BFLA OPEN WEEK: DEMYSTIFYING MONEY

Written by Juliet Pickering

Money – and the earning of it as an author – is still a mysterious business. Maybe that’s partly because earnings can vary hugely from author to author, and book to book, so there really is no One Size Fits All. An agent will not know how much an author is guaranteed to earn on their first or next books (although they might be able to take an informed guess!) or throughout their career, at the point they begin working together with an author. There are so many variables (more on those later) that it’s usually impossible for an agent to say, ‘this book will earn us millions/peanuts!’. But as agents we are very aware that all of us have bills to pay, and we want to support our authors earning as much as possible.

In the world of non-fiction, there are often more tangible factors to support an advance for a book: the idea itself and how ‘of the moment’ it is – and, of course, the author’s platform as expert on the topic, if relevant: i.e. does the author come with a ready-built audience or following that might translate to book sales, which publishers can factor in when offering. But for fiction it can be hard to estimate potential earnings from the outset.

An author can have many avenues for income, and an agent works to support and increase those (see Roya’s piece on rights). Most authors will not only earn from their book deals but also from some of the following: TV/film/radio/theatre, events (speaking, panels, chairing), teaching, mentoring, judging competitions, writing articles for press and online platforms, and sometimes from brand endorsement.

As agents, we usually start earning for our authors with the sale of their first book to a publisher, most commonly in the UK. To give you an idea of the structure of a book deal and how you might earn from it (a very general idea! There are more detailed breakdowns on the Society of Authors’ website) let’s start at the beginning, and on home turf (in the UK!):

Once an author and their agent have worked on either a novel or non-fiction book idea to the point when it’s ready to submit to publishers, the book heads out on submission and money conversations kick off when a first offer is made by an editor.

An editor will usually let an agent know they’re keen on the book as soon as they’ve read it (or the proposal), and after circulating the book with colleagues to get their vote of confidence too, will take the book to an Acquisitions Meeting (held weekly at most publishers) to get sign off on offering from the many other people that matter: Sales, Marketing, Publicity, Digital, Audio, Production, and more; at smaller and/or independent publishers, decisions on whether to offer for a book might be taken by one or two individuals, instead, but with similar concerns in mind. Agents will use anything possible in their armoury to suggest the book is a potentially good earner, e.g. we will use the most favourable comparison titles in our submission letter to editors, to indicate to their sales team that this is going to fly, e.g ‘It’s THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB meets Jack Reacher’!

If the editor has the nod from all the relevant people in-house, they then go and look at £££ – often these take the form of predicted profit and loss sheets based on sales of similar published books, and likely costs of production – and cost up a financial offer for the agent and author. Traditionally, the editor then sends an agent ‘the offer’, i.e. the advance they’re willing to pay for the book, and the deal memo to break down the key terms of a proposed contract.

Deal memos usually include the following:

•  The grant of rights to the publisher: are they buying UK and Commonwealth rights to publish the book, and is that including or excluding Canada (a key market for the US publishers, so we tend to hold it back if separating out US rights), or is the offer for World English language rights (excluding translation), or World All Language rights (every country around the world, including translation rights)?

•  The main royalties the author will be earning on sales of the book in the UK, across print and e-book editions, and sometimes audiobook too.

•  The key sub-rights earnings, eg if the book is sold to a third party such as newspapers for extracts, or large print publishers for production of a LP edition into libraries. Most commonly there are splits on sub-rights sales that start at 50/50 and increase from there, e.g. if your UK publisher sold Large Print rights to a third-party large print publisher, you might see 60% of that advance payment paid to you under the terms of your contract and set against your advance, and your publisher would keep 40%

•  The advance and how it will be broken down into instalments. For example, if I receive a final and best offer of £10,000 for a novel next week (the 3rd week of March), here’s how those payment stages might look:

  Your 1st instalment will be paid on signature of the contract - once your agent has accepted an offer (subject to contract) on your behalf, it may then take a couple of months for the contract to be passed back-and-forth between publisher and agency, who often have a template agreement but might still negotiate or fine-tune your own contract until it’s ready for signature. In some cases, a substantial contract (American contracts can often run to 40 pages!) may take several months to get to signature stage. Let’s hope for a smooth conversation here and estimate signature in mid-May. Payment: £2,500, end May/early June 2022

  Your 2nd instalment will be paid on delivery and acceptance of your book. Although you will have an official delivery date in your contract, the exact timing of the release of your delivery advance can differ from publisher to publisher, and book to book: for many, the ‘acceptance’ stage may come when you have edited your book with your publisher to an almost final stage. For some (non-fiction) books, you may have to wait until the book has been read and approved by a legal team, or if you’re quoting a lot from other texts then you may need to wait for permissions for those quotes to have been cleared. For a few, your delivery advance might be paid not long after you first send the book to your editor: this is usually the privilege of more established authors who deliver and edit dependably! It’s generally understood that your book will be more-or-less ready to go to the printer at the point the delivery advance is released by your publisher.

