More Terms to Know (Rerun)

Meetings abound, mes auteurs, so here's a quick rerun re: publishing terms to know! — E

Episode: "More Terms to Know"
Originally aired: Monday, February 28th, 2011

In the world of publishing, mes auteurs, there are a lot of terms to know. As our digital overlords begin to claim more and more of this territory for themselves, I think an e-update of sorts is in order.

Therefore! I've put together a list of indispensable e-book/Internet-related terms I think you should know. If you think of any more (and I'm sure you will), please don't hesitate to post them in the comments.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). A system for separating a web page's or e-book's style/formatting from its content. For example: rather than putting a tag around every block of text that specifies the font as Garamond, you can just have CSS declare that all text should be in Garamond from the outset.

Think of it as like giving directions from the passenger seat of the car: you can just tell the driver, "go straight until I say otherwise" from the outset, rather than saying, "keep going straight" at each intersection.

E-book (also ebook, eBook). An electronic book available in a wide variety of formats (e.g. AZW, EPUB, MOBI, PDF) on a variety of devices (e.g. Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook).

EPUB (also ePub, ePUB, EPub, epub). The industry standard e-book format. It's basically a zipped-up website.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language). The language used to write websites and e-books. It's currently on version five (HTML5).

PDF (also .pdf). Standing for "Portable Document Format," a .pdf is a file format readable by many (but not all) e-reading devices. Its primary selling point is that it represents documents independent of the machine it runs on, so a .pdf e-book looks the same no matter what devices is used to read it. For this reason, however, .pdf files are not reflowable (see below).

Reflowable content. Content (words, diagrams, illustrations, &c) that can change or "reflow" depending on the device designed to read it. Text "reflows" when you change the font size on your Kindle or when you switch back and forth between devices with different display sizes.

This is one reason e-versions of the same title look different on different devices; another is that different e-tailers do different things to the source files they receive from publishers before making the book available to the consumer.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Basically, this is the idea of improving your visibility via search engines on the Internet. For example: if you Google "[your name] author," you want your personal website to be one of the first few hits. Taking into account how search engines work and what search terms people use, it's possible to move up the list of results (often dramatically).

XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language). A family of XML languages (see below) that serves as an alternative to HTML (above).

XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Wikipedia says it best: "A set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form." If you're using Microsoft Office 2007 or later, you're already familiar with one of XML's many uses (it's the "x" in ".docx," ".xlsx," &c).

Publishing Time

I was reading an article in The New Yorker awhile back by a foreign correspondent in West Africa who introduced to me the phenomenon of "African time." This consists of a much more relaxed attitude toward scheduling, punctuality, and time in general across many African countries than is traditionally found in the United States.

In case you're curious, there is such a thing as "publishing time," and it's similar in some respects. An editor might sit on an e-mail for two weeks even though it could be answered in five minutes; an assistant might take a week to read a partial even if (s)he could reasonably get to it in an afternoon; a marketing or sales manager might take several days to post materials to an internal website even though it could probably have been done much sooner.

A lot of this is the result of the kind of prioritization and reprioritization that is endemic not only to publishing, but to any major corporate enterprise—some projects just keep getting pushed back. Some of it, however, is due to the nature of the business.

Publishing—at least in general, and at least below the very top echelons of management—is not a fast-paced business, and the sense of urgency and desire for efficiency you might find in the offices of an investment bank or law firm don't generally exist, simply because publishing doesn't generally attract the sorts of people you often find in those fields. Couple that with the overworked staff of smaller publishers and the bureaucratic red tape of the Big Six, and it's no wonder you haven't heard back about that royalty check question you posed a month ago.

Publishing professionals are not inefficient or lazy, but a combination of multitasking/prioritizing and the culture of the industry means that it may take awhile for your e-mails to be returned, your manuscript to be read, your questions to be answered. Be patient, but don't be afraid to send reminders or request something a second time if your initial query is met with a protracted silence. We're not ignoring you, I promise! We're just busy. And a little strange.

More Terms to Know

In the world of publishing, mes auteurs, there are a lot of terms to know. As our digital overlords begin to claim more and more of this territory for themselves, I think an e-update of sorts is in order.

Therefore! I've put together a list of indispensable e-book/Internet-related terms I think you should know. If you think of any more (and I'm sure you will), please don't hesitate to post them in the comments.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). A system for separating a web page's or e-book's style/formatting from its content. For example: rather than putting a tag around every block of text that specifies the font as Garamond, you can just have CSS declare that all text should be in Garamond from the outset.

Think of it as like giving directions from the passenger seat of the car: you can just tell the driver, "go straight until I say otherwise" from the outset, rather than saying, "keep going straight" at each intersection.

E-book (also ebook, eBook). An electronic book available in a wide variety of formats (e.g. AZW, EPUB, MOBI, PDF) on a variety of devices (e.g. Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook).

EPUB (also ePub, ePUB, EPub, epub). The industry standard e-book format. It's basically a zipped-up website.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language). The language used to write websites and e-books. It's currently on version five (HTML5).

