The UK wing of Tor Books, along with SciFi magazine, announced a while ago that they were searching for the next great writer via a contest they were calling War of the Words. The concept was easy: submit your manuscript (80-150k words) and cross your fingers.

The rub? It was only open to aspiring writers who reside in the UK.

Luckily, they’ve come around and just recently opened the contest to everyone around the world (who… erm, have an English-language manuscript, I suppose).

War of the Words

Due to very popular demand, SciFiNow and Tor UK open competition, now sponsored by Play.com, to international applicants.

Aspiring writers from outside of the UK are now eligible to apply to leading consumer specialist magazine SciFiNow and SF imprint Tor UK’s competition to find the new voice in science fiction and fantasy.

Writers must submit a full synopsis of their novel, along with the first three chapters, by 20th August 2009. The judging panel is comprised of members of SciFiNow magazine and Tor UK, and a shortlist of six entries will be announced before the overall winner is revealed in SciFiNow issue 35, on sale 25 November 2009.

The rules and regulations:

1. The winner will receive a publishing contract with Macmillan Publishers Limited for publication in 2010 dependent on publishing schedules. For the purposes of this competition we will pay the winning author a 20% royalty on net receipts but there will be no advance (i.e. an advance payment against future sales). Our contract is non-negotiable and we acquire world rights, with rights revenue split 50/50. We also reserve the option to publish the author’s second novel. The final book is intended to be published in the United Kingdom. Publication will be subject to the winner’s acceptance in writing of those terms and conditions and compliance with them.

2. All entrants must have a full length novel (being between 80,000 and 150,000 words long) completed and available upon request by the close of competition on 20 August 2009.

3. Entrants who have had a full-length novel previously published by a trade publisher anywhere in the world will not be eligible, (so you will not be excluded by virtue of having any previously self-published work). Additionally this competition is not open to employees or their immediate families of the Promoters and any companies within the Imagine Publishing Ltd. group of companies or the Macmillan Publishers Limited group of companies.

4. To be eligible, initial entries must comprise of a full synopsis and the first three chapters of a novel set in the fantasy or science fiction genre. There must be a novel completed and available for review by 20 August 2009 should the judging panel request to see the full novel. Entrants will not be put forward to the shortlist without a full novel. The synopsis and first three chapters should be double spaced and emailed to: [email protected] to be received by SciFi Now Magazine at Imagine Publishing Limited on or before the closing date of 20 August 2009 17:30 GMT.

You can find the rest of the rules and regulations HERE.

With the August 20th, 2009 deadline, there’s only a bit of time left before entries are due, so get those manuscripts polished and send them off! My own manuscript won’t be ready by then, but to all those who do enter, best of luck!

Discussion
  • Janet July 22, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    Contract non-negotiable? World rights? Royalty on NET receipts? Not so sure about this one.

  • aidan July 22, 2009 at 6:34 pm

    Indeed, some of the terms of the contract bothered me, too.

    It’s certainly not the best way to get into the publishing industry, and one has to wary of their property when entering into a contract like this, but it’s still a good shot for someone to get their manuscript noticed.

    I wonder what would happen if an incredible manuscript fell into Tor’s hands, won the competition and then the author refused to accept those terms, walking away from the contract? Would Tor, or another publishing house, be willing to negotiate with them then? One would think so.

  • Janet July 22, 2009 at 7:13 pm

    True, I hadn’t looked at it that way. But still, I think it’s probably easier to resist the lure of entering than the lure of a contract. I’ve got four weeks to mull it over, I suppose.

  • Mark July 22, 2009 at 10:08 pm

    Yeah, but that’s a FAT 20% royalty…

    I think – think! – that this is a similar contract to the Macmillan New Writing scheme, which has been going a few years now (hence no advance, but the very high royalty). And World Rights is totally in your favour – Pan Mac have a very good and experienced team of people whose job it is to sell books to other countries. It’s a good contract.

