Brian Clegg's Blog, page 21

Review: Moriarty - Anthony Horowitz *****

This crime novel dates back to 2014, but given the subject, it's timeless. Many people have attempted to continue Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon with mixed success. I think it's fair to say that Anthony Horowitz has been one of the most successful, by taking a distinctly tangential approach to the Holmes universe.

That's not to say that there isn't some pastiche here. As well as the main novel, the book contains two short stories. One is Conan Doyle's own The Final Problem - the one where Conan Doyle, fed up with his creation, killed Holmes off at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland - this is accompanied by an insightful introduction by Horowitz. The other is a 'new' Sherlock Holmes short story featuring the Scotland Yard detective who will play a major part in the novel, Athelney Jones (who also appeared in one of the original Holmes stories).

In the main novel, which is set shortly after Holmes and Moriarty apparently perish by plunging off the waterfall, we get a new pairing. There is Jones, who after being mocked by Dr Watson for his ineptitude in The Sign of the Four has set out to study and apply Holmes' methods, accompanied by his own version of Watson, an American Pinkerton detective called Frederick Chase, who is the first person narrator of the story. Spurred on by a letter found on Moriarty's body, they try to track down an American crime lord who is trying to take over Moriarty's criminal legacy in London.

It is all beautifully done - there is an excellent period feel, though Horowitz allows us considerably more nastiness in the violence (arguably are more accurate portrayal of Victorian London) than Conan Doyle ever did. The action carries us forward with a relentless pace. And the ending has one of the most impressive twists I've ever seen in a book like this. Remarkably (even though this was my second time reading it), I got to page 327 before noticing once more (when the narrator points it out) that there is a huge clue in plain sight from first picking up the book.

An essential for anyone with an interest in the world of Sherlock Holmes - but also an excellent standalone mystery in its own right.

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I want to write a non-fiction book - part 8 - self-publishing

Up to this point, this series (outline at the bottom of the post) has been about having a book published by a publisher, but self-publishing is now a much easer option in some ways than it used to be. The Tl;dr summary is 'It's easy to do, but it's really difficult to do well.' I've done it myself for most of my fiction, but what I describe below applies equally well to non-fiction.

Personally I prefer to go through a publisher if I can, because they take away a lot of the hassle - but I'd rather have a book self-published than not at all. Others love the whole business - how you will find it will certainly depend on how much time and effort you can put into it.

There are many routes to self-publishing. I'm going to describe using KDP, Amazon's route, which for me is the most likely to result in good sales and is relatively easy to use. What I'm describing here is different from vanity publishing or hybrid publishing. Here, a publishing company does (some of) the work for you and you typically pay them up front, then get a higher percentage of the cover price than with a traditional publisher. I know a few people who have found this a good experience, but there are a number of dubious vanity publishers who take your money and don't do anything much in the way of editing, distribution or publicity - which means they are little more than expensive self-publishers. I don't have personal experience, but my feeling is that this approach is not for me as my number one rule of being published is that I should be paid, rather than pay, for the experience.

If you are going to self-publish, the first essential is to get someone else to edit your book. Paying someone is an option. Alternatively, while I don't think friends and relations give useful feedback on whether or not a book is any good, it's perfectly possible for a friend or relation to do a proof read, looking for typos and errors. What you can't assume is that just because said friend or relation is a writer or in the publishing business they are any good at this. Although I often spot errors in published books, I pick them up very randomly - as soon as I get engrossed I start missing them. You need someone who can painstakingly read the words. Proof reading is the minimum - you may also want to pay someone to do a structural edit, looking at how the book works overall. I've done this for people in the past - I would say that sometimes they found it really hard to take criticism. There's no point paying someone to do this unless you are prepared to listen and potentially change the content or approach.

Once you have a typescript ready to go, getting it published through something like KDP is tedious and can look overwhelming when you start, but take it step by step and it's perfectly doable. You will need to get the text into the appropriate format, design a cover (or have one designed for you) and set up all the associated metadata, from a blurb to pricing structure.

