The Power of Fear

As many readers here know, one of the clients I am most proud to represent is Dr. Paul Offit, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and author of several books on vaccines. Paul's latest book, though, is about more than vaccines, it's about the controversy of vaccines and whether or not they cause autism. They do not, as Paul demonstrates very well in latest book, AUTISM'S FALSE PROPHETS.

Due to his stance on vaccines and autism, Paul has been on the receiving end of an enormous amount of grief and quite a bit of misinformation has been published about him. Recently, though, two items have appeared that help to counter that misinformation and I wanted to point you to those items so that you can see the primary resources.

Some of Paul's detractors call him "Dr. Proffit," because he helped invent a vaccine that was then purchased by a pharmaceutical company. Incorrect reports say that Paul received tens of million of dollars and that he helped ensure that the vaccine he helped invent became a part of the CDC recommended schedule of vaccines. This post, from the Countering Age of Autism blog, provides the correct information.

http://counteringageofautism.blogspot.com/2009/09/paul-offit-responds-to-press-release-by.html.

Next, well, there's this little magazine called WIRED, and they just published a cover story(!) about Paul and his efforts. You can read it online at http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience.

Z

Sometimes I am Just an Idiot

I just wrote an extensive--I mean EXTENSIVE--monthly round-up for the month of September, but various publishing headaches with Blogger made me abandon it and then it turns out the place I thought I had a draft saved, I did not. So, I'm going to go take a nap and perhaps I will think about writing it ALL OVER AGAIN! Or not. Oy.

Z

An Open Letter to the President of Intuit

September 30, 2009

Mr. Brad Smith

President

Intuit

PO Box 28867

Tucson, AZ 85726-8867

Dear Mr. Smith:

As a long-time user of QuickBooks and Quicken, I am writing to express my very real frustration with the off-shoring of QuickBooks technical support. I challenge you, sir, to call your own company’s Payroll Support phone number and try to solve a technical issue using your Philippines-based technical support representatives.

I spoke to one of these representatives today. I found the connection horrible, no doubt because VoIP isn’t immune to distance. I also found the representative’s accent extremely hard to understand. And I found that when I started to describe my problem, the representative was clearly trying to find the right page in her script to come up with a response to my statements. She otherwise appeared unfamiliar with the program.

I write a blog that can be found at www.zackcompany.blogstop.com. Quite a while ago, I wrote one titled “Why QuickBooks 2009 sucks. Let me count the ways....” As of today, I have fifty-nine comments, of which fifty-seven agree strongly with me and go into great detail of the problems others have suffered. Of the other two, one was Greg Wright, Director of Product Management for QuickBooks, and one was not on topic. Thus, other than your own employee, every person reading the blog agrees that the program sucks. More interestingly, since my blog is not about QuickBooks in general, the only way that users are likely to discover this particular entry is by searching on the phrase “QuickBooks sucks.” Sir, your customers are searching the web for this phrase. That should tell you a lot about the levels of customer dissatisfaction out there.

Beyond the basic issues of the program, though, are the headaches and hoops that people have to jump though to get technical support. US customers universally hate dealing with technical support located in other countries. I’m sure you personally hate having an issue with your computer or credit card and ending up on the phone with India or the Philippines. So why do you subject your customers to this hellish experience?

I personally believe that there is a strong issue with one of two things at Intuit, possibly both:

1. Groupthink: As defined on Wikipedia: “Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight.” I believe Groupthink is what resulted in the new online banking module that was so bad your company actually went back and reinstalled a means to use the old version. I strongly sense that employees are encouraged not to rock the boat by being a customer advocate, but simply to embrace the Intuit way. What you need is a team of customer advocates whose job it is to constantly question why the engineers are doing things that make the program more complicated for users, rather than less complicated.
   
   
2. Institutionalized arrogance: I have long had the feeling that Intuit is not interested in the way that customers do business or even use the program. The company decides how the program “should” be used and then designs it in that manner, despite that customers may find it counter-productive, counter-intuitive, and annoying. The errors in designing the online banking module are a perfect example.
   
   Further arrogance can be found in the way that Intuit structures its Payroll Services, making it increasingly difficult and increasingly expensive for users, rather than simpler and less expensive. The pricing of products in the Intuit marketplace, such as checks and deposit slips, is not competitive with companies such as Costco Check Printing. Does Intuit honestly believe that its products are one hundred percent better and thus should be one hundred percent more expensive? I respectfully submit the products are not better and the Payroll Services have not been made easier and more effective, only more expensive. Intuit even had the arrogance to increase the price of Direct Deposit during the worst economy of our lifetimes. Way to support the customer base in a down economy!
   
   

I have, over the years, seen some improvements in the program. The ability to file tax forms electronically on both the federal and state levels is one of them. But otherwise, I feel I have seen few improvements. I have asked for years that the Job Description field be made part of the Memorized Transaction list or that the name field for that list be longer, or both. That change has never been made. I have asked for years that calculating items be created, so that you can use percentages of item X for item Y. That has never been added. I have urged QuickBooks to have true synchronization or coordination with Microsoft Outlook and with Stamps.com software (being able to tie Stamps.com shipments to QB customers or Vendors) and that has never happened. QuickBooks has never even been able to differentiate Customers and Vendors with the same name without the user customizing the names! Really, where is the innovation that would inspire customers to stay with and upgrade with QuickBooks? Thank God I’m a PC user. If I were a Mac user, this letter would be five times longer, given that lack of support, improvement, and innovation Intuit has provided the Mac community.

QuickBooks has, in essence, become nothing more than an American automobile model. It changes colors and shapes a little bit now and then. It adds a bell and whistle here and there, but is as likely to remove it in the next version. And like American automobile companies, Intuit will crash and burn if it doesn’t start listening to the customers and giving them what they want: a better program, that makes their lives easier, not harder, less expensive options for add-ons like payroll and supplies, and technical support that is located in the United States.

Thank you for your time in reading this letter. It would be greatly appreciated if I could receive confirmation that this letter was actually given to and read by you and not intercepted by administrative personnel tasked with keeping the “little people”/customers from bothering you.

Sincerely,
Andrew Zack

eQuery Form Headaches

Apparently there's a glitch and the form is currently offline. If you used the form recently and got an error message after hitting submit, then your query was not sent. You should send us a paper query or try the eQuery form again when it is back online.

Z

Tips for Our New eQuery Form

If you’ve visited The Zack Company’s website recently, you may have noticed it looks a bit different. That’s because we are in the midst of a loooooooooooooong redesign. I’m not going to lie. It’s not turning out quite the way I’d hoped. I thought it would look “slicker” and that by switching to Joomla, it would be easier to maintain. Neither seems to be the case. But I’ve invested quite a bit of money into it and so we’re going to be living with it for a while.

