posted
I have been writing a number of short stories of late, with a mythological aspect to them. They're essentially tales of how things in the world came to be, but in a tone and viewpoint that is in line with the beliefs of people who follow Nature-based religious paths.
At a recent convention, I was talking with someone about one of my stories, and a man introduced himself as a small-press publisher. He's overheard what I was saying about my stories, and he wanted to review a couple of them for possible publication.
He liked the two stories I sent him (2500 and 3000 words, respectively), and he wants to publish. The offer he's made me is this:
$100 per story advance at publication time, plus 20% of the retail price of books sold (paid quarterly), plus 25 copies of the book for myself.
I'm not really specifically in this for the money, and I know that I'm not going to have piles of cash to roll around in, especially if I go with a small-run publisher like this. But I'm completely new to the idea that someone actually wants to publish my work, and I don't want to end up taking a bad deal just to see my name on the spine of a book.
posted
Yep, $100 for a 3000-word story is equivalent to over 3c/word, and if you are getting royalties on top of that, it seems like a pretty good deal.
Posts: 1469 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I don't have much experience with small-press publishing, but that sounds like quite a good deal. I would check into that the offer of 20% of royalties. If your stories are two out of many, how is he going to make the same offer to every writer? He's going to get over 100% pretty fast.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
What does the contract look like? What rights is he buying and when would your rights revert to you? The money looks fair enough, but it is good to get the details of the contract and when you get the rights back hashed out. Without knowing that information it is hard to say if this is a good deal or not.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Nov 2010
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posted
Also, did you check to see if he had any other books published, just to see some kind of career history on his part that would lend some legitimacy to him?
I hate to sound paranoid, but there are just so many scammers out there. Just better to be safe than sorry.
posted
I am totally ignorant regarding this, but I wonder (if it matters) what kind of rights the publisher is getting, and for how long.
Posts: 406 | Registered: Mar 2007
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These would be stories for a younger set, illustrated, one story per book, so the 20%-per-author thing isn't an issue (thanks, Jennifer, for pointing that out). There might be some royalties for an illustrator, depending on the deal with them, or he may go flat-fee for art; I don't know.
He does have a couple of other books published, but this is a *very* niche market, so we're talking print runs on the order of under a thousand. Probably closer to 500. If he's being honest with me (and I'm going to assume for now that he is), previous titles have sold between 400 and 600 copies.
One of the reasons for that is probably that he's not the most tech-savvy guy in the universe, and he has no skillset to put together something like an online store for the books. As it happens, web development and web hosting is something that I do, so this might develop into a partnership rather than a straight-up rights deal.
We haven't yet gotten to the point where there's a contract on paper; we're talking about ideas right now. When we get to that point, I'll push for selling print rights only, and see about a revert clause. I don't expect that this guy is going to try to screw me on rights; call it a gut feeling. And if it turns out that he does play silly buggers with one of the stories, that's one out of many:
These stories are part of a whole mythological series for pagan youngsters; some of them have been read (by my wife) at Fertile Ground Gathering (a Beltane festival in the Washington DC area) as bedtime stories for the kids, as well as told (by me, from memory) in Bardic Circle at the same Gathering. There are twelve stories in the series so far, but the muse has been talking of late (two new ones in the past two weeks alone), and I don't expect her to slack off any time soon.
Since the pagan paths are growing faster than any other religious sector at the moment, and since that means more kids, I don't see the market for this type of story going anywhere but up.
posted
Grovekeeper- if you do publish, you'll have to link up here. I have some pagan friends who would probably like that. Though I wouldn't limit market to pagans. If the story is good, myths work for everyone (like Percy Jackson ).
Posts: 232 | Registered: Apr 2010
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These stories were written as a resource for pagan families, but the response from non-pagans who have read them has been very positive, because they're really just myths. As you say, a good myth can be meaningful to anyone.
I've even gotten a number of very positive personal replies from mainstream agents, though none of them have actually wanted to represent me.
With the clout of being the co-founder of one of the larger and more stable pagan groups in the DC area, which (coincidentally) runs the largest Beltane festival in that area, I might actually be able to pull off getting a successful company together that would need a stable of pagan authors.
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