  • Adam Whitehead July 23, 2009 at 4:18 am

    It’s not the greatest contract in the world, and I suspect you’d do better income-wise to have a separate deal for foreign publishers, but it shouldn’t be too onerous since you’d also have to be capable of writing a 150,000-word novel in eight weeks, so you could bash out the first two and then renegotiate if they are successful :-O

  • Mark July 23, 2009 at 6:54 am

    “I suspect you’d do better income-wise to have a separate deal for foreign publishers” – I’m not so sure. You’d have no advance to pay off, so you’d be earning on that immediately. Depending on what those foreign sales terms were, and bearing in mind you have a professional team selling to various territories, I’d say you’d be a lot better off than trying to sell it alone. That is, unless you fancy travelling across the globe to various book fairs to sell your manuscript to foreign publishers. :)

  • Janet July 23, 2009 at 7:45 am

    I’ve got a friend among MacMillan’s New Writers, so I’m checking it out with him. For me, it’s the net receipts clause that is really bothering me. If the book is less than a smashing success, say just a single print run, this makes it very possible for the author to receive nothing at all. Not so great. I mean, exposure is wonderful but still. And what are the terms for the option on the second book? And would that second contract also be non-negotiable?

    In the final analysis, it’s probably ridiculous for me to be worrying about this, but I like to go into things with the positive attitude that I could indeed win or I could indeed attract that agent’s attention. In this case, I think my chances are really minimal, but maybe the future winner is reading this blog and might be saved some grief.

    I’ve also asked Writers Beware to take a look at this. Evaluating this kind of thing is what they do really well.

  • Adam Whitehead July 23, 2009 at 9:48 am

    @ Mark: but Tor UK/Macmillan don’t publish the book internationally (or do they?), they just have the resale rights, unlike say Orbit who have a UK and a US operation. The terms between whichever international publisher picks up the book and Tor UK will vary depending on who is interested. Some cases will be more beneficial to the author than others, although the no advance thing could be enormously beneficial (providing the book is a hit, if it’s a bomb then I believe having a reasonable advance is a much better solution).

    What are your experiences of this? Did Tor/Macmillan do the deal with your American publisher and it’s all between them, or do you have a separate deal with the US publishers yourself? (if that’s not a faux pas question to ask ;-) )

  • Mark July 23, 2009 at 10:17 am

    Well I don’t want to speak on behalf of Tor UK here, but here’s some more thoughts:

    Janet – yep, and welcome to the world of publishing! :) (I speak here as a writer, someone who’s worked in publishing, and bookselling before that.) If a book doesn’t sell, the author doesn’t get anything, period. All an advance is is an “advance against royalties”.

    It costs quite a few thousand pounds to even put a book out in the UK, not including the marketing effort to promote (nor the advance). This isn’t a dodgy operation out of a portacabin, this is a massive company putting plans and promotion and money and sweat behind an author. So what the “no advance” thing does is make it less of a risk in the first place – it means there’s less money to earn back for the book to be deemed a success. That net clause is pretty standard, but it’s the whopping royalties (compare that to a typical 7-8%) which make it very tasty indeed. I don’t think any new writer who won this could be in a position to complain, and if they did they’d need their head examined (if it hadn’t been mauled by the thousands of writers who’d love to have just such a contract.)

    Tor UK publish into the commonwealth (as far as I know there are offices dotted around the world). Orbit publish some books UK-only, some US-only, but they’re built on that Solaris / HarperCollins etc model of cross-nation publication. Compare this with Gollancz, who are the same as Tor UK (and who incidentally do a very good job of selling to different countries)

    In my case (not a faux pas!) yes, Tor UK punted the book out to a few publishers and Del Rey were first in to snap me up. It was something Macmillan’s team pushed themselves.

    World rights acquisitions make it much more likely that a publisher wants to get behind a new author – what people often forget is that publishing is a business, and publishers need to have as little risk involved as possible. So, given that they can claw money back before something’s even printed, means that they’re more likely to want to publish that author.

  • Janet July 23, 2009 at 11:13 am

    Mark, maybe it’s different in the UK, but in North America, the author keeps the advance no matter what the sales are like. Publishers are now often splitting this up into two, three, or even four payments, but once paid, advances are literally money in the bank. They can’t be clawed back.

    The net clause is also not typical here, and agents warn against it in no uncertain terms. Are you saying it’s typical in the UK?

