Selling a book to an American publisher?

Discussion Open Forum
1

Have any of the folks here ever sold a book to an American publisher?

The reason I ask is I am getting ready to sign my first contract with an American publisher and I want to hear what is “the norm”, what kinds of things American publishers will and will not give in on and so forth.

(NOTE: before crazed moderator sticks this in the outback of one of the legal catagories–I am NOT asking for legal advice, I am asking for practical experiences.)

I am somewhat familiar with the Taiwanese publishing world but a “babe in the woods” when it comes to the big bad world of American publishers. The book is completed and I have one local publisher willing to do it. I also have the offer from the American publisher. And I got about a week to submit my counter-proposal contract to them. Their contract (no surprise) is all “pro-publisher”.

take care,
Brian

2

Varies a whole lot. Can you tell us anything about the book?

3

I wrote a book once but I forgot to get it published. Do you think it is too late?

4

I was thinking about this very issue some months ago …

Some topics that came to mind:

  • Translation rights into other languages
  • US tax filing and US tax assistance (since you are not in the US and may need help in this area)
  • Different royalty payment methods (tax free bonds? offshore bank accounts? …)
  • Arrangements regarding publicity ( … the publisher pays any related promotional expenses unless specifically stated otherwise in the contract, etc.)

If I might ask … What is the book about?

5

The book, which is co-authored with my wife, is about the history of Chinese martial arts training manuals.
take care,
Brian

6

This is something i sort of know something about as I make my liviing from writing

A really good website to ask this type of question on is www.writersweekly.com
There is a forum there that helps with all types of questions relating to writing and publishing

One thing you might need to look into is rights- does the contract mention worldwide rights or just american. If you change it to just american rights, you can resell it to other markets. Also look at whether it is work for hire, or royalties

Good luck and well done! :smiley:

7

rubykate, thanks for the lead. That turned out to be an excellent site. The grim news that is starting to sink in is, the publishing industry is a cartel and authors are largely nothing more than “field hands” and…well, so much for me getting lots of line by line changes in the contract.

take care,
Brian

8

ah - you are a quick learner!

thought of self publishing?

otherwise, make sure you are prepared for a long wait before you see any return- but in the end royalties always are more beneficial than being a hired hand

good luck

9

Ruby Kate, as to self publishing, yeah I had pondered that. A number of my friends have done so. But we have three major problems with that 1. I do not have any spare time to mess around with it, 2. I do not have any spare cash to pay for messing around with it, and 3. My co-author (and myself to be honest) want the prestige that comes from saying a “real American publisher” published our book.

The latter reason may not seem that good, but it means a lot to my co-author (who happens to be my wife, she is Taiwanese and for her to have her named across the front of an american book is a big, big deal) She is by profession a translator and it gives a local translator big face to actually author a book, in english, published by a “real” american publisher.

And I need to add that I too will have a bit of pride with that too. I look forward to having my name on an english language book available back in the states. My two books here in Taiwan (both on the law and both in chinese) in a weird way don’t seem like “my” books.

As to the contract, I had made a bunch of modifications to give us some, small, tiny, control over the book.

The publisher told us to go fuck ourselves, they put a little sugar coating on it, but that was what we were told stripped of the polite bullshit.

I wrote the acquisitions editor, who is kind of a cyberspace friend of mine, and told him (and I quote myself)
" This contract is utterly one sided. And please do not b.s. me. I do not know if Jess told you or not, I am a California attorney and I have published two law books here in Taiwan. This contract is unfairly restrictive and punitive towards the author. I realize you folks do a share of the work. And I also realize that you folks can get along just fine without my book. But I put over 20 years of martial arts experience into that book and I am supplying you folks with hundreds of photos which have never been seen before in the west. And I realize you will probably just write all this off as author whining.

In return I am getting:
No advance
No control over any aspect of the book
12% of the net (i.e. my book is helping to pay all your overhead including your salary).
And I am supposed to give you this book forever.
And I get a bunch of b.s. about how fair it all is.

But as an adult I realize the publishing industry in America is basically a cartel and my choices are:

  1. dance to your tune
  2. Self publish or
  3. Have the local publisher do it.

So I will dance to your tune. But understand we are, in a very real sense, enemies and I view this as legalized theft. We will sign the contract and have it back in the mail to you in a couple of days."

So we are off to a peaceful and loving start.
Everyone always goes on about what theives and slimebags attorneys are, but hell the publishing industry makes us look like angels.

take care,
Brian the Happy Author

10

Who was your copy editor?

