Nina and a student have fun learning

Nina recently gave three substantial workshops for aspiring writers in the South Shore area of Nova Scotia, based on her Aurora Award-nominated writing guidebook, “The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now“. Held at the Bridgewater Library, Nina engaged and challenged students in an actively participated workshop to hone their skills as successful writers. Students participated in writing exercises, and had their stories, query letters and ”elevator pitches” critiqued.  

Her workshops, covered by Vernon Oikle in the South Shore Now, included:

Workshop No. 1, which was titled “Getting Started … and Finishing”. In this session, Nina shared the strategies and techniques she used to write, finish and successfully publish while serving as a full-time scientist, teacher and mother. The workshop reviewed common misconceptions in the writing and publishing industry and provided practical strategies to help aspiring authors succeed.

 Workshop No. 2, “The Art and Science of Craft”, covered several models of storytelling, and examined the interrelationship of plot and theme, setting and character in a book’s overall story arc. Nina explored the language of page-turning writing with examples on the use of the five senses, power verbs, use of dialogue and other writing techniques that will transform your page into a compelling read.

Workshop No 3, “The Science and Magic of Marketing”, focused on a different but critically necessary creative process in an author’s writing and publishing career – revision, marketing and promotion.

Response to Nina’s workshops was very positive. Here are some of the things students had to say about Nina and her workshops:

“Nina was engaging and inspiring in a low-key way, no hype, practical, good humour. This was a really pleasant and helpful experience. I was able to use specifics that were discussed to immediately improve my writing.”–Susie Buck
 
“Nina was very knowledgable, relaxed, personable, unpretentious.”
 
“I enjoyed it. I was intrigued. Nina put her heart into her workshop.”–Darlene Tong
 
“I found what I had been searching for a long time.”–Candice Croft 
  
“What you’ve done for me, Nina, is you’ve just opened up a whole new world. You’ve shown me how to put soul into my books … You’ve transformed me from what I considered an oddball to somebody special and for that it’s worth a fortune.”–Hectorine Roy

The series of workshops were filmed as part of “The Writers Toolkit” series and will be available for sale shortly. Go to www.ninamunteanu.com or here for news on availability and how you can get a great deal on the 3 DVD set.

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There is something terrifyingly daunting about writing and sending a succinct and compelling summary of your novel packaged in just a few pages. I had a right to be terrified. In some ways the synopsis is the hardest thing for a novelist to write. Yet it is the first thing most publishers and agents want (and have time) to see of your cherished project (aside from those sample chapters, of course). Every fiction writer who wants to sell in the current market must know how to write a synopsis because that’s what an editor wants to see first. Most editors (if they’re good) are overworked with scarce enough time to answer their phones, much less their mail.

There are several reasons to write that dreaded synopsis, and way before you finish your book, too. First of all, I’d like to dispel some common misconceptions about synopses:

A synopsis is NOT an outline. Both are useful to the writer, yet each serves a very different purpose. An outline is a tool (usually just for the writer) that sketches plot items of a book. It provides a skeleton or framework of people, places and their relationships to the storyline that permits the writer to ultimately gauge scene, setting, and character depth or even determine whether a character is required (every character must have a reason to be in the book, usually to move the plot). For writers just beginning, this is an excellent tool to keep the narrative spare and compelling and to remove superfluous characters and other things (a common beginning writer inclination). A synopsis, on the other hand, is an in-depth summary of the entire book that weaves in thematic elements with plot to portray a compelling often multi-level story arc. This is usually what an editor wants to see, although I have seen them request an outline as well. To put it basically, the outline describes what happens when and to whom, while the synopsis includes the “why” part.

There is no such thing as a “Killer Synopsis”; a synopsis that is so good it will sell the book outright. However, stories of such “fairy-tale” occurrences do continue to abound, like the myth of an “overnight success” (in which the author’s hard work in areas related are somehow overlooked). No publisher chooses to buy a book on the basis of a synopsis only. Such an event could only result from a combination of serendipitous factors, one of the most important ones being timing (luck) and what an editor is currently looking for in an imprint.

