Re: Submitting is easy once you stop thinking about it

"Frank" <frankzafiro@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1129220841.205915.88740@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> The strange thing is, their bestselling (and sole) author is supposed
> to have sold over 150,000 copies of his debut novel. And he's written
> about nine or ten more.

Based on whose count? If he sold 150K copies of his first novel, he ought
to be showing up on bestseller lists, the Amazon rankings, and various other
fairly-easy-to-verify places. Assuming he does, I am incredibly surprised
that he's still with a small press...

....unless, as mentioned before, the small press is his personal tax dodge.
Which would explain the contract -- by assigning pretty much all rights to
the corporate entity, the money doesn't flow through his tax forms. If it's
a partnership, he can still take what he needs as "draw" without paying
income taxes on what he leaves in the company, and the company can deduct
all sorts of things as expenses in order to reduce its taxes. If it's a
corporation, he gets his royalties (which, at 150K copies a book, should be
*plenty* to live on) and double-taxation on dividends, but depending on how
it's set up, he still has a lot of control over the overall income stream,
which can do a *lot* to smooth out tax payments.

Oh, and if they have an author who's written nine books and routinely sells
150,000 or more copies, they shouldn't be having the kind of cash flow
problems that could justify a paltry $100 advance. They're just being
cheap. Assuming, of course, that their figures are good.

Sorry -- you punched my "former accountant" button...

> Now, going into this, I knew "I'm not him" but just being published by
> a press with good enough distribution to sell that many copies was
> attractive. And if people came to the website to check out his books
> and even just 10% tried mine, I could be well on my way to establishing
> a readership.

Having some minor experience with a small press, I *very* much doubt that
the press itself has distribution this good. What is more likely is that,
because they have basically got "all rights" under their contract, they
*sub-contracted* their distribution to one of the big publishing houses, the
way Baen Books does. Even at 150K copies per book, nine or ten books just
isn't enough to support that kind of distribution organization.

"If something looks too good to be true, it probably is."

Patricia C. Wrede


.

Loading