One small piece of advice on layout I got from a pro - you can pretty much use the same manuscript format for both paper book and ebook, but move the page with the copyright details to the end for the ebook. From my own experience, I'd always get a printed proof before publishing and check that over as well as you can. For the metadata (and cover design), look at what's on the Amazon listing of equivalent books from publishers. Get all the information you need together ahead so you can just paste it onto the KDP pages.

For cover design, I wouldn't put anyone off designing their own, but bear in mind that it's not something we're all good at. Look at plenty of equivalent book covers and see what works at a general level. I'm not suggesting copying them, but you should get a feel for what's in fashion for layout, font and use of colour. I see so many self-published books where the covers are very obviously DIY, and that's not a great start. It's worth having a play with one of the AI image products such as DALL-E or Bing Image Creator. They may give you a good starting point for a cover design. Remember if you are doing a paper book (I recommend having both paper and ebook formats) that you will need a back cover as well. KDP gives templates for the layout of covers if you don't use their clunky built-in designer (I prefer to do it separately). Again look at what's on the back covers of similar titles online or in a bookshop.

You will have to choose prices for each market, and have the option of whether or not it's widely distributed in at least the UK and the US (i.e. available wider than on Amazon). I'd keep the pricing relatively low to start with - you can always tweak this - but not so low that it looks not worth it. If you are use to academic markets but are writing for a more general one here, bear in mind that people don't generally pay as much for books in the general market - again, look at how the competition is priced.

Eventually you will have a published title. Now the hard bit starts. Most self-published books sell tens of copies, primarily to friends and relations. This may be all you want - fine. But if you want a wider audience you need to make your book visible. Use social media if it's available to you. Email contacts you think might be interested. Put together a press release - a one page document that sells the book which is a bit like the summary page of your proposal, but with more blurb-like selling material in there. Send this to all local media and any larger media outlets where you have contents. 

Look to get reviews from appropriate bloggers. It will be hard - I do review self-published books on www.popularscience.co.uk, but rarely. Like most reviewers, I tend to use a publisher as a first line of defence, so there needs to be something quite special about a self-published book. Given we're talking non-fiction, the self-published books I wouldn't even consider is where someone has come up with their own scientific theories. Most reviewers will have stronger selection criteria for self-published than other books.

That apart, if you want it to be a real success, you need to put a huge amount of effort into marketing. Are there opportunities to sell your book by giving talks or attending events etc? If this is your aim you have to be shameless about self-publicity. But it's also important you do it right. I know some self-published authors who bombard everyone with social media posts that are all basically 'buy my book' - this will put people off. Make sure you aren't repeatedly hitting the same audience with the same message.

Don't let me scare you off. I really enjoy doing my self-published books, even though I know perfectly well they are likely only to have sales numbers in three figures. And some self-published titles go on to do extremely well - but bear in mind that these are very much the exceptions and usually involve a huge amount of self promotion.

I hope this series has been useful. I'll be doing another one in a while on the writing part of a non-fiction book - do use the link below to subscribe to my articles to get a heads-up. In the meanwhile, enjoy your writing experience. 

To finish, here's an outline of the topics this series of posts will cover.

Is my idea a book? Outlining Other parts of a proposal The pitch letter Finding a publisher (or agent) The contract Publicity (and extra earnings) Self-publishing

See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

Murder Before Evensong - Richard Coles ***(*)