One major new improvement in the site, though, is that we’ve added an eQuery™ form. eQuery will allow authors to query us online, without having to send in paper queries or the dreaded Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope (SASE). This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

It’s a good thing because, obviously, it saves authors paper, time, and postage. It’s a bad thing because it requires me to read queries like I read many of my other emails: quickly and with the goal of hitting the DELETE button as soon as I can. I honestly suspect that I’m more likely to pass on an eQuery than a snail mail query, but only time will tell if that becomes a verified pattern.

There are some other bad things. The form has been designed to get authors to provide me the information in the format I prefer. First step is a one-to-three sentence “Keynote.” Keynote is a word taken from my days as an editor and when I wrote Tip or Title Information sheets for the sales force. It’s supposed to tell the reader (in this case, me) what the book is about in very few sentences. So far, no author has written what I would call a correct or compelling keynote. Here’s an example of what it should be, using the new TV-show-based-on-a-book, FAST FORWARD:

For two minutes and seventeen seconds, everyone in the world blacks out. During that time, each person has a vision of what they believe is their future, only six months away. This is the story of what happens during those six months. Are their futures fated, or can they stop the future before it becomes their present?

And, honestly, even that is a bit too long. Let’s try one for THE FIRM. You’ve read the book or seen the movie.

Mitch McDeer is a young man from a poor Southern family who has struggled through Harvard Law School. When a Southern law firm makes him an offer too good to refuse, he takes it. But shortly he learns that the offer really is too good to be true, because his new firm is actually a front for the Mafia.

The purpose of the keynote is to grab the reader’s attention and make him or her want to read more. It’s also a good test of whether or not the book is “high concept,” which is something that agents and editors love to see. If your book can be described and made intriguing in three sentences or less, you’re off to a good start.

Next, the form asks you for a description of the work. This is supposed to be three or four paragraphs at most. Including the length of the work is not a bad idea, as well as the format (proposal for nonfiction, for example).

Last but not least, there’s a section for About the Author. This is your one-paragraph bio, pure and simple. Pick up any hardcover book and turn to the back flap. This is your model. Don’t go too long. However, if you are writing nonfiction, it’s important to put in any relevant information. If you are writing about mental illness, do be sure to tell me you are a shrink, for example.

My article from THE PERFECT PITCH remains a good place to get ideas on writing query letters, so be sure to check it out.

Also, keep in mind that the firm doesn’t allow formatting. Everything you put in there will be plain text. So if you want to italicize something, better to use ALL CAPS.

I hope this helps. I’m sure as the form gets more use, I will be posting more tips and also refining the form to make it work better.

Z

Should You Go for Full Disclosure?

Well, I'm back from being ill and playing catch-up. Got an interesting email a while back and haven't addressed it.

I have been trying to find an agent or publisher for a literary fiction novel of mine, and after sending dozens of query packages have found no one who wanted to read the manuscript. I suspect the reason is that I have very few publications to my real name, which is the name under which I have sent the queries.

However, under a pen name I have had a great deal of success publishing some half dozen erotic stories in major hardcopy anthologies in the last two years. Most of these anthologies are or have been sold in major bookstore chains, in fact. At the risk of sounding boastful I can say that I am one of the best writers now working in this genre.

I would really like to capitalize on my success as an erotic fiction writer in order to get the attention of a publisher or agent, but would rather publish my non-erotic novel under my real name. Do you think it would be at all feasible to write agents and publishers under my real name, tell them of my intention to publish under my real name, but also tell them my pen name, just to demonstrate that I am already a published writer? Can they be trusted with this kind of confidential information? Would it be better to write them under my pen name and agree to reveal my real name if they showed interest in my novel? Perhaps these are impossible questions to answer, but I would very much appreciate your thoughts on this if at all possible.

I guess the author of this email didn't consider that I answer these questions in my blog! So, if you're worried about confidentiality, perhaps this is not the way to go about it. Anyhow, I have opted not to publish this author's name, so that he can retain his anonymity.

That said, Yes, Yes, Yes. Tell potential agents that you are a previously published, great- or best-selling erotic fiction writer. Why wouldn't you? In telling them, you deliver more than one important message:

1. "I have been deemed worthy of publication. Thus, I am not one of the thousands of writers contacting you who have never been published and have never been evaluated objectively as being worth publishing.
2. "I can actually finish something. I've written stories or books that have been published, so I'm not just playing around with this. I'm dedicated and have proven that I can finish what I start."
3. "I recognize that this is a business. By using a pseudonym to write in one market, I have proven that I'm not just desperate to get published. I'm working the angles to make sure that I'm planning for a career that's more than one thing."
4. "I can do more than one thing. I've written in one genre, but here's another. Sure, there's no guarantee that my science fiction novel is as good as my erotic fiction (hey, I've had erotic encounters, but I don't own a space ship or travel to the 24th century often), but certainly the fact that I am published in one genre increases the odds that I have some basic skills and am worth considering in other genres."

Of course, just because you write one thing doesn't mean you can write another. I remember working with a best-selling romance writer and lecturing her on all of her bad habits, each of which was entirely acceptable in romance, but not in general fiction, I felt. I mean, it's one thing to write about your hero's "throbbing manhood" or the "rising pulse" between your heroine's thighs in romance, but try that in regular fiction and I think you'll just get a belly laugh.

So, can an erotic fiction writer write in another genre? Who knows? But certainly if he has been writing successfully in that genre, he should use that as a selling point to find an agent for other works.

As for the question of whether or not agents can be trusted with the author's real name and pseudonymous writing credits, I would venture to say that agents who are not interested in his work of literary fiction will not be interested in telling anyone about his erotic writings. And those who are interested in his work of literary fiction will have an incentive to be discreet.

Z

Here Piggy, Piggy...

I'm out of the office with the flu. On the plus side, I'm catching up on my sleep and losing weight, both of which I really needed to do. And my wife says I never see the glass as half full....

That'll teach me to pet the pigs at the zoo...

Z

P.S. Yes, I know I did not catch the swine flu from a pig. I don't even know if I have the swine flu. But I've got the flu and there's not a lot you can say about the flu that's funny. But pigs are ALWAYS funny!

No one should die...

If you are a Facebook user, you would have to be blind to miss the current movement in which users are changing their status to read as follows:

No one should die because they cannot afford health care and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

I think this is a great sentiment. Unfortunately, I also think it's unrealistic.

I fear that the Obama administration and many of its supporters have really and truly bitten off more than they can chew when it comes to health-care reform.

Because, you see, it's not at all about health-care reform, it's about health INSURANCE reform. And the goal of Obama and many of his supporters is to remove the risk from the concept of insurance, which is simply not realistic.

By definition, insurance requires a calculation of risk. That's why homeowners living in areas known for wildfires or floods have trouble getting home insurance. If they can get it, it is often more expensive than someone living high up on a hill in an area that gets plenty of rain. Less chance of fire or flood for that homeowner, so lower insurance costs.