PDF (also .pdf). Standing for "Portable Document Format," a .pdf is a file format readable by many (but not all) e-reading devices. Its primary selling point is that it represents documents independent of the machine it runs on, so a .pdf e-book looks the same no matter what devices is used to read it. For this reason, however, .pdf files are not reflowable (see below).

Reflowable content. Content (words, diagrams, illustrations, &c) that can change or "reflow" depending on the device designed to read it. Text "reflows" when you change the font size on your Kindle or when you switch back and forth between devices with different display sizes.

This is one reason e-versions of the same title look different on different devices; another is that different e-tailers do different things to the source files they receive from publishers before making the book available to the consumer.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Basically, this is the idea of improving your visibility via search engines on the Internet. For example: if you Google "[your name] author," you want your personal website to be one of the first few hits. Taking into account how search engines work and what search terms people use, it's possible to move up the list of results (often dramatically).

XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language). A family of XML languages (see below) that serves as an alternative to HTML (above).

XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Wikipedia says it best: "A set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form." If you're using Microsoft Office 2007 or later, you're already familiar with one of XML's many uses (it's the "x" in ".docx," ".xlsx," &c).

Terms to Know: Returns (Rerun)

A small blast from the recent past, mes auteurs. Round up on Friday and a return to the topic of marketing/brand management on Monday! — E

Episode: "Terms to Know: Returns"
Originally aired: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

It's been awhile since I've gone back to the basics, mes auteurs, so today's post is on that bête noire of the publishing world: returns.

The book business differs from most other commercial enterprises in that stock sold by the content provider (publisher) to retailers (book stores) is 100% returnable: if a book store can't sell its stock to consumers, it sends it right back to the house.

This is a holdover from Depression-era economics designed to get retailers to take books under circumstances they normally wouldn't (i.e., by drastically reducing, if not totally erasing, their exposure to risk). With the exception of a very small number of select retailers ("special markets" that don't sell books as their primary product), all retailers are allowed to return unsold stock to the publisher.

What does this mean for you, dear authors?

Well, assuming you earn out your advance, it can (partially) explain why it takes publishers awhile to calculate your royalties, as the returns reduce their gross sales (billing, or the money they made by selling stock to retailers) to net sales. If your royalty structure takes this into account, the publisher needs to wait for returns to come back before issuing you a check.

Occasionally, a publisher will even withhold money against future returns in a kind of escrow account, which means that money that is technically yours won't be paid out until returns are calculated several months down the line.

Granted, the problem could be "fixed" by moving the industry en masse back to a firm sale model (that is, no returns), but even if something like that could be done (which seems doubtful—see below), all it would mean would be a sharp reduction in stock for début and midlist authors like yourselves. If you force the stores to take on their own risk in today's bookselling environment, they'll simply cut their orders for anything that isn't a sure thing (read: James Patterson and Sarah Palin).

The good news is, cats & kittens, that it soon won't matter whether physical books are returnable because the market will shift principally to e-books over the next decade. Problems pertaining to physical books that plague today's publishers and retailers—warehouse space, shipping and return costs, physical co-op, &c—don't and won't apply to e-books, so returns will become a thing of the past and you'll get your royalty statements faster. Some of you who have successfully published e-books already know this.

In short: yes, returns are a pain, and yes, the industry has been running on an outmoded and inefficient sales model for the past 80 years. At this point, however, it isn't worth changing: as e-books become the primary format for the written (and read) word, the issue will become more or less moot.

That said: if you're planning on publishing a book this decade, plan on getting a call from your agent at some point asking if you'd like to buy your returned/remaindered units at cost. And don't be surprised if your royalty statements, should you get any, take their sweet time arriving in your mailbox.

Tomorrow: Thanksgiving festivities begin, meine Autoren, so I'll be taking a short break. We'll be back with the return of genre sales breakdowns on Monday, November 29th!

Abridged PMN-English Dictionary, 1st Edition

Laura is unavailable today, mes auteurs, so I've decided to provide you with my own brand of Friday frivolity.

My own personal lingo is occasionally difficult to disentangle from accepted industry jargon, so I present to you, bros and she-bros, for the very first time: The Abridged Pimp My Novel-English Dictionary, First Edition.

À mon avis: "In my opinion" (French). Qualifies statements as the author's opinion rather than fact.

Bro: 1. Friend (male); term signifying ebrotional attachment. (See also she-bro.) 2. Lexeme substituted for a phonetically similar lexeme in appropriate man-related contexts. E.g. "Broseph Stalin," "brofessional boxing," "brotal victory." Non-man-related contexts (e.g. "Jacqueline Kennedy Bronassis") are to be avoided.

Irrespectively: The opposite of "respectively"; used to correct the sense of a sentence rather than completely rewriting that sentence. E.g. "Bob and Sue are my she-bro and bro, irrespectively."

Mega: Prefix or modifier amplifying the ensuing noun or adjective in size, extent, manner, or degree. E.g. "megajerk," "mega awesome."

Meine Autoren: "My authors" (German). A term of endearment.

Mes auteurs: "My authors" (French). A term of endearment.

Ninja: Adjective. Synonymous with "awesome." E.g. "I'll have that ninja burger that comes with bacon and bleu cheese."

Readeurs: "Readers (male)" (Franglish).

Readeuses: "Readers (female)" (Franglish).

