About Books

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    10 things …

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    The folks over at All About Romance did a cool post about 10 Things I’d Like to Tell Publishers. I agree with a lot of their comments, especially the one about the cheesy romance book titles. (Seriously, I think someone has a lot of fun coming up with some of those groaners).

    Inspired by them, I thought that I’d do a post about 10 Things I’d Like to Tell Readers. Here goes:

    1. I have very little input/control when it comes to the cover art for my books. If you think the covers suck, there’s nothing I can do about it. (And yes, I know the covers for the mass market versions of the Bigtime books suck — they suck out loud, especially the one for Karma Girl. Believe me, I know and have spent many hours bemoaning that fact.)

    2. I do not know everything there is to know about publishing. I cannot find a cover artist for your book, or a copy editor, or tell you why no one wants to publish the annotated history of your belly lint. Well, I could on that last one, but you probably wouldn’t like what I had to say about it. I get a lot of questions about publishing and writing, and I’m happy to help when and as I can — but I can’t get your book published for you. Only you can do that. And yes, it is much harder than it looks.

    3. Fake even a little bit of interest in my work, and I will sign books until my fingers bleed and smile for photos until my face hurts for you. Buy one of my books, and I will shower you with all the bookmarks and goodies that I have on hand. Tell me that you read and enjoyed one of my books, and I will wish you joy and happiness for all of your days. šŸ˜‰

    4. I look at reviews for my books. Good ones make me happy, bad ones make me sad. Reviews where folks call my books the worst things ever written after reading all of two pages of said books and never finishing themĀ bring out my inner Hulk, who can only be controlled by eating massive amounts of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Or to sum up, authors have feelings too, folks.

    5. Getting asked where the bathroom is whileĀ I’m doing a book signing is depressing. Pop! Did you hear that? That was the sound of you just deflating my ego. Now, I want to crawl under the table and whimper while I eat a candy bar — or three.

    6. I don’t care what format you buy my book in.Ā Paper copy, e-copy, heck, I don’t even care if you get a copy from the used bookstore. All I ask is that if you like the book, you tell your friends about it — and maybe take a minute or two to send me an e-mail about it (see 10). If you don’t like my book, that’s okay too — just beĀ polite about it. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

    7. I’m a reader too, and I’m just as happy to talk about other authors’ books as I am about my own. I can prattle on and on and on about my favorite authors and books all day long. Seriously, I can make your ears bleed, folks. My significant other knows better than to get me started waxing poetic about my favorite books. Everyone else, you have been warned. šŸ˜‰

    8. Yeah, I know that my books are not perfect. There are typos and continuity errors and sometimes I repeat phrases in books. But you know what? It’s hard coming up with 100,000 words that create a coherent story, and it’s even harder to ensure that every single one of those words is perfect. Manuscripts go through a lot of editors as they are turned into books, and we all do our very best to catch all the mistakes. But we’re human, and some errors are going to creep in. It’s not because I don’t work hard on my books — that’s just life.

    9. My inner fangirl squees with delight every time I see my book on the shelf at the bookstore. That weird woman you see taking photos in at Walmart? That’s me, ogling my book on the shelf for about the hundredth time.

    10. A positive e-mail from a reader telling me that she liked my books really does make my day (see 6). Knowing that people enjoy my books makes all the hard work and long hours in front of my computer worthwhile.

    So there you have it. Some of my (hopefully amusing) thoughts that I’d like to share with readers. What about you guys? What are some of the things you’d like to tell authors or publishers? Share in the comments. And keep it polite, please.

  • What’s in a quote …

    I got a nice e-mail this week. Glenn at the Tinley Park Public Library contacted me and asked me if they could use a quote by me about libraries on their Web site. It’s part of a regular quotes feature the library does.

    Of course, I said yes. You can see the quote here (it’s on the right-hand side of the page). Or here’s what I said, which comes from my bio here on my Web site:

    “Most folks think peniĀ­cillin, indoor plumbing, and the InterĀ­net are the worldā€™s best invenĀ­tions. Not me. The greatest thing ever created was a library. Indoor plumbing is a close second, though.”

    You know you’ve made it as an author when people start quoting you. Okay, not really, but I still think it’s cool. šŸ˜‰

  • Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines …

    Where has all the time gone? Because it’s already March. Seriously, the last two months have flown by. Gah!

