Question Week Answers, #1

Cary asked: “Can you tell us anything more about the killer unicorn book?”

Yes…and no. The book is entitled RAMPANT, and it will be on shelves in June of 2009. The book is a contemporary, Rome set fantasy about killer unicorns and the virgin descendants of Alexander the Great who are charged with hunting them. It incorporates real unicorn myths and legends from around the world, which you can read about by going to the “unicorn research” page on this site, Greek mythology, Alexander romances, and lots of European and Christian history. It’s a fast-paced fantasy adventure in the vein of Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy or Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series. The heroine’s name is Astrid and the bulk of the action takes place in a ancient monastery called The Cloisters of Ctesias, which is modeled after real churches and cloisters in the neighborhood of Rome in which its set.

I received an early take on cover copy, but I don’t yet have permission to share. I saw some outtakes from the cover shoot recently, and they are to-die-for gorgeous. I also have heard descriptions of the actual cover and the interior design and I cannot wait to get my hands on them for real. I also can’t wait until this book is on the shelves. It’s been a real labor of love and I’m bursting with excitement about this project!

Brenna K asks: “I know you are writing the books about unicorns for kids. Do you have any more adult books coming out, or non-paranormal?”

Next year will also mark the release of the last book in the Secret Society Girl series, Tap & Gown. After that, we’ll see! I definitely want to write more books in that vein, and I have a few projects in the works.

As for the unicorn book, it’s written for teenagers and I think fans of the Secret Society Girl series will love it. It’s more action-oriented, and somewhat darker than SSG, which are comedies, but it’s still a Peterfreund book, so all the trademarks will be there.

Lauren asked: What kind of book deal (advance, royalties, etc.) can a first-time chick-lit author expect? Also, what do you think about hiring a copyeditor to look over your manuscript before submitting it to an agent? Thanks!

That first question is actually a pretty complex one, so let me break it down into parts.

Royalty rates have very little to do with genre or how many books you’ve sold (unless you are one of those huge, huge authors like Stephen King or Michael Crichton who write tent pole books and can negotiate accordingly — if you are underwriting your publisher, you can probably get higher royalty rates. There are maybe a dozen authors in the world who do that). So, royalty rates vary VERY little by genre. Mostly by the format in which your book is published.

Most chick lit books come out in trade paperback. Standard royalty rates for trade paperback is 7-8% of the cover price. Sometimes (rarely) chick lit books are printed in mass market paperback, and more commonly, they are reprinted in mass market. Mass market royalty rates can be anywhere from 6-10% but standard is 8-10%. In many cases, contracts come with escalation clauses, which sound like this: “8% to X copies, 10% thereafter.” If your publisher puts your book out in hardcover,  your royalty rate will vary between 10-15% based on said escalation clauses. If your book is published in electronic format, royalty rates vary WIDELY depending on publisher.

Okay, now that we’ve got that behind us, let’s talk about advances. An average advance for a first time author publishing in adult trade paperback chick lit with a large NY publisher, last time I checked, was somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. HOWEVER (and this is a biggie), the last time I checked was 2004. Before the chick lit market crashed. Because I don’t know very many people who have sold chick lit for the first time since sometime in 2005, which is when I sold mine. The market crashed that summer. And most of the people I know who were writing chick lit are writing something else (YA, romance, urban fantasy, mysteries) or not writing at all. And most of the publishers publishing chick lit have stopped, or at the very least, stopped or cut back immensely on their chick lit publishing programs . I wasn’t at RWA this year, but it’s been several years since I’ve heard any editor or agent not at a YA house (most publishers of chick lit publish it through a program connected to their romance editors) say they were looking for chick lit. (People who were at RWA this year: has it changed?)

The market crash basically has two effects: the subsequent advance is either pretty big, because the author is bringing something to the table that is NOT the “average” chick lit (i.e. a platform of celebrity, etc.), or the advance is miniscule, because the publisher feels there is no market for the book and therefore, it won’t sell many copies. More likely, the advance is $0, because there is no offer for the book at all.

