Not Coming Soon - Authors we want mor of!

[DukeLeto69]

Yeah Peter McLean back at BL would be good but I really don’t see it happening. His original “Priest” series is doing very well and he recently(ish) announced he had sold the rights for a TV Series based on the books. Suspect if BL wanted him back they would have to up their royalty rate and advance!

[cheywood]

What sells/doesn't are all speculations on our part. We don't know the print run, we don't know the expectations set for each title. From my experience, this is often based on the author's name, theme of the book, etc. Going simply by numbers the Ynnari books might have sold copies more than The Infinite and the Divine but the print run/expectations were set differently and based on the expectations the novels failed.

 

I want more books from Peter McLean, his 40K short stories were superb, and his own stuff outside of WH is so damn good.

While we don’t have actual sales numbers, looking at review number/ratings is a decent proxy. For instance The Infinite and the Divine has 408 ratings on Goodreads to Wild Rider’s 53.

 

I believe McLean quit working with BL sometime last year or the year before. I’m not sure if he’s done with tie-in fiction in general or specifically BL.

[DukeLeto69]

I’d like to see BL really get behind the WH Horror and WH Crime imprints and up their output. 3 titles a season for Crime is not enough (for me).

 

Also desperate for book 3 in both the Vaults of Terra and Watchers of the Throne series from Wraight.

 

Also keen for French to finish the Horusian Wars trilogy (am assuming 3 novels not a series).

 

We know Abnett is going to deliver Interceptor City, the 5th arc of the Ghosts, more Ghost Dossiers but didn’t he also hint once about a follow on to Titanicus? Throw in Pandaemonium (and book 8 of the SoT) and that should keep Abnett pretty busy!

 

And of course ANYTHING from Fehervari. Come on BL recognise the talent! Do whatever it takes to secure the guy some cut through!

[theSpirea]

Number of ratings BL books receive on Goodreads is a joke in general but good spotting the super low count on Wild Rider. Even self-published novels by no-name writers often get more reviews. I mean, Flesh and Steel 200 ratings? That's what I was talking about, even the outstanding not-lore-heavy books targeted for non-WH fans don't reach wider audience and are often only read by the already established small BL fanbase, and on top of that, ignored by TT fans who read only their favorite faction material.

 

Sad to hear about McLean but I'm happy for him. He's a talented guy and his Priest series is great. That still leaves Fletcher but I have a feeling it's going to be the same case. I should catch up on the Inferno! series to discover more upcoming writers to be on look out for.

 

And yes, anything by Fehervari. Pay that guy well and treasure him.

[byrd9999]

There are several authors I discovered in Inferno! (I have all 6) that have impressed me greatly.

 

They "get" the setting, they write elegant prose, and their stories really add something to the setting. Nate Crowley's "Empra", for example.

 

Several of the authors have already been mentioned on here: Robert Rath, Denny Flowers, Peter McLean, etc... but I'll also add in Richard Strachan and Eric Gregory. Strachan has written Horror shorts and AoS shorts & novels. Eric Gregory has only written AoS shorts, but the three I have read are all superb.

 

I don't know if they prefer fantasy to sci-fi, or if BL is promoting a stable of AOS-onl authors, or even if they have much of a say in the matter, but I really hope they get given the chance to make their mark on Warhammer fiction.

 

 

And, naturally, a Fehervari omnibus or two would be most deserving, for the author himself and the readers.

[DarkChaplain]

I recently read all the McLean horror-related stories and loved them. I was actually sad when there wasn't any more, so I went back to older, unrelated stuff. Would definitely like him back in the fold and will be checking out his original work soonish.

 

Regarding review numbers, I believe that Wild Rider predates the netgalley days of BL, or wouldn't have gone on there. Flesh and Steel and The Infinite and the Divine both were up for reviewers, though, so that inflates numbers by default.

 

But generally, yeah, Goodreads review numbers and scores are hardly a good measure for anything, especially in tie-in, where you often have newcomers just reviewing/DNFing books because they hate the premise and weren't aware of what they'd be getting into.

[animal310]

What’s happened to HH as well. Other than HH siege 6 I don’t think anything else is even announced, no HH Primarchs, no HH character series, no HH siege novellas, no short stories, no audios. Nothing!

[DarkChaplain]

And that's after not producing any audios for the advent calendar last year, while downsizing to just 12 stories, three of them Heresy, and one of those terrible. I wonder how this advent is gonna turn out, at this rate...