She-bro: Friend (female); a term of endearment.

If I've left out any definitions (which, by definition, I have, this being an abridged edition), please ask in the comments and I'll attempt to clarify!

Terms to Know: Lead Title

All books are created equal.

Some books are more equal than others.

When publishers talk about a lead title, they're referring to a book (often, but certainly not always, by a début author) that they believe has the potential to blow out in terms of sales. These aren't the books by established hot shots or memoirs/self help books by celebrities; these are those front-of-store, gotta-read titles that seem to erupt out of nowhere. But nay! They do not appear ex nihilo, cats and kittens, but rather, they are built and designed: they receive six-figure marketing budgets, co-op dollars, aggressive publicity, additional sales materials. In short: the works.

Now, to be fair, it's not possible to engineer a bestselling title without the reading public's participation. A Big Six publisher could throw millions into marketing and co-op and not come anywhere close to breaking even if the consumer doesn't participate (i.e., purchase the book). That said, we all (as consumers, anyway) are much more easily manipulated than we would like to believe, and there is a direct correlation between the amount of money, time, and energy that a publisher puts into a book—a lead title—and that title's performance in the market.

Some lead titles flop terribly. Most, I think, break even, depending on the amount of money sunk into the endeavor. A few (far more than the average for books in general, but still not a huge number) become major bestsellers, and I'm inclined to believe they wouldn't have had they not had the big budgets and know-how of a large publishing operation. When the publisher pays for those big stacks of books at the front of Borders or Barnes & Noble, lines up interview after interview with major media, and advertises in magazines and locations you're likely to read and frequent, aren't you going to pick up that book and at least read the dust jacket? That's half the battle, friends: getting you to pick up the book. The publisher believes the content is enough to win the second half of the battle (getting you to bring the book to the register), but first they have to spend enough money to make it easy for you to find.

Not all major titles are/were lead titles (Harry Potter—the early books, anyway—being a good example), but classifying a book as such is a way of allocating funds and marking which books are believed to be wildly successful before they even ship out to stores. Is it fair? No. Is it practical in this industry? Absolutely. And by no means are the non-lead titles of the world doomed to failure—they are, as I said, "equal"—but they're not as equal as the titles that receive substantially larger investments of time, money, and effort, and the odds of their doing as well sales-wise is very slim indeed.

Terms to Know: Billing vs. POS

Reminder: the deadline for guest post submissions is 11:59 pm on Wednesday, June 16th!

As I've mentioned before, one of the strange nuances of the book publishing industry is that virtually all stock is returnable; that is, almost all the books we ship to retailers can be returned for full credit if those retailers are unable to sell them. There are some exceptions: for example, most mass market paperbacks are "stripped," not returned, meaning the retailer only returns the torn-off covers to the publisher (hence the "if you bought this book without a cover" warning found on the first page of many paperbacks). There are also some markets, dubbed "special markets," for which stock is almost always non-returnable (e.g. museum gift shops, home shopping networks, home goods/cooking stores).

Because books can be (and so often are) returned, publishers need to make a distinction between sales to the retailer ("billing," or gross sales) and sales to the customer ("POS" [point of sale], "through the register," or net sales). The difference between these two numbers is the returns, and the ratio of net sales to gross sales is known as sell-through (expressed as a percentage).

For most brick-and-mortar affairs (especially the large chains), sell-through of roughly 80% is considered very good. Much less than that, and it's clear the account took more books than it can sell; much higher, and the account will probably consistently run out of stock, which means both the publisher and the retailer will lose sales while time is wasted in reordering, shipping, and restocking. (In case you're curious, on-line retailers like Amazon generally maintain a much higher sell-through rate, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 – 95%. This is because 1.) they don't need to maintain those big piles of books at the front of the store, and 2.) Amazon doesn't offer the same instant gratification for physical books as a brick-and-mortar store, so their shipping delays allow them a sort of buffer zone when it comes to reordering and restocking.)

Ideally, each title will have good billing and sell-through, but occasionally you see titles with abnormally high return rates, distressingly high sell-through (sounds crazy, doesn't it?), low billing (or no billing, in the event of a skip), and so on. The sales game is a tricky one, and it's doubly true for book sales. Half the battle is getting the book into the store; the other half is getting customers to bring it to the register.

Terms to Know: BEA

Great Zeus Almighty—250+ Twitter followers in just 24 hours! At this rate, I'll have the world's population in thrall in... uh, seventy thousand years, give or take a few thousand. Feel free to follow, if you're so inclined.

Moving on!

As many of you may know, next week is bea, or BookExpo America, one of the (if not the) largest and most important annual book fairs in the United States. This year it's May 25th to 27th, and industry insiders from hot-shot publishing executives to small town librarians will be milling around the Javits Center in New York City to meet other trade book folk, check out the big new titles coming out from a variety of publishers, and attend various seminars, talks, and panels. Authors (like you! or, like you one day!) will also be there, signing copies and often participating in the aforementioned talks and panels. And I'll be there, too.

This will be my third non-consecutive bea (I volunteered in 2007 and went as a representative of my house in 2009), and I'm excited to head back and use the event as a learning experience (read: find out what books are coming down the pike from other publishers) and as a chance to (re)connect with other industry professionals. And incidentally, gentle readers/authors, that's exactly what bea can be for you: a significant networking opportunity.