A novel by a celebrity is almost always one I would avoid at all costs, as we all know why the publisher wants their name on the cover. It's all about marketing opportunity and nothing to do with writing skills. However, because Richard Coles' other profession as an Anglican clergyman made him ideally suited to writing a church-set murder mystery, I overcame my natural avoidance, and on the whole I'm glad that I did.
After reading eight chapters without a hint of murder, I thought Coles was doing an inspiring job of portraying life in a village parish from the 1980s, when an archaic location, that still had local church politics dominated by the lord of the manor, was struggling to come to terms with the (then) present. (There's even a knowing reference to the hit TV show of the period, To the Manor Born.) And, of course, Coles has the church life (and the vicar's outlook on life) perfectly illustrated. It's far more realistic than the portrayal of a vicar in a standard crime novel (though not, of course, my own Stephen Capel mysteries). If you extracted the crimes, to be honest, this novel would stand up well as an enjoyable exploration of that very particular setting.
If anything, the murder mystery part is the weakest aspect of the book. The plotting is more than a little contrived and it's quite difficult to keep track of the secondary characters who eventually come to the fore. I couldn't help think that if Agatha Christie had written this, we would get a real shock from whodunnit - here, the feeling is more 'Oh, okay. Fine.' It's the antithesis of Janice Hallett's amazing books, starting with The Appeal, where the plotting is phenomenal and hits you between the eyes.
Because I enjoyed the setting, both in terms of the life and thoughts of the central character of the Reverend Canon Daniel Clement, and this transitional world of the 1980s when the UK was undergoing a significant culture shift, I will be going back for the second instalment - I just hope that with practice Coles can make the detective aspect more engaging.

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I want to write a non-fiction book - part 7 - Publicity (and extra earnings)

In the next in my series on writing a non-fiction book (see outline at the end), I've skipped a rather big part: actually writing the book. The reason is it's such a big part, I think it's worth a series of posts in its own right. But our assumption here is you've written the book and it has been published. Between finishing your manuscript and this key moment will have been a lengthy period - typically 6 to 18 months - when the book will have been edited, proof read, typeset (obviously, not literally involving type setting anymore) and produced.

You might hope that the publisher would deal with the hands-dirty business of marketing your book. You're a writer (or a professional doing a bit of writing on the side). It's not your job. But the reality is that most publishers will only pull out the stops for a handful of books each year. You aren't going to get posters on the Tube or adverts in the newspapers. In fact these days, it's quite hard even to get a review, because books are not reviewed as much as they used to be. So if you want your book to have the best chance of selling well (which also means the best chance of getting lucrative translations), and you contract is of the advance and royalties type (see part 6) it's in your best interest to do what you can within reason to help.

There are broadly four contributions you can make. You can give interviews, give talks, write pieces accompanying the book for, say, newspapers, magazines and websites, and you can do a couple of the things that publishers ought to do, but some aren't very good at.

We'll come back to that last bit, but of the other three, personally speaking I feel that if I'm going to put in the time to give a good talk or write an article, I expect to be paid for it. I'm a professional; writing is my job. We'll start with talks. All too often, literary or science festivals will expect you to do a talk for the 'exposure'. Strangely, they don't expect their venues or caterers or sound people to do the job for 'exposure'. Because they know it won't work. But authors - the only reason they can have the festival or event - can feel embarrassed to ask for payment. If you are going to give a good talk you will typically spend several days preparing for it, plus the time to get to the venue and give the talk. 

At the very least they should offer travel expenses and overnight accommodation if necessary. But I think either a percentage of the take or at least a £100 fee is a fair minimum to ensure that you are being treated professionally. Like all such rules, there are exceptions. For example, in the UK science writing world there are no venues more prestigious than the Royal Institution. They don't pay a fee - but I would never turn them down. The same may well apply, for example, to the Hay Festival, the UK's biggest book festival, which only pays celebrities. There's a balance to be struck.

In the same way as being asked to be a public speaker for nothing, if you are asked to write, say, a 1,000 word article about the same topic of your book, you are being asked to act as a freelance journalist. Most newspaper and magazines will pay for this if asked - while you might argue there's a small benefit of publicity, it's only fair that they pay a reasonable fee. 

Interviews are different, though. You can't expect to be paid for these, but they don't require a lot of preparation or effort, so personally I'm happy to do them.

Some will enjoy this stuff. I love giving talks - arguably more so than writing books. But I know that others consider the whole business a horrible chore. It's a matter of achieving a balance of what you are prepared to do. Some contracts specify that you are to be able for, say, a week after publication, in which case that's a minimum you should go along with (though in practice it's rare that all the publicity fits in the specified period).

