Calling all Sports Publishing LLC authors

Are you kidding?

Most books are marginal. You think the world <b>needs</b> "Tales From The Royals Dugout" or "The Lee Smith Story?"

As mentioned earlier, Feinstein has a track record with selling books, and he therefore has leverage. Most people don't.

You can write a good book and still have scant leverage with a publisher. They're running a business.

 

Mr Sloan,

If you have a good idea, you won't be dealing with a publisher. Publisher will deal with you. In an auction. Before you write it. Happens all the time with books that aren't marginal. There probably aren't five books on this company's list that would much interest a major house.

And once you have a relationship with an editor in a publishing house, he is your leverage, along with your agent. Judging from your blinkered view of publishing, you think you are looking in through the window but are, in fact, standing in front of a brick wall.

YD&OHS, etc

 

No, I just have a real clear focus of reality in the year 2008.

 

Mr Sloan,

Precisely what book-publishing experience accompanies your "real clear focus of reality?"

YD&OHS, etc

 

I got an advance from SP years ago for a book I didn't end up writing. They never asked for it back. Ha ha!

 

I'll keep that my business, thanks.

All I'm trying to do is provide some counterpoint to what I think has been misleading advice, because otherwise I think a lot of people are in danger of being misguided.

If there's fierce competitive bidding every time you hatch a book idea, I'm ecstatic for you. I couldn't be happier if publishers are tailoring contracts to your specifications. I salute you if publishing houses are tripping over themselves to pamper you like a rock star.

What I'm saying is that won't be the experience of most people here, especially if they're first-time authors working on a sports-themed book, particularly for a secondary house like Sports Publishing LLC was.

Get an agent? Great idea, if you can find an agent interested in a project that will generate $5,000. If you do land that agent, the size of the commission virtually guarantees you're not going to be much of a priority. If an agent is eager to take a project that small, he's probably not much of a player in the business.

Hold out for a better deal? Great idea, unless they're prepared to take the deal off the table and either offer it to someone else or scrap the project altogether.

Let me tell you a story about the late Sports Publishing LLC. There were two occasions when they proposed a title involving a local team. For the first, they approached a guy who worked for one of the papers. He added up the money and decided it wasn't worth his time. He passed it on to a co-worker, who wound up doing the book.

In another instance, Sports Publishing LLC called a guy who had worked for them before about doing a book on a different local team. He had no interest. He passed it on to another guy who happened to be working in the press room that day. That guy passed it on to a stringer from his paper, who took the assignment.

Sports Publishing LLC wanted a title that would fill a niche in a regional market and sell a certain number of copies just from its subject matter. That was their priority. They really didn't care who delivered it.

I realize things are undoubtedly different at Random House and HarperCollins, but most of the people visiting here aren't going to get a chance to deal with them. They'll instead get hooked up with outfits like this, so they'd better have a realistic view of what the deal is.

If you're sitting on a Mark McGwire confessional, by all means, get the agent, get the competitive bids and enjoy your promotional tour. Can't beat those heavenly beds at the Westins.

But understand that a project of that magnitude is not what most people here are reaistically looking at, especially the first time out. And if it's not your first time, you're probably not looking to this board for advice.

WTF&SWAK, etc.

 

Mr Sloan,

I'll keep that my business, thanks. I have to suppose that you've never darkened the door of a legit publisher, great or small.

I managed to get the grand old hotels like the Palliser in Calgary--

http://www.fairmont.com/palliser/

--highly recommended--on my limited book tour. Downside: No Marriott points.

If you can't get an agent, you shouldn't publish a book. Rather than publish any book just to get experience you should invest the time and effort to come up with an idea and a body of work that will attract an agent. Agents are, in fact, looking for writers and book proposals--they just seems hard to attract because the vast majority of stuff that they see is dreck. If an agent isn't interested in representing you, it's a bad sign about you or your idea or both. If an agent likes you but not your idea, the agent will always have the door open to you (until you fail, or maybe fail for a second time).

If you have to deal with publishers like this one, you shouldn't publish a book. There's just no value in it. You won't make money and legit publishers won't care.

Great idea, unless they're prepared to take the deal off the table and either offer it to someone else or scrap the project altogether.

No. Nobody is going to scalp your idea if you're represented. Word of that would get around and the publisher's good-faith rep would be wrecked. Nobody would be pitching them. And the fact is, if it is, in fact, a great idea/story, you should in some way own it ... that is, no one should be as qualified as you or have your access. A great idea is exclusive to you, something you should spell out convincingly in your book proposal.

