If you’re thinking of getting copies of my books, it couldn’t be easier. I’ve got you covered, even for autographed books!
I’ve been recommending this essay for years to every writer I know. And it’s free to read online…
I compiled a list of fun facts about this brilliant mathematician after reading two biographies. The oddest little things stayed with me, and here they are…
I thought I’d be able to skate through 2014 with only one ghostwriting gig. The current ghost book is consuming a lot of my time, and I haven’t had much time for my own writing.
But just this week another interesting ghosting book popped up. I want to say no, but I shouldn’t. Who the hell am I to say no to paying work? To make it worse, it’s a fascinating nonfiction topic. The journalist in me is too easily captivated by a good story.
So right now I feel like Michael Corleone.
I just found out this week that one of the books I wrote for a ghostwriting client will not be issued in paperback. The publisher, a Big 5, just didn’t think the hardcover and e-book sales were good enough to warrant a paperback release.
I was bummed, but the client is taking it better than I am. You’d think that after the publisher paid six figures for this book that the least they could do is spring for a paperback. Everyone knows paperbacks sell better than hardcovers, right? And shouldn’t every book have the chance to reach its audience at the best possible price?
But I’m ignorant. This is not how a publisher thinks these days.
The agent brought me up to speed:
Since the hardcover sold so poorly, no bookstore that checks the title’s Bookscan numbers will want to carry the paperback in the store. The book’s just doomed from the start. BUT…yeah, many books do tend to find their audiences after a while, and maybe this one will. Potential readers will have two species to draw from—the high-priced hardcover or the cheap e-book. The e-book’s cheaper than than the paperback would be, anyway. And, added the agent, both Author and Writer should content themselves with this state of affairs because we will continue to earn the higher, hardcover royalty. (Typically, publishers pay 10% on hardcovers, 7% on paper, so when Authors transition from hardcover to paper, they’re taking a cut in pay in the hopes of greater volume.)
So yay for us.
Right?
What do you think?
A lot of writers are talking this week about Hugh Howey's AuthorEarnings.com website, which analyzes some data drawn from Amazon to make some interesting observations about the traditionally published versus the self-published world. Another component of the website is a questionnaire asking writers what they earn. I think it will yield some more cool data, the more authors plug in their info.
This comes on the heels of a recent survey conducted by Digital Book World, which found that most authors earn less than $1,000 a year.
Both studies have their supporters and detractors. Both are shaping up to be controversial in their own ways. I’ve been thinking about releasing some of my own figures for a while now. I’m going to try to do that in this post.
It’s just a little tricky. I daresay the authors debating this stuff right now are predominantly fiction writers, whereas I’m a predominantly nonfiction writer with a background in journalism. Complicating the issue is that a lot of my books were ghostwritten for other people. In other words, I acted as the “Writer” for a more prominent “Author.” In fact, that’s exactly how the two parties are usually designated in the collaboration contracts. I’m the Writer. Some other person is the Author.
Nearly all of these contracts contain confidentiality agreements, so I’m not really at liberty to spell out who I wrote those books for, the money I was paid, what those books were about. So I’m going to be a little coy. But I’m going to try my best to give you the figures because I think they make an interesting counterpoint to what fiction authors are paid. Suffice to say, I’ve been earning more than $1,000 a year, but I’m writing a mix of my nonfiction books and other people’s books. And some of these deals mean that I am entitled to a share of those authors’ earnings for the life of the book.
Bear in mind that I’ve been supporting myself as a freelance writer—writing newspaper and magazine articles, and books—since about 1997. Since about 2006, a large chunk of my income has come from writing books. The last two proposals I wrote earned the Author and me a gross advance of $100,000 or more. This in a time when advances are at an historical low. In some cases, I wrote these proposals and books alone or with my wife. While I think I’ve grown into a good proposal writer, I can’t ignore the fact that the Author’s platform, brand, prominence, and story almost always accounts for the size of the advance. That said, traditional publishers feel more confident about offering sizable advances when they love the proposal. It’s my job to make them fall in love with the Author’s story.