Finally we get to the 'what can I do that publishers probably ought to do.' If you'd like to do local publicity, publishers often don't bother with your local radio/newspaper, which will almost always be prepared to do a quick interview or a piece mentioning your book. Because newspapers run very few reviews these days, you can increase your visibility by getting your book onto a book review blog, like my own www.popularscience.co.uk - while some publishers will do this, you can probably find more opportunities than the publisher, as they will just use whatever their 'usual suspects' are.

Some authors go even further and pay for a publicist on top of the publisher's publicity efforts. I know of at least one author who spent his entire five figure advance on a publicist. The book certainly did well, though of course it may have done so without the money being spent. If you are trying to make a living as an author, unless you are independently wealthy, this is off limits. You need that advance to put bread on the table. But if you have a day job and are an author on the side, it may be worth trying. The main thing is to really research your publicist - there are plenty of people out there who will take your money and give you nothing of great value in return. Make sure the publisher is in the loop on this.

One last point. Many publishers give you a lengthy author questionnaire to fill in ahead of publication. This is a totally tedious task. But they do give your publisher's publicity people a strong foundation to build on. So face the pain and do a good job with them.

To finish, here's an outline of the topics this series of posts will cover.

Is my idea a book? Outlining Other parts of a proposal The pitch letter Finding a publisher (or agent) The contract Publicity (and extra earnings)Self-publishing

See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

Is commercial art more at threat from AI than writing?

There has been quite a fuss from us writers about AI-based writing software in the form of chatbots such as Chat-GPT and Bard. However, equally impressive and insidious are the AI-created visuals from DALL-E and Bing Image Creator.

The image at the top of this piece was created by DALL-E in response to the request from a friend for a picture of people picnicking in the churchyard of a medieval church in the style of Van Gogh. Now, admittedly the style is more a generic impressionist, but it's hard to argue this isn't an attractive image.

I don't think there is much threat to 'true' art. I asked my daughter, Rebecca Clegg, who is an artist - she commented:

I think AI provides both opportunities and challenges to artists.  On one hand, AI could help generate an artwork that an artist would find difficult to create by hand, but it brings into question who owns the right to the artwork.  Is it the artist who inputs the information or the AI? Or even the person who created the algorithm. Also would an algorithm not be limiting?

AI can help in the initial stages of ideas and support the inspiration and creation of maybe mathematically complex designs that would be difficult for an artist to produce. This helps the artist be more efficient in the production of their work as well as providing concepts not yet considered by the artist. The artist can also discern and chose between various images generated by AI and consider the limitations and applications of them as a design, I am not sure if AI knows what a good piece of art is compared to a bad piece of art? 

Also art is not just about creating a visually appealing piece, its about conveying emotion and ideas on a deeper level pulled from the complexity of the human experience. AI does not have the emotional intelligence to create artwork that would resonate with an individual as it lacks unique experiences and perspectives, or even cultural backgrounds that an artist would draw inspiration from.

AI-generated art may be impressive and can help produce 'art' at a greater rate than an artist could, however it will never take away from the hand of the artist. The techniques and processes that take years to learn and perfect in particular mediums lead to unintentional, intuitive experiments, happy accidents, individual artistic expression and ultimately a signature that is unable to be replicated by AI. 

I think what Rebecca says is true. However, she is mostly considering fine art here. And even there, arguably there is a potential for the intrusion of AI, as witness the recent win of an AI image in a prestigious photography competition. In reality, though, I suspect most professional artists are employed in commercial art fields, whether it's designing greetings cards, web imagery or even illustrating comics. For me, these are the areas where AI-generated images could pose a significant threat to employment.

The two Christmas cards shown here were produced by DALL-E in a few seconds as a result of asking for a Christmas card with a robin in snow (above) and the same but in the style of an impressionist painting (right). It might not be great art, but I think both are just as good as plenty of the greetings cards I've seen (and bought).

