fixing) at a reasonable price. They pay authors an excellent royalty. They can deliver a book to you in the comfort of your own home in less than two minutes. They’ve continued to upgrade the Kindle and they sell it for a reasonable price. Amazon, as far as I’m concerned, is a shining light in free market economics.
I don’t work for Amazon and I have absolutely no interest in promoting them. I’m just telling the truth. Amazon is going to do the same thing to big publishing houses that digital music did to big record companies. Big corporate bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Books a Million? Remember the big corporate music stores? The big corporate book stores will be gone. Initially, they will be replaced by niche used bookstores, which will eventually be replaced by niche corporate book stores like Mr. K’s. Eventually, Amazon will become so profitable (if they aren’t already) that greedy shareholders will prevent them from doing what they’ve done to this point.
But they’ve let the cat out of the bag, and I, for one, am glad. Where do I fit in all of this? Hell, I don’t know. All I know is that I’m going to keep writing stories. I’m going to keep trying to get better and I’m going to sell my work for a reasonable price. I feel like a yoke has been thrown off my shoulders, and my hope is that people like you will like my work enough to buy it at that reasonable price. Because if guys like me can make a decent living writing, then the Penguins of the world will die off and stay in their graves. The result of that will be that there will be more stories for you to choose from, and you’ll be able to read them without feeling like you’ve been shafted.
April 17, 2012
The Writer’s Predicament
How about this for a predicament?
You’ve written three books that have been published by a big house and are also available on Kindle, Nook, etc., and you sort of hope nobody buys them.
What? Are you kidding me?
No, I’m not. I’m not kidding. Since last May, when I received a letter from Penguin saying they were letting my first two books go out of print, I haven’t wanted people to buy them. Why? Because I WANT THEM BACK. I want the rights to those books back so I can promote and sell them myself. And why wouldn’t I? The publisher abandoned them, gave them no promotional support, and has now taken two of them off the paper market, which means they’re not available in bookstores. They’ve priced the ebooks too high, (they’re being sued by the Justice Department, along with five other publishers, for doing that kind of thing) which keeps the sales low. On top of that, they give me a paltry percentage on ebooks, just like they did on paper books. I want the rights back. As I told you in the last blog, I can get a 70 percent royalty from Amazon.
I asked them, first through my agent, to give the rights back to me because the contract said they have to give them back if they put the books out of print. They refused, citing another clause in the contract that says that if “any edition” of the book is selling more than 300 copies a year, they retain the rights. The ebooks are selling more than 300 copies a year. Let’s just consider that a moment. If they’re selling the ebooks for 7.99 (which they are) and they sell 300 a year, they get a whopping $2,400 a year, of which they give me $360 a year. (I get a generous 15 percent in royalties from the publisher on ebooks, minus 15 percent to my agent, of course.)
I’m going to get into a bit of legal stuff here. I’ll try to put it in layman’s terms as best I can. If you sign a contract with someone, you have what is called an “implied duty” to act in good faith. That means you have to do your best to adhere to the terms and conditions of the contract. You have to do what’s right. The duty of good faith has evolved over hundreds of years. It isn’t a written law. It’s called “common law,” which means it was basically developed by judges. But it makes sense. This is probably the only time you’ll ever hear me say that something a judge said or did makes sense. I don’t care for judges any more than I care for big publishing houses. It’s just a thing of mine.
In the publishing industry, authors like me have an implied duty of good faith to deliver a quality manuscript on time. They have a duty to work with the publishing house’s editors, their marketing staff, their publicists. They have a duty to go to book signings and do speaking engagements. When the publishing house’s copy editor sends an edited, marked-up, paper manuscript, the author has a duty to go through it, page by page, respond to the changes and send it back in a timely manner. When the advance copy comes (or galleys, as they call them in the biz) the author has a duty to read them to see if there are any typos, any last-minute changes before the manuscript goes to the printer. I did all of those things.