I have omitted the details of my wife Denise Kiernan’s bestselling book from this list. These are only books I have been a party to. The list is a mix of my own books, ghosting gigs (where I wrote the proposal that sold the book and received both a percentage of the royalties and advance), and work-for-hire projects where I just wrote the book for a flat fee.
Sometimes I wrote the proposal but the book didn’t sell and the Author stiffed me on the proposal fee. Many times I spend hours on the phone conferencing with a potential Author, only to have the project dry up and blow away. It’s just the nature of the business.
The clock on these books starts in 2002 and ends in 2014, with a ghost gig I’m about to undertake…
GHOST GIGS
* My first ghost gig: 2002. Big 5; work-for-hire, $25,000 flat fee, no royalties. Editor: “It’ll only take 5 months, tops.” It takes a year, and the demands on my time costs me lots of other freelance work.
* Sports book ghost gig: Sold via proposal. Big 5; 40% of advance and royalties. Our share to write book: $62,000.
* Nonfiction ghost gig: Sold via proposal. Big 5. 50% split of advance and royalties with Author. My share to write book: $50,000.
* Health book ghost gig: $5,000 to write the proposal for a book already written by the Author. No advance or royalties.
* Business book ghost gig: About to be sold via proposal. $10,000 proposal fee. Big 5. 40% share of advance/royalties; 42.5% if my proposal lands a deal in excess of $150,000. Guaranteed minimum: $40,000 to write book.
WORK-FOR-HIRE
* Adult nonfiction book: $3,000 advance, token (2%) royalties.
* Adult nonfiction book: $25,000 flat rate, no royalties.
* Adult nonfiction book: $50,000 flat rate, no royalties. Client: “This will take a few months.” It takes three years.
* Adult nonfiction book: $10,000 flat rate, no royalties.
* Adult nonfiction book: $7,500 advance, token (1%) royalties.
* Hollywood book gig: Big 5. $12,000 to write book. No royalties.
* Adult nonfiction museum book: Work-for-hire. $15,000 flat rate, no royalties.
* Nonfiction business book: $12,000 flat rate, no royalties.
"MY" BOOKS
* Kids’ book 1: Proposal. Advance of $2,250 each, to myself and a my co-author, with a standard paperback royalties split between both of us.
* Kids’ book 2: Sold on the basis of a proposal and a finished book. Big 5; $5,000 advance for me, standard hardcover royalties (5% and 5%) split with illustrator.
* Adult nonfiction book: Sold via proposal. Big 5; $40,000 advance, standard paperback royalties.
* Adult nonfiction book: Sold via proposal. $10,000 advance, standard hardcover royalties.
* Adult nonfiction book: Sold via proposal. $12,000 advance, standard hardcover royalties.
CONCLUSIONS
Actually, I’m not sure what conclusions you can draw from all this. In general, having gone through the fiction submission process, the advances on work-for-hire and ghost gigs tend to yield better advances, which is why I keep doing them.
Publishers tend to be willing to part with more money when they think the Author has a name or brand that will propel them into the media, or they think the subject is unusually compelling. That’s why some of these are in the mid-five figures. These figures also reflect my gross; subtract 15% agenting fees from all these figures. These payments were also paid in halves, thirds, and fourths. For at least three of these books, we have not yet received final payments because the paperback has not yet been published.
Would I like to be writing my own fiction? Sure, but in the same way that a lot of fiction writers have day jobs, my day job is writing books for other people.
For more on what ghostwriting entails, I’d refer you to this interview with agent Madeleine Morel. I have met Ms. Morel, a ghostwriting specialist, but she is not my agent.
Free Writing Tracker
Back in July I talked about how I track my writing progress using a handwritten ledger. It’s served me pretty well but on January 1 I’ll be switching to a digital system.