While I'm certainly not telling you to show up at the Javits Center with the shirt on your back and a carton of books, I am encouraging you to speak with your agent about whether or not it makes sense for you to attend. Space is substantial but limited, and badges are pretty expensive (they can cost up to $295 for a three-day pass); not everyone with an agent or publisher can or should or does go, so it helps to get perspective from your agent/editor. Of course, if they suggest you attend, I think you should go if at all possible. There aren't as many galleys as there used to be, but I think the information and connections you'll acquire by attending for even one of the three days will make the trip well worth your while.

While I don't have any particularly entertaining bea stories (at least, none that I can mention here), I'm certain that's not the case for all of you. If I'm right (and I usually am), feel free to share in the comments! (Ditto for any questions.)

A Wonderful Game Called "What's My Department and What Does It Do?"

In the comments on yesterday's post, the question came up about the various departments (and their functions) that make up a publishing house. As I'm always happy to oblige, a more-or-less complete breakdown follows.

Aside from the departments that are found in all large companies (e.g. human resources, IT, legal, payroll, &c), the major divisions of a publishing house are:

The Publisher: Within the house itself is the publisher's office, from which every book's entire creation—from acquisition to finished product—is overseen. Every other department reports to the publisher in one way or another. All major decisions are made here.

Editorial: Responsible for acquiring, editing, and effectively shepherding books through the production process, the editorial department buys books from authors via their agents, negotiates contracts, maintains relationships within the house/between the house and authors/agents, and works with production and art to organize and facilitate the creation of the final product.

Production: As you might expect, the production department is responsible for the physical creation of each book. They work closely with the editorial and art departments (as well as the publisher) to negotiate with third parties/vendors and coordinate the creation and distribution of finished books.

Marketing: In brief, marketing is responsible for any promotions that the house pays for, e.g. advertisements in various media and the creation of sales materials. They create and implement strategies to maximize a book's exposure to the marketplace, generate buzz, and identify strong markets/audiences for individual titles. They work very closely with the sales department (below).

Publicity: In contrast to the marketing department, publicity is responsible for any promotions that the house does not pay for: author appearances on TV talk shows, reviews in newspapers and magazines, and author tours/book signings/release parties. They communicate constantly with the media, writing press releases, preparing and sending press kits, maintaining databases of contacts/publications/media outlets, and mailing galleys/ARCs to critics and (increasingly) bloggers for review.

Sales: This is my department. Sales is responsible for selling books to individual accounts, be they large chains like Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores, or "special markets" that don't traditionally specialize in books (e.g. home shopping networks, home goods stores, or museums). We manage co-op (the system by which we pay retailers for premium in-store placement), maintain relationships with buyers, and mediate conversations between retailers and the publisher.

Art: Primarily responsible for the creation of book jackets, the art department works closely with the publisher, the marketing department, and the sales department to create eye-catching packaging for books. Responsibilities include securing permissions for artwork, managing any necessary freelance work, going through art morgues and stock photos for appropriate graphics, and designing and creating covers.

There are a few departments I'm leaving out for simplicity's sake, but for questions and comments, you know where to go.

Terms to Know: Non-Compete Clause

Continuing my recent trend of contract-related content, today's post focuses on another aspect of the standard book publishing contract: the non-compete clause.

Those of you who have read Agent Kristin's blog may already be familiar with this clause (she's written about it here and, more recently, here). For those of you who haven't, it's like this: book publishers want to protect their interests in their authors, and the non-compete clause is an effective way of ensuring this.

Under the NCC, an author generally can't reproduce any material from the book named in the contract, since doing so would damage the publisher's sales or infringe on their newly acquired rights. Example: if Fancy Pants Publishing acquires your book, 99 Ways to Defeat A Ninja, and you try to have High Fullutent Press publish an excerpt, or a graphic novel version, or some such other work that incorporates material from the first book or competes with FPP's sales, you're in violation of their NCC.

Kristin's second post (above) raises an even more interesting issue, one I inadvertently touched on in Monday's post: namely, that if your agent has withheld e-rights (or graphic novel rights, or any other subsidiary right), the language of the newer NCCs may prevent you from exercising those rights with other companies. If Fancy Pants Publishing has your hardcover and trade paperback, they're not going to want to see you reduce their sales by publishing the graphic novel and e-book with High Fullutent Press.

Now, in the case of Styron, the contract language was too old to include e-book rights, so I imagine the NCC in that contract/those contracts isn't broad enough to include e-books, either. But if your agent specifically withheld e-rights after 1995 or so, the NCC language may be new enough to allow publishers to invoke it to prevent you from publishing your e-books elsewhere. Food for thought, at any rate, and I again invite any agents in the house to weigh in on this... well, weighty issue.

Terms to Know: Right of First Refusal

Come with me, dear readers, on a magical journey to... THE FUTURE.

In the year 20X6, you're signing the contract to publish your first book (hooray!) when you come upon a clause with the following (or similar) wording: "Fancy Pants Publishing House retains the right of first refusal on the author's subsequent book." (In retrospect, it's unlikely you'll see those exact words, unless my dream of founding Fancy Pants Publishing [FPP] takes off before 20X6.)