Every insurance company is making a bet and that bet is that the party paying for insurance will never need it. I have paid thousands of dollars in homeowner's insurance over the years and have only had one small claim. I've paid thousands of dollars for health insurance, also, and have had thousands of dollars in claims over the years, from knee surgery to back surgery, to broken bones and twisted ankles. Have I paid in more than I have taken out? I bet not. And most people would consider me a fairly healthy person. I do not drink much, I do not smoke, I take no regular medications, and my cholesterol is in a healthy range. I do need to lose twenty to thirty pounds, but that's a recent development brought on by the life changes such as moving from walker- and cyclist-centric New York City to car-centric San Diego, not to mention having a toddler son cuts into your ability to get to the gym.

You cannot force insurance companies to insure people who are unhealthy and who present bad risks. It's bad business. You CAN incentivize them. Offer tax breaks to insurance companies for each "high-risk" customer they take on. But is that really any more cost-effective than simply letting those folks sign up for Medicare? I think not. In fact, letting the uninsurable sign up for Medicare is likely more cost-effective, since Medicare is an established system and no new infrastructure would really need to be set up.

But we CAN make the health insurance companies foot the bill. Why not take a lesson from the banking crisis? Millions of depositors have seen their funds protected by the FDIC when their banks went under. The FDIC is funded by banks themselves, who must pay into the fund. Money from the fund is then used to protect depositors.

What amazes me is that no one has apparently considered applying this model to health insurance. I have read that there are about 1300 health insurance companies in the US. They are responsible for billions of dollars in business. Why can't the federal government simply create the Federal Health Insurance Fund (FHIF) and require health insurance companies to contribute some percentage of their billed premiums every year? Then those unable to get health insurance through their employer are allowed to sign up for Medicare and the funds from the FHIF are used toward financing their care. They would still have co-pays and minimums, etc., just like the rest of us, but at least they would have insurance.

There are flaws, no doubt. What's to stop small businesses or even large businesses from ceasing to offer health insurance when there is a government option? Well, lest we forget, businesses are not REQUIRED to offer health insurance, free lunch, or 401(k) plans. These are not mandatory entitlements; they are BENEFITS. Companies offer benefits to entice good workers to come to work for them. Companies that stop offering benefits will find that the best talent leaves to go to companies that do offer benefits. It's a fundamental part of the market economy and it works quite well.

Of course, one major issue many have with health care in this country is that it actually IS a market economy, but hasn't it always been one? Doctors move to cities with growing populations and few doctors to ensure enough patients to make a living. Towns without doctors may recruit and offer to pay off medical school loans for doctors if they will come practice locally. Good doctors may even refuse to accept health insurance—even good health insurance, not just Medicare—to ensure that they will get paid in full and are not locked into the rates established by Medicare or considered "reasonable and customary" by health insurers. But if they find that patients are few and far between, I'm sure they will rethink their decision not to participate in any insurance plans. But try to force doctors to ONLY accept what Medicare will pay and you will truly only get the most altruistic of students going to medical school. Why would anyone go to medical school if the only hope of earning a living as a doctor is to earn what Medicare allows?

The United States has laws against price-fixing, yet Medicare and insurance companies essentially engage in price-fixing every day. Well, technically, they engage in the REVERSE of price-fixing, as they drive prices down, rather than up. Medicare has a fee structure and doctors who accept Medicare have to accept that structure. Insurance companies will only reimburse what's "reasonable and customary" according to their own system, which is somewhat like the blackjack dealer telling you that you have lost but refusing to show you his cards. Perhaps someone should examine the restraint-of-trade and antitrust issues in health-care reform?

I don't believe that it's at all possible to "reform" health care and health insurance in our country with one bill, not matter how big the bill. And I think that it's unreasonable to even try. They may have passed one desegregation law, but it still took dozens (hundreds?) of confrontations in different states to get us to where we are today...still working on it.

We should strive to fix only the question of the uninsured for now. Portable health insurance is a great idea, but if you lose your insurance at least there will be an option for the uninsured. And when it comes to pre-existing conditions, go ahead and say that the new option for the uninsured allows for pre-existing conditions. Yes, it may result in an insurance pool that covers only those who can't get insurance, who have pre-existing conditions, and are the worst off, but aren't those the ones who need the most help now?

Z

American Express: the New Bully

We have all been getting the emails. From our banks, from our credit cards, and from pretty much every company that sends us paper, the emails keep coming. Please go paperless. Sign up to get your statements online. They make it all sound so convenient and easy. Even my company does it, scanning and emailing royalty statements.

Up until now, though, it has all been voluntary. They ask and if you want to cut down on some paper or save a tree, you agree to go paperless. I don't know about you, but when it comes to bills, I pretty much like getting the paper. Otherwise, I risk losing the bill in the plethora of emails I get every day and forgetting to pay it. That doesn't happen with paper bills.

The other reason I like paper bills is that I like using paper checks. Sure, paying online might be convenient, but I use Quicken for personal financial tracking and QuickBooks for business. And I don't write enough checks in either service to be worth signing up for Intuit's bill-paying services. Sure, my banks offer bill-paying services, but then I have to log onto their websites, set up the bills to be paid, and otherwise do a ton of duplicate data entry. I like entering things once and, incredibly, getting paper bills and paying them using paper checks seems to be the best way to achieve that.

But American Express wants to take the paper choice away from you. American Express Corporate Card holders no longer receive paper statements and they cannot get paper statements even if they request that they receive such statements. American Express has made online statements mandatory for Corporate Card holders. And they are going to do it to the rest of us, too.

You see, I've just been informed that Corporate Card holders are just the start. American Express is apparently on a mission to stop paper statements.

Good for the environment, you say? Perhaps, but I actually trust the US Mail to get me a bill more than I trust any email to reach me consistently, month after month. And if you use your local cable company's email system and then move to another city or state, and you fail to update your email address with each company, you risk missing your statements and becoming delinquent on your bills. At least the US Mail forwards your mail when you move. Do you trust Time Warner, AOL, or AT&T to forward your email? I do not.

I'm 100% confident that part of the thinking at American Express is that they will be able to make more on late fees and interest by forcing folks into paperless billing. That's better for their bottom line, but not yours, for sure.

So call American Express at 212-640-2000 and ask for the office of the president of American Express Credit Cards and let them know you are against mandatory paperless billing. And, like me, put your American Express card in a drawer until they stop trying to bully us into accepting changes like this without our agreement.

Z

The August Monthly Round-Up

With my summer intern, Crystal, now back at school, this monthly round-up is all me.

In August we...

• Received 46 queries and declined 51.
• Received 9 sample chapters and declined 8.
• Received 1 proposal.
• Received 1 manuscript and declined 1.

We have on hand and need to read...

• 12 sample chapters.
• 1 proposal.
• 5 full manuscripts or self-published books.

In addition, we have 3 full manuscripts from current clients that we need to read and respond to, as well as one proposal we are preparing for submission.