  Let’s imagine in this case that the publisher wished to publish in spring 2024. In which case, the author might deliver an edited manuscript of the novel within a few months of signing their contract, it could go back-and-forth a couple more times, then be sent to a copy-editor and the advance instalment released at the point where the text is near-final. Payment: £2,500 December 2022

  Your 3rd instalment will be paid on first publication: whether hardback, paperback or electronic edition, your publication advance should be due to you as soon as your book first goes on sale. If this book is a debut novel, then publishers will often prefer a long lead time pre-publication in which to send out copies and get buzz going around the book, the lead time being the period between a first widely-shareable copy of the text and first publication date. So, in 2023 there may be no further income on this deal from the UK publisher, while proof copies of the novel are being sent out to generate excitement for the book and get anticipation growing ahead of spring 2024 publication. Payment on publication of hardback: £2,500, March 2024

  If there is a 4th instalment, it is most commonly paid on publication of a second edition, i.e. if you’ve had a hardback copy of your book published first, a paperback edition might follow 9-12 months later. Let’s assume here that paperback publication is spring 2025. Payment on publication of paperback: March 2025.
  

As your agent, we work to ensure that you’re paid as much as possible, and we discuss the payment stages with you at the point that publishers are offering so you have a realistic sense of when you will receive income from your book deal.

This is how your (UK) book deal might take a couple of years or more to pay out its full advance. As soon as the book goes on sale it will be earning royalties on every copy sold, which start chipping away at the £10,000 paid to you by the publisher. An advance is all yours to take and run with, once you’ve been paid it, but it stands as a figure to earn back via sales once your book is out in the world: put bluntly, this book will need to earn £10k via hardback, paperback, e-book, audio, and other methods, before you see any further income paid to you from your publisher. It’s still the case that most books won’t earn out their advances for a while after publication, if at all.

I appreciate that this isn’t exactly cheering news… So, in the meantime, we look to other revenue streams for our authors. We will try to sell many of our authors’ books into the US, too. It’s obvious that there is a big and healthy readership there, although we can sometimes be stymied by our books being deemed ‘too British’ or ‘too local’, meaning that not every book will work for an American readership. For instance, a beautifully-written grief memoir should be able to strike a note for readers everywhere, but the US will have scores of their own writers covering this topic too.

Our fantastic rights agents take our books overseas and press them into the hands/inboxes of editors around the world who might translate and publish them. Those additional deals in, for example, France, Japan, Brazil, Croatia and many more, will help to top up an author’s income and those deals can come at the most unexpected and welcome of times.

If the UK publisher doesn’t insist on taking audio rights off the table along with print (and many do), there might be the opportunity to place those with an independent audio publisher. Perhaps we could option film or TV rights, or even consider whether the book might work on stage. In a best-case scenario, we might be able to find our author and their book UK, US, audio and translation publishers, and sell TV/film rights to a production company. These advances would be paid out differently (translation and audio publishers often pay 50/50 on signature and publication; an option fee is paid in full upon signature of the contract), meaning further income for authors.

 And on those variables I mentioned earlier, here’s why income can be so unpredictable for our authors:

•  Publishing schedules

  We publish books into our own publishing seasons, as a general rule (certainly at the larger publishers): new fiction will arrive from Feb-July; self-help in January; most of the big names (John Grisham/Nigella) in autumn, when they can cut through the busy pre-Christmas period. So, a decision about when your book is published – and you receive your publication advance – will be made according to the time of year it’s likely to receive best publicity, and can fit into a publisher’s schedule of the many other books they will be publishing that year.

•  Genre
  An author may be publishing more than one book a year – for example, if writing romantic fiction and publishing a summer novel and a Christmas novel, like Sue Moorcroft. In that case, the author might be paid 2 x delivery and 2 x publication advances per year (+ signature advance if it’s a year there’s a new multi-book deal!)