Similarly, fellow science writer Andrew May, who has an interest in the weird and wonderful Charles Fort, decided he'd experiment with Bing Image Creator to produce a comic-form introduction to some aspects of Fort's work, shown below (click on the images to see the impressive level of detail). He does note that 'One weakness of Bing at the moment is that it can't give you any consistency from one image to the next (which is why I picked the concept for my comic to minimize the need for continuity, and why Fort changes his appearance from one panel to the next).'

I've read quite a few graphic novels and graphic novel-style science books, such as The Phantom Scientist ,   Prime Suspects and Mysteries of the Quantum Universe . Many of these have, frankly, distinctly mediocre illustrations. I think that Andrew's comic pages are better quality than the real thing in some of these cases.
Of course there are limitations here, both in the lack of consistency that Andrew mentions and in the reach of the AI: apparently, he had to specify what Fort looked like as Bing was unable to produce even a vague resemblance to Fort's distinct appearance, despite plenty of imagery online. Even so, these examples do demonstrate that commercial artists have something to worry about.
This kind of software has advanced extremely quickly in recent years and even months. For a long time, fears about AI replacing human activity has been overheated. But there is no doubt that it has the potential to replace some human activity, doing the same thing better and cheaper, just as, for example, computer typesetting displaced manual typesetting. I take Rebecca's point that AI 'art' is arguably not of the same level as the best human art - but this is also true of much commercial artwork, and as the photograph competition demonstrates, quality in art is both subjective and subject to interpretation of things that aren't actually there.
It is already clear that it is dangerous to put AI in charge of decision-making. The kind of bias and errors produced by invisible and unexplainable AI 'logic' in everything from deciding whether or not to issue a bank loan to crime prevention and the rating of teachers has been highlighted in books such as Cathy O'Neil's Weapons of Math Destruction . The problems there don't mean that AI can't be involved in the grunt work supporting decisions, but that it should only be employed if it can explain why a particular result was reached and if a human being is able to override its decisions.
Similarly, all the evidence is that it's dangerous to leave AI in charge of writing a piece of text without oversight as it can both be in error (as I discovered when trying the approach on a couple of science writing issues) and is quite capable, for instance, of inventing citations. 
However, things are less clear with the whole business of commercial illustration. Here, perhaps, there is often less concern about accuracy. Could it be that this is the first clear instance where this kind of technology will soon have totally transformed an industry? 
I'm no artist (Rebecca will definitely agree with that statement), but like most people, to conform to the cliché, I know what I like. And it's people like me, not necessarily professional art experts who buy most artwork. If I'm honest, I'm not sure that we will be able to distinguish that human touch that may signify great art.

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In Conversation with Tim Marshall

Join bestselling author Tim Marshall, in conversation with Brian to celebrate the publication of Tim's new book The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change our World.

The ‘stream and book’ package includes a unique ticket for the stream, and a copy of The Future of Geography (RRP £20) deliverable to any UK or international address. This event is free to watch. Tickets are available here.

The event will initially be broadcast on Friday 12 May at 6.30pm UK time. It will be available to view up to two weeks after the event has ended and can be accessed Worldwide. If you live in a time zone that does not suit the initial broadcast time you can watch it at any point after the initial showing for two weeks.

Spy satellites orbiting the moon. Space metals worth billions. People on Mars within our lifetime. This isn’t science fiction. It’s astropolitics.

Space: the new frontier, a wild and lawless place. It is already central to communication, military strategy and international relations on Earth. Now, it is the latest arena for human exploration exploitation – and, possibly, conquest. China, the USA and Russia are leading the way. The next fifty years will change the face of global politics.

With all the insight and wit that have made Tim Marshall the UK’s most popular writer on geopolitics, this gripping book shows that politics and geography are as important in the skies as on the ground, covering great-power rivalry; technology; commerce; combat in space; and what it all means for us down on Earth. Tim and Brian will discuss the role astropolitics has to play in our society today and why power and politics in space will define the future of humanity.

See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

In Conversation with Tim Marshall - Friday 12 May, 6.30pm

Join bestselling author Tim Marshall, in conversation with Brian to celebrate the publication of Tim's new book The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change our World.