Back to the contract, though: when a publishing house requests right of first refusal, they're contractually obligating you to show them your second book before you show it to any other publishers. If they want your second book, they get it; if they don't, you can sell it to someone else, but they must see it and decline the offer first. Increasingly, clauses like these are finding their ways into many a first-time author's book contract.

Personally, I'm no fan of the ROFR because I generally dislike any contractual obligation that limits an author's future works or actions, and Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media agrees. In fact, he advocates that if you come across such a clause in your contract, you actually strike it out. This is for a number of reasons: what if your first book doesn't do well and you want to try your second with another publisher? What if your first book does really well with the small house you first signed with, and you want to move on to a larger house that can offer a more substantial advance and more powerful marketing push? What if you simply have creative differences with the folks handling your book?

O'Reilly mentions that an author's refusing the ROFR isn't generally a dealbreaker for the publisher, though I'm no literary agent and can't really comment on whether or not that's the case. (If there are any agents in the house, I'd love to hear your comments!) This, by the way, is one of the many reasons you want a literary agent on your side if you're dealing with a publishing house: contracts are tricky beasts, and if you don't have a pro on your side, you may find yourself without recourse when your publisher asks that you fulfill a half-dozen legal obligations you didn't even know you had. An ounce of prevention, a pound of cure, &c &c.

You tell me, though, mes auteurs: what do you think of the ROFR?

Terms to Know: Abbreviations

All industries are full of jargon, gentle readers, and publishing is no exception. To make it doubly confounding, however, many of these oft-repeated jargon-filled phrases are abbreviated or transformed into acronyms, which renders the proverbial (already murky) waters utterly opaque. I present to you, then, a partial list of common publishing abbreviations and acronyms, some of which you may know and others you may find totally foreign. (If you think of any good ones I forgot, please post them in the comments.)

Without further ado—

AAP: American Association of Publishers.

AAR: Association of Authors' Representatives.

ALA: American Library Association.

ARC/ARE: Advance reading copy (or "advance reader's edition"). It's exactly what it sounds like: an early, unfinished copy of a book distributed to reviewers, buyers at accounts, and other people who need to read a book before it goes on sale. It generally has a cover and marketing/publicity information, which distinguishes it from a galley.

BEA: Book Expo America, the premier American trade show for commercial book publishers.

F&G: Folded and gathered sheets, an unbound collection of sample pages from a book used during the sales process. Almost exclusively used for children's books.

FOS: Front-of-store, referring to co-op placement.

HC/CL: Hardcover book.

ISBN: International standard book number.

MM/PB/PPB: Mass market paperback book.

MS: Manuscript (generally unbound).

MSS: ManuscriptS.

MTE/MTI: Movie tie-in edition. A reissue of a book set to coincide with the release of a film based on that book (generally with new cover art taken from the movie).

NDA: Non-disclosure agreement.

OS/OSD: On-sale date.

P&L: Profit-and-loss statement, a measure of a book's overall contribution to the house's revenue (both positive and negative).

POD: Print on demand, a method of printing individual books meant to save cost on and increase availability for titles with print runs too small to succeed under the traditional publishing model.

TP/TR/QP/QPB: Trade paperback book.

TPO: Trade paperback original (i.e. a book initially published as a trade paperback, not as a hardcover).

Terms to Know: ISBN

This term probably isn't as dire to your success as authors as some others I've gone over, bros and she-bros, but I figure a little knowledge isn't a dangerous thing.

The ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a 13-digit (formerly 10-digit) number that is unique to every book published in the world. The breakdown for said number is as follows:

• The first three digits denote the type of publishing. (They're either "978" or "979"; "978" is book publishing.)

• Here it gets tricky, but for American books (and UK, too, I believe), the next digit is a group identifier and indicates in which language the book is published. (The group identifier for English is either "0" or "1.")

• The next three or four digits are assigned by the national ISBN agency (in the United States, that's R.R. Bowker) and are specific to the publisher. Many large publishers have several sets of publisher codes for their various divisions and imprints.

• The next four or five digits are the item number for the individual book and are selected by the publisher.

• The final digit is a check digit, which is the result of a mathematical formula being applied to the previous twelve digits. This is an error detection and prevention measure employed to prevent the ISBN data from being corrupted, mis-copied, &c.

The big, fancy book of publisher codes will set you back nearly $1,000, and there's really no free way of looking up publisher codes on the Internet, but a partial catalog of the group-0 and group-1 publisher codes (read: English language books) can be found here and here, respectively. This is only for those of you with way too much time on your hands.

Questions? Comments? Invective? To the comments with you!

Terms to Know: Frontlist vs. Backlist

You may, dear readers, in your wanderings through this blog and other industry-related Internet lands, come across the terms "frontlist" and "backlist" in reference to titles that have already gone on sale. The difference between the two is fairly simple, but their relationship and sales data are generally more complex and interesting.