I have never learned how to create my own spreadsheets, but thankfully a writer friend and colleague, W. Bradford Swift, has done the heavy lifting already. His writing tracker template lets you input the number of words written daily, and will also calculate your hourly output, if you care about such details. When you get to the bottom of Swift’s existing spreadsheet, you can just cut-and-paste the cells to extend the sheet. You can download the writing tracker free at Swift’s website. If you’re inclined to thank him, check out his sci-fi/fantasy books. If you’re looking for a way into his fiction, check out his short story, "Hunt Along the Iron River," which I enjoyed.
In other news:
I recently completed a good draft of my historical fantasy WIP, which I’m cryptically calling TIMoNY for the moment, and am taking some time off to catch up on the blog and write some other material. While we’re on the subject of tracking your writing progress, I can say that it took me about 60 days to write the first draft, 50 days to do the second draft, 20 to do the third. I’m happy with the results, but that’s not the same as saying I’m done, or even satisfied. I’m asking Denise to read it first, and I’ll revise with her input in mind. I already have a batch of changes I’d like to make, but I need the distance right now. So I’m working on some revisions to another book in the meantime.
Since March I’ve been writing sporadically, and it’s been killing me. I keep a journal of my daily output and for much of spring and early summer it’s looked like this:
Since March I’ve been on the road a lot with Denise. I accompanied her on her book tour throughout the east and southeast, and while I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, I’m forced to admit that I wasn’t very productive at all. I’ve never gotten good at writing for myself while on the road.
In contrast, I’ve always been able to force myself to crank out client work and meet their deadlines while on the road. When it comes to my own stuff, I just tell myself I can skip a day. So while my ghostwriting clients can happily say their projects have moved forward—the scientists, the business dudes, the diet docs all got their proposals done this spring, yay for them—but on the Joe-fiction-writing front, this is the result: a long line of zeroes.
I started off great in January and managed to get about 75,000 words done on the new project before things went haywire. And when Denise hit the road solo in mid-June, I locked myself in the house and managed to write 35,000 words—Joe words, not client words—in a week. I now have a good rough draft on that book. It’s big, sloppy, and longwinded, but I’m ecstatic. It means I’ll be able to march through the next draft solidly knowing where I’m headed.
I’ve also decided to share this book with my agent and not automatically self-publish it. You can read that as a sign of how excited I am about this project. But bear in mind that I’m still at least one good draft away from sharing it with anyone. Since this is historical fiction, there’s a lot more research ahead.
If you think you might be interested in being a beta reader on this work, please let me know. The genre is historical fantasy, by which I mean that an element of magic has been inserted into a real-life historical setting. I’ll post again when I’m ready to share it.
By the way, here’s what I can say about any kind of historical fiction: don’t. Just don’t. You can barely write a sentence of your book unless you’ve researched a ton of stuff. Knowing how much I procrastinate, it’s a wonder I’ve gotten this far with this book.
I managed to write a decent short story this week, so I think I may have broken through the logjam. This week I’ll be starting the next book in The Mesmerist series while revising the historical fantasy. Should be good. Just don’t tell my ghosting clients, whose work may or may not be due this week.
* * *
In other news:
* It’s Fourth of July week here in the States. My most best-selling nonfiction book, Signing Their Lives Away, tells the story of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. That book and its sequels have sold pretty well in historic site and museum gift shops. Learn more about them here. Follow the Facebook page here.
* Back when we had more time on our hands, we did a line of Signer-themed Fourth of July T-shirts. Check them out here.
* Lastly, Google Reader was discontinued July 1. If you’ve been following this blog via that service, it’s time to migrate over to something like Feedly or what-have-you. All I ask is that you take me along with you. It’s been fun, hasn’t it? I haven’t been excessively annoying or needy, have I? Please take a moment to bookmark this page to your new reader, whatever it is.
A post from my wife, Denise Kiernan, whose book, The Girls of Atomic City, is out today.
It’s here—that day all authors wait for which, when it finally dawns, is one of the most anticlimactic career events ever, no matter how many times you go through it. Pub day.
Books are a long haul. You get a kernel of an idea, do a little digging and try to decide whether this is a topic you want to live with for years. Then of course there’s the business end of the entire endeavor which, if you’re like me, can’t be ignored if you want to make a living: Can I sell this to a publisher and can that publisher sell it to readers?