The ‘stream and book’ package includes a unique ticket for the stream, and a copy of The Future of Geography (RRP £20) deliverable to any UK or international address. This event is free to watch. Tickets are available here.

The event will initially be broadcast on 12 May at 6.30pm UK time. It will be available to view up to two weeks after the event has ended and can be accessed Worldwide. If you live in a time zone that does not suit the initial broadcast time you can watch it at any point after the initial showing for two weeks.

Spy satellites orbiting the moon. Space metals worth billions. People on Mars within our lifetime. This isn’t science fiction. It’s astropolitics.

Space: the new frontier, a wild and lawless place. It is already central to communication, military strategy and international relations on Earth. Now, it is the latest arena for human exploration exploitation – and, possibly, conquest. China, the USA and Russia are leading the way. The next fifty years will change the face of global politics.

With all the insight and wit that have made Tim Marshall the UK’s most popular writer on geopolitics, this gripping book shows that politics and geography are as important in the skies as on the ground, covering great-power rivalry; technology; commerce; combat in space; and what it all means for us down on Earth. Tim and Brian will discuss the role astropolitics has to play in our society today and why power and politics in space will define the future of humanity.

See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

When is a conspiracy theory not a conspiracy theory?

There seems to be increasing support for the idea that the SARS-Cov-2 virus (Covid for short) pandemic started as a result of a (probably accidental) leak from the Wuhan laboratory. While the authorities are expressing low confidence in whether or not it's true, there is an acceptance from the likes of the FBI that it is the most likely cause.

What's worrying about this is not that the scientific viewpoint has changed. Changing your theories to reflect new data is a fundamental of science. In fact one of the two biggest problems science has in general with switching to a new theory is not that views alter, but rather that many scientists who build their careers on a particular theory are reluctant to change their minds, even when the evidence becomes strong that an alternative theory is now the best supported by the evidence. (The other problem is that those who don't understand science, particularly in the media, see a change of mind as weakness rather than the strength that it is.) No, what's worrying about the lab leak theory is the way that it has been treated by leading scientists.

It was fine to doubt the lab leak theory and point out what was wrong with it - but many high profile scientists labelled it a 'conspiracy theory'. And that was a serious error.

Calling something a conspiracy theory is a term of disapprobation, suggesting that those who hold it are at best misguided and at worst idiotic. Let's compare a few conspiracy theories with the lab leak hypothesis. Classic conspiracy theories include the flat Earth, the idea that the moon landings were faked and the suggestion that world leaders (and the British royal family) are intelligent lizards in human suits. What makes these conspiracy theories is that there is strong evidence that the theory is not true, but no good evidence that the theory could be true. In many cases, it's also the case that there is no particular benefit to be gained from all the effort that would be required to maintain the conspiracy. (Admittedly, the intelligent lizards would see a benefit in keeping their existence quiet.)

The lab leak theory was quite different. There was no strong evidence either way. There was some evidence for both the wet markets and a lab leak as the source of Covid, but nothing definitive. But it really shows a poor understanding of human nature to say, without good evidence, that a virus that originated in Wuhan, where there is a laboratory experimenting on that kind of virus, couldn't have come from the lab.

Rather than basing the action on any science, suppressing the lab leak theory was considered important for political reasons - in a sense, this action genuinely was a conspiracy by the authorities: the kind of suppression of information that can sometimes be necessary in times of national emergencies, as is arguably the case with wartime propaganda. Whether it really was necessary here is extremely doubtful - but the mistake was to label lab leak a conspiracy theory, rather than one with limited evidence to support it. 'We just don't know: we shouldn't speculate until we have better evidence' would have been a far better line than 'it came from wet markets and to suggest otherwise is a conspiracy theory.'

Interestingly, when I was thinking of examples of real conspiracy theories, one that doesn't fit the mould I mention above quite so well is the murder of JFK. Here again, the evidence of exactly what happened isn't intensely strong - so it is perhaps over-reacting to call alternative views of what happened conspiracy theories. We can say the Lee Harvey Oswald version has somewhat better evidence than alternative theories, but it's a topic that is never like to have good enough detailed data to have a definitively supported theory of what happened.