•  Mid-list authors
  If an author has been published before, it can be more of a challenge to find them a new publisher, and if their sales haven’t been high then the likely offers on a new book will be lower. However, an author can be successful elsewhere in the world while their books sell more slowly in the UK, so there may be healthier income from a translation publisher.

•  Pandemics

  It’s perhaps unsurprising to learn that the Covid pandemic affected book sales hugely, and this has had a knock-on effect for authors and their income. Previously healthy retailers for books had to close or reduce their book stock – here and overseas – and we’ve yet to see high street and supermarket book-buying return to former levels, even though books have been selling in greater number as a whole. Unfortunately though, certain books and authors did suffer from being published during lockdowns etc., and there’s no doubting that their income was diminished as a result.

•  Multi-book deals

  Sometimes we’re selling more than one book to a publisher, meaning that the signature advance will account for two or more books at once being signed up, and an author’s income is a better-known quantity across the life of the contract. There are pros and cons to signing a multi-book deal as an author and agent, but if it looks like the best thing to do at the point of signing up the first book, then we’ll be setting out your income across an even longer period, and this can offer a tiny bit of stability for authors, in the short term.

It’s worth remembering as a final point that an agent takes commission on the deals they broker for you so for each advance payment the author receives, as a general rule their agent is taking 15% commission in the UK and 20% commission from any overseas deal (standard commission rates for UK-based literary agents). To make this absolutely clear: you should NOT be paying any ‘fees’ to an agent to represent you, we work on a commission-only basis. If you’re approached by an agent who suggests otherwise, it might be worth referring to the Association of Authors’ Agents to check they’re a member/legit.

I hope this piece is helpful: it’s tricky to try and cover all the nuances of an author’s earnings in one (overly-long!) post, but you’re welcome to pose us more questions about this online in our #AskAgent #BFLAOpenWeek sessions on Twitter. And, as an author, the best you can do for yourself is ask an agent questions about money from the very first meeting. As I say, we won’t be able to give you figures and dates at that point, but we will be able to talk you through how hard we will work to earn for you, and the potential extra revenue streams we predict could be successful. Remember: we don’t earn until you do, so we want that income just as much!

BFLA OPEN WEEK: What’s Right for Rights?

Written by Roya Sarrafi-Rohar

Many people don’t know what a literary agency does, and most new authors are no different. Some might have been surprised to learn that their manuscript’s journey to publication is likely to start with a literary agent (or assistant!), rather than with an editor at a publishing house, and wonder why that is. In response, an agent can explain all the things they do to help books find their readers and help authors build careers. But we can also explain it in more hard-nosed terms: an agent’s job is ultimately to sell rights. While this might not be the most exciting topic for an aspiring author, it’s helpful to understand what we mean by rights and why they matter.

An author will (usually) own the copyright to their work. A book deal (generally) involves an author granting the publisher a licence to print, sell and promote their work in book form, although many other rights might be included too: the author will still technically “own” their work, but the publisher has the right to use it in the ways made clear in their contract, and with certain conditions.

When we grant rights to a publisher, they are always defined and limited: they will cover specific formats and languages, across specific territories (e.g. UK and Commonwealth, or US + Canada), for a certain period, and each of these rights will be exclusive or non-exclusive. Rights can be split up by and agent and sold to different publishers, and non-exclusive rights can be sold more than once. This means that an author and agent can find lots of new sources of income from one book, in different territories, languages or formats, and can decide which publisher would be best for the book in each case.

What all this looks like in practice will vary a lot from deal to deal, and there are a lot of factors the agent and author need to consider when deciding what rights to grant or hold back. But in a UK book deal, the exclusive rights are most likely to be limited to the English language, in the UK and Commonwealth territories, for full term of copyright, in print, eBook and often audio formats too, along with certain other rights.  

If you have a UK book deal that looks like that, it means that the author and their agent have held on to a lot of other rights that you can sell elsewhere. You can sell rights to publish in the US to a US-based publisher, where they are probably best placed to sell the book to local readers, or you can sell French translation rights to a publisher based in France. If you have a licence term of 5-8 years, as you often do in audio or translation deals, you can renew or sell the same rights all over again after that term has expired.

It is a huge task to keep track of all these available rights, all the deals made, the various editors and publishers in the picture, as well as the trends in markets across the world – it’s extremely challenging for an author to do alone, and this is what a literary agency specialises in.