So the kernel sprouts and you decide that you do want to live with the idea until you don’t and then until you can’t live without the idea again. Then there are the proposals and the meetings and all the while you’re trying to keep researching and come up with a clear vision for this project that you’ve already told major publishing corporations you really do have a vision for. Then you get the deal. Relief. Deadlines. A schedule. Sort of. An end date? In a sense, sure.
You write. You rewrite. You keep researching. You turn in the first draft, which is maybe the most anticlimactic of all the anticlimatices. (New word! It’s one of those vertices you think you’ve reached but feel underwhelmed when you actually do.) You’re still so far from done and you know it. You wait for your editor. You already want to make changes the minute you hit “send” and your manuscript went out into the ether on its way to your editor. That’s fine. Changes are coming.
Your changes. The editor’s changes. Changes from those trusted colleagues you allowed to see your ugly, ugly first draft. Revisions and more drafts follow. The end is so much closer and you know now that the time to really whip things into shape is shrinking fast.
A first look at your cover blows a little wind up your skirt and you get excited again. A cover! It’s real!Do you like it? they ask. You do! You really do! You’re not just saying that to avoid sounding like a moody, picky writer with no design experience. Everyone weighs in. Then polite “suggestions” from the real power-wielders at any publishing house: sales. They don’t like the cover. Am I OK with that? Absolutely. After all, there are bigger fish in this fry-daddy.
First pass pages! Am I done? No. The copy editor has seen it, maybe a proofer.Only make necessary changes…Necessary. Never do writers have more trouble defining such a two-cent word than when they are instructed to make only “necessary” changes.
Pencil marks. Post-its. Use this pencil, not that one. You finish…sort of. You mail it in. You’re done!
No, you’re not.
Promotional materials. Second pass pages and galleys. The book is in print…sort of.Ugh..I could invent a drinking game based on the number of times I used the word (insert favorite adjective here)…I can’t believe I….Can I still change…? Your editor is about to hop on a plane and pry the pages from your cold dead hands. Promotional materials again. Web sites. Meetings. Lists of people you hope will give this book a second look. Finally, there are no more changes to be made. The book is off to the printer.
But you’re still not done. Wrangling for press, emailing, tweeting. Yay! I got a piece in yadda-yadda magazine! Boo! Whozeewhatsit doesn’t want to have me on their show! Yay! Boo! Wine.
Then, finally, on a rainy Tuesday, the book is officially out in the world. Sort of. Actually there has already been press. People have already been tweeting pics of the book after purchasing it BEFORE the pub date from stores that ignore those sort of contractual restrictions. Emails from friends and people I haven’t heard from in a while are, by far, the best part of this day, and I will answer every single one.
However, I’m still not done. I have talks to give, traveling to do, presentations to prepare (clothes to buy…) I open my laptop and try to get back to work. The inter-web sink hole drags me down into the neuro-pacification that is KenKen and I wander over to…
Hang on. What’s that a picture of…? Who isthat? She looks fascinating. She didwhat? When? Huh. You know what would be a great story…
And another kernel sprouts in the dark. Happy pub day.
***
I’ve been watching Denise’s march through the trad pub world with interest, comparing it to my own experiences in self-publishing. I’ll do a post on this shortly. I just want to collect my thoughts on it all.
Recently, my husband, author Joseph D’Agnese, “tagged” me in his “The Next Big Thing” blog post. “Next Big Thing” works like this: one writer answers some questions about her next book and then passes that blog post along to other writers she knows, “tagging” them. (See end of this post for…
Today I’m participating in the 100-word #adventghosts2012 flash fiction event run by writer Loren Eaton. Here’s my piece. Some back-story follows…
Befana
Epiphany morning, Arturo Saverio — literary scholar, occasional poet, and more frequent goat butcher — found a spectral hag poking his kitchen fire with a broom.
“La Befana! I have longed to see you ever since childhood! Mamma told me I was foolish to believe. But then, she never thought I’d amount to anything.”