“Killer synopsis” aside, what a synopsis does (along with the sample chapters and extremely important query letter) is get your manuscript read by an editor. That’s the real purpose of a synopsis. An editor makes his/her decision to look at your manuscript based on these three items: query letter (intro to you), sample chapters, and synopsis. Ultimately, their decision resides with whether your project fits their own imprint at the time.

If that isn’t reason enough to write a synopsis of your novel, here are two others:

A synopsis of your novel goes beyond the outline to help polish elements of story arc, characterization with plot and setting with story. The synopsis can answer questions perplexing the author, stuck on a scene or plot item. It helps you weave your novel’s elements into a well-integrated story that is compelling at many levels. For this reason, it makes sense to write drafts of your synopsis as you go along in the novel; that way it’s useful to both you and to the editor and then it’s more or less written when you need to submit it along with sample chapters…and not quite as daunting a task either.

Lastly, your well-written synopsis is often used internally by the publishing house staff (e.g., by artist, copywriter, and sales department) once your novel is accepted.

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The Ultimate Rejection

Enduring and surviving rejection is part of every writer’s successful career. Rejection letters can be part of a writer’s toolkit to success. This comes from objectively perceiving them as opportunities in a long process of relationship-building and the business of writing and publishing.

Writers often witness an evolution in rejection letters as they learn more about their craft and about their markets. The ability to recognize the evolutionary steps can be useful in determining your next move in that particular market.

Below I describe one sequence of a manuscript’s evolutionary path. These don’t necessarily follow a chronological path for any particular manuscript; nor am I suggesting that your personal writer’s path will follow this particular pattern. Take these for what they may represent to you for any particular manuscript’s journey to success.

• Lowest form: the form-letter, with no name or signature—you get no information from this except that they’re probably swamped with submissions. File the letter and try them again with another story; you can even play a game of it to see how many submissions it takes to get “recognized”. Meantime send the rejected story elsewhere.

• Next lowest form: Personalized form letter with your name on it and a name and signature on it. Congratulations! You are now a person. And you will likely be remembered when you submit another story here.

• Higher on the Evolutionary Path: a form letter that includes a personalized note about your work and why it was rejected (often with an added comment about the story or your writing). You have made a mark. Try them again!

• Even Higher on the Evolutionary Path: a personalized letter that explains why your story was rejected—this says as much about the editor as it does about how they felt about your story; that they are taking the time to write to you and give you suggests means you are worth their valuable time. You have an opportunity to begin a relationship with this editor. Play fair.

• Highest on the Path: a personalized, perhaps even handwritten, note that specifies why they rejected your piece with suggestions for revision (and resubmission) or invitation to submit another piece. Congratulations! This is the beginning of a relationship. Revise and resubmit.

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Before you submit your “science fiction” short story to a magazine that publishes science fiction, it’s wise for you to know what the science fiction genre is. And what it isn’t. Richard Treitel provides us with a pretty good definition of science fiction: fiction set in a world that differs from our everyday world in a way that importantly involves science or technology. http://www.treitel.org/Richard/sf/sf.html . The following 5 points describe the genre of science fiction. Does your story embrace them?

1. Science fiction is the literature of change according to Hugo- and Nebula-award winning SF author Robert J. Sawyer. Usually something significant happens or is discovered that is science-based and has profound effects on the world.  John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids and Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Children are good examples of this.
2. SF literature is about ideas.  “What if” is a frequent premise that sets an often largely character-driven story toward resolving some deeper question about humanity, social behavior and evolution. “Good SF,” says Sawyer, “is usually about something very profound, such as whether or not God exists”—see Sawyer’s Calculating God, for instance.
3. SF is about something large. In keeping with “what ifs” and the deeper questions, science fiction— whether set on Earth, outer space or some other planet, dimension or universe—is usually multilayered and metaphorically portrays a large concept through a whole world.  World-building (and setting too), when done well, not only follows good science (see point number 4) but also encompasses theme and provides plot-issues to convey your theme.  In other words, the “world” you build is a main character. Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed provides an excellent example of this. So does Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris.
4. Science Fiction and Fantasy  are very different, antithetical genres, says Sawyer. SF stories are often created from a scientific premise; you can usually get there from here by following a premise based on some current scientific thought (albeit imaginatively). Fantasy is based not on science but on the fantastical (usually magic). It’s important to know what you’re writing.
5. SF literature must portray science accurately. Most science fiction readers expect that you will have done your research on how that gizmo works or that you carried out a logical extrapolation of the theory of relativity when using it in your SF story.