 

The Heresy almost feels like everybody is burned out on the project and just wants it to be over. Frankly, I can relate, but that's more to do with how little the Siege itself plays to what I enjoyed the series for.

[Roomsky]

I will probably never get over Abnett's Dreadwing and ADB's Nightfall never seeing the light of day. Oh, what Imperium Secundus could have been.

 

I'd really like to see more books from Harrison and Stearns. They've both impressed me a lot with their novel-length stories and either more originals or some follow-ups to those tales would probably be cracking. Guymer should also finish his Iron Hands trilogy, I loved the first two far more than anything else he's written.

 

If I could have some ancient creators re-hired, I'd love to see more out of Spurrier and Williams; they've both written some of my favourite books in the setting.

[sitnam]

I'll back you on Guymer Roomsky. His 40k Iron Hands novels are some of the most 40k novels I've ever read. I think the fandom plays up the "Imperium are bad guys" meme to much, but in the case of Guymer IH they definitely feel like bad guys, and I love it

[Petitioner's City]

Someone I'd love to see more from is Nik Vincent - I always loved her shorts, as well as the Gilead books she wrote with her husband way back in the day.

 

And as I've written before, I would love BL to attempt to recruit Una McCormack. She's among the best tie-in writers today, a former Arthur C. Clarke prize judge, with excellent contributions to Trek and Dr Who (as well as a forthcoming Firefly novel, etc) and her own original works. She's worked closely with James Swallow on Trek on the 2013 series The Fall, and she's rather active in British scifi and fantasy lit. She's  really been into warhammer since at least 2019, and posts about painting the minis (as well as participating in a panel with Mike Brooks this year) 

 

Tell me you wouldn't want this kind of writer?:

 

 

Review on Tor.com of her majestic The Never-Ending Sacrifice (see also reviews on Amazon or the TrekBBS thread):

 

 

Behind the lines: “Surplus to requirements.” This phrase appears three times throughout the course of Una McCormack’s epic yet intimate novel, as various Cardassian characters realize that they may be treated as disposable when circumstances are no longer favorable to them. Besides conveying how Cardassians are treated by the Dominion when the war doesn’t go as planned and the Cardassian resistance rises up, it’s also an ironic reflection of how the Cardassian government treats its own citizens. The relationship between a political regime, and a culture at large, with the individuals that make up that system, is one of the novel’s key themes. The phrase “surplus to requirements” is also apt because of its coldness and detachment, the reduction of lives to a dispassionate balancing of forces that serves to remind us of the speakers’ own attitudes.

 

After having reviewed McCormack’s first Trek outing, as well as her most recent, it’s impressive indeed to see that with her second novel she not only attained this splendid level of storytelling, but that she approached her subject matter through an unusual form for Star Trek novels, namely the structure of a bildungsroman, to such great effect. For anyone interested in the DS9 universe, or who enjoys historical novels (this one just happens to be set in the future), The Never-Ending Sacrifice is, contrary to the phrase quoted above, very much required reading.

 

One realizes the novel’s distinctive approach right away, as we follow Rugal’s journey on Cardassia through successive time jumps—sometimes days, sometimes weeks or months. After the recent spate of DS9 novels, McCormack’s work is particularly noteworthy for the absence of an overt villain. Sure, Dukat is to blame, on a macro-scale, for many of the story’s events, but he is absent for large swaths of the story, and is not positioned, in the narrative, as an imminent threat, but rather a distant, if admittedly insidious, manipulator. The novel’s conflict arises from the characters’ emotional responses to their everyday situations, rather than to some larger-than-life external threat. This focus on internal drama, on a group of largely decent characters simply trying to do the best they can to overcome past injustices in their daily lives, is refreshing, and wonderfully handled.

I invited McCormack to write a guest post for the Locus Roundtable back in 2015, and her thoughts on writing tie-in novels, including some specific comments on The Never-Ending Sacrifice, remain of interest. She mentions A Stich in Time in relation to another one of her books in that piece, and I’d argue that this novel also pays tribute to, and builds on, Robinson’s approach. In a way, The Never-Ending Sacrifice has a flavor reminiscent of the decline of the Roman Empire. McCormack is able to simultaneously evoke the complexity, grandeur and decadence of Cardassian society while unraveling the various political machinations of its leaders.