    I’m quite aware of the reputation of the companies involved, which is why I stuck my neck out to grumble. ;o) Fly-by-nights I just ignore. It was worth it: I got some knowledgeable input from someone with a different perspective. Thanks.

  • Mark July 23, 2009 at 11:52 am

    It’s the same in the UK, too. I meant the author gets nothing more above the advance – they have to earn out before they start making any more money. An advance *against* royalties. It’s all about how that appears to a publisher when they revisit the sales with the whole publishing team.

    Check out this http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/01/proposal-to-raise-bo.html

    I think it’s net on cover price, yeah. Maybe things are different, but this is standard for the UK I believe – someone with more intimate knowledge of royalty systems, feel free to help me out. How do you arrange it for the US? Net on cover price? Gross? Don’t forget – you have to factor in how UK and US companies deal with distribution and stores, and the way that they offer discounts – quite significant in the UK – which affects why this may or may not happen.

    Anyway, at the end of the day, I can say that the competition prize is very good indeed. The publisher shares the risk (and why not?) by not paying an advance but offering huge royalties.

  • James (Speculative Horizons) July 24, 2009 at 4:35 am

    The lack of an advance here is what bugs me about this contract. The whole thing seems totally geared towards the publisher, with failsafes in place to ensure they don’t get their fingers burnt if the book crashes and burns.

    If the book flops and sells really poorly, the writer will come out of it with nothing to show for it and their career in tatters. At least if an advance was given, the author would walk away with something for their efforts.

    Then again, I guess if the book did seriously well, the 20% royalty would ensure a tasty return.

    Swings and roundabouts.

    I’m interested to see the reaction to the winning novel – will people regard it with some suspicion? Will it be looked down on because it “only got published because it won a competition”? I guess this comp is no different to a slush pile, but will readers see it like that…

  • Mark July 24, 2009 at 8:21 am

    “The whole thing seems totally geared towards the publisher, with failsafes in place to ensure they don’t get their fingers burnt if the book crashes and burns.”

    Not exactly… I was chatting with one of the people at Pan Mac who suggested it cost £17,000 to put a book in the shops, not including advances. I was drinking at the time, but I’m pretty sure that was the figure.

    If the writer has an advance and the book flops, the career is still in tatters.

  • James (Speculative Horizons) July 24, 2009 at 1:23 pm

    “If the writer has an advance and the book flops, the career is still in tatters.”

    Sure, but better to have an advance in the bank when the shit hits the fan, rather than a useless 20% royalty. At least that would soften the blow of seeing the book you’ve worked on for X amount of years going down in flames…

  • aidan July 24, 2009 at 3:55 pm

    What worries me is that, since there’s less finiancial pressure on the publishing house, that Tor won’t put as much of a push behind the novel as they should (in terms of advertising and publicity), and if/when it flops, they’ll simply blame the contest as a failure, rather than taking a closer look at how they handled the book.

    It reminds me of the situation with Greg Keyes and Daniel Abraham. Two fantastic authors, with great critical acclaim, but ultimately struggling to find success because of poor managment and publicity by their publishing houses (Del Rey and Tor US, respectively). Keyes should, by all rights, appeal to the fans of George R.R. Martin, Terry Brooks, Tad Williams, Robin Hobb and Raymond Feist, and yet he struggles to sell books.

  • Adam Whitehead July 24, 2009 at 4:56 pm

    Is that really the case? Keyes seems to be doing okay, and he has a ‘New York Times bestseller’ blurb he can put on his books (which came from his STAR WARS books admittedly, but that’s half the reason authors write them ;-) ). Keyes also has very good critical acclaim (apart from the last KoT&B book which got slated). I remember when the Blackgod came out he was being touted as a major writer to watch in the future.

    I don’t think Abraham has too much cause for complaint. His book covers were gorgeous, the books got stunning recommendations and excellent reviews, they just didn’t generate as much chatter online as Abercrombie, Lynch and Rothfuss (or even Ruckley), who all launched at the same time or within a year or so. The extremely long wait for UK/Commonwealth publication really didn’t help them either.

    Orbit Books’ attitude to the LONG PRICE is really impressive though. They mismarketed it with a really bad cover, they had a rethink, and are now relaunching the books were more attractive covers and doing a Brent Weeks thing of launching the two omnibuses within a couple of months of one another. Whether that will work (it’s hadly a typical Weeks-esque fantasy series) remains to be seen, but it’s great to see them giving it a second shot.