What’s the publisher’s implied duty of good faith under the contract? Well, if you ask them, their duty is to pay the advance money. That’s pretty much it, as far as they’re concerned. But if you ask the courts, their duty is to give the book “a reasonable chance of achieving market success in light of the subject matter and the likely audience.” That requirement became a part of the law in a case called Zilg v. Prentice-Hall back in 1983. So, given the legal requirement that Penguin give my books a reasonable chance of succeeding in the marketplace in light of the subject matter and the likely audience, and given the fact that the “likely audience” is huge (there’s a big market out there for legal thriller/mysteries) you would think that tanking my second and third books with zero promotional effort because Jerkoff felt put upon would be a “breach” of their implied duty under the contract. I do. I think it’s a breach.
So I got me a lawyer. I explained the situation to him and he wrote Penguin a letter and said, (I’m paraphrasing here) “Look, you’re in breach of the contract. At this point, all we want is the rights back to the books. We’re not looking for the money Mr. Pratt might have made had you not breached the contract. We just want the rights back.” Six weeks later, Penguin wrote back and told us to go jump in the lake. So he wrote them another letter and very carefully pointed out their duty under the law. Two months later, they wrote back and told us to go jump in the lake again. He wrote back to them and refined his points. Two months later, they wrote back and said they’d sell the rights back to me for $32,000, which is what they say is advance money I haven’t earned. Bear in mind that my books have grossed over $600,000 at this point. They’d given me $75,000 in advance money. They’d kept $525,000 of the money my books had generated, had spent virtually nothing on promotion, and they say I owe them $32,000? Sheesh!
So my lawyer and I took a closer look at those indecipherable royalty statements they send to authors twice a year. One of the interesting things about the royalty statements is that they don’t mention the amount of money the books have grossed for the publisher. Let me get the latest one… okay, here it is, from back in January. It lists the retail prices, it lists the advance money, it lists the number of returns and the number they’ve held in reserve. It mentions the paltry eight percent royalty amount. It says how many books and ebooks they’ve sold. But nowhere on that statement does it mention that Penguin has grossed over half a million on the sales of the books. I find that strangely… strange… and misleading and exploitative.
This blog is getting a bit too long… We wrote back to them again. I’ll tell you what we said and where we are today in the next blog. What a predicament!
April 16, 2012
The Writer's Predicament
The predicament I faced was serious. I've already told you I'd been suspended from practicing law and had looked to publishing to replace that income. It looked like it was going to happen until Jerkoff came along. In the meantime, my lovely wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was going through some terrible, terrible times. Six months of chemo, thirty radiation treatments, a mastectomy. A failed reconstruction. We'd already lost three cars and one home to bankruptcy, but I was hoping the publishing thing would bring us back from the financial abyss. It almost happened. Almost.
The decisions that slowed my writing career were made in rooms inside the walls of the publishing house by people who didn't know me and didn't care about me or my family. That's the reality of the business unless you happen to be the one in a million who hit it BIG. Then everybody will be your best friend. But if you're not one of the big guys, your career is tenuous, you will be exploited, and then you'll be cast off for somebody newer.
There was absolutely nothing I could do. I wasn't there when the decision to tank me was made and had no say in the matter. My agents weren't there and had no idea what was going on. Even if they had known what was going on, they wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, either. I've learned that agents don't have much power, not much "clout" as Mike Royko would have called it, with big publishing houses. They send the manuscripts to editors. The editors read. They either like it or they don't. It's as simple as that.
So what to do? What does one do when he or she has been tanked by a publisher? I had two books on the shelves and another in production. The second book had received zero promotional support and I had no reason to believe things were going to be any different. To make things even more complicated, I'd chosen to write a series, the people who were reading it loved it (most of them, anyway) and they wanted me to write more. I was three books in. So do I write another in the series? Write a standalone? I decided to go to New York, meet my agents face-to-face for the first time, and try to figure out what to do. I met Philip and Lukas in the restaurant of a New York hotel and we spent four very nice hours together, talking, drinking and laughing. We decided I'd write another in the Dillard series and try to sell it to another publisher. So I wrote "Reasonable Fear." It took me about six months. The agents sent it out and we sat back an waited. Rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection.
They couldn't sell it. Yikes.