“Caffè!” screeched the hag. Her lips looked as if she’d been chewing coal.
Saverio brewed espresso.
The witch hobbled to a chair, dragging her flaming broom after her. “Oops.”
Whoosh.
Later, she warmed herself in the glow of the writhing, burning man.
“Eh. Maybe your mamma was right.”
Author’s note:
My mother grew up believing not in Santa Claus but in La Befana—a witch who supposedly brought gifts to good little Italian kids on Twelfth Night, which many Christians celebrate as the Feast of the Epiphany. That feast commemorates when the wise men beheld the Christ Child in the manger. That encounter was regarded as a critical moment, a meeting of two cultures:
—Gentiles, meet Jesus.
—Jesus, meet three dudes who symbolize the rest of the outside world that will adore you.
According to Italian legend, the hag known as La Befana was invited by the Magi to meet the Christ child but turned it down because…she had too much housework to do. (Pausing here for your ?!?!) Later realizing the error of her ways, La Befana committed to traveling the world (or at least Italy) on Twelfth Night, leaving presents at the home of every child.
That origin story varies greatly, but it’s the one that I first heard, so I’m sticking to it. These days, Italians do actually embrace Santa Claus (they call him Babbo Natale) but purists still root for the hag. When we lived in Rome, we’d see these Christmas stalls set up in Piazza Navona where people were selling tons of little La Befanas.
Image by Denise Kiernan
Copyright 2003 Denise Kiernan
That, in part, is why I chose La Befana as my subject The way I figure, it’s bad enough extending an annual invitation to a hirsute fat man to climb down your chimney. What would it be like to expect a toothless, immortal witch?
I encourage you to visit the entries of other writers taking part in this event.
Befana image above by @gabiontheroad via Unsplash.
Bill Glavin was a writing teacher of mine in college. We stayed in touch after I graduated and would meet every now and then along the banks of the Beaverkill River in upstate New York. There he managed to teach me whatever I know about fly-fishing, which is still not much. It’s a sport I only ever did with him. I liked going up there and living in a camper for a few days and hearing him talk against the sound of a river.
He was from Boston and had a funny accent. He loved sports, mostly baseball, and on many of those nights in front of the fire he’d listen to a game on the radio. I knew nothing about sports and couldn’t really bond with him about that. But I was into books and writing, and he had plenty to say about that.
His later, younger students got to know him during the rise of Harry Potter, and referred to Glavin as their Dumbledore. Our thing—his and mine—was crime fiction. He loved Sherlock Holmes, he loved Rex Stout. He enjoyed “newer” guys too, like Elmore Leonard and James Lee Burke, and Boston guys like Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane, of course. In fact, the first book signing I ever attended was when Glavin took me to meet Parker, who was signing at the university bookstore. Imagine that: Robert B. Parker signing at a university bookstore! The writer looked bored out of his mind, and was horrified that Glavin would want a signed copy of Love & Glory, a love story which Parker had written early in his career and which a reviewer had once described as “cloying and bathetic.” (That was the sole reason Glavin wanted it.)
Glavin loved the writing of Mark Twain and never stopped looking for writing that made him laugh. He always said it was hard to write funny, yet he certainly seemed to turn up countless of great examples for us to read and dissect in class. He culled them from newspapers and magazines, and later in his teaching career, the Internet. I once watched him try to read a Dave Barry column all the way through without stopping. He was laughing so hard that tears ran down his face. The piece wasn’t nearly that funny the next time I read it for myself.
From about the mid-seventies on, Glavin ran a one-man placement center from his office in the journalism school in Syracuse. Whenever former students called asking him for help looking for a job, he’d start working the phones. I don’t know how many of those calls resulted in jobs, but the Syracuse journalism mafia is no joke in New York City. A lot of the editors running those magazines got their start in one of Glavin’s classes, trying to write three paragraphs without using a form of the verb to be. Many of the students in the magazine department were women; still are, I guess. Guys were rare in that major. I don’t know why.