I hate to sound so discouraging, but the numbers aren’t pretty. Since April of 2005, when I sold my book, I know of about four non-celebrity, non-platform (in the “I’ve got a weekly column in the New York Post” sense) authors who have sold first time chick lit. In contrast, I know at least a dozen published chick lit authors who have been unable to get back under contract, and more than a dozen more who are now writing in a different genre (occasionally under a pseudonym). That means I know six times as many established chick lit authors who are unable to hold the market as I know people who have been introduced to it. Look on the bookstore shelves. Whose chick lit do you see? Candace Bushnell, Emily Giffin, Lauren Weisberger. The midlist is mostly gone. From a market perspective, if I were a first time author, the last genre I’d be trying to publish in is chick lit.

But maybe you’ve got the special book, and you’re the next Emily Giffin who will burst on the scene and hit the NYT bestseller list. Think big, I say! And if you have a chick lit book, there’s nothing to lose by trying to market it. But I don’t know what the market is for that kind of book at the moment, and I think the advances, even if you can sell it, will likely be far lower than they were a few years ago. Markets are cyclical, though, and I keep hoping they will uptick again in chick lit, because I love reading it!

As for your second question about hiring a copyeditor before you submit your manuscript….um, I guess so? I don’t see anything wrong with it, but I have never done it and I don’t know anyone else who has either. The job of a copyeditor is to check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes, as well as continuity or logic errors (e.g., “she was wearing a green shirt on page six and a blue dress on page twelve” or “how can he have one hand on her face, one hand on her breast, and one hand on her back?”).  I don’t think the occasional little mistake like that is a dealbreaker for acquiring editors, though of course if you have a ton of them, it is a symptom of a sloppy author and the editor might not be able to tolerate them long enough to see your story. (I know of at least one writer who never got anywhere with her great ideas because her grammar was so bad that the writing was unreadable.) You do need to attain a certain level of professionalism in your writing before your submissions will be taken seriously. Basically, the response you’re going for is “this is a typo,” not “this is an author who isn’t acquainted with standard English.” So I’m not really sure what the point is of hiring a copyeditor at that stage of the game, since no doubt your manuscript is as clean and spell checked and typo-free as it can be by your own hand.

Please note: this is what a COPYEDITOR does. A much more common question is, “should I hire a freelance editor?” (i.e., a book doctor). Jury’s out on that one. Personally, I’m against it, especially for a first time author. I think freelance editors have their uses under the following situations:

1) You are a celebrity, professional, or other non-writer who, because of their platform or profession, has a need to write a book despite their lack of writing skills. Therefore, you hire a book doctor to smooth over the rough edges.

2) You are a contracted author whose overworked publisher is not editing your books (yes, this happens) and you know this, and you need to substitute this. (Please note: this all starts to get very sticky when you get into the realm of vanity publishing, etc., so unless you’re a long established author with dozens of books under your belt, this will likely not apply to you.)

If you are a writer (i.e., your job is to make words fit together coherently), then the words you present to publishers for acquisition should be yours. Not the ones you hired someone to make for you. Especially as a first time author. What happens when your book doctored book gets bought, and then your second book comes in and the editor is like, “Um, did she forget how to write?” Or maybe the changes the freelance editor wants you to make will destroy the very thing an aqcquiring editor likes about the book? I’ve heard too many stories about ham-handed book doctors or scam book doctors or etc. I’m very very wary about the idea, even though I know there are well-respected book doctors out there.

That’s my (likely controversial) feeling on the matter. Far better than HIRING someone, I think, is to work (for free) with a critique group of other authors.

Lord, I’m really little mary sunshine today, aren’t I? “Chick lit is dead” “don’t hire freelance editors” “wah wah wah.” Sorry to be such a downer! The bottom line is that you need to follow your gut. If you feel your manuscript has a better chance if it has a professional eye on it, do what you need to do. Research THOROUGHLY. Get recommendations. make sure you aren’t being gouged. Editors can get PRICEY. I saw manuscript critique quotes recently in the $3k range. That’s going to be a huge chunk of your advance check right there. So it’s something to think about very very carefully.