We are waiting on the following requested materials...

• 4 sample chapters.
• 1 proposal.
• 1 full manuscript.

Here's a list of what we have on hand and the order in which we intend to read them. Please note, though, that material from current clients is read before material from potential clients.

Chapters:

1. Watts
2. Smith
3. Marso
4. Johnston
5. Cannon
6. Lawrence
7. Mercado
8. Bartlett
9. Kates
10. Stills
11. Kelly (2)
12. Biela

Manuscripts:

1. Conner
2. Perrotta
3. Hanford
4. Dracoules
5. Gerard

If your name is not on this list and we are supposed to have received material from you, then we either did not receive it or we have declined it. The oldest sample chapters we have are dated July 28th (letter date, not received date).

Z

UK Agents for US Authors?

I have just begun the process of finding an agent and was considering sending a few queries off across the ocean to the UK. As I have found your blog highly informative, I am seeking your advice on whether I should go forward with this transatlantic solicitation. Are there any disadvantages, monetary or otherwise, of having an agent in a different country?

Sincerely,

John Wienstroer

St. Louis, MO

All agents, whether US or UK, take a higher percentage of "foreign" deals, so a US agent trying to sell you in the UK will take a bigger piece and a UK agent trying to sell you in the US will take a bigger piece.

I don't know of many US authors represented primarily by a UK agent. The US market is simply so much bigger and getting published in the UK if you are from the US is far more difficult unless you are quite the big deal in the US. Hence, I think your odds of finding as UK agent as an American author are far more difficult than finding a US agent.

From a cash perspective, some UK publisher do offer in US Dollars to US agents, to benefit from the exchange rate. If you had a London agent, chances are they'd offer in pounds sterling which would benefit you from an exchange perspective.

In the end, I see no real harm in looking for a UK agent, but I think it a long shot.

Z

I was going thru your submission requirements and was amused to see that you recommend never using italics, only underscores. In the 21st century, a manuscript that comes thru production with underscores is more likely to be set with underscores. (I'm a freelancer with 30 years of experience in book production.) Personally, I'll never understand the preference for underscores (blocking descenders); any proofreader or copy editor worth anything knows italic means italic. Furthermore, anyone who can't see that italics are italics is not doing a decent job in the first place. I mean, how can you notice whether the correct letters are being used unless you're reading letters (and I'm referring to individual characters, not correspondence).

Actually, if you wish to give a proofreader or copy editor a more difficult time, Courier or any sans serif would accomplish that (not that I've seen any manuscripts in the past ten years come through in Courier).

Cheers, --Chet

Dear Chet:

Thanks for the comments. I have to say they took me a bit by surprise, since you mention having thirty years in book production. Using an underscore to indicate italics has certainly been around since long before then and the primary reason for it is to ensure that the typesetter knows that the word is to be set in italics, not the copy editor or proofreader.

Just as a pound sign (#) is used to indicate a line space, so that the typesetter knows to actually put in a line space, underlining words you want set into italics helps ensure that the typesetter knows that there was no error. It wasn't an accidental insertion of a line or italics.

Further, if you are familiar with The Chicago Manual of Style, you know that the punctuation following a word set in italics is also italicized. And in some cases, quote marks are also. But it can hard to discern—especially if you are working on paper—whether or not some characters are in italics or not. Using the underscore makes it immediately apparent.

When I go through the electronic version of a client's work and globally search and replace italics with underscore, I'm nearly always surprised by the random spaces or characters that are actually set in italics. Not to mention the sometimes thousands of extra spaces, line spaces, tabs, etc. And in a day when publishers often start with an electronic copy of the manuscript, it's important to send in a clean ms, without all of that extra garbage. If the publisher prefers italics to underscore, it's an easy global search and replace, but when I'm reading things or preparing submissions, I always go with underscore for all of these reasons.

Z

Waiting...and Waiting...and Waiting

Mr. Zack,

My full manuscript is out to two agents, they've both had them since early July 2009.

Can I query them with another book? Or should I wait to hear back on the first one?

What if I never hear back (meaning they've passed on my novel)? What's a reasonable amount of time to wait before querying them with a new project? Six months? A Year?

Cordially,

Jennifer Rinehart

Dear Jennifer:

Early July 2009 is pretty recent, so I wouldn't be feeling impatient just yet.

I would not query an agent considering your work about a second work until you've heard back on the first book. If you haven't heard back within ninety days, a friendly follow-up is fine. Then follow-up every ninety days until you hear something, unless, like me, your agent does something pro-active on a blog or otherwise to keep you informed as the status of the submissions under consideration.

Once an agent has passed on something of yours, I'd give it a couple of months before querying again. Let him or her clear his or her palette a bit.

Z

QuickBooks R8: Did they really fix anything?

I've just downloaded and started to use the new Release 8 of QuickBooks 2009. I've been getting emails from Intuit for weeks now about how this new version will fix everything everyone hated about the new version of online banking.

Once you install the update, you are told that you now have a choice between the new version of Online Banking or the old. Yet, there is no intuitive manner of switching between the two. You have to know to go to Edit>Preferences>Checking>Company Preferences, and then, at the bottom, you can click a radio button that will let you make the switch. It sure would be nice if there was a "Switch to Register Mode" on the Online Banking screen. But, hey, I guess we should be happy they just gave us the option of switching!

Interestingly enough, switching back to the old view cleared up a bug I had been battling for many months. I've had a Company Reminder about online transactions ready to send, even though there weren't any, forever. I had cleared it up by deactivating the checking account it was related to, but then it came back, apparently as a result of a failed online connection at one point. The attempts to make it go away and then to fix what was broken in my checking account ate up several days of my life, including an afternoon on the phone with QB Support. The representative appeared to fix the problem, but then it came back. Upgrading to R8 and switching to the old version of online banking seems to have cleared up the error.

The old version is clearly better. Today I downloaded transactions from Advanta that I had previously reconciled. It was easy as pie to uncheck the reconciled box and then match the transactions to the downloaded ones to make it all match up. Creating aliases on the fly is a piece of cake. And dealing with accounts is now back to being as easy as ice cream (just to keep up the dessert metaphor). Thanks, QB, for listening to the users and fixing this. But I still think you owe us all a free upgrade to the 2010 version just for suffering through the "improved" version you just made it possible for us to stop using.

Next, I'd like QB to really start working on PayPal integration. I realize that they hate PayPal. After all, PayPal offers merchant services with no monthly fee, whereas Intuit offers merchant services and charges users a significant monthly fee. I should admit, though, that I think anything over $5 a month is pretty significant. But for a guy like me who does only a couple of credit card transactions per month, there should be an inexpensive QB solution, and there is not. So I use PayPal.