Frontlist titles are titles that have gone on sale in the current year. This is a somewhat flexible definition, as I'd still consider titles that went on sale in December 2009 to be frontlist titles; for this reason, "frontlist" often refers to titles that went on sale less than a year before the current date (in today's case, after 2/25/2009). Backlist titles, then, are any titles that are older than frontlist titles, i.e. went on sale a year or more before the current date.

Based on the above definitions, it should come as no surprise to you that the majority of a publishing house's revenue comes from its backlist. This is because 1.) for any well-established house, the backlist invariably consists of more titles than the frontlist, and 2.) the backlist generally contains the "tried and true" perennial sellers upon which the house's financial durability is built. True, the frontlist is where the bestseller action initially occurs (e.g. appearances on bestseller lists such as the New York Times'), but there are only so many bestselling books and "future classics" per year; over time, they accumulate in the backlist, where they continue to slowly but steadily sell. Frontlist titles that don't sell eventually go out of print (though this often takes longer than a year, so most become backlist titles for at least a short period of time).

In terms of sales modelling, frontlist titles (if they are successful) generally peak within the first twelve weeks (often earlier) and decline predictably, assuming there are no major outside influences at work (which there often are, e.g. winning the Pulitzer Prize or being selected for Oprah's Book Club). Once a title becomes a backlist title, it generally reaches a kind of equilibrium and continues to sell steadily for years. There are some exceptions, however, for books that are seasonal/occasional (e.g. books like The Polar Express seeing a sales spike around Christmas) or are considered classics (guys like Salinger and Shakespeare see sales bumps in September, when everyone goes back to school). Again, as you might imagine, the backlist is generally more predictable than the frontlist; aside from the death of a famous author, the backlist isn't perturbed by the same market forces that can make the frontlist so volatile.

Les Réponses

As promised, ladies and gents, my answers to your questions from yesterday:

christicorbett writes:

How much does author initiative for marketing and promotion matter to a first book deal?

As with everything, it's secondary to your writing, but authors who are willing to do more for their book absolutely have a leg up over authors who aren't. MORE TK.

Lydia Sharp writes:

Define "midlist."

According to Wikipedia:

Midlist is a term in the publishing industry which refers to books which are not bestsellers but are strong enough to economically justify their publication (and likely, further purchases of future books from the same author).

According to Wikiquote:

Unlikely to be more than modestly successful.

According to Bookjobs:

Midlist: Books with a strong intellectual or artistic bent which have a chance of significant success but are not assumed to be likely bestsellers.

According to me: an author with potential.

Scott writes:

Has the vampire thing about run its course?

Who knows? In my opinion: yes, unless Stephenie Meyer releases a new book in the next year or two. Zombies already seem to be the next cool thing, followed by (ostensibly) steampunk.

-30- writes:

If I were to publish my book, and in the course of my travels to visit friends and family wanted to stop in at my favorite old book shops and retailers to sign some copies, would I have to coordinate with the publisher or just give the store a call directly?

You generally want to run these sorts of things by your agent, as (s)he will be in touch with your publisher and will be aware of any media opportunities that may arise from such visits, but if you're a debut author, you'll probably be able to call the store directly (if you want to schedule a signing event). If you just want to sign some stock, you might be able to just drop in, but again, best to check with your agent.

Jodi writes:

If I were to sell my books at a signing—say at a library—do I have to charge tax, have a tax ID number, or what?

I don't recall anyone charging tax at any of the smaller signings I've attended (and I've attended several), but you'd want to check with your state government regarding applicable tax law. Some states will require that you have a state tax license (and this may change depending on how much revenue you're generating), and others won't.

Eric (not me!) writes:

When I sent out my nonfiction book proposal, I had two publishers interested. As one consideration in selecting the publisher, I went to Barnes and Noble to see how many books from these publishers were on the shelves. Turns out quite a lot for one of them. I went with that publisher, considered a leading religious publishing house.

Now that the book is published (this past November) I don't see any books from this publisher in my local Barnes & Noble. Including mine. Has there been some sort of re-organization or winnowing of publishers by Barnes & Noble bricks-and-mortar over the past couple of years?

No, not to my knowledge. It's possible something specifically occurred between Barnes & Noble and your publisher, but without knowing who they are, I really couldn't say. Feel free to e-mail me if you want to discuss further.

writingstudio writes:

How do you find out what books were/are considered successes within a publishing house? Years ago I asked an editor at a conference about a book that I had thought was a success and he just shook his head and said 'it didn't earn back its advance.'

And, as an adjunct to that question, is there a place to find out what books took off with the buying public versus those that disappointed when both were on the bestseller lists?

Without talking to someone in-house, it's pretty difficult to tell. You would have to know the author's advance, royalty structure, the number of units sold (and at what discount), and a host of other details that you would probably only find in the P&L or in-house POS data to know whether a book, regardless of how many copies it sold, was profitable.

As for a place where one might find out which bestsellers outperformed others, your best bet is our old friend BookScan.

And Then There Were Three

(Image courtesy of Gizmodo)

In the continued battle over the price of e-books, Hachette has joined Macmillan and HarperCollins in adopting Apple's agency model over the existing wholesale model. (You can read their letter to agents here.) That leaves Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and Random House (not pictured) as the odd men (and women!) out.