  • James (Speculative Horizons) July 24, 2009 at 11:48 pm

    “What worries me is that, since there’s less finiancial pressure on the publishing house, that Tor won’t put as much of a push behind the novel as they should (in terms of advertising and publicity), and if/when it flops, they’ll simply blame the contest as a failure, rather than taking a closer look at how they handled the book.”

    That’s another concern that I have. Well, one I would have if I was entering the comp. ;)

    Mark has suggested the contract is similar to the one that Tor use for their ‘New Writer’ gig. I wonder, therefore, if the amount of publicity and so on will be similar as well? If it is, then it’s possibly another tick in the negative column.

    I don’t have many examples to draw on, admittedly, but take Tim Stretton’s ‘The Dog of the North’ – as far as I’m aware, Tor didn’t even bother sending out review copies for that one. At least, I didn’t get one and I’m on their mailing list.

    So I guess what I’m saying is…are Tor going to throw their whole weight behind the novel that wins this competition?

  • Sarah July 25, 2009 at 4:01 am

    Well, honestly, I find all this talking about advance and royalties quite funny. I won’t enter the contest only because I don’t have a complete novel to enter… and I’m very sorry about it. If I could ever been chosen by Pan Mac to be published, I wouldn’t care a thing about how much I’d be paid for.
    I am Italian. Let me tell you a bit about the publishing situation here in Italy. Readers amount to the 1% of the population, more than half of that are teenagers or younger. Only the 25% of professionals read about their profession (teachers read even less than that). So, I understand that the market is continuously starving and this explains a part of what I’m going to tell you.
    An aspiring author can hope to be published by a small publisher at best, that mean your book won’t probably be distributed, because distribution is too expensive for small publishers. You’ll end up shopping your own book around, meeting readers in bookshops and (but this only if you know someone, or if you are a very very persuasive person) in bookfairs.
    Big publishers (and we don’t have that many of them) usually publish translated material. This mean books that have already have success abroad. They’re not likely to publish an Italian, unless you are a politician, a famous journalist, a singer, an actor, a footballer – or you are somehow connected with the above (a couple of years ago Feltrinelli – who’s one of the major publishers here – was rumoured to have acquired Ligabue’s debut novel – Ligabue is the most popular rocker here – without even read the manuscript). If you talk about beginners or debutants to these publishers… well, they may ask you whether these are some sort of exotic food.
    I am a bookseller. Not too long ago, my boss talked with the Mondadori agents of our zone (Mondadori is the biggest publisher here in Italy). She asked out of curiosity how many manuscripts Mondadori receives a day. The agent replied: “I don’t know, but that doesn’t matter. When we receive a manuscript in the post, we take it, and the way it is, we put it in the bin”.
    My boss was shocked. “But there might be a bestseller inside one of those!” she said.
    And the agent: “Yes, there might be. But finding new authors is not the politic of Mondadori.”

    So, now that you have a picture of the reality where I’m living as an aspiring author, you’ll understand why I say that, should Pan Mac chose my novel and publish it as it publishes any book written by a professional, I wouldn’t concern myself with the monetary part of the dealing. I’d go as far as saying that I’d gladly do it for free, just to have the chance to work with professionals and learn from them, being inside the process and learn how it’s all worked out, and above all have the possibility to have my novel printed and put of the shelves, and been bought and read by people.
    What I would concern myself with, would be producing a very good story. Give the best I can give, so to allow my publisher to be paid off with money, and to me to be paid off with experience.
    Should that be even for a second novel? Fine! Could it be that Pan Mac would want to publish two of my books! After all, let’s face it: I’m a “perfect Mr Nobody” now (as we Italians say). My dealing power amount to zero. All I can offer is a good story which has the potential to be successful, because if it will be successful nobody can tell. Not even the editor who chooses me.
    And I don’t believe in: if you have a good novel, the publisher won’t let you go, and will reconsider the contract. There are lots of vey good novels out there. If I’m too difficult, the publisher may move its attention to another novel and another author… and I’ll have missed that train.