PayPal, of course, has its own issues. It was effectively down for several days this week. A customer of mine tried for three or four days to get a payment to go through. That's completely unacceptable. PayPal has a QuickBooks wizard, but it is clunky and will not accept an email address with a .info extension. (Yes, people have email addresses ending in .info.) There should be a sleeker solution.

PayPal is, at the end of the day, a banking website and as such it should offer the same QuickBooks and Quicken integration that other banks do. Why it doesn't, I don't know, but I suspect it is because they are competing on the merchant services side and that Intuit is the one not playing ball. But I could be wrong.

QB could eliminate the problem by simply matching PayPal's merchant services terms, but I've seen no evidence that QB wants to actually compete for customers' business. And that's really the problem. Perhaps the time has come for the Justice Department to explore the question of whether or not QuickBook's market domination is a monopoly. Because I sure don't see any other programs out there with as much control over the marketplace.

Z

The July Monthly Round-Up

Hi, I'm Crystal, Andy's summer intern, and here is the July monthly round-up:

• 56 queries received; 32 declined
• 11 sample chapters received; 2 declined
• 0 proposals received; 0 declined
• 1 manuscripts received; 3 declined

We are currently waiting on:

• 3 sample chapters
• 0 proposals
• 0 manuscripts

We currently have on hand and need to read:

• 17 sample chapters
• 3 proposals
• 7 full manuscripts, plus 2 full manuscripts from current clients

The sample chapters and proposals still under consideration, in the order in which we expect to read them, are:

1. Barrett
2. Markowitz
3. Rogers
4. Katz
5. Corsini
6. Watt
7. Duncan
8. Kaufman
9. Gordon
10. Donahue
11. Elliott
12. Johnson
13. Dunne
14. Haynes
15. Watts
16. Smith
17. Marso
18. Cannon
19. Johnston
20. Lawrence


The manuscripts still under consideration, in the order in which we expect to read them, are:

1. MacKinnon
2. Conner
3. Perrota
4. Hanford
5. Wexler
6. Mulrooney
7. Dracoules

(Please note that manuscripts by current clients are read before manuscripts by prospective clients.)

If your name is on one of these lists and you have accepted representation or found a publisher, please let us know immediately so that we can remove your material from our reading list.

In July, Andy did not offer representation to any new clients.

Crystal

The Confusing World of Foreign Rights

Do I need multiple agents if I want to sell my translation rights to my novel in different countries? Or should I find one agent in my own country who can do this all for me? How does this work? I've just sold the Japanese rights to my first novel and was represented there by a Japanese agent. Would it be smart of me to ask them to represent me worldwide? This is all so confusing!—Anna Mara

Yes, it is confusing, for sure!

First, congrats on your sale. I admit I'm mighty curious how you found a Japanese agent to sell your book but you don't have a US or UK agent.

Traditionally, you would find a US or UK agent first and then that agent would sell your book in the US or UK and then that agent's Japanese agent would shop the book in Japan. It is highly unusual to have a sale from an English-language writer in Japan before a US or UK sale.

There are UK agents who also sell in the US and US agents who also sell in the UK, but I haven't heard of any deals by Japanese agents selling to US or UK publishers, so my advice would be to seek out a US or UK agent, being sure to mention that you already have representation and a sale in Japan.

Z

Eagerly Seeking...

Having survived Comic-Con here in San Diego, I want to let readers of this blog know that I am currently eagerly seeking military science fiction written by veteran military personnel who can make the military parts seem exceptionally "real."

I am also eagerly seeking urban fantasy with adult, male protagonists.

If you are an author with a project that falls into those two areas, I'd very much like to hear from you a.s.a.p.

Z

More on Agent Termination

I'm curious about contracts that have an expiration date (say, one year) but stipulate you must both agree in writing if you wish to terminate before that date. Any thoughts on how one would approach that scenario? And what constitutes "agreement"-in your nonlegal personal opinion, of course.

No agent can "force" you, contractually or otherwise, to allow him or her to represent you. What can be the case, though, is that you will owe the agent a commission on any offer received or deal concluded prior to the end of the term, depending on the wording of the agreement.

As there is no "standard" agency agreement, just as there is no "standard" publishing agreement, it's impossible for me to be more specific. Most agent-author agreements state that the agent is due a commission on anything ranging from all submissions made to all contracts signed. Of course, there has to ultimately be a contract signed in order for a commission to be due.

Where problems arise is when an author terminates an agent and then a submission made by the agent turns into a deal, perhaps before the author has a new agent, perhaps after. Potentially, the author now has to pay two agents. And while an author may find this unfair, it may simply be the legal reality of the contract. Thus, it is important that you read and understand your agency agreement. And if your agent doesn't work with an agency agreement, consider writing your agent a letter that outlines your expectations of the relationship. There are books with sample agency agreements and you could ask your agent to sign one. Keep in mind that there is likely a reason your agent does not work with agreements and asking one who does not to sign one you present could be a bit like offering a prenuptial agreement to your fiancée.

I advise authors in general to try and clear the decks prior to terminating a relationship with an agent. Try to make the parting as amicable as possible. Unless the agent actually did something unethical or actually illegal, you should try and look at the situation from your agent's perspective. Most agents are working quite hard for their clients and the news that a client wants to leave him or her is shocking.

I once had a client leave me after I spent at least two years shopping his book and got him a two-book deal. The first book came out and became a regional best-seller. Then, just as the second book was about to come out and the first was starting to pick up steam in the foreign markets, he terminated representation. My wife and I had just bought a new house and I was unbelievably busy and stressed. We were trying to start a family. And throughout it all, my first course of action every day was to make sure I was staying on top of this guy's business. And yet he quit me. I was shocked and angry, to be honest, and to this day I simply look at the experience as a lesson in how disloyal a person can be.

So if you are contemplating quitting your agent, ask yourself is it because of the agent or is it because of you? And if it is because of you, then perhaps you should focus on the "you" part of the equation. I have had authors leave me and come back. One even left me again and then wanted to come back again! This says something, I think, about why they may have left in the first place and that it must have had less to do with me, than with them. Very few clients have left me and I take that as a great compliment and I deeply appreciate their loyalty.

Z

Saying Goodbye...

have you ever done an essay on how to dump an agency and how an author should go about doing that before moving on to another agency?

I don't know if I've actually blogged on this subject specifically, though I've advised potential clients on it.

Leaving an agent is actually fairly easy. Simply look at your written representation agreement and follow whatever termination and notice clauses are contained within it. If there are none, or you have no written representation agreement, then you could simply send a letter via Certified Mail, with a copy sent First Class Mail also, in case the agent doesn't claim the Certified letter at the Post Office, to the agent, terminating the relationship.

Here's a sample letter, along with the necessary disclaimer:

The following suggested letter regarding termination of representation is provided without any warranties or representations. Neither The Zack Company, nor any employee thereof, is engaged in the rendering of legal services or opinions. If you have any concerns regarding the legal nature of this language, you are urged to seek competent legal counsel. In no way does The Zack Company assume any responsibility for the use of this letter by any individual or corporation in any way.