 

From a technical perspective, I’d like to point out that this novel contains successful examples, despite what a lot of writing advice claims, of telling the reader how a character is feeling rather than showing it through dramatized action. There are numerous times where McCormack states that a character is angry or whatnot, and this is useful information for us to understand their responses to events, but which it would have been distracting (and repetitive) to show through incident upon incident. To foreground some events, others must be attenuated. Emotions sometimes simmer and linger, and granting us access to these temporally-displaced reactions, when handled with a sure hand, can increase our dramatic investment by adding a sense of psychological realism in a narrative. Rugal, Penelya, even Kotan, undergo experiences that force them to re-evaluate their opinions and ideas—we see this growth, but it accretes continuously rather than crystalizing in a few neat epiphanies.

 

One such experience that I want to highlight is the power of art—consider Tora Ziyal’s groundbreaking creations—and specifically literature itself. Rugal finds Natima Lang’s The Ending of “The Never-Ending Sacrifice,” a deconstruction and refutation of Ulan Corac’s The Never-Ending Sacrifice, lively, engaging, transformative: “It was very late when Rugal finished reading, by which time his whole world had changed.”

 

Another sign of Rugal’s maturation and capacity for growth is his ability to accept the sometimes contradictory qualities of those around him, as is eloquently shown in the summation of his relationship with Geleth: “He loved her courage and her indestructibility; he loathed all she had done and all she stood for.” The subtlety of Rugal’s evolution is illustrated in other ways, such as the fact that even when he becomes invested in a cause, he does not lose himself to it. For example, he is cautious not to allow himself to become patriotic, even when his moral compass directs his behavior to align with Cardassian policies. Notice how Rugal makes the distinction when he reacts to Damar’s powerful speech inciting resistance against the Dominion: “He [Damar] did not have Dukat’s charisma, and his words were rough and blunt, but when the transmission got to the end, Rugal realized he was trembling. Not from patriotism, not that…” And later again: “He should get away as soon as he could. But there was still some residual sense of duty left—not patriotism, but responsibility to those poor bewildered survivors he had left up in the mess hall.”

 

Rugal’s search for his identity and place in the cosmos is an ongoing, open-ended one. The novel decenters us from our standard Federation cast-and-crew perspective in the very first chapter, setting the tone with this line: “Once the accusation had been made, a group of terrifyingly earnest Starfleet personnel appeared out of nowhere and took Rugal away from his father.” That’s how Rugal remembers Sisko and others (not Miles O’Brien, for whom he reserves affection): not as heroes or saviors or paragons of virtues, but instead “terrifyingly earnest.”

 

Another early poignant moment occurs when Rugal deliberately keeps himself connected to his Bajoran past: “…whenever he caught himself enjoying his surroundings too much, he would press his earring against his palm and let its sharp edges remind him of what and who he really was.” The notions of exile and homelessness come up time and again. Rugal, we are told, was “caught between two worlds, neither one thing nor the other, never at home.” This inability to be at home is related back to Rugal’s displacement at the hands of Starfleet:

 

People who had been happy in their homes often lacked imagination; they lacked the understanding that what had been a source of joy for them might be a prison for others. This was the only reason he could find to explain Sisko’s actions—other than cruelty, which did not seem likely in a man that Miles O’Brien respected.

 

This insight, that much of Rugal’s suffering in a sense stems from the fact that Starfleet personnel who grew up in safer, more privileged circumstances than him failed to empathetically examine the consequences of their decision to have him sent to Cardassia, is powerful and moving. And though it helps Rugal understand, it does not eliminate the need for accountability, and Sisko’s actions aren’t condoned: “Earth explained a great deal—although perhaps it did not excuse it.”

 

As a being of two worlds, Rugal’s voyage beautifully renders for us various contrasts between Bajor and Cardassia:

 

For everything Penelya showed him, Rugal told her in return something about Bajor: the fountains and gardens, the pale stone, the silver sound of temple bells on a fresh spring morning. He described the spirited guttering made by trams that miraculously still worked after years of neglect, and the heated political arguments that took place in every street-corner tavern. Everyone was poor, but it was out in the open, not tucked out of sight below bridges.

 

Later, he comes to realize that in order for both worlds to heal from decades of interconnected violence, Bajorans must also change: “Bajorans have defined themselves as not-Cardassian for far too long. It’s not good for them.”