Okay, now go out and write!

Recommended Reading:

Munteanu, Nina. 2009. “Alien Architecture: Building from Scenes to Worlds” In: The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! Starfire World Syndicate. Louisville, KY. 5-18pp

Munteanu, Nina. 2009. “House or Home…Creating Memorable Settings” In: The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! Starfire World Syndicate. Louisville, KY. 71-79pp

Sawyer, Robert J. 2003. “Breaking into the Science-Fiction Marketplace”. In: The Canadian Writer’s Guide. Official Handbook of the Canadian Authors Association, 13^th Edition. 2003.

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When you sign a contract with a publisher you are granting them the rights to publish your work in one or many formats. These include print formats, film, television, audio, CD, and DVD rights, not to mention regional and language rights. It isn’t wise to sell your rights all at once (called “All Rights”), unless you’re going to be very well compensated for this. Because, once you’ve sold all your rights the work is no longer yours to do anything with.

“The grant of rights clause in a publishing contract is one of the most important clauses because it enumerates the specific rights granted to the publisher by the author,” says the Publishing Law Centre. http://www.publaw.com/subsidiary.html “Negotiation of this clause has become even more important in today’s world where increasingly more uses are being developed for literary content.”

In my recent contract with Dragon Moon Press, I granted them “First World Rights” to publish my novel, Angel of Chaos, for the first time anywhere in the world (often the rights you sell will be more regionally specific, like First North American Rights, particularly if it’s a short story to a magazine). Of itself, the First World Rights does not include the right to reprint an excerpt of my work in another format, such as an anthology, or as an ebook or audio book, or in another language—unless additionally specified in the contract, which Dragon Moon did.

According to the Publishing Law Centre rights negotiated in a book contract fall into two main categories: Primary Rights and Secondary or Subsidiary Rights. Primary rights include only those rights the publisher specifically intends to use. For the print publisher these rights normally include the book publication right for the original hard or soft cover edition and paperback reprint rights, and possibly foreign translation rights, serialization rights, book club rights, and the rights for special editions. Subsidiary rights are those rights that are, as the name suggests, subsidiary to the right of publishing the literary work in book form and include electronic rights, motion picture and television rights, audio book rights, audiovisual rights, merchandizing rights and dramatic or performance rights. Publishers typically ask for several of these in a contract and keep them in their pocket “for a rainy day”.

According to “Publishing Explained” a typical publishing contract will contain the following things:

• details of the book: format, print run, etc.
• obtaining ISBN and listings in national catalogue
• period the contract holds (years or copies sold)
• what happens after contract expires
• supply of galley proofs to author
• copyright issues: who is responsible for checking (often author)
• royalties to author depending on seller (author, publisher through bookstores, bookclubs, subsidiaries, etc.)
• when and how royalties are paid
• terms applying to author for copies (no. of free copies, discounts thereafter)
• advances (commonly 1/3 at contract signing, 1/3 on submission of galley proofs and 1/3 on return of proofs)—many publishing houses do not offer an advance these days
  how MS is submitted to publisher
• cost of unauthorized author changes to galleys ($/hour)
• responsibility for libel, copyright infringement (commonly author, who indemnifies publisher)
• any guarantees regarding copies printed or sold (generally none)
• what the publisher will do towards marketing
• what the author will do towards marketing

Subsidiary rights may be licensed to a third party, where you will get a share of the licensing fees. The matter is complicated, and you may want to reserve subsidiary rights until you get an agent, or have some experience working with the publisher.