There are also other rights your agent might license, which don’t strictly involve publishing the work as a book. There are straight reading rights, for example, for when the work is abridged and read on the radio (for example, as Radio 4 Book of the Week). The most significant of these additional rights is probably film and TV rights, although that world works very differently to book publishing. Some literary agencies, including Blake Friedmann, have an in-house media department which can handle book-to-film deals for our authors.

All of this might make it clear why an author should care about what happens with the rights to their work – it can mean that they earn more money, that their book available to more people, and they have more control over what happens with their book/s.  

If an author has the option of a book deal directly with a publisher, and they are wondering whether it’s worth getting an agent, one thing they should consider is what will happen with all these rights if looked after by the publisher. Often, when an author deals directly with a publisher, many more rights will be granted to the publisher, as an unagented author can’t do much with them anyway. The publisher’s rights department might then sell the rights they aren’t exploiting themselves on to other publishers, such as audio or translation publishers. They will take a cut of the income from these sublicences and pass the rest on to the author.

In theory, you could get very good financial terms in a deal like this, if your work is with a publisher with an active rights department, meaning you are no worse off with a publisher handling these rights than a literary agency – but this is often not the case in practice. An agent is vested in finding as many revenue streams as possible for their author, and building them long-term publishing relationships around the world. A publisher may not have the same resources or financial incentive to sell rights. So if an author thinks their book can lead to lots of separate deals in different formats and territories, they are likely to be better off with an agent.

Of course, this is only one aspect of what an agent offers an author, and the decision whether to find an agent, and which, should be considered alongside the value of industry expertise, vision for the book/s and editorial input, not to mention the personal relationship between author and agent. We could be considered a little biased on this issue, but we have an incredible Rights team who are keen to see our books translated around the world and possibly even watched on screen!

BFLA OPEN WEEK: TOP TEN TIPS FOR SUBMITTING FICTION

Written by Kate Burke.

1. Finish your manuscript before approaching agents. If an agent likes what they have read (the usual submission material is a synopsis and the first three chapters but this can vary from agency to agency so do check each agency’s website), they will usually ask for more before making a decision, so it’s ideal to have the material ready to go!

2. Do your research online and in the Writers and Artists’ Yearbook before submitting to agents. Curate a list of agents who represent the genre you are writing in and whose list/authors you admire. Also check out their deals in the Bookseller, Bookbrunch, on Publishers MarketPlace, and other press outlets.

3. Tailor each submission email to that particular agent/agency – it gives it a personal touch which can go a long way.

4. Keep agents informed if anything happens with your manuscript (full requests, meetings, offers of representation). It’s a nice courtesy that is much appreciated.

5. Please don’t chase agents (unless it’s been a significantly long time). We know the waiting period can be difficult but we will get back to you!

6. It can help to read broadly and to know the market you’re writing for so it’s worth keeping an eye on weekly bestseller charts, reading the book review sections in the media, following what your friends or local book group are reading. Market knowledge is such a useful asset and can help you pitch your work in your covering email/letter.

7. If you’re comfortable doing so (no obligation), build up a network on social media, connect with writing communities using relevant hashtags on Twitter (amwriting, amquerying, askagent) as there’s a lot of help, support and information out there. Follow other writers as lots of them post valuable tips, threads and videos on writing and submitting, and on the publishing process in general.

8. Listen to feedback – even if an agent passes on your work, they might give you some constructive feedback that could prove useful when revising your manuscript.

9. No agency should ask you for money or charge you for editing your work. We – agents – work for writers and only take commission on payments that come in as a result of deals we secured for you.

10. If you are offered representation, read the agency’s client agreement carefully, ask any questions you may have before you sign with them. There is no rush and no agent should make you feel pressured or give you a deadline for your decision.

DANI ATKINS WINS RNA CONTEMPORARY ROMANTIC NOVEL AWARD

The biggest of congratulations to Dani Atkins who has won the Contemporary Romantic Novel Award in the 2022 Romantic Novel Awards for her captivating novel A SKY FULL OF STARS.

Launched in 2015, the Romantic Novel Awards celebrate excellence in romantic fiction and this year’s winners were announced during an awards ceremony at the Leonardo Royal Hotel London City, 8-14 Cooper’s Row, London EC3N 2BQ, on Monday 7th March 2022. Best-selling novelist Jo Thomas led the ceremony, whilst BAFTA-longlisted film producer Lizzie Gillett presented the Jackie Collins Award for Romantic Thrillers, and Eastenders actor Larry Lamb presented the remainder of the awards.