First, I've received a few e-mails from you asking what, exactly, the agency model is. In short, it's a sales model predicated on the theory that the publisher is selling directly to consumers, and that any agent (oftentimes a retailer like Amazon) conducting a sale on the publisher's behalf is entitled to a commission on that sale (under Apple's model, roughly 30%).

The wholesale model, on the other hand, is based on the theory that the retailer is the only one selling directly to customers, so publishers are essentially out of the picture once they sell their goods to said retailer (usually at a 50% or so discount). This means that the retailer can then turn around and sell their books at pretty much whatever price they want (in Amazon's case, $9.99). Amazon lost money under this model because they were buying new e-books from publishers at roughly half the retail price ($15 or so). This was fine with Amazon, since they were selling books as loss-leaders for their Kindle devices and building significant mind and market share while doing it.

While there are some, like TechCrunch blogger Paul Carr, who believe the agency model is an anti-competitive throwback to the UK's Net Book Agreement of 1900, most believe that with publishers earning more money per sale and shelling out less in terms of overhead (printing, binding, shipping, &c), the agency model could translate into significantly higher profits for houses and, in turn, higher royalties for authors (no guarantees as yet, though).

What do you think, mes auteurs? Is the agency model the way of the future?

PSA: PSA

In the case of the former, a Public Service Announcement; in the case of the latter, another heretofore mysterious aspect of the Sales Side (patent pending): the Per Store Average.

When sales folk (in any industry, not just publishing) talk about PSA, they're referring to the number of units sold, on average, by any given store in a chain. For example, if Joe's House o' Books has 100 store locations and sells 1,000 units of a given title over a given length of time, their PSA for that interval is 10 units per store (1,000 / 100).

PSA is important to the sales force because it allows us to make direct comparisons between national accounts that have different store counts; it's not exactly fair to tout Book-O-Rama's superior net sales and market share against Joe's House o' Books if Book-O-Rama has 500 store locations and Joe's only has 100. Compare:

Book-O-Rama: 2,000 net copies sold of Disaffected Teen Vampires.
Joe's House o' Books: 1,000 net copies sold of the same title.

Assuming these two are the only competitors in the market, B-O-R outsells Joe's 2:1 and has superior market share (67% to 33%), but their PSA is suprisingly low: only four units per store (2,000 / 500) compared to Joe's ten units per store (1,000 / 100). Why the discrepancy, you might ask? If so, congratulations: you're thinking like a salesperson. We'd be asking the exact same question. Low PSA can be indicative of anything from problems with store location (the stores are in low-traffic or low-population areas, or are in areas not heavily populated by their target client) to insufficient market penetration (though not always, as we've seen that low PSA can be accompanied by high market share).

What does this mean for you? As with market share, not a huge amount, since these comparisons are designed to provide information to publishers and retailers, not individual authors. However, a low PSA could be the result of your title not being in promotion at a given account, so it's always good to ask your agent a few weeks or months before on-sale whether (s)he knows where your book will be placed in-store at various locations.

Tomorrow: PW reports and another management shakeup... what's in store for Borders?

A Word on the MaFiA

A few of you have asked me over the past few months whether I have an opinion on MFA (Master of Fine Arts) programs in creative writing, and (surprise!) I have several. It's really kind of a mixed bag and my theories/advice as to who should apply for admission to such programs and who shouldn't vary greatly based on individual circumstances, but hopefully I can dispel a few rumors and offer some very general guidelines.

For those not in the know, the MFA is a one- to three-year terminal art degree (the majority take two years to complete). By "terminal" I mean that you're qualified to teach college with said degree (until a few years ago it was also the highest degree in the field, but the growing popularity of the creative writing Ph.D. has muddied the waters somewhat). The degree can generally only be earned in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction (memoir), playwriting, or screenwriting, with the former two being the most common disciplines. Many Very Fancy Writers™ these days do, in fact, hold MFAs from some very prestigious programs (the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, the University of Texas, &c).

So the main question: do you need an MFA to be taken seriously as a writer?

The very short (and, I hope, obvious) answer: no. No one is handicapped in this industry by not having an MFA, and the actual degree itself will probably do very little in the way of securing representation or book deals for most writers. The long(er) answer is as follows, in patented Bullet-O-Vision™:

· While the physical degree may not be tremendously useful in terms of getting you an agent and a six-figure advance, your writing will likely improve tremendously as a result of taking two or so years to do nothing but read, write, and workshop fiction. If your prose is currently promising but purple, the kind of immersive study found in an MFA program could polish your writing to Very Fancy Writer-level lustre (complete with British spelling!).

· Additionally, the network of professors, mentors, visiting agents, and classmates you'd be likely to form in an MFA program can be of huge help down the line. Your professor or classmate might refer you to his or her agent; a visiting agent might take special interest in your novel-in-progress; you may end up making friends with several future agents and editors. You get the idea.

· And now, the caveats: active participation in an MFA program will almost certainly improve your writing, but most (if not all) programs are geared toward literary fiction. If you're writing young adult/children's fiction or genre fiction of any kind, the degree won't really give you the opportunity to do substantial work in those areas.