You think you're doing the writers here a favour by lowering the bar and having them publish anything at all. You're the one who's misguided and sending them full speed into a cul de sac.

YD&OHS, etc

 

Dear Smasher Sloan and Friend: Would it be fair to say you're talking about two completely different things?

There are numerous reasons a writer would undertake a small book for a small publisher. Maybe for the challenge, the experience, the local recognition, maybe just to make the wife and kids proud. No one is getting rich off those books, that's a given. But it seems unfair to slam those who have done them.

At the same time, it's unfair to suggest that first-time or inexperienced authors are doomed to work with unscrupulous and/or bankrupt small-time houses. There are plenty of rookie authors--right on this site, in fact--who ran with good ideas, and found good homes for them.

"Good ideas" being a very subjective concept, of course. :-\

 

Ms Swenk,

If we're talking about writing a book for career advancement rather than vanity, I'll stand by every word typed. Bad books don't set you up to write good ones. You're an agent, what do you look for? Someone who shows talent in newspaper/mag/other media writing and possesses a good idea or ideas? Or someone who has written a book at one of these supposed "stepping stone" publishers, established a middling level of talent (utterly unsupported by editing) and now wants to move up? It's going to be A everytime. And crap like LLC can impact your career in two ways--it will mean nothing or you'll be typecast. There is no upside, so why bother?

YD&OHS, etc

 

I think it's fair to say that outfits like Sports Publishing are more like book packagers --rather than a bona fide publisher---where the writer is a gun for hire .

In most of these projects the author is just another interchangeable part in the assembly line and they're paid a flat fee for their services. Let's face it, the majority of ideas from places like Sports Publishing are generic at best and second rate at worst. The author is incidental.

Mr. FoF's (who I know personally and professionally) books are entirely proprietary. Although he did have a competing book on one of his projects, very few in the hockey world could have written his last two, either because of their lack of knowledge or lack of access.

There's another thing I do agree with F0F about: if you're having trouble finding an agent, it's probably because you don't have an idea worth pursuing. Or you can't write. Or you're so objectionable that the aggravation wouldn't be worth the time or effort.

 

Friend--I agree with every word you wrote here, except for the last line.

Why bother? I suppose it's like asking a reporter why he'd take a part-time job covering girls' high school badminton. Maybe for an experience, maybe for a little cash, maybe because it's more productive than playing internet solitaire while posting on message boards. I don't know. I wouldn't judge. Would I urge writers to undertake book projects for $5,000? No. Would I hold it against them in future dealings? No.

But everything else you wrote--completely true. These books are rarely a stepping-stone to something bigger; they don't make agents or bigger publishers take notice. Most writers start these as a little adventure, and end up angry and frustrated by the lack of editorial and promotional support.

Although to be fair, there are any number of recognizable authors at big houses who are also angry and frustrated by the lack of editorial and promotional support. They just get paid more to be unhappy.

 

As one who started very small and did a handful of books bylined and not with small publishers before moving on to much more substantive books with major publishers, such projects do one thing that has not been mentioned - they can provide the confidence to embark on a large project, and the luxury to risk screwing up while learning how to do so in relative anonymity. And there are many fine writers - including some who are routinely praised here - who despite their many accomplishments never gained that confidence, have never written a book, probably never will and will probably regret not doing so. success as a journalist does not mean one automatically has the skills needed to write a book - my agent rarely takes on a journalist who hasn't already demonstrated his or her ability on long form, and I have more than a few friends, fine writers and journalists in their own right, who can write columns and long features far better than I, but who completely break down when faced with the notion of writing 50,000 words, much less 100,000 or 200,000.

There is no training school for writing a book other than writing one, and no set path to being published or getting an agent. The first time I meet a writer who has the same path as another one will be the first time. Some work in secret anonymity and learn that way, from their abandoned pile of manuscripts that sit in drawer forever. Some write crummy books for lousy publishers, learn from the experience and move on. Some are crushed by it and never try again and probably shouldn't. Some cover badminton and learn how to craft sentences, then paragraphs and more. Some write great books no one reads. Some write best sellers the first time out of the box. Some are overnight successes after thirty years

Here's my twenty years worth of wisdom - there are no truisms in authorship beyond the fact that no book ever gets written until you shut up, stop talking about it, sit down and write it.