Business Musings: The Hybrid Learning Curve

In talking to hybrid writers, I did miss something. It only concerned a handful of writers, and most of them only wrote one series. These writers would email me after they had indie-released a new book or two in their existing series, and complain that the series wasn’t growing.

When these writers were traditionally published, the series grew well. Each book sold better than the last. Now, even taking into account the year or so of sales, the books sold at the same number of copies or less than the previous volumes had.

I couldn’t figure it out…

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Business Musings: The Agent Clause (Contracts/Dealbreakers)

This week, let’s deal with the clause that agents insert into your book contract with your publisher. (This is the book contract that your agent negotiated for you. Yes, I’m telling you the agent inserted something into that contract that benefits the agent, but doesn’t benefit you.) Agents have been abusing this clause for years now. Agents, not publishers, even though this clause is in a publishing contract between the writer and her publisher.

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Business Musings: The Reactive Business Model

As promised, I’m doing a lot of catch-up on the state of the publishing industry at the beginning of 2016. The reading is illuminating. Many things seem similar to the situation at this point last year, and many others seem so wildly different that it’s hard to believe only a year has gone by. I haven’t had time to read all I want to read, […]

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Business Musings: Writing by Committee

I had a shudder moment yesterday. While researching something else, I read a New York Times interview on leadership with Gina Centrello, president and publisher of Random House Publishing Group. (No, she’s not the head of Random House. Just a section of it.)  She mentions the importance of teamwork in the publishing industry. She’s running a huge section of a major company. Of course there […]

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Business Musings: The Freelance Scramble Part Two: The Actual Scramble

I initially promised you in last week’s post that we’d discuss the bleakest of the bleak moments in a freelancer’s career—when no one pays, for whatever reason—and we will, just not this week. Because I wrote the next blog post, and honestly, aside from depressing me, I kept alluding to other important things I would get to. Instead, I’m putting that post last or second-to-last […]

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