· Mentioning your MFA in a query letter to an agent probably won't impress them, unless it's from a top-tier program like Iowa or Columbia (and possibly not even then). There is simply more supply than demand when it comes to MFA graduates, and to be honest, agents are interested in your novels, not your alma maters.

· While not all graduates of MFA programs go on to teach, the degree often includes a teaching element and assumes, to some extent, an interest in academia or an academic career. If you have no such aspirations, you might want to think twice before applying.

· Finally, even though the economy seems to be recovering somewhat from the recession, it's still a very tough employment market out there. If you've currently got a good job, it might not be the best time to give it up to pursue graduate studies. True, there are several part-time and low-residency MFA options out there, but those are often unfunded, meaning you would be paying the school for your degree and not the other way around.

So, basically, my view is: if you're doing literary work, you think you might want to teach college, and you don't already have a decent job, go for the MFA. Otherwise, you might want to think twice. No one needs a license to be an author, and if you're considering pursuing the degree purely for some perceived recognition or sense of legitimacy as a writer, you might want to find a new line of work.

Terms to Know: Embargoed Title

Those of you who have worked in book publishing or journalism will know what I mean by "embargo" (hint: it has nothing to do with Cuba), but for those of you not privy to the strange ways of the print media/publishing industries, an embargoed title is one that contains information (usually time-sensitive or previously confidential) that cannot be disseminated to reviewers, buyers, or (sometimes) even the sales force for fear of a premature leak.

Some embargoes are stronger than others: for example, a title might be available as a galley or ARC only to those industry professionals who have signed non-disclosure agreements, legally binding contracts prohibiting readers from discussing the contents of the book to anyone who hasn't also signed the agreement. Others are so colossally secret that galleys and ARCs are never produced, and virtually no one knows the contents of the book until the on-sale date. (An example of the latter would be the later Harry Potter novels.)

Now, embargoes are routinely broken, and I've actually never heard of a book that made it all the way to the on-sale date without having something sensitive leaked by a media outlet. The reasons for this are myriad, and range from the occasional errant bookstore that puts the title on shelves too early to the unscrupulous reviewer to the intentional-but-made-to-look-accidental leak by the publishers themselves. (This last measure can be surprisingly effective in terms of garnering additional media attention.)

If you're wondering if any of your titles have or will ever be embargoed, cats and kittens, the answer is: unlikely. Unless you're a corporate whistleblower, former Michael Jackson bodyguard, former CIA agent, or J.K. Rowling, publishers probably won't worry enough about the content of your book(s) to keep everything under wraps. Yes, they'll probably be miffed if a book store puts your title on shelves too early, but that generally has more to do with the timing of reviews, co-op, &c than fear that something groundbreaking will accidentally be released too soon.

A Word on Market Share

When I talk about market share in the book publishing industry—or, more specifically, with regard to national accounts—what I'm referring to is the market segmentation observed in the sales figures of any given title. For example, The Time-Traveling Vampire's Daughter might sell 1,000 copies: 200 (20%) at National Account A, 350 (35%) at National Account B, 300 (30%) at Online Retailer A, &c. (The data are always expressed as percentages.) Market share analysis allows both the publisher and the individual retailers to view how sales are distributed throughout the marketplace and to address any discrepancies or opportunities that may emerge from that analysis.

Market share analysis is a handy tool for a couple of reasons. First, it allows publishers to discuss competitors' sales figures with an account without giving away confidential point-of-sale information (e.g., "your life-to-date market share for this title is only 16.2%, compared with Competitor A's 22.8%"). To be clear, I'm not using "Competitor A" in my usual tongue-in-cheek way; we actually don't reveal the names of the competitors whose sales data we're citing, simply because the account in question clearly has access to their own sales data and could reverse engineer the competitor's sales data from those numbers if they were so inclined. (For example, if I were to tell Barnes & Noble that Borders had 20% market share against their 15% for a given title, Barnes & Noble could simply look up the number of copies they sold of that title and calculate how many Borders must have sold.)

Second, market share analysis provides context for the discussion of a title's sales record. Saying "Chain A sold 4,282 copies of Boy Wizard and the Impossible Task" at a publisher meeting or telling Chain A that they sold 1,421 copies of Comp Title One during a sales call isn't very effective if you don't provide any data that illustrate the size of the overall market. Those numbers might be great if they constitute 30% market share, but disastrous if they work out to 4%. You get the idea.

Third, trends in market share allow publishers to see how various accounts are selling (either overall or by format, genre, &c) over any given interval of time. Is National Account A losing market share to National Account B overall? What about just hardcovers? Are both A and B staying roughly even, but losing proportional amounts of market share to Wholesale Club C? Is this largely due to a few titles or an entire format (e.g. mass market paperbacks)? The list goes on.

What does this mean for you, gentle authors? Well, not a lot, to be honest—market share discussions are much more salient for publishers and retailers than they are for individual authors. That said, it might be helpful for you during the publication process to think about how and where your book might be sold: do you see it as a grassroots-type literary epic that will take hold by word-of-mouth and primarily sell at independent bookstores? A mass market paperback paranormal romance that will sell thousands in the $8 rack at Walmart? A cyberthriller that will take off on Amazon? There's a different sales model for each, and the way the market divides those sales helps determine how your book will do and how your career as an author will evolve.