Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Carolyn Reidy addressed publishers at the Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association CEO Symposium and Publishing University in Illinois last week.  She stated that because of a combination of things "significant decrease in retail traffic, less consumer purchasing, a gloomy economic forecast, declining backlist sales, brand name authors continuing to sell but 'everything else is far off normal levels,' and retail partners who demand more favorable terms and concessions 'as if we are the answer to their problems…'" Reidy suggested trying to eliminate returns (not customer returns by retailers returning books to publishers) and a "consortium model for the distribution part of the supply chain."  She noted that marketing would need to change.  "[N]ow we have the chance to actually find the reader where they are spending their time�in front of a screen�and cement a relationship with them through e-mail newsletters, viral marketing, mobile delivery and other tools.” Other interesting things Reidy pondered was the threat of self publishing.  When would a major author go out on his or her own.  Distribution is always a problem for self published authors but could a major brand name author take the 60-70% royalty she's giving …

Simon & Schuster is partnering with Macmillan Publishing Solutions to deliver over 500 Simon & Schuster books to any “web-enabled mobile phone.” Titles will include “The Secret”, Star Trek books, Nancy Drew mysteries and Ernest Hemingway stories. The plan is for all S&S ebooks to be available through the service.

My suggestion? Get your YA books on the service. I don’t know a kid beyond the age of 12 in my neighborhood that doesn’t have a web enabled phone. As for me, I don’t even know how to access this Global Reader platform so I hope that the S&S promotions give us some idea of how to connect to S&S.

Via Publishers’ Weekly.

Simon & Schuster has sent out an amendment to authors which purports to add a provision setting the standard royalty rate at 15% of the catalog retail price for e-books. The Author’s Guild sent out an alert to instruct authors of three things:

members should discuss the amendment with their attorney or agent; warns that, depending on a member’s particular contract with S&S, the amendment may grant S&S rights that otherwise would be retained by the author; and notes that members should be aware that the amendment may affect their ability to obtain a reversion of rights.

15% is fairly low given the high margins of profit for the publisher. Standard e industry royalties range from 35%-45%. Simon & Schuster has tried before to gain advantages above and beyond the standard contract and were not totally successful.

Via Publishers Weekly.

The non fiction self help book by Joel Osteen, Become a Better You, helped to provide Simon & Schuster with good numbers in the fourth quarter. The Secret is still selling strong and it’s sequel, The Secret Gratitude Book, is set to be on shelves in December. Sales were up in all divisions resulting in a 9% gain in total revenue ($214.2 million). There was good growth in profits despite a good number of dollars being invested to convert ALL OF ITS TITLES to digital formats with an estimated 13,000 titles being converted by the end of 2007. Oh, Simon & Schuster, how do I love thee? Converting all of your titles and making them 35% off? You go on with your bad self.Simon & Schuster has had a great year with sales up 16% and operating profits up 90%.
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HarperCollins revenue for the first fiscal quarter (ending Sept. 30) was down $38 million from the first quarter 2007. The decline was based on the lack of childrens’ book sales such as Lemony Snicket and Chronicles of Narnia which boosted sales last year. Despite the …

Gathers.com, Simon & Schuster and Borders collaborated to run a writing contest that resulted in two well received mystery novels published in September 2007. Currently, the same three companies are running a writing competition for romance novels.

Amazon must have seen the benefit of this and joined with Penguin and Hewlett-Packard to host “Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel” award. The winner will be awarded with a Penguin contract and an advance, $25,000, and a 50″ plasma TV and Digital camera from Hewlett-Packard. Gather.com’s prize money was only $5,000.00.

Only the first 5000 manuscripts will be considered for this contest and submissions are accepted from October 1 through January 14th. Like the Gathers contest, Amazon readers can rate the semi-finalists with the customers choosing the winning novel in March 2008.

Link for submission here.

Coming on the heels of the Samhain announcement on Monday of the joint venture with Kensington that will see a Samhain imprint as part of the Kensington line, is the news that Ellora’s Cave will be upping the number of books to be published and distributed through Simon & Schuster.