11

no advance and 12% royalty seems pretty standard tome - you obviously got the exta 2% for the photos
Advances are rare until youhave a sales base with your publisher, or your bookis guaranteed great sales

expect to see your first money in about 18 months!
start writing your next book so that you start to get a regular income. five books in five years is the standard formula for good amounts of income from royalties

12

Is it academic or niche-market? Who’s gonna read it–kung fu buffs or their college professors?

If you know of some other books that are more or less the same kind of thing, maybe you could get in touch with their authors…?

13

Wolf, Dean Karalakas edited it for me. You might have run into Dean, he works for Taiwan Journal, the weekly GIO newspaper and you two may frequent the same watering holes.

Screaming Jesus (any relation to 900 Foot Jesus?), I am trying to push the book as being of interest to anybody interested in Chinese history/culture but the reality is most copies will be bought by kung fu buffs. Academics will be interested in seeing the photos, but the “no footnotes text” will have no great attraction for them. Actually a lot of the chapters are basically “Brian’s Personal View on How Chinese Martial Arts Was and Should Be”; i.e. kind of a collection of Brian essays.

Ruby Kate, the acquire-editor wrote me back saying almost the exact same thing that you said; which is, Brian, you are getting the same (mis)treatment everyone does. Stop bitching and get to work on the next book.

So the dust is starting to settle. I normally trash talk Taiwan (it is one of my favorite pass times) but I must say that the two local publishing contracts I have signed were much more “pro-author” than this one and they were only two pages long!

take care,
Brian

14

Brian,
If it is not too late, have you thought about an agent in the U.S.? It is my understanding, from my old writing professors, that if you have a publishing contract an agent is easy to find (hell, it’s easy money for them - they don’t have to sell the manuscript, just negotiate the contract).
Sorry but that’s about all I know…

[quote]no advance and 12% royalty seems pretty standard tome - you obviously got the extra 2% for the photos
Advances are rare until you have a sales base with your publisher, or your book guaranteed great sales [/quote]
Why do you say advances are rare? One of my professors has published over 30 novels and has gotten an advance on every contract - including the first one.
jmc.ou.edu/faculty/facultypages/chester.html

15

but they look like they are mass market books - not niche non fiction books
different rules apply - in my experienceanyway (over 16 titles,some best sellers)
have been known to be wrong though! :smiley:

16

Plus times are changing. The attorney for the Writers Guild was mentioning that even within the last five years the relationship between publishers and authors has tipped even further than it already was.

As I view it my choices are:
take it
leave it

For a variety of reasons I will take it. The did bump the first royalty “break” (cut off point) down a bit so that helped sweeten the bitterness of it all. (oh, oh, I should be writing fiction!! I have a flair for melodrama).

I should also keep my day job.

take care,
Brian

thanks for all the advice and I will keep folks posted as to future developments.

17

[quote=“rubykate”]but they look like they are mass market books - not niche non fiction books
different rules apply - in my experienceanyway (over 16 titles,some best sellers)
have been known to be wrong though! :smiley:[/quote]
I still don’t see why an agent would turn down someone with a guaranteed contract. Every agent I have spoken to said they would love someone to come in with at contract in hand. But then again you are the one with over 16 titles, some best sellers, so I will trust your judgment. :wink:

BTW - good luck brian, I am sure you will do fine. :wink:

18

oh no. I think an agent is a good idea- I was talking about the advance!
I choose not to have an agent at present as two of my publishers are really good at promoting my books. and I love the control I still retain BUT my markets are UK, Asia and the Antipodes, and I would definitely get an agent when I feel ready to break into America- it is just too big otherwise. - And I think I would need all the help I could get. However I am not American so maybe that is just the fear talking!

19

[quote=“rubykate”]oh no. I think an agent is a good idea- I was talking about the advance!
I choose not to have an agent at present as two of my publishers are really good at promoting my books. and I love the control I still retain BUT my markets are UK, Asia and the Antipodes, and I would definitely get an agent when I feel ready to break into America- it is just too big otherwise. - And I think I would need all the help I could get. However I am not American so maybe that is just the fear talking![/quote]
Sorry, I totallly misunderstood.
Just a personal question though…are you British? Wouldn’t you have to go through a British agent to break into the American market? Or are you free to just find one anywhere?

20

I am a new zealander. I am actually now in new zealand but used to live in taiwan and am sadly addicted to forumosa

I started wrting four years ago, and this year, after writing for nz, australia and taiwan markets my writing started to really push of from the foundation i had already established. i am getting some great regular magazine and news paper work, and some good book contracts, but for me i guess the us would be great- less piracy than asia, and more people than in nz and australia. and they like the way nzers write about education.

just need a publisher to talk to :slight_smile:

  • once i have finished the foot high pile of editing on my desk due in next week sigh!