So I decided to publish it myself. I used Createspace for the formatting and the print-on-demand and I put it up on Amazon. I was pretty bummed about it, to tell you the truth, but then the weirdest thing happened. I got a check in the mail from Amazon, and it wasn't small. I started scrambling around trying to figure out why they were sending me money, and lo and behold, I learned that I could track my sales day by day, hour by hour if I wanted. The next month, on the second of the month, I got another check. The royalty I was getting from Amazon was seventy percent of the retail price. SEVENTY percent. Not the measly eight percent I was getting from Penguin. If I sell a million dollars worth of books for Amazon, they'll send me seven hundred thousand. No percentage to the agent. If I sell a million dollars worth of books for Pengiun, they'll send me eighty thousand, minus fifteen percent to the agent.
So which do you think is the better deal?
Me, too. And that's what I've been doing for the past couple of years. I'll tell you some more about it in a day or two.
The Writer’s Predicament
Yes, I realize the last blog was a bit on vitriolic side. I’ve read it five or six times and considered taking it down, but I’ve decided to leave it. If you aspire to write fiction, because of all the turnover in the big publishing houses, there’s a good chance you might run into someone like Jerkoff at some point in your career. That will put you in a predicament.
The predicament I faced was serious. I’ve already told you I’d been suspended from practicing law and had looked to publishing to replace that income. It looked like it was going to happen until Jerkoff came along. In the meantime, my lovely wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was going through some terrible, terrible times. Six months of chemo, thirty radiation treatments, a mastectomy. A failed reconstruction. We’d already lost three cars and one home to bankruptcy, but I was hoping the publishing thing would bring us back from the financial abyss. It almost happened. Almost.
The decisions that slowed my writing career were made in rooms inside the walls of the publishing house by people who didn’t know me and didn’t care about me or my family. That’s the reality of the business unless you happen to be the one in a million who hit it BIG. Then everybody will be your best friend. But if you’re not one of the big guys, your career is tenuous, you will be exploited, and then you’ll be cast off for somebody newer.
There was absolutely nothing I could do. I wasn’t there when the decision to tank me was made and had no say in the matter. My agents weren’t there and had no idea what was going on. Even if they had known what was going on, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it, either. I’ve learned that agents don’t have much power, not much “clout” as Mike Royko would have called it, with big publishing houses. They send the manuscripts to editors. The editors read. They either like it or they don’t. It’s as simple as that.
So what to do? What does one do when he or she has been tanked by a publisher? I had two books on the shelves and another in production. The second book had received zero promotional support and I had no reason to believe things were going to be any different. To make things even more complicated, I’d chosen to write a series, the people who were reading it loved it (most of them, anyway) and they wanted me to write more. I was three books in. So do I write another in the series? Write a standalone? I decided to go to New York, meet my agents face-to-face for the first time, and try to figure out what to do. I met Philip and Lukas in the restaurant of a New York hotel and we spent four very nice hours together, talking, drinking and laughing. We decided I’d write another in the Dillard series and try to sell it to another publisher. So I wrote “Reasonable Fear.” It took me about six months. The agents sent it out and we sat back an waited. Rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection.
They couldn’t sell it. Yikes.
So I decided to publish it myself. I used Createspace for the formatting and the print-on-demand and I put it up on Amazon. I was pretty bummed about it, to tell you the truth, but then the weirdest thing happened. I got a check in the mail from Amazon, and it wasn’t small. I started scrambling around trying to figure out why they were sending me money, and lo and behold, I learned that I could track my sales day by day, hour by hour if I wanted. The next month, on the second of the month, I got another check. The royalty I was getting from Amazon was seventy percent of the retail price. SEVENTY percent. Not the measly eight percent I was getting from Penguin. If I sell a million dollars worth of books for Amazon, they’ll send me seven hundred thousand. No percentage to the agent. If I sell a million dollars worth of books for Pengiun, they’ll send me eighty thousand, minus fifteen percent to the agent.
So which do you think is the better deal?
Me, too. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years. I’ll tell you some more about it in a day or two.
April 13, 2012
The Writer's Predicament
If you haven’t been vaccinated against
“disgruntled writer’s venom,” don’t read it.
My new editor’s name was Brent Howard. This is the one and only time I will mention his name. From now on, I will refer to him only as Jerkoff. I Googled him after I found out he was my new editor and learned he had graduated from the University of Arkansas. A Razorback. A Wild Pig. Good for him. I called him and we small talked a little. I thought it might work out.
