One of my traditional publishers paid me in September. I was surprised. Not because I didn’t know about the money. I did. It was an advance for rights in translation for an entire series of books. I was surprised because the contract called for payment to arrive within 60 days of the contract’s final date…and lo and behold, the payment arrived just like it was […]
Business Musings: Author Earnings…Again
This week, though, I’m focused on Author Earnings, again. The October report examines “the rest of the ebook market.” In the past, Author Earnings only examined Amazon’s numbers and only from a “slice,” usually numbers spread out over an entire day. This time, Hugh and Data Guy looked at Apple, Kobo, Nook, and Google Play in the United States only. The numerical results surprised me as did, I suppose, Hugh and Data Guy’s personal conclusions.
Business Musings: Burning Bridges (The Freelance Scramble Part 5)
A freelance writer needs to be an artist and a businessperson. Sometimes those roles conflict. And sometimes we get put into truly uncomfortable situations. The most uncomfortable situations occur when we have to take drastic action on the business side, action that might have an impact on the creative side. In the old days, before indie publishing, that kind of action sometimes meant leaving projects […]
The Business Rusch: Addendums, Rights Grabs & Agents (Yet Again)
Recently, I got e-mail from another career writer, talking about a rights grab from a traditional publisher. I saw the document in question; it’s egregious. I do not have permission to talk about this particular document nor would I, since it’s proprietary, but it’s the kind of document I’ve seen at least six times in the last two years. These documents are addendums to publishing […]
The Business Rusch: The End of the Unprofessional Writer
On July 24, 2012, Canada’s The Globe and Mail published an article titled, “There Will Be No More Professional Writers in The Future.” The article cites a number of writers, from the ubiquitous Scott Turow to Ewan Morrison who, The Globe and Mail thoughtfully tells me, is “an established British writer.” Morrison says that the advances he’s received from traditional publishers have been slashed to the […]
The Business Rusch: Royalty Statement Update 2012
The Business Rusch: Royalty Statement Update 2012 Kristine Kathryn Rusch Over a year ago, I wrote a blog post about the fact that my e-book royalties from a couple of my traditional publishers looked wrong. Significantly wrong. After I posted that blog, dozens of writers contacted me with similar information. More disturbingly, some of these writers had evidence that their paper book royalties were […]
The Business Rusch: Royalty Statements
The Business Rusch: Royalty Statements Kristine Kathryn Rusch Imagine this: Pretend you run a very large business. The business has a lot of built-in problems, things not easily fixed. You’re aware of the problems and are trying to solve them. A decade ago, you actually had hope you could solve them. It will simply take time, you thought, but back then, your business was […]
The Business Rusch: How E-Books Will Save Big Publishing (Changing Times Part Four)
The Business Rusch: How E-Books Will Save Big Publishing (Changing Times Continued) Kristine Kathryn Rusch In my very first post in this long series of linked topics, I advised anyone who cared about publishing to keep up with the day-to-day industry news. I wrote that blog post in my spare time over four days and I noted: “In four days, some parts of the [publishing] […]
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