I was asked for some advice recently, about authors and blogging, which made me think (never a good thing), and from which I compiled the following list

1. Never say rude things about your publisher online, even if they are irritating, slow, inefficient, unprofessional and flat-out unbelievable in their dealings with you. Even if every word of your tale of woe is true, they don’t think they are any of those things and they will demonstrate their resentment of your poor opinion of them by dropping you like a hot brick.
2. Never diss editors. (See Rule 1). Editors may not have the power to kill your writing career yet, but they move on. They move up. They remember.
3. Never blog about your bowel movements (unless you’re writing a medical blog about IBS symptoms)
4. Never rant about how much you deserved an award (whether you won it or not). Humble is good. Even if — in your heart of hearts — you believe your work is the greatest literary masterpiece ever committed to paper, it is uncool to say so. Shock, delighted surprise and humility are the best reactions. Fake it, if you have to.
5. Never identify friends and family without their permission. You can be the biggest publicity-hungry media-whore on Earth if you want, but your friends and family are not you. They deserve their privacy.  Blog about them by all means, but do not identify them by name, where they work, link to their Facebook page, advertise where they hang out, or post their cell-phone number without their permission. It is the short road to losing friends and pissing off family.
6. Never blog endlessly about your chronic flatulence issues. Too much information, dude. The same goes for most ongoing non-life-threatening conditions. You will get sympathy at the outset for the poor quality of the pedicure that caused your problem, but after a while, blogging every other day about your ongoing (and mind-numbingly boring) battle with the yellow spotty fungus that is discolouring your toenails will turn people off.
7. Never provide specifics about how much you earn. There are some out there who think authors should talk about their income to get rid of the popular fallacy that all publishing deals are six-figure windfalls that will set you up for life. My approach is more pragmatic. There is a vast difference between an author's gross income and their net income due to things like currency exchange, tax-deductible expenses (of which I am an awesome collector), commissions, and a million other little things that go into calculating our earnings. So, do I brag that I grossed a million bucks last year, or explain how I finished up with a taxable income of $127? My solution – neither. We simply will not speak of it again.
8. Never blog about cleaning the kitty-litter tray. I mean... what’s to say?
9. Never attack reviewers who didn’t like your work. It’s OK to blog about the reviews, but it’s dangerous to start attacking reviewers. I will point out factual inconsistencies if they exist in reviews of my work, but I’ll do that for the good reviews as well as the bad. If the review is particularly silly, I might also question the credentials of the reviewer. I believe a reviewer's credentials are fair game, because when you set yourself up as a critic you are claiming some expertise in that area, so you should be prepared to stand by your opinions and back it up with something, like, you know... a basic command of the English language, for example. But the bottom line is, reviews are just reviews. They will be good and bad. Suck it up.
10. Never blog personal attacks on other authors. It’s OK not to like another author’s work; it’s not OK to diss the author. I am not a fan of Dan Brown’s books, but I’m sure he’s a very nice person and I am in awe of his storytelling ability, even if I’m not a fan of his writing style. I could (but I won’t) list a score of other writers whose work leaves me cold. That doesn’t make the authors bad people, it just means I’m not a fan. As some readers have trouble understanding the difference between a person and their work, it’s best not to give them any fodder for their paranoia.
    

 After my post on advances the other day (which blew my daily average hits out of the water...LOL) I thought I'd share this excellent article by Catie Murphy from magicwords.com about publishing your own work, which is known in the industry as the "vanity press" for very good reason.

It is true some notable exceptions have made it to the mainstream via this route, but the reason you hear about them is because they are so rare.

Hope you find the article helpful.


Meanwhile... don't forget to book...

In response to a question in the comments a couple of days ago, I am going to give you a brief overview of how advances work. Please bear in mind that these are generalities, and that for every rule there is an exception.

When you sell a book to a publisher, they advance you a proportion of the anticipated sales, so you can do useful things like, you know, eat.

It's called an "advance" because that's exactly what it is. An advance on your earnings. That means you don’t get another penny until you've earned it. The publisher buys the rights for the territory you have sold them and they agree to pay for editing, cover art, printing, distribution and marketing etc, which is why they get a bigger bite of the pie than you do.

So, let's do the math...