Maybe that’s why we bonded, why he became a second father to me. (There’s nothing wrong about my dad, by the way. He’s a stand-up guy, just not a writer.) Long after college I’d phone Glavin to ask his advice on pieces I was working on, or to share a hilarious article I’d found, or to talk about a great book I’d read, or just to hear his gravelly, smoker’s voice. Much of the time I spent on the phone with him consisted of me trying to get him to laugh. I loved hearing his chuckle.
Surprisingly for a guy who helped so many others perfect their craft, Glavin did little writing of his own. I was not the only person who told him he ought to write about fishing. He loved it so much, didn’t he? Hadn’t he read us countless excerpts of Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It over the years? Why couldn’t he try his hand at that kind of memoir? He certainly had the stories to fill it.
He said nah, if he wrote about fishing then fishing would become work, and he never wanted to let that happen. One night on the river he admitted that there was one thing he wanted to write about, and maybe one day he would.
"The older I get," he said, "the more obsessed I become in the things that obsessed me as a kid. I don’t know why that is, but it is. And I’d want to figure out why."
I assumed he was talking about three things: baseball, fishing, and writing. Glavin never married and never had kids. His students and faculty colleagues were his closest family. He had plenty of time to indulge in those obsessions, and his colleagues probably envied his freedom to do so.
Two years ago, Glavin got sick. At first the monster plodded along, then roused itself to tear through his lungs. A bunch of people rushed to Bill’s bedside, hoping to say goodbye. I showed up late in the game, and the sight of him shook me. I remember uttering a single, silent prayer, directed to whomever: If you’re going to kill him, do it now. Or work a fucking miracle. This halfway thing is bullshit.
Maybe once every 30 years those of us among the irreligious are allowed a run on the hotline. Glavin died the next morning. He would have been 70 today. It’s hard to sit quietly sometimes and think or talk about him because it still hurts. Until now I’ve resisted trying to write about him.
We all want a loved one’s death to mean something. Holding onto a signifier—whether a word or an object—is akin to hanging onto the ones we’ve lost. Glavin’s words on the river are the ones I think about the most these days. I think he was trying to make sense of something most novelists I know accept as gospel: that all fiction springs from their obsessions. That’s certainly true for me right now. If your fiction has any power at all, it’s because you’re mining something that’s authentic for you. If your work is in any way unique, it’s because you had experiences growing up that were wholly your own but still somehow universal.
The second you start writing, all these things starting coming out. That’s probably why writing is hard. You’re constantly dodging the landmines of your past, selecting the stuff that furthers your art and ignoring the stuff that only makes good therapy sessions. When it’s going well, that act can be beautiful. It’s helpful to remind myself from time to time that all the raw material comes from the same place. They are things lodged in my heart. Like you, Bill.
Photo courtesy Syracuse University.
Anyone who writes cannot help grappling with a basic conflict. Locked away in your skull are all these incredible visions—elephants skateboarding on toast, dancing rabbi babies, lemon-ball-shitting vultures—which somehow have to be siphoned out of your brain and put down on paper in such a way that anyone who sees it will be compelled to drop everything to finish it. Artists work with paint, sculptors stone, musicians sound. Writers suck out their own brain matter and smear it on paper. The more you smear, the less you have, unless you replenish it somehow. But how to do it?
I just stole that from someone else, by the way. Years ago, when I was still working in New York and unknowingly struggling with this issue, a friend turned me on to an essay by Michael Ventura called The Talent of the Room. In a nutshell, Ventura said that all you need to succeed as a writer is the ability to sit in a room by yourself for hours a day, writing. And even if you could do this, you’d produce words but no guarantee of success.
I’ve read tons of books on writing, but none of them have ever come close to the wisdom in this short, punchy essay.
Ventura wrote the piece for LA Weekly. (The friend who sent it to me was living in California at the time and clipped it out of the paper.) Ventura later expanded his ideas into three columns on writing, but I’ve only seen the first and third. The first is best. For years, whenever I moved, I always made sure that I packed that column with me. Then they invented the Internet, and now you can read it at Ventura’s site.
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