{Your Name Here}

{Your Address Here}

{Your Telephone Number Here}

{Date}

{Name of Agent}

{Name of Agency}

{Address of Agency}

RE: Agreement dated {Date} between {Name of Agency or Agent} and {Your Name or Your Corporate Entity's Name}

Dear {Name of Agent}:

This letter shall serve as official notice of my termination of the Representation Agreement referenced above. Said Agreement is hereby terminated, effective {immediately/30 days/some other period detailed in the Agreement}. You are hereby directed to cease and desist in any activities in which you may be engaged on my behalf, including but not limited to, the marketing of rights to any of my Work(s) anywhere in the World. You should, effective immediately, no longer hold yourself out as my literary representative or agent with regard to any properties in which I am involved and you should make no further submissions or contacts with editors or publishers regarding those Work(s). Any unsold rights in and to my Work(s) shall henceforth be handled {by myself/my new Literary Representative}.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, I understand and agree that you are the "agent of record" on the following Contracts with Publishers and that you shall be entitled to receive Commissions on such Contracts, as per the "Agency Clause" which appears in those Contracts, provided that you continue to fulfill your fiduciary duties with regard to such Contracts, including but not limited to the administration of any advances, royalties or other income generated by such Contracts.

{List of Contracts}

In order to effectuate the proper transfer of information regarding my Contracts, please forward a list of any and all outstanding submissions on which you intend to claim Commission within ten (10) business days of your receipt of this letter. If I do not receive such information within that time, I will conclude that there are no such outstanding submissions.

I appreciate that you have been a passionate advocate for my Work(s) in the past and I expect that we shall continue to have a professional and amicable business relationship with regard to any Contracts on which you are the "agent of record." Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or problems.

Sincerely,

You may wish to "cc" your attorney, if you have one.

Now, it is worth noting that simply terminating representation might not terminate your obligation to pay a commission on other sales. Some agency agreements state that an agent keeps representing the subsidiary rights to works that were sold during the term of the agreement (the works, not the subsidiary rights). Thus, you could have sold a novel in the US, then terminated representation, but the agent could still be your agent on foreign rights or TV & film rights to that book, even though you terminated representation. The Zack Company does not operate this way, but some agencies do.

My understanding is that you cannot be forced to allow an agent to represent you if you don't want that agent to represent you. However, you may still be legally obligated to pay the agent the commission on any deal you do. For example, if your agency agreement says that you will allow the agent to continue representing and earning commissions on rights to works sold during the term of the agreement, after termination of the agreement, but you don't want that agent licensing rights or representing you, you might be able to stop him or her from actually doing the selling, but if you get a new agent and he or she does a deal for, say, the film rights to a book sold to a publisher by the original agent, you might find that original agent comes knocking and looking for his commission on the deal, even though he didn't do the deal. Because, you see, you may have obligated yourself to pay commission, even though the agent is no longer your agent.

Thus, read your representation agreement carefully and consult an attorney if you feel the need, because things are not always as cut and dried as you think.

Z

Bye-bye Plaxo

Well, it finally happened. Plaxo has started to charge for Outlook integration. Want to download the Plaxo toolbar for Outlook, get out your credit card.

I have had a love/hate relationship with Plaxo for years. I loved it at the start because so many folks in publishing move around that it was great to be able to use Plaxo to email a request for updated information every quarter or so. I regularly got close to a hundred or so updates that changed titles, phone numbers, or addresses.

Then Plaxo took away the ability to email a request for an update to folks. Now you had to "connect" with folks and then you could get their updated information...if and when they updated it. This, of course, was far less effective.

Plaxo has made its goals clear. It wants to be Facebook. Alas, Facebook already exists and no matter how much "connecting" Plaxo offers, it will never be Facebook. And a recent partnership with Facebook, in which your Facebook posts are ported over to Plaxo, makes it clear that Facebook has no fear of Plaxo. Likely every Plaxo user is already on Facebook, or soon will be. The partnership between Facebook and Plaxo merely ensures that those who aren't already on FB become aware of it and soon realize that they would be better off posting their "status" on FB and not Plaxo. Inevitably, traffic on Plaxo will die and FB might generously offer Comcast (the current owner) a few shekels to buy it, absorb anything decent on it (if anything), and then shuttle it off to its own version of Warehouse 13.

And this is a shame. When I recently suffered a fatal computer error, my contacts' information was readily available on Plaxo (yes, I had other backups, but they required a working computer with Outlook installed to which to restore them). That certainly saved my bacon a few times in the three days it took me to reformat my hard drive and restore all of the programs and data.

But is it worth the $50 or so that Plaxo wants me to pay for what was previously a free service? And a free service that, IMHO, is actually worth a lot less to me than it was when I could email folks requests for address updates? I think not.

So bye-bye, Plaxo. If you see Netmanage Ecco Pro around in that place where good software goes after people stop using it, please give it my regards. I still prefer it to Outlook.

Z

More QuickBooks Suckage

Here's a bit more QB suckage:

"Beginning on August 31, 2009, the price of your direct deposit feature will increase from $0.99 per paycheck to $1.05 per paycheck."

Worst economy in decades and QB is jacking up service fees? Why? Just to annoy us?

Let's face it, six cents isn't going to break anyone and it's not going to cause folks to stop using Direct Deposit, but does anyone at Intuit put any logic to work on the subject of customer satisfaction and morale? Yes, morale.

Businesses talk about customer satisfaction a lot, but maybe they should start thinking about customer morale, the same way companies have to think about employee morale and the military has to think about the troops' morale. Because customers are depressed. Their incomes are lower, business in general is slower (or just sucks), and people can't afford to buy the things they want to buy or even need to buy. But Intuit keeps chugging away, spending millions or billions changing software that works just fine into software that doesn't work (see my post and the many, many responses about how badly QuickBooks 2009 sucks below) and that is alienating users and leaving them desperate for an alternative.

Well, if you aren't one of those folks who thinks Bill Gates is the Anti-Christ and that Microsoft is secretly a front for the Knights Templar, you might want to check out Accounting 2009. Sexy name, there, eh? Must be the marketing geniuses at Microsoft at work again. Anyhow, I think we are all confident Mister Softy isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so making a switch to their accounting package should be a safe bet. It's just going to be a bitch of a learning cure.

But let's get back to Intuit. I'd like to send them some books on history. You know, ones that talk about the serfs rising up and killing the unfeeling leadership. Because, Intuit, that's what could be about to happen to you. I mean, if MS or Peachtree would just wake up and smell the small-business owners' dissatisfaction with everything Intuit, they could get folks to switch in droves. Make converting cheap and add inexpensive or free services like Direct Deposit or a year of free Merchant Services and folks would leap with glee to make the switch.