Now, unfortunately, those scientists who leapt to the conspiracy theory label are receiving a backlash - and it's science that suffers as a result, because those with an anti-science agenda can use this as a weapon against the scientific community. It's hard to say 'I don't know', especially if the media are calling you an expert. But, arguably, things would be better if more in the science community said it more often.

Image by Ben White from Unsplash.

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I want to write a non-fiction book - part 6 - the contract

This is surely one of the most exciting points of the writing journey. Your book proposal has been accepted by a publisher and they send you a contract. Woo-hoo!

You might be tempted to immediately sign on the dotted line but you do need to check it out carefully. Publishers' contracts can be littered with 'interesting' clauses that you need to query - and just because they have made you an offer doesn't mean you have to go for it in its initial form.

A starting point is the kind of book deal they are offering. Broadly, they tend to be either flat fee or advance-and-royalty based. In the case of a flat fee, the publisher offers you a fixed amount, often divided into two parts (usually one on signing the contract, and on acceptance of the manuscript). The more traditional publishing approach is advance and royalty. Here you get offered a smaller amount up front - the advance. You will then get extra payments (the royalty), but only once your part of the earnings from the book exceeds the advance. Again, the advance will typically be split, most often three ways between date of signing, date of acceptance and date of publication.

There is one big advantage of advance and royalty - you may end up earning many times the initial advance (and you don't have to repay anything, even if the book never earns enough to produce any royalties). However, there are some plus points from the flat fee. As mentioned, it will usually be more than the equivalent advance, and if you don't like the whole business of publicity (more on that in the next post), there is far less obligation with a flat fee book, because (frankly) you don't really care how many copies are sold.

I've written quite a few flat fee books: what it comes down to, primarily, is how you feel about it as a journalism job. Work out realistically how long it will take you to write the book (including any edits). If the flat fee will pay you an acceptable wage for that period of time, it's acceptable. If not, don't go for it (unless this is spare time activity and it's more important to you to get published). Incidentally, you can always say it's not enough - many publishers (though not all) will move on their initial offer. This obviously applies to the size of the advance in advance and royalty too. The amount is always potentially negotiable.

However, though I've written flat fee books, I much prefer advance and royalty. Partly because I feel more invested in the final book, but mostly because there is more opportunity for income. (Yes, I love writing, but there's nothing wrong with wanting a good income: don't feel embarrassed by this.) One of the big potential opportunities is translations. With  flat fee book, you don't get paid anything extra for translations unless you can negotiate that as a special case, which is rare. With an advance-and-royalty book, earnings from translations will be part of the contract. I've had books where a single translation deal has paid off the entire advance, meaning every single sale counts towards extra royalties.

I can't cover everything to check in a contract (and I'm not a lawyer). One really big piece of advice here is, if possible (and you are UK based) join the Society of Authors. It's relatively cheap, and they offer a free contract-checking service, pointing out dodgy aspects for you to get back to the publisher on. For full membership you need to have a book published, but there are various degrees of membership (e.g. you can get 'emerging author' status as soon as you have a contract or an agent's agreement).

Financially, with a flat fee contract, it's simply about the amount. Some publishers will offer a bonus, for example if you exceed a number of copies sold - it's always worth suggesting this. There are far more components to royalties. You will be offered a percentage of either the cover price or the price the book is sold at (the cover price is best, but this isn't often offered anymore). This will usually vary between hardback and paperback and whether the book was sold by the publisher with a high discount. Publishers will often accept the idea of an escalator. This says with sales over a certain level you will get a higher percentage. Then there all the other potential sources of income.