Here’s where it starts to get a little venomous. Do you remember how your mother always told you if you can’t say anything nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all? I can’t say anything nice about the guy I mentioned above, so I won’t say anything at all. I will say some things about Jerkoff, however, and none of them will be nice.
NAL/Penguin and some woman named Kara Welcher or Kara Welsh or Kara Walsh (I’m not sure about her name, but I think she was the boss) decided they wouldn’t replace Kristen Weber, so they (she) dumped me on Jerkoff. He apparently already had eight or ten or a dozen authors he was dealing with and was none-too-thrilled about working with me. He made that crystal clear from the beginning. I’ll never forget the email he sent me after I sent him an email asking whether he had had time to familiarize himself with my work. His answer? He wasn’t like Kristen Weber. He wasn’t one of the chosen ones at the publishing house. He had to work for a living, and no, he hadn’t had time to familiarize himself and didn’t know when he’d be get around to it. (I saved the email, because as soon as I read it, having a background in law, I realized I might have to sue these bastards at some point in the future. I saved all of my correspondence with Jerkoff from that day forward. I plan to use it if I ever have to go to trial with them.)
I wrote back to him and asked him whether there might be another editor at NAL who wasn’t so busy, somebody who wouldn’t mind working with me, since he seemed to be overwhelmed and all. Instead of answering the email, he forwarded it to my agent and whined, which resulted in a call from Lukas Ortiz, who gave me a twenty-minute scolding on how I should not communicate with editors. I hadn’t had any problems communicating with Kristen Weber, so I was a bit perplexed. Lukas’s rant pissed me off almost as much as Jerkoff’s email. I felt like a kid who’d been dragged into the principal’s office and lectured over some unfathomable offense he didn’t commit. I bit my tongue and took it that day, but the conversation fundamentally changed the relationship between Lukas and I because I thought Lukas was supposed to be on my side. He was my agent, after all. I didn’t know at the time that he and his agency were negotiating some non-fiction, baseball book deal about Hank Greenberg with Jerkoff. How could I know that? And honestly, why would I care? Jerkoff was screwing me. He was ignoring me and my books. I reacted to him screwing me in a way that was, and always has been, natural to me — I confronted him — and my agent was making an angry phone call to… me?
It wasn’t good. I’d gone from the publishing penthouse (if you want to call mass market paperback and eight percent royalties a penthouse) to the publishing outhouse. Hell, I wasn’t even in the outhouse. I was in an open slit trench beyond the outhouse. And why? Because, in my humble opinion, Jerkoff felt “put upon” because Kara Welcher, Welsh, Walsh, whatever her name is, dumped me on him.
Let me just throw this out. Maybe I sucked. Maybe my worked sucked. Maybe my agent was dead wrong when he read my first manuscript, loved it, and decided to represent it. Maybe Kristen Weber was dead wrong when she bought my first three novels. Maybe Kara Welcher/Welsh/Walsh was dead wrong when she agreed with Kristen that my work was worthy of publication on a national level. Maybe Publisher’s Weekly was dead wrong when they gave me a starred review for “An Innocent Client” and maybe the people who give out the Macavity Awards were dead wrong when they made that novel a finalist in the “Best Debut Mystery” category. Maybe Joel Gotler (a respected Hollywood agent) and Alexandra Milchan (a respected producer) and Rod Lurie (a respected writer, director and producer) and the other people in Hollywood who wanted to option the book for a television series were dead wrong when they talked to me on the phone and flew me to a meeting and told me the book was brilliant. Maybe all the people who bought and enjoyed the novel were idiots.
Maybe Jerkoff was right.
Regardless of who was “right,” what happened was, under Jerkoff’s tender wings, “In Good Faith” suffocated. There wasn’t a dollar spent on promotion, to my knowledge, outside of the standard advance review copies being sent out. Jerkoff didn’t solicit a single new blurb. He wasn’t responsible for a single review. He nominated the book for nothing. I had a publicist, employed by Penguin, who had absolutely nothing to do. And why? I hate to say it, but I believe I’ve already answered the question twice. That book, and my career as a novelist, went south (temporarily) because Jerkoff felt “put upon.” It was so petty.
Next blog, we’ll talk about what’s really important in this business today and why I’m thinking seriously about suing Penguin for breach of contract. As a result of this blog, any hope I may have entertained about being published again by a “legacy” or “conventional” or “traditional” publisher is most likely dead in the water. My agents may even fire me.