    But now consider: I’ve published two books with Pan Mac. My contract expires. Pan Mac may ask me to sign a new one and now I can ask to have different conditions. I know the publisher, the publisher knows me, we know what we can do together. And even if Pan Mac let me go, I can shop my new work to other publishers or agents, but at that point my dealing power will have risen. I could say: “I published two books with Pan Mac, and these are my figures.”
    Only then will I concern myself with the monetary part of the dealing… not now.

    As for James’s concern: “are Tor going to throw their whole weight behind the novel that wins this competition?” – Honestly, I don’t see why any publisher should chose to publish a book (costing, as Mark suggested at least 17.000 pounds) and then let it die. Sounds stupid to me.

  • Mark July 25, 2009 at 8:21 am

    ” At least that would soften the blow of seeing the book you’ve worked on for X amount of years going down in flames…”

    If it’s money that matters, then by logic having some money is better than having none. :)

    “What worries me is that, since there’s less finiancial pressure on the publishing house, that Tor won’t put as much of a push behind the novel as they should (in terms of advertising and publicity), and if/when it flops, they’ll simply blame the contest as a failure, rather than taking a closer look at how they handled the book.”

    Costs thousands to put a book on the shelf to such mass market levels. Do people really think a book just pops out and publishers slap it on the shelf? Nothing about constant meetings over the year, cover designers and marketing folk, talking to trade reps, deciding how to discount, where to discount, to mail out review copies, manage advertising to venues other than online, gauge the reaction, have more meetings, and on and on? It’s a constant effort for a year to put a book on the shelf. They don’t just magically appear!

    As for throwing weight behind a novel – a publisher puts out a few books each month, and has to decide how to support each of those. If you can’t see marketing strings being pulled, it doesn’t mean they’re not there, in venues you don’t frequent. The market is vast: book clubs, magazines, bricks and mortar stores (several different chains), online – and much of that support can be co-op discounting (i.e. offering stores a big discount to supply more or with money off cover price). And whether anyone has spotted the major SF magazine driving this – um, does that count as marketing? Yup. Massively so. The fact we’re all talking about it? See – it works doesn’t it?

    This is a hugely, hugely complicated industry with many professionals working hard all year around. To be honest, I’m flabbergasted by such a negative and critical response (until I realise that this is the internet!).

    Ultimately: an unknown writer is going to have a book published and put in stores. How many writers dream of that?

  • aidan July 25, 2009 at 8:42 am

    Mark,

    I think it’s less that we’re being negative about the contest, but rather we’re being cautious and curious about a subject most of us have little insider information on.

    “Costs thousands to put a book on the shelf to such mass market levels. Do people really think a book just pops out and publishers slap it on the shelf? Nothing about constant meetings over the year, cover designers and marketing folk, talking to trade reps, deciding how to discount, where to discount, to mail out review copies, manage advertising to venues other than online, gauge the reaction, have more meetings, and on and on? It’s a constant effort for a year to put a book on the shelf. They don’t just magically appear!”

    Certainly there’s costs and risks that go along with publishing this author, but, by your own admission based on the contract given to the winner, there’s a bit less weight on the shoulders of the publisher because they didn’t have to pay out an advance. Obviously they’ll want the book to be a success, it would be an absurd business model otherwise, but one always needs to step back and realize that it’s a company run by real people. If they screw up on the marketing or don’t give the book enough of a push (how many American Idol contestants have dropped off the face of the earth after they won?), and rely on the contest being a built-in push for the marketing, there’s a risk that they won’t really see where the blame lies. I obviously know next to nothing about how Tor UK works, but I can’t imagine they’re as reflective and contemplative as maybe they should be.

    Again, using Daniel Abraham as an example (who’s published by Tor’s US wing), sometimes companies seem to set authors up for failure and then leave them in the dust when they’re not successful. Like Adam said, Abraham was given nice covers, had nice quotes and critical reviews… but was almost impossible to find on the shelves. I’m sure you’ve seen the Westeros thread about his latest novel, or Jeff’s post about it. Hell, even Amazon.ca, where I get books online, only has two copies available. How’s Abraham supposed to make a go at it if Tor can’t even get his novel on shelves, physical and online? You’re telling me that booksellers weren’t interested in a young author, with great reviews, beautiful cover art and reviews who was publishing smallish novels on a near yearly basis?