    And I bet that March is going to go by just as fast, since I’ve got aĀ  month full of deadlines looming. I’ve got copy edits due for Venom, final page proofs for Web of Lies, and I need to do one more quick polish on Elemental Assassin 5 before sending that in to my agent. Oh yeah, and come up with a title for it too. I also want to go back and do one more polish on the urban fantasy young adult book that I’ve been working on, and I need to revise Spy 2, which is part of a new urban fantasy series that I hope to sell.

    And, in between all this, I have to sack up 500 packets of bookmarks for my next promotional mailing and stuff about 140 envelopes that go out toĀ bookstores/readers’ groups as part of another mailing.

    I so need a clone, if only so she could stand in line at the post office for me. šŸ˜‰

  • 64 cents and counting …

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    Everyone always asks me how much money I make on my books. In fact, it is a favorite question with certain nosy relatives of mine. Contrary to popular belief, it is not millions and millions of dollars. (I know. I’m bummed about that too). So today, I thought that I would talk a little bit about royalties to try to answer this question.

    For those of you who don’t know, royalties are the amount of money that an author earns on sales of her books. Most authors are given an advance up front. These advancesĀ can range anywhere from a few thousand dollars to a few million dollars. I’ve even heard of advances as low as $500 to $1,000.

    For every book that’s sold, authorsĀ get aĀ percentage of the cover price. For example, on the mass market paperbacks of Spider’s Bite and the other books in the Elemental Assassin series, I get 8 percent of the $7.99 cover price.

    That works out toĀ 64 cents per copy.

    Yep, that’s right. I getĀ a whopping 64 cents for every copy of Spider’s Bite that is sold. (Technically, it’s 63.92 cents per book, but I’m rounding up to make the math easier.)

    Now, every sale, every 64 cents, counts toward an author’s advance. Say you got a hypotheticalĀ advance of $10,000. (And no, I’m not going to tell you how much my advance was. That’s between me and Uncle Sam). You would have to sell 15,625 books to make back that $10,000 that the publisher has already given you. Any books you sold beyond that you would also get 64 cents on — but the publisher would have to pay you or give you what’s known as royalties for all of those books sold.

    Say you sell 20,000 books at 64 cents a book. Altogether, you would have earned $12,800. Since you made more than the $10,000 the publisher originally paid you, you would get a check for $2,800. (Of course, I’m not taking into account the 15 percent that your agent gets right off the top of all of your advance and royalty payments).

    You always hope that your book earns out the advance — you always want to have made more money for the publisher than they paid you in the first place. That makes them more likely to want to buy more books from you, if they know your titles are consistent earners for them. If your book doesn’t earn out its advance, you don’t have to refund the money … but you might not get another contract for more books either. Publishing is all about sales, just like any other for-profit business is. You can write the best book in the known universe, but if it only sells 500 copies, I doubt your publisher will want you to write a sequel.

    Now, the mass market paperback royalties are only one kind of royalties that an author can make on her books. You get royalties forĀ e-books, audio books, and every format that your book is sold/packaged in.Ā And, of course, all of the percentages and amounts differ. Even your mass market paperback royalties can differ. For example, the percentage can go up to 10 percent or even higher if you sell above a certain number of copies (like 150,000).

    As far as e-books go, I get 15 percent of the price. So, for example, if you bought a Kindle version of Spider’s Bite (priced at $6.39 on Amazon), I would make 96 cents on that sale. (Again, technically, it’s 95.85 cents but I’m rounding up to make the math easier). And this is just generally speaking. There are so many different formats and percentages, that you’d have to be an accountant to understand them all.

    Of course, the more the cover price is for your book, the more money you get on every sale. For example, if your book is a $25 hardcover and you get 8 percent of the cover price, then you earn $2 per book compared to 64 cents for a mass market paperback. If your book is a $14 trade paperback, you get $1.12 per book.

    And it goes on and on and gets more complicated from there. Sometimes, I think authors have to be accountants, lawyers, Web site experts, and writers all rolled into one to really understand all the ins and outs of the business.

    So there you have it. A little bit about royalties. Any questions? I’ll answer what I can in the comments.