Lost Weekend

I’m sick in bed with some sort of food-poisoning, or perhaps sudden-onset lactose intolerance, but that doesn’t mean that *you* should be deprived of my luscious blogging.

Ooh, the other fun thing I’ve been up to this weekend is taxes. Taxes for writers are a very complex situation. I’ve previously blogged about how horrific I find it, and that was back when I was doing freelance journalism and getting a check every week. I think they might be even more horrific when it’s a book and I’m getting a check every six months or so. Writers all over the web are aksing about how to handle this or that. I did some searching and came up with some helpful places to start. Of course, I’m not an accountant, but this did clarify for me how much I need one, and explained some concepts that I’m glad to understand:
http://tarakharper.com/k_tax.htm
Tax Aspects for Writers
http://www.absolutewrite.com/freelance_writing/tax_tips.htm
http://www.forwriters.com/taxes.html
http://mzbworks.home.att.net/deathtax.htm
http://www.hackman-adams.com/articles/taxes.htm

In other news, SFWA’s fabulous scam sleuths now have their own blog: Writer Beware Blog. I was recently reading a post there that made my hair stand on end. In it, a writer signed with an agent who not only charged her $350 bucks to read her manuscript, but also hit her up for an $8,500 “retainer” on top of covering all the agent’s office expenses (telephone, Xeroxing, postage, etc.) and a 20% commission. All of this was spelled out in the contract, which the author signed anyway. The “agent” then proceeded to send the manuscript out to inappropriate publishers, including that old standby, PublishAmerica. (Of course, what is 20% of what you have to pay them?)

Writer Beware sleuth Victoria Strauss posits:

Some of you may be thinking, “How ignorant was this writer?” or “Only idiots give their money away.” But this writer wasn’t ignorant or stupid. She’d done her research, and knew that fee-charging wasn’t kosher. She’d also spent nearly two years submitting her ms. to established agents without success, and had decided that “it was impossible for a new author to get an agent” (her words). This is what desperation will do to you, folks. Think it can’t happen to you? Think again.

Actually, yeah, I do think it can’t happen to me. Because there’s desperation that causes bad decisions and then there’s desperation that causes really, really bad decisions. And I’d like to think that however, desperate I got, I wouldn’t pay someone almost 9k when I knew that there was nothing they could do for me. If I had an extra 9k, I’d think of what it could do for me. Maybe I could take a class in craft or something. Local community colleges have excellent classes in writing and they are usually a few hundred dollars or less. I’d go to a workshop or twenty. I’d buy out the “writing” how-to section of my local Barnes & Noble. I woudln’t pay someone I knew going in was scamming me. That’s not just ignorance. That’s willful ignorance.

And yes, I think that particular writer was acting idiotically. New writers get agents all the time. Most of my writing friends are or were “new” (read: unpublished) writers when they first got their agents. I was, Colleen was, Jana was, Shannon was, Marianne was, Marley is, Cheryl is… the list goes on and on. If she’s not getting an agent, the answer isn’t paying someone several thousand dollars for a thin veneer of “legitimacy.” It’s to write a better book.

Is that “easy for me to say?” Yeah, actually it’s very easy for me to say that you should never, ever, ever, ever pay $9,000 upfront to an agent. It’s easy for me to say now and it’s been easy for me to say ever since I found out how a literary agent works, a good four years ago. The agent doesn’t get paid until you do, and then it’s a percentage of that payment. That’s it, that’s all, finito.

I know what it’s like, the first time an editor or agent says “contract.” It’s magical. It’s intoxicating. It’s writerly heroin. Even if it’s not the best contract, even if it’s not what you wanted for a career, it’s total temptation. But is it worth $9,000? Not if you know, from your two years of experience, that it’s not going to give you anything more than a word.

I’m a huge advocate of getting an agent. If you see me around the web, you know that my usual mantra is “get an agent, get an agent, get an agent.” I really think that a good agent will completely change your career. The absolute best thing you can do for your career is to write a good, marketable book. The second best thing you can do is get a good agent. Everything, but everything else, comes in behind those two, as far as I’m concerned.

But not just any agent will do. And no agent that operates like the one described above could POSSIBLY be a good agent. They are making their money from you upfront. Why should they bother to sell your book?

Okay, back to imagining a life without cheese…