Suppose you sell your first book for an advance of $9,000 (which is probably generous for a first time unknown genre author. Celebrities and ex-presidents are the only ones who get 7-figure advances for a first book).

That $9,000 is broken down (roughly) in to three parts: one third on signing, one third on delivery and one third on publication.

So, you sign your contract (assuming you were accepted on a completed MS) and you'll get a cheque in the mail for... $6,000.*(If you've sold on synopsis, you'll get a cheque for $3000, the other $3000 to be paid when you deliver the completed MS.)

Less, of course, your agent's fee (if you have one) of (approx) 15% - $900.

You now have $5100 ( yay!) on which you owe tax ** (not yay!).

The other $3000 (less commissions and taxes) you'll get when the book is published, which might be over a year later.

Before you get another cent, your book has to sell enough copies to cover what the publisher has already paid you. Usually an author gets between 5 and 15% of the cover price. For the sake of this argument, we'll assume 10% which is common in Australia. Let's also assume that the cover price of your book is $20.00.

That means you're earning $2.00 per book sold.

So, to sell out your advance of $9000 means you have to sell 4500 books.

Let's assume you sell 5000 books in the first six months. Royalties are calculated six monthly, so if your book has sold 5000 copies, you will have earned $10,000.

But you've already been paid $9000 of that, so your royalty cheque is $1000 (less tax, agent's commissions, etc).

Subsequent cheques will reflect the sales in each six month period, bearing in mind that most books spike in the early months after their initial release. Royalties are calculated from Jan-Jun and Jul-Dec. You will not get paid, however until at least 3 months after the end of the royalty period and often much longer.

Selling a series is a little different. You'll get a larger advance (for more books) and the signing payment will be bigger but the breakup of the remainder will reflect the multiple delivery and publications dates and it may take you several years to collect. If the publisher "bundles" the advance, you have to earn out the whole thing before you get any royalties, rather than each book earning out its own advance.

If the first book tanks, the publisher has the option not to publish the subsequent books. You keep the advance you have, in this case, but you don't get the future delivery or publication portions of the advance.

There is also a trend now with some publishers, I've been told, where they offer no advance, but a higher royalty to compensate. I'm not sure how this works, but I know it means you earn only what you sell and nothing up front, so you might have to spend up to 2 years living on the dole before you see any money from your runaway bestseller. :)

You usually don't have to return an advance if the book fails to earn out (although you'll find it harder to get published again). That's the risk the publisher takes and the reason you're unlikely to get a 6-figure advance unless you're a known quantity. Nobody can predict how well a book will do. Ask anybody who rejected Harry Potter.

On signing a contract, your payment may take a while to arrive. My record is three weeks. My worst is three years (seriously). So don't go ordering the Beemer until you have the money in the bank.

I hope this clarifies this a little for you. I get asked this question all the time, but please, don't take anything I have written here as gospel. If you have a sale looming, check with someone like the Australian Society of Authors (or the peak professional body in your country) for proper advice.



*The publisher may also deduct income tax from your advance if you do not have a company, but I do, so I'm not going to go there. I get my advances paid in full, plus GST, and then pay my accountant an obscene amount of money to sort it all out at the end of the financial year.

** Unless your accountant charges obscene amounts of money to minimise your tax liability down to diddly squat...hehehe

It's getting closer...

And I need to know how many workbooks to print!

What the World Building Master Class is all about:

Speculative Fiction Theory

• Familiarisation 
• Defamiliarisation
• Novums 
• Refamiliarisation

Crafting the Physical Landscape

• Physical attributes & catastrophes
• Tides & ecology
• Resources (energy/mining)
• Map making  

Building the Sentient Landscape 

• Physical perception
•  Anthropomorphising your characters
• Character perception (world view)
• Cosmology & mythology
• Character evolution

Building Civilizations

• Who’s running the place (politics)
• Who’s really running the place (bureaucracy) 
• Economy & settlement patterns
• Transport 
• Measurement 

Science & technology

• Wars & weaponry
• Reproduction & Family life
• Magic

So... that's what you get. See you there, fellow megalomaniacs worldbuilders.

You can book through the Ticketek link below.

Supanova in Sydney and Perth is almost on us again, so if you're interested in attending the World Building Master Classes at all, it's time to book your tickets now!

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