Pocket Books began releasing Ellora’s Cave anthologies beginning in 2006. The first one was, All She Wants, with Jaid Black, Shiloh Walker and Dominique Adair. It was a Christmas anthology and was featured as a “Hot Read” in Cosmo magazine.

Currently, 20+ authors are involved in the Simon & Schuster/EC partnership and more will be include as the 2008 line up will expand to single titles. Last week, the two parties met at BEA to discuss the future of the relationship. The anthologies have been well received and they agreed to produce 13 more anthologies (for a total of 39 more novellas). Pocket pays Ellora’s Cave and EC is responsible for paying the royalties to the authors. Ellora’s Cave acquires, edits and chooses the books for inclusion in the publishing program with S&S. There has …

Two weeks ago I blogged about how Simon & Schuster was treating authors like abusive husbands: giving authors poor treatment but leaving them too broken to actually leave. Now it appears that S&S is going to kiss and makeup. The publishers are all grumbling at S&S for giving in so soon while bottles of champagne are being sprayed around the offices of the Author’s Guild like the locker room of a division champion. (Obviously this is my interpretation of what is happening and given that I am blogging at 12:10 am, you’ll have to forgive my departure from lucidity).

Calling the rights grab attempt as an “early miscommunication”, Simon & Schuster will now negotiate a “revenue-based” threshold to determine the book’s “in print” status. Somehow I still think that the midlist authors are going to get screwed here, but I guess if the author doesn’t have a lawyer or agent, it’s on them.

Via Publisher’s Weekly and Sandra Schwab for bringing it to my attention.

Sometimes I’ll blog about information that seems to be directed straight at writers and I wonder if some readers think to themselves, but this isn’t for us. It doesn’t affect us. Aren’t you guys a readers’ blog? We are, but sometimes industry changes have a great affect on we, the readers.

Simon & Schuster’s announcement of its contractual changes is an example of that. Last week, it was discovered that Simon & Schuster intended to include language in its contracts that would essentially eliminate any reversion of rights. What does reversion of rights mean? A little copyright lesson. Stay with me. It’s not that boring, I promise.

When an artist creates a work of art, this art has a copyright. The copyright is a form of protection that is granted by the U.S. Congress. Essentially, the writer of a book has the right to

reproduce the work (make a copy)
prepare derivative works (i.e., a series of books like the Black Dagger Brotherhood series or Eve Dallas series)
distribute copies to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, by rental, lease or lending; …

Just as a prefatory matter, I want to explain a bit about copyright law and how that works in relation to authors. Authors create a unique work to which they own a copyright. That copyright gives them the right to copy and distribute that work. Authors sell that right of copying and distribution to publishers. These rights can be very specific, i.e., U.S. hardcover rights which means the publisher who purchased the rights can only distribute the book in the U.S. and in hardcover format.

Most rights are more general and these days include all formats, including e-formats. In return for the bundle of rights granted to the publisher, the publisher pays the author money in the form of an advance. If the author earns out the advance (sells enough copies so that her royalties meet the advance), she then is entitled to royalty payments. The advance is really a prepayment of royalties.

Most contracts state that if there is a matter of time in which the book is not in print, these bundle of rights revert back to the author. Such is the case with author Michelle Albert. The rights for two …

Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, partnered with Ritz Carlton to provide a free collection of short stories by authors like Jodi Picoult, Susan Isaacs, and John Connolly in Turndown Tales. This paperback will be given free as part of its turndown service.

Turndown service is usually performed in the early evening hours by a guest service personnel and it can be as simple as just turning down your covers or elaborate as providing specialty chocolates or after dinner coffees, gratis. Of course, you tip for this service, but its kind of a treat.

Apparently, though, Ritz wasn’t thrilled with the initial offerings because of swearing and racy content. S&S asked the authors to tone down the language and, (though not explicitly stated), remove some of the racier parts.

I think this is a great idea. Maybe as part of the guest menu can be a list of books to order up with your meal. Simon & Schuster is certainly thinking outside the box. I would have liked to see lesser known authors contributing to the collection, though, as it could be a …