Say you are offered 7.5% for paperback and 10% for hardback (yes, the percentages are often this low). You can expect a much higher percentage - say 25% - on ebooks and audio books, as the costs to the publisher are far less. You will then be offered a whole list of subsidiary rights. These are sources such as translations, serial rights (publication of an extract in a newspaper, say), film and broadcast rights. It's very rare these should be less than 50%. For translation rights, publishers may give you, say, 60-70% and serial rights could be as high as 90%. What you can get here is always subject to negotiation - a publisher will often be prepared to up the percentage a bit on subsidiary rights as it's effectively money for nothing as far as they (and you) are concerned.

There are a number of things to look out for in the contract, of which I'll just highlight a few. If it's to be illustrated, who pays for illustrations? What liabilities do you have? Does the publisher have any claim on your next title? And is there a competition clause?

Illustrations cost a publisher money, both in producing the book and, if necessary, obtaining copyright or having a designer put together a diagram. Some contracts will load these costs onto the author: if illustrations are important to your book, unless you are able to use public domain images (for example NASA's space photos), you may end up paying more than your advance just on the illustrations. If you are landed with the cost, ask the publisher to take it on (perhaps discussing a limit), or be prepared to cut illustrations to a minimum.

Then there's liabilities. Many contracts have scary clauses about liabilities and indemnifying the publisher against damages resulting in breaches of your warranties. Some of this you are just going to have to live with. You will be expected to say that your writing is original - if you plagiarise someone else, then the publisher quite rightly can't be expected to suffer any damages. It becomes more of a grey area when you get onto, for example, the potential for libel. If you are writing a biography of a controversial figure, for instance, then it would be reasonable for the publisher to accept responsibility for any legal defence.

A relatively common clause is one where you have to offer your next book or next couple of books to that publisher first. Generally speaking this isn't too much of a problem. It's a courtesy: it's very rare a publisher will insist on taking a book they aren't the right publisher for, just to activate this clause. I've never had an example where a book I intend to write for another publisher (because it doesn't suit the existing publisher) has been blocked.

Something that is harder is a competition clause. This is where you say that you won't write a book for another publisher that competes with this book. This is a very vague concept. Where it's put in the draft contract, I have always tried to get it struck out, and often succeeded. If the publisher insists on it, I have always got from them in writing a clear definition of what would count as competition. So, for instance, if I wrote an illustrated overview of quantum physics, I would establish that only another illustrated overview would be in competition not, for example, a book about a specific quantum physics topic, such as entanglement or quantum computing.

All this might sound a bit depressing - but remember a contract is good news. They want your book! The main thing is to discipline yourself and read it carefully, even if it runs to many pages. (Take it a bit at a time if necessary.) Make sure they aren't ripping you off. Use a checking service, such as the Society of Authors' service, if you can. Sign up with confidence, or not at all.

To finish, here's an outline of the topics this series of posts will cover.

Is my idea a book? Outlining Other parts of a proposal The pitch letter Finding a publisher (or agent) The contractPublicity (and extra earnings)Self-publishing

Image by Romain Dancre from Unsplash

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Review: A Fatal Crossing - Tom Hindle ***

A straightforward and workmanlike murder mystery, set on a 1920s transatlantic liner. After a passenger dies in suspicious circumstances, an uncomfortable combination of a mentally tortured ship's officer and a semi-disgraced Scotland Yard detective set out to uncover a rapidly evolving situation with missing paintings and more deaths.

The setting makes for a classic situation of being isolated - so the culprit(s) have to still be there - and claustrophobic, despite the size of the luxury liner. Tom Hindle does a solid job of bringing in the various characters, and the culprit is not obvious until close to the end, involving some clever misdirection.

I was slightly surprised by the cover claim that 'the action unfolds at a rip-roaring pace', as I found the pacing distinctly glacial, held up in part by the way the two detectives kept irritating each other, and by the ship's officer Birch's personal problems.

There is a dramatic twist at the end, though it was reasonably obvious what it was going to be before it happened. I felt that, compared with the slow pace of the rest, this was a little hurried, in that the implications of it weren't really carried through in the ending.

All in all, a good murder mystery that made for an entertaining enough read, but comparisons with Agatha Christie over-inflated both the cleverness of the plot and the detective story mechanics.

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