We’ll see…
By the way, I don’t like the word “disgruntled.” I prefer “pissed off,” or maybe “righteously indignant.”
Yuk, yuk. (Mike Royko, RIP.)
The Writer’s Predicament
Warning: This blog contains venom.
If you haven’t been vaccinated against
“disgruntled writer’s venom,” don’t read it.
My new editor’s name was Brent Howard. This is the one and only time I will mention his name. From now on, I will refer to him only as Jerkoff. I Googled him after I found out he was my new editor and learned he had graduated from the University of Arkansas. A Razorback. A Wild Pig. Good for him. I called him and we small talked a little. I thought it might work out.
Here’s where it starts to get a little venomous. Do you remember how your mother always told you if you can’t say anything nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all? I can’t say anything nice about the guy I mentioned above, so I won’t say anything at all. I will say some things about Jerkoff, however, and none of them will be nice.
NAL/Penguin and some woman named Kara Welcher or Kara Welsh or Kara Walsh (I’m not sure about her name, but I think she was the boss) decided they wouldn’t replace Kristen Weber, so they (she) dumped me on Jerkoff. He apparently already had eight or ten or a dozen authors he was dealing with and was none-too-thrilled about working with me. He made that crystal clear from the beginning. I’ll never forget the email he sent me after I sent him an email asking whether he had had time to familiarize himself with my work. His answer? He wasn’t like Kristen Weber. He wasn’t one of the chosen ones at the publishing house. He had to work for a living, and no, he hadn’t had time to familiarize himself and didn’t know when he’d be get around to it. (I saved the email, because as soon as I read it, having a background in law, I realized I might have to sue these bastards at some point in the future. I saved all of my correspondence with Jerkoff from that day forward. I plan to use it if I ever have to go to trial with them.)
I wrote back to him and asked him whether there might be another editor at NAL who wasn’t so busy, somebody who wouldn’t mind working with me, since he seemed to be overwhelmed and all. Instead of answering the email, he forwarded it to my agent and whined, which resulted in a call from Lukas Ortiz, who gave me a twenty-minute scolding on how I should not communicate with editors. I hadn’t had any problems communicating with Kristen Weber, so I was a bit perplexed. Lukas’s rant pissed me off almost as much as Jerkoff’s email. I felt like a kid who’d been dragged into the principal’s office and lectured over some unfathomable offense he didn’t commit. I bit my tongue and took it that day, but the conversation fundamentally changed the relationship between Lukas and I because I thought Lukas was supposed to be on my side. He was my agent, after all. I didn’t know at the time that he and his agency were negotiating some non-fiction, baseball book deal about Hank Greenberg with Jerkoff. How could I know that? And honestly, why would I care? Jerkoff was screwing me. He was ignoring me and my books. I reacted to him screwing me in a way that was, and always has been, natural to me — I confronted him — and my agent was making an angry phone call to… me?
It wasn’t good. I’d gone from the publishing penthouse (if you want to call mass market paperback and eight percent royalties a penthouse) to the publishing outhouse. Hell, I wasn’t even in the outhouse. I was in an open slit trench beyond the outhouse. And why? Because, in my humble opinion, Jerkoff felt “put upon” because Kara Welcher, Welsh, Walsh, whatever her name is, dumped me on him.
Let me just throw this out. Maybe I sucked. Maybe my worked sucked. Maybe my agent was dead wrong when he read my first manuscript, loved it, and decided to represent it. Maybe Kristen Weber was dead wrong when she bought my first three novels. Maybe Kara Welcher/Welsh/Walsh was dead wrong when she agreed with Kristen that my work was worthy of publication on a national level. Maybe Publisher’s Weekly was dead wrong when they gave me a starred review for “An Innocent Client” and maybe the people who give out the Macavity Awards were dead wrong when they made that novel a finalist in the “Best Debut Mystery” category. Maybe Joel Gotler (a respected Hollywood agent) and Alexandra Milchan (a respected producer) and Rod Lurie (a respected writer, director and producer) and the other people in Hollywood who wanted to option the book for a television series were dead wrong when they talked to me on the phone and flew me to a meeting and told me the book was brilliant. Maybe all the people who bought and enjoyed the novel were idiots.