And if you want to stop the growing dissatisfaction, Intuit, you might want to rethink this annoying increase on Direct Deposit and cut the number of ads in your program, not to mention the cost of some of those things you advertise (Costco checks are half of what yours cost). And, for QB 2010, really, really ask your users what they want, instead of just changing things around so you can claim "improvements" that will get users to pay for an upgrade. And, while you're at it, every owner of 2009 gets a free upgrade to 2010.

For example, I want the invoices and sales receipts to have calculating fields, so that I can create an item that is X% of another item, but the program won't do that. I have asked for years and years to have Customer:Job show print on check stubs and to have the Job Description show up as a column any place you have Customer:Job. You can add it into the Customer Center, but not into the Memorized Transaction list. Seriously. I'm not kidding. Apparently Intuit understands that the Job Name field is too short to accurately describe all jobs, so they add a Description field, but they don't let you use the field anyplace you want. Only where they think you should. This is not how your customers want you to think, Intuit. If I can use the Job field, I should be able to use the Job Description field as well or instead of the Job field. Adding this would be a useful addition. Screwing around with what works already is not.

So, Intuit, you are welcome to my six extra cents for Direct Deposit, but I expect you to put it to good use, making the improvements to the program I outline above, and not just to line your pockets.

Z

"High Concept"

Dear Mr. Zack,

What does 'high concept' mean?

I've seen it attached to YA fiction, women's fiction and fantasy.

Is there such a thing as 'low concept?'

Thanks for your time.

Jennifer Rinehart
Concerned Author

Dear Jennifer:

In most conversations I've had about the meaning of "high concept," it boils down to a concept that can be explained in one or two sentences and the user will get it.

As for "low concept," I can't say I've ever heard the term come up. However, I do believe in stories that hit the low common denominators, either in terms of the writing, which will often been at a lower reading level, or the plot, which may be simplistic rather than complicated.

Z

June: The Monthly Round-up

Hi, I'm Crystal, Andy's new summer intern, and here is the June monthly round-up:

• 43 queries received; 27 declined
• 6 sample chapters received; 2 declined
• 0 proposals received; 1 declined
• 4 manuscripts received; 1 declined

We are currently waiting on:

• 8 sample chapters
• 1 proposal
• 0 manuscripts

We currently have on hand and need to read:

• 6 sample chapters
• 1 proposal
• 8 full manuscripts, plus 3 full manuscripts from current clients

The sample chapters and proposals still under consideration, in the order in which we expect to read them, are:

1. Salpeter
2. Stojak
3. Barrett
4. Markowitz
5. Rogers
6. Katz
7. Corsini

The manuscripts still under consideration, in the order in which we expect to read them, are:

1. MacKinnon
2. Perrota
3. Hanford
4. Fett
5. Schrader-Seccatico
6. Wexler
7. Mulrooney
8. Dracoules

If your name is on one of these lists and you have accepted representation or found a publisher, please let us know immediately so that we can remove your material from our reading list.

In June, Andy did not offer representation to any new clients.

Crystal

A Quick Reminder

As noted on the Comments page, we don't publish anonymous posts or comments. You don't have to register with Blogger. Just sign your post with your full name, city, and state. However, if you are registered with Blogger or another site that allows log-ins to Blogger, you can just use that log-in.

Z

What Keeps Me Up at Night

I'm currently reading MAGICIAN: APPRENTICE, by Raymond Feist, and I like it. I'm noticing, though, that there are a few things he does that I would probably have urged him not to do, mostly involving POV, and I am somewhat surprised by the number of elements he's tossed into the mix and I'm not even halfway through.


As an agent, I often get queries or sample chapters and synopses and as I'm reading them, I wonder, "Where is the kitchen sink?" And this novel is somewhat getting there. Which makes me wonder if I had received this as a submission, would I have accepted it for representation? Obviously, the book has been around a long time and spawned many sequels and has many fans. So not taking it on would have been a mistake. Yet I wonder if I would have.

I've had lunch with more than one editor who told me that he or she had read THE DA VINCI CODE and would have rejected it had it been submitted to him or her. A huge mistake, obviously, if they had. Yet I couldn't get through the book. I thought it a Hardy Boys novel for adults and nothing more.

Then I look at an author like Nelson DeMille. A success, for sure, and in my opinion generally a better writer than Feist or Brown or Ludlum. Yet he has enjoyed nothing like the success of the latter two. The first, he likely has. Why is this? Why do some writers—clearly better writers—fail to be as successful as weaker writers?

I used to say that Grisham's THE FIRM was such a hit because it was written at a sixth-grade reading level. I don't know that for a fact, but it's my guess. Should writers intentionally write more simplistically and at a lower reading level to get more fans? After all, one source I just found says the "average American" reads at an 8th- or 9th-grade level. Thus, if you write above that level, you are potentially limiting your market.

Now, though, we have these doorstops about Harry Potter that are being read by 6th-graders and beyond. Is that because 6th-graders have gotten smarter? Or because the book is appropriate for their age and the rest of the reading audience is a bit dumber and attracted to an entertaining story?

Am I, as an agent who majored in English and clearly prefers a good narrative over a light, dialogue-driven popcorn read, more likely to miss the next big book because of it? Or do I stick to what I believe works and not sell out to the apparent cravings of the masses for the literary equivalent of Skittles?

This shit keeps me up at night.

Z

Bookscan: More Holes than Swiss Cheese

To those authors who don't understand what exactly goes into getting a book sold, either by an agent or by the publisher to stores, I imagine the Bookscan discussion is a bit esoteric. But the truth is, whether or not your book is well written, it may die a quick death because of things like Bookscan and other publishing and bookselling practices or behaviors which have little to do with what's between the covers.

This morning I received an email from Brianna Buckley, Sales Coordinator, Nielsen BookScan, who offered the following information:

Yes, I read blog posts as I come across them, but don’t comment on them. J I will, however, respond directly to the poster if I’m able to correct misquoted facts or answer a question.

“…Bookscan, according to one comment, doesn't include grocery and drugstore chains. I actually didn't know this”

“…I also wonder about airport bookstores.”

Yes, we track food & drug stores, they are tracked in the “Non-Traditional” store stratum, which was added as new in 2008.

We also track Borders airport locations, as well as the Hudson Group’s airport, train and bus terminal locations.

A list of the major participants in our US Consumer Market Panel may be found here:
http://www.bookscan.com/uploads/fs_USAConsumer%20Market_Jan09.pdf

Go ahead and take a look at that list. I'll wait. (Humming theme from JEOPARDY....).

Done? Okay. Notice anything interesting about that list? Like how many places are missing?! Where is Safeway/Vons, probably the largest grocery chain on the West Coast? Where is CVS, one of the largest (and getting larger) national drugstore chains? Where is Duane Reade, the largest pharmacy chain in New York City? These folks count for a lot of books. Where is Overstock.com? Buy.com is worth having, but not Overstock? I'd love to hear from you on these stores, Ms. Buckley.