Dani is already a recipient of a Romantic Novel Award, with THIS LOVE winning the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2018.

A SKY FULL OF STARS was published by Head of Zeus in the UK in February 2021 and follows the heart-breaking story of a family shattered by tragedy.

Alex, overwhelmed by his responsibilities as a single father, doesn’t know how he’ll carry on without his beloved wife Lisa. However, when he meets four strangers whose lives were profoundly changed by her, he begins to realise the world may not be as cruel and senseless as it seems. Perhaps, after all, the future is written in the stars...

And, in further Dani Atkins news, Dani’s latest novel SIX DAYS will be published by Head of Zeus in hardback on the 14th of April. You can pre-order it here.

Praise for A SKY FULL OF STARS

‘The subject matter is sensitively handled though have tissues on standby.’ — Belfast Telegraph

 ‘A powerful story addressing issues of love and loss - and just a hint that perhaps fate has brought them all together for a reason.’ — My Weekly   

 ‘The queen of emotional love stories returns with another gorgeous read . . . Don’t forget the tissues!’ — The Sun

 ‘A beautiful story.’ — Bella

 ‘Dani Atkins' captivating story is a rollercoaster of a read, infused with heart-breaking tragedy and an uplifting sense of hope.’ — Woman’s Own

 ‘It is impossible to get through a Dani Atkins novel without shedding a tear – or 20 –and this rule very much applies to this, her latest heart-wrenching romance… A book about grief and loss that also has a strong feel-good element to it too.’ — Isabelle Broom, Woman & Home, ‘24 of the best romance books to read whether you're after love or lust’

About Dani Atkins

Dani Atkins was born in London, and grew up in Cockfosters, Hertfordshire. She now lives in a 350-year-old cottage with her husband, one Siamese cat and a very soppy Border Collie.

Dani has been writing for fun all her life but, following the 2013 publication of her novel FRACTURED (Head of Zeus), she has made writing her full-time career. FRACTURED has since been published in sixteen languages and has sold more than half a million copies since first publication in the UK. In 2018, THIS LOVE won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award at the RNA awards in London.

Follow Dani on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Buy A SKY FULL OF STARS here.

Blake Friedmann Online Open Week for Writers

From Monday 14th March, we will be opening our virtual doors with a week dedicated to demystifying publishing and agenting, and supporting writers seeking representation. With live #AskAgent sessions, Top Tips videos, agent blogs and book giveaways running across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, our goal is to offer insights and transparency: into how book deals work, how to navigate the submission process and find an agent, how an author and agent work together, understanding the publication process, and earning income as an author. All of us (Isobel Dixon, Juliet Pickering, Kate Burke, Samuel Hodder and Sian Ellis-Martin) will be actively involved throughout the week, and we hope to answer as many questions as possible from writers (published or querying) or anyone wanting to get into the industry.

Alongside this, we will be offering three writers feedback on their submission packages with a twenty-minute virtual meeting with Associate Agent Sian Ellis-Martin, in April. More information on how to submit for this opportunity will be revealed during the open week so do check back here.  

Kate Burke said: ‘We hope that our first Open Week will be useful, insightful and encouraging to writers, those who are right at the heart of publishing and the world of books. We are all committed to being accessible at Blake Friedmann – and to supporting writers who worry that the publishing industry is inaccessible to them. It’s clear – from social media and the questions our agents hear when they talk at schools, writers’ groups and festivals – that people still have a lot of questions about what agents do and how it all works in terms of money, deals and rights. So, for some time now, we’ve been thinking about how we can help demystify these topics in an honest and engaging way, using our own public platforms. We want to encourage anyone who is writing to submit to us by being transparent about who we are as an agency and as individual agents and hope that our Open Week will spark conversation, give practical guidance and inspire new writing, and that we’ll be able to repeat this week annually in the future.’

Throughout the week of 14th of March, you will find new content posted here and on our social media channels: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to get in touch, please use the hashtag #BFLAOpenWeek . This author-focused endeavour follows our ongoing Carole Blake Open Doors Project, launched in 2017.

All the content and resources provided during this Open Week are free but, if you are able to make a donation, please give to the Red Cross (https://donate.redcross.org.uk/) or the DEC (www.dec.org.uk/) in support of the Ukrainian refugee crisis. Thank you!