Maybe Jerkoff was right.
Regardless of who was “right,” what happened was, under Jerkoff’s tender wings, “In Good Faith” suffocated. There wasn’t a dollar spent on promotion, to my knowledge, outside of the standard advance review copies being sent out. Jerkoff didn’t solicit a single new blurb. He wasn’t responsible for a single review. He nominated the book for nothing. I had a publicist, employed by Penguin, who had absolutely nothing to do. And why? I hate to say it, but I believe I’ve already answered the question twice. That book, and my career as a novelist, went south (temporarily) because Jerkoff felt “put upon.” It was so petty.
Next blog, we’ll talk about what’s really important in this business today and why I’m thinking seriously about suing Penguin for breach of contract. As a result of this blog, any hope I may have entertained about being published again by a “legacy” or “conventional” or “traditional” publisher is most likely dead in the water. My agents may even fire me.
We’ll see…
By the way, I don’t like the word “disgruntled.” I prefer “pissed off,” or maybe “righteously indignant.”
Yuk, yuk. (Mike Royko, RIP.)
The Writer's Predicament
Kristen was my editor at New American Library. I was sorry to hear she was leaving because I liked her very much and she'd been so easy to work with. But I had no idea of the consequences of her departure. I thought NAL would hire someone to take her place and business would go on as usual.
"You're an orphan now," Lukas said.
"Orphan? What do you mean, orphan?"
"You have no editor."
I didn't know how the publishing business worked at the time. (I'm still not certain, to be honest.) I'd tried to figure it out, but nobody seemed to be willing to offer much information. I soon learned, however, that a writer's editor is his advocate "in-house." In other words, the editor champions the writer and the book to the myriad of corporate decision-makers at the publishing house. It's very much like having another agent within the walls of the corporation. And since the larger houses publish hundreds, or even thousands, of titles each year, there is apparently some pretty stiff competition within the walls for such things as promotional, distributing, and printing dollars. If there's no one there to compete on an author's behalf, the books die on the vine, if they get to the vine at all.
Still, I remained optimistic. My first book had been well-received. Everyone who seemed to know anything about it said it was selling well. Kristen had edited by second novel, "In Good Faith," and thought it was even stronger than "An Innocent Client." "In Good Faith" hadn't been released (the publisher moving at the speed of snail again), but I figured as long as NAL gave "In Good Faith" at least the kind of promotional support they'd given "An Innocent Client," the snowball would continue to roll. I was hoping they'd give it more promotional support than "An Innocent Client," because it would have made sense to do so, but I suppose I would have been satisfied with something similar.
Boy, was I wrong. When "In Good Faith" was released in June of 2009, the silence was deafening. I was in Nashville the day it came out because my wife was having one of her many breast-cancer surgeries at Vanderbilt. I walked down to a Borders bookstore (they're gone now, and in my opinion, the rest are soon to follow) and started looking around for my new novel. I looked everywhere... couldn't find it. It wasn't even on the stack of books on the "newly-released mass market paperback" table. So I walked back to the mystery/thriller section of the store, and by golly, there it was, hidden among thousands of other titles. A needle in a haystack.
I thought, this can't be right. There's been some kind of mistake.
So I went to Barnes and Noble, where "An Innocent Client" had been prominently displayed (for a month) when it was released. Same thing. There were two copies of "In Good Faith" back among the stack, next to "An Innocent Client." I called my agent and asked what was up. They didn't know. Didn't you have any idea of what kind of promotional commitment they were going to make? You're my agent, aren't you?
No, the agents didn't know anything about it and just couldn't seem to get a straight answer from anyone at NAL. As a matter of fact, NAL said they weren't going to replace Kristen and hadn't even decided which editor they would assign me to (traslate: which editor they would dump me on). Apparently, the fact that they bought the book and paid me an advance didn't mean much. Once Kristen left, it was as though I no longer existed. And do you know what else? There wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. I'd already signed a contract for another book and was almost finished with it. But if they'd bailed on "In Good Faith," what would happen to "Injustice for All?" And what about a new editor? Were they even going to bother?
They bothered, finally. Next time, I'll tell you about the new editor. You're gonna love it.