I heard from one commentator directly last night that Wal-Mart will never report. They are so big, they don't have to do anything they don't want to and apparently they don't want to assist their many publishing vendors and the authors of the millions of books they sell every year by participating. Kind of arrogant, isn't it? Again, I'd love to see the Authors Guild get involved on the Wal-Mart reporting issue and also on the Bookscan issue in general. Authors' careers and being made and more often broken by Bookscan data. Why doesn't the Authors Guild seem to care? Or maybe Bookscan could just pay them to participate. Surely Wal-Mart is interested in money. Make them an offer they can't refuse and then charge publishers and other subscribers an extra fee for Wal-Mart data. You know you'll get it.

And while many of the comments yesterday praised the potential uses of Bookscan, the majority agreed that editors know the Bookscan numbers are "a crock." So why do they ever bring them up? It raises an important question, which is: Why do editors have access to Bookscan and should they? Don't get me wrong, I think that the Sales department should be using Bookscan and possibly marketing and advertising. Presumably those departments know how to interpret the numbers correctly. But editors were mostly English majors, not statistics or accounting majors. Their brains are about words, not numbers. And most seem to be using Bookscan like a big, dead stick with which to beat authors and agents over the head. Is it just an excuse to reject something they didn't like for other reasons but preferred to blame Bookscan figures, as one editor suggested? Or do editors really not understand the limits of Bookscan?

More than one commentator said that Bookscan really only tracks hardcover sales well. In my recent experience, we were dealing with trade-paperbacks. So if Bookscan really only tracks hardcovers well, why would an editor bother to look up an author's prior books if those books weren't hardcovers? Given the back-and-forth I had with the editor, I presume that she really was using the Bookscan data as a reason to reject and not an excuse because she didn't like the book for other reasons. Which leads me to believe that this editor hasn't been fully briefed on exactly what types of sales Bookscan tracks and that Bookscan is a terrible tool for acquiring editors to use in reaching acquisition decisions. Ask the agent for the statements, instead. They may be months out-of date, since publishers issue statements 90-120 days after the period those statements cover ends, but at least they are full reports (or as full as the publisher will provide—don't get me started...), which Bookscan is not. If the agent doesn't have them or won't provide them, then the editor can just presume the worst and say, "no thanks." They reject plenty of books for far less.

If Bookscan is such a great tool, as some said yesterday, perhaps the problem is at publishing houses. Perhaps publishers need to restrict the information from Bookscan to those who can properly interpret it, and keep it out of the acquisition process, since clearly it does not provide anything close to a complete picture even for that which it tracks best: hardcovers.

Z

More Bookscan B.--er, Discussion

To say that I'm surprised by the number of comments my little "rant" about Bookscan yesterday has received would be something of an understatement.  Judging by the lack of information about some of the folks leaving comments, I halfway wonder how many work at Bookscan.  Feeling defensive, perhaps?

Clearly, though, some are acquiring editors and I have broken my rule about anonymous comments being rejected, because I can understand why an acquiring editor doesn't want to leave his or her name while expressing favor or criticism about Bookscan.

Let's look at a few of those comments:

Bookscan doesn't include Wal-Mart, because Wal-Mart won't agree to report, as I understand it.  Also, Bookscan, according to one comment, doesn't include grocery and drugstore chains.  I actually didn't know this.

Now, I'm not privy to much in the way of actual publishers' sales reports, but I'm fairly confident that Wal-mart, grocery, and drugstore chains constitute a huge part of the marketplace, especially in areas where B&N hasn't felt the need to build a superstore.  I also wonder about airport bookstores.  Do they report?  Because if they don't, why the heck does anyone care about Bookscan?  You would never buy stock in a company if the information about it was as incomplete as Bookscan's information is about books being sold.

"Bookscan numbers give insights, not precision into what happened in the PAST. Comparing POS numbers with Royalty statements is bad practice."--This is an interesting point, if it is accurate.  Seems to me that if it is accurate, then publishers could use Bookscan to determine exactly where books are in the supply chain.  But publishers can already get daily rate-of-movement data from B&N directly, and likely every other chain or large seller.  So why do they need Bookscan, again?

Also, I don't know that comparing the numbers is bad.  Remember that statements are issued 90-150 days after the close of the period they are reporting.  Agents know how to read them and factor in the reserves being held to tell if a book is really selling.  (Plus Random House already provides sales by month with nearly every statement, something other publishers could adopt if they want to improve communication with authors and agents).  If there is a discrepancy of one-hundred to one-thousand percent between the two, then either the statements are wrong or Bookscan is wrong, and my money is on Bookscan, because we know that Bookscan doesn't get reports from all selling sources, but that publishers certainly know what they shipped out and got back.

What Bookscan might offer is a route to a shorter reporting cycle, but publishers would have to require their customers to report to Bookscan, or at least the biggest ones such as Wal-Mart.  Because if publishers have POS information, they can calculate that those books aren't coming back as returns.  Using that data, they could more confidently start paying authors for actual copies sold, rather than keep large reserves for returns.  Of course, this means that publishers can't sit on authors' money for months and months, interest-free, which makes me think it's less likely to happen.

I'd like to see the Authors Guild get up in Bookscan's grill.  Bookscan is costing authors deals and reducing authors' advances.  Therefore, the AG should have a motivation to go to them and demand better reporting.  It should also be pursuing Wal-Mart to start participating in Bookscan.  If Bookscan is so important to the publishing industry, it should be important to the Guild to make sure that authors' interests aren't being negatively influenced by its existence.

My issue yesterday, though, was that an editor told me she was making acquisition decisions based on Bookscan, and I stand by my position that that's a very, very bad practice.  The Bookscan numbers simply aren't accurate enough.  If the editor wanted sales data, all she had to do was ask me for the royalty statements.  And that's something editors very rarely do, which has always surprised me.

Clive Cussler recently lost a lawsuit with the makers of a movie based on one of his books.  One of the contentions of the movie folks was that the sales figures quoted were inaccurate. Didn't anyone ask for proof?  Sure, agents might balk at sending actual statements and certainly publishers have other resources (like looking the author's titles up on the B&N system, to which most publishers have quite easy access), but why not just ask?  If the agent balks, presume that the numbers are bad and pass. If the agent provides them, and they are good, then it's a win/win.  Of course, one agent's opinion of what good sales numbers are and one editor's opinion of what good sales numbers are may vary as much as the agent's and editor's opinions on whether or not a novel is any good.  But at least the agent and the author and the editor know the numbers should be accurate (or as accurate as anything that's looking back at a period that ended 90-120 days earlier can be).

Don't get confused.  I think that it is perfectly acceptable to not take on an author who doesn't sell.  But you'd better have your figures right before you make that decision, or you might just pass up an author who could be making your publishing house some decent cash.  And I'm pretty sure that's what all the houses want right now.

Z