    Certainly the winner of War of the Words won’t be getting a Rothfuss-like push, but who’s to say they wouldn’t get similar treatment to Abraham?

    You’re right, whoever wins the contest is going to have a book (possibly two) put on the shelves of bookstores (hopefully), which is a huge boon and miles beyond where the vast majority of aspiring writers will ever end up. Even if the deal with Tor doesn’t work out, it still looks great in your next query, being able to say you won War of the Words, but it’s always good to be aware of the intricacies of this kind of contest, that’s rarely in the favour of the actual winner over the person holding the contest.

    I suppose one argument is that even though writers like Abraham and Keyes aren’t huge sellers, they still make a living through full-time writing, and if the winner of this contest can achieve that, I can’t think of a better prize.

    One question, Mark. Would you ever sign a non-negotiable contract for one of your future manuscripts?

  • James (Speculative Horizons) July 25, 2009 at 9:03 am

    “As for James’s concern: “are Tor going to throw their whole weight behind the novel that wins this competition?” – Honestly, I don’t see why any publisher should chose to publish a book (costing, as Mark suggested at least 17.000 pounds) and then let it die. Sounds stupid to me.”

    And it sounds stupid to me as well. That’s not at all what I was suggesting. I was simply stating my concerns as to how much drive the publisher is going to put behind the book. As Mark has said, each publisher has to decide how to approach each of their releases – they can’t put the same amount of support behind each book. So my question is, are Tor going to treat this winning novel as if it is the ‘next big thing’? If I won the competition, would my novel receive the same level of support from Tor as, say, Mark’s novel? It’s just a matter of curiosity.

    “If it’s money that matters, then by logic having some money is better than having none.”

    The money doesn’t matter, not to me anyway. I’d just be happy to have my book published; I’m just playing the devil’s advocate. Because it’s fun. :)

    “To be honest, I’m flabbergasted by such a negative and critical response (until I realise that this is the internet!).”

    I echo Aidan’s sentiment here: I’m not being negative about it – I think the comp is a great opportunity for writers. It’s just interesting to dissect the contract on offer, because I bet 90% of the people who entered didn’t even bother to think about it.

  • Mark July 25, 2009 at 10:09 am

    So many points!

    Okay, the Rothfuss-like push is rare. Very rare. Do you know how little money there is to spend in publishing sometimes? The margins are frighteningly small – so much so you wonder why some publish at all. I can’t speak for Tor US (they’re separate to the UK division) .

    As for leaving them in the dust, do people really think publishers want their books to fail?! :)

    I’m sure there’s nothing an editor hates more than seeing his or her authors not sell well. There’s a severe amount of personal attention and care that goes into everything – this isn’t baked beans we’re selling here!

    I’m not sure what the deal is with Abraham, but as far as I understand the US industry, it works like this.

    Author’s Book A ships in 20,000 copies into stores at the publisher’s massive drive and chatting up of reps etc. There’s months of sweet-talking to get those orders in. But Book A sells 6,000 copies. When it comes to Book B, all the major chains will do is look up how many they sold of book A, no matter what the publisher says. Which means fewer, of course. When it comes to Book C, if book B has sold only a couple of thousand copies, there will be of course fewer of the next one, and so on. If folk have a problem, blame the stores and the buying system, not the publisher… They would love to get more copies in stores – but at the front end, you print to order. Thems the rules.

    The main things that matter though are:

    1) Good book cover
    2) Good book cover
    3) Good book cover
    4) Advertising
    5) Blurbs

    You get the picture. Nothing works as well as a good book cover!

  • Mark July 25, 2009 at 10:11 am

    Oh, that is unless point 4) advertising happens to be an IMMENSE budget. Which is so, so rare.

  • David I July 25, 2009 at 11:16 am

    Hi. I’m published by Macmillan New Writing, and at first glance this looks quite similar to the MNW contract (and might be identical; after all, Pan Macmillan owns Tor).