According to several sources, including the Independent Book Publishers Association in Californa, the author “typically” receives:

• 80% from the First Serialization Rights (newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication prior to book publication); translation rights; and foreign language publishing rights
• 80% from Second Serialization Rights (newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication after book publication); syndication rights; photocopying and other reprographics rights, anthology, abridgement or excerpt rights
• 75-80% to translate a book into various foreign languages (Foreign Language Rights)
• 50% from any license to a book club (Book Club Rights)
• 50% for the publisher to develop an audiobook or to license to an audiobook publisher (Audio Rights)
• 50% for the publisher to license electronic book rights (Electronic Rights). According to IBPA the industry norm is that the publisher is entitled to create its own electronic version of the book (e.g., an e-book) and to license others the right to do so, but that interactive multimedia rights, which could be used to produce a CD-ROM, for example, are often reserved by the author
• 50-70% on the right to make non-book products such as posters, toys, games and other merchandise (Commercial / Merchandising Rights)
• 50% of the proceeds of any license granted to another publisher to bring out a reprint or other edition of the work such as hardcover version, anthology, large-print version, etc.
  90% of any proceeds from a television or movie, live theatre or other theatrical production, DVD, etc. (Performance Rights)

Something to keep in mind is that these percentages are only what’s “typical” according to several sources and they are also usually based on net receipts to the author. 100% of subsidiary rights licensing proceeds are credited against the royalty advance—in other words, the author only starts getting a percentage share once her advance has earned itself out.

According to “Publishing Explained” many book contracts now:

• Do not ensure publication: you consign your earning ability to another, and your book does not appear, even the modest advance being clawed back if the book is sold on to another publisher
• Stipulate that your next MS must be offered, completed, to the same publisher, who need not consider it immediately, can turn it down subsequently, and even change his mind if another publisher takes an interest
• Allow royalties (commonly only 8%) to be cut by half if the publisher sells through a big distributor
• Ditto if the publisher sells the rights to an affiliate
• Dispense with royalties if the publisher decides to make the book into a give-away ebook for publicity purposes
• Require the author bear the costs of any libel suits, whoever is at fault, which the publisher can settle without consulting the author
• Allow that option to be consigned to third parties, who need not defend the action
  removing last vestiges of author control.

Bear this in mind when you read that first contract. Take your time with it; show it to someone whose opinion you respect and don’t be afraid to negotiate terms with your publisher. Don’t forget that this first step establishes your relationship with your publisher; if you’re a push-over in this matter, they’ll expect you to be one in others too, like the book cover, marketing, etc.

Pretty well most book publishing contract start out something like this:

AGREEMENT dated ___________ between Joe Shmo (“Author”) and Bingo Press (“Publisher”) for a work by the Author now entitled: Joey Goes to Town. (“The Work”).
In consideration of the covenants and conditions contained in this agreement, the Author and Publisher agree as follows:

…then follow an average of 10 to 15 numbered agreements that include the items summarized above.

More information on publisher’s contracts, author’s rights and current trends in author-publisher relationships can be found below in my Recommended Reading section.

Recommended Reading:

National Writers Union. Provide a Guide to book contracts.
Author’s Guild. Advice on the book (and other) contracts.
What Writers Should Know About All-Rights. ASJA article.
Rights: What They Mean and Why They’re Important. Writing World article.
Electronic Publishing and the Potential Loss of First Serial Rights. One of many excellent articles on this lawyer’s site.
Publishing Tools. Includes example of author contract.
Society of Academic Authors. Their boilerplate contract.
Contract Issues: Books Published Online. NWU article.
Writers Forum. Many points of interest discussed.
Never Release Your Rights To Anyone. One of many WritersNet articles.
The “Standard” Book Contract: An Antitrust Lawsuit Waiting To Happen. Author difficulties.
Publishing without Borders: Strategies for Successful International Publishing. International rights issues: $25.
How To Be Your Own Literary Agent : An Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Book Published . Continually revised since 1983 printing.
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published. Third edition of this popular series: covers the basics well.

Labels: copyright, manuscript contracts, writing, writing contracts, writing fiction, writing tips

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