    In the MNW contract, “Net Receipts” is simply MNW’s gross income (less returns, of course; excluding royalties on books returned by the seller is, as far as I know, universal). They aren’t deducting costs. If they receive a dollar, I get 20 cents, period.

    There is rather less room for hanky-panky in this definition than in more typical publishing contracts, which have a royalty rate based on cover price…except for bulk sales to large-volume retailers like CostCo and Wal-Mart, which are at wholesale prices…and royalty escalators for sales above a certain volume, but excluding certain categories of retailers…and different royalty rates for paperbacks and hardbacks…

    As to the 50/50 split, some of the MNW writers have done very well indeed out of subsidiary-rights sales; even though they get “only” 50% of every dollar of income to MNW, this can still be a substantial sum, and Pan Mac has every incentive to sell these rights aggressively and for the highest possible price.

    If the writer retained the subsidiary rights, could their agent sell them for more than the writer gets from a 50/50 split? I dunno. How much clout does the agent have internationally? How well has the book done in the original printing? Does the writer really end up with more money after the agent snaps up 20% (which is what most agents charge for foreign-rights sales)?

    Discussions like this always remind me of a New Yorker cartoon that shows a writer at a cocktail party. He’s saying, “We’re still pretty far apart. I’m holding out for a six-figure advance, and they’re refusing to look at the manuscript.”

  • Janet July 25, 2009 at 11:46 am

    Whew! I opened a can of worms, didn’t I?

    I checked in with my New Writers friend and this was part of his very detailed reply: “The MNW contract gives royalties (20%) on the basis of the wholesale prices to the retailers. So MNW authors get 20% of the gross, unadjusted income.”

    If that’s what is meant by net receipts in this contest, I would jump without hesitation. 20% of wholesale receipts sounds like a very sweet deal.

    So all my best to whoever wins this.

  • aidan July 25, 2009 at 12:39 pm

    Mark – How I’d love to be able to sit down over a pint of beer or two and get to talk to you about this stuff in person.

    David I, Janet – Thanks for shedding a bit of light on all of this. It’s nice to get to learn more about a side of the industry that I’m woefully ignorant about.

  • Mark July 25, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    If you’re buying, I’ll talk all night. :) I guess I’m lucky since I’ve worked in the industry in a few different places, including the writer. Gives a decent bit of perspective – and I’m always happy to share/rant!

  • David I July 25, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    “Sure, but better to have an advance in the bank when the shit hits the fan, rather than a useless 20% royalty. At least that would soften the blow of seeing the book you’ve worked on for X amount of years going down in flames…”

    Well, true enough, if that advance is large enough for you to retire on.

    On the other hand, if you get a big advance and then the publisher only earns back a small fraction of the royalties, you have scant chance of ever publishing again. Poor sales are always bad news for an author, but poor sales plus big out-of-pocket losses for the publisher are the kiss of death for most writing careers–especially when the losses come from debut novels.

    Contrary to popular belief, pouring advertising dollars into a book only works if it happens to be a book the public wants already. There have been some real disasters. Back in 2006, Holt paid debut novelist Jed Rubenfeld $800,000 for “The Interpretation of Murder,” gave away 10,000 advance-review copies, conducted a major publicity blitz, and did a first printing of 185,000 copies. Six months after publication it was reported that the publisher had managed to move about 26,000 copies. I calculate that Mr. Rubenfeld’s unearned portion of the $800,000 was roughly $732,400; imagine what the publisher’s out of pocket was.

    A lot of folks claim the book was great. I haven’t read it, so I don’t know; but I’m not surprised I haven’t seen another novel from him in the stores…

  • Janet July 27, 2009 at 7:17 pm

    Victoria Strauss of Writers Beware gives this one a thumbs-up:

    “Generally speaking, where publishing companies conduct writing contests, the contract terms are often less favorable than if the writer had sold the book him/herself or via an agent. In this case, however, the no advance/20% net royalty/non-negotiable contract are features of Macmillan’s New Writing Program, so these aren’t new provisions.”

  • […] Become a published SF author! I was poking around and discovered this: An Aside | War of the Words: Win a publishing contract with Tor! – A Dribble of Ink | A Dribble of I… Victoria Strauss of Writers Beware gives this one a thumbs-up: “Generally speaking, where […]