 

Returning to the question of craft, another clever technique used by McCormack is to announce future events, or at least signal them, ahead of time. This happens, for instance, when certain characters vow to meet again in the future, but McCormack directly lets us know that they will in fact not see each other again. While this choice would normally defuse suspense, here it imbues the novel’s events with an air of inevitability and tragedy. Again, McCormack’s means perfectly suit her ends. Complementing the time-skipping and the divulging of future turns of fate, McCormack employs parallelisms (as did Olivia Woods) and echoes. One worth singling out is the amazing moment in which a scared, distrustful Hulya first meets Rugal and ends up biting him on the hand—just as he did during his own panicked moment with Garak aboard DS9. In addition to this expansion of temporal vistas, Part Two of the novel opens up on POVs besides Rugal’s. This doesn’t displace the focus away from his story so much as contextualize it in the larger chronicle of the political and social changes sweeping Cardassian society.

 

McCormack’s descriptive passages remain as evocative as ever, and I especially appreciate her choice to make her descriptions sparse during moments of heightened emotional impact. Penelya’s parting, for example, and Geleth’s passing, both become more affecting because of it. Here’s the death of Rugal’s fellow combatant Tret Khevet:

On the seventh day, when they stopped to rest, Rugal scrabbled around in their packs for some ration bars. He held one out to Tret. Tret didn’t take it. He remained lying on the ground, very still. Rugal knelt down beside him and touched his cheek.

 

The finest example of all occurs in the novel’s final paragraph, in which Rugal is reunited with Penelya. It’s a beautiful study in understatement.

 

In a way, the fate of Cardassia may be seen as a parable of our times, a depiction of where the most aggressively capitalist societies of our own age may be headed. As he explores the Cardassian way of life, Rugal reflects that “many Cardassians had strange ideas about the poor. They thought it was a fault of the character, rather than bad luck or circumstance, and they wouldn’t give as a result.” This can certainly be construed as a critique of some of our systems of so-called meritocracy in their lack of compassion towards their poor. Consider the following point, which mirrors Rugal’s comment, made by philosopher Alain de Botton in his thought-provoking book Status Anxiety:

 

In the harsher climate of opinion that gestated in the fertile corners of meritocratic societies, it became possible to argue that the social hierarchy rigorously reflected the qualities of the members on every rung of the ladder and so thus conditions were already in place for good people to succeed and the drones to flounder—attenuating the need for charity, welfare, redistributive measures or simple compassion.

 

The reality, of course, is that wealth does not distribute along meritocratic lines, but rather that “a multitude of outer events and inner characteristics will go into making one man wealthy and another destitute. There are luck and circumstance, illness and fear, accident and late development, good timing and misfortune.” Strange indeed, to use Rugal’s word, for us to sometimes think that it would not be so.

Science fiction has the ability to point out the consequences of current trends, and if we think of Cardassia as a stand-in for our worst tendencies, the warning is clear: “If Cardassia could not control its appetites, but could now no longer so casually take from others, then it would eventually start to consume itself. That was the inevitable end of the never-ending sacrifice.” This is reinforced towards the novel’s end: “They had been in the grip of a great delusion—and this was the price.”

 

Despite being published in 2009, then, this tale continues to provide timely social commentary, beseeching us readers, in turn, to question whether we are living in the spell of our own consumerist delusion. Alberto Manguel, in the final lecture of his book The City of Words, which I happen to have just read, provides a similar end-point warning: our relentless multinational “machineries,” he says, “protected by a screen of countless anonymous shareholders, […] invade every area of human activity and look everywhere for monetary gain, even at the cost of human life: of everyone’s life, since, in the end, even the richest and the most powerful will not survive the depletion of our planet.”

 

Let’s conclude with a brief comparison of this book to its book within. Rugal finds the prose of Ulan Corac’s (what a fun meta-fictive name) The Never-Ending Sacrifice leaden, and its messaging so heavy as to completely weigh down the text. Despite trying several times, he never finishes the book. Una McCormack’s The Never-Ending Sacrifice is the exact opposite; a masterfully told story, easily absorbed in a span of hours, whose truths emerge naturally from its telling.

 

Memorable beats: 

 

Kotan Pa’Dar: “Mother, the reason I’ve never been much of a politician is that I am a scientist. If you’d wanted me to excel, you’d have left me in my laboratory.”

Tekeny Ghemor: “Kotan said you were distressingly frank. Not a quality much valued on Cardassia, I’m afraid. Obfuscation is more the order of the day.”

Rugal: “Cardassia, where only the military metaphors work.”

Kotan: “Dukat always believes what he says. At least for the moment that he’s saying it.”

Arric Maret: “Some people will always rather be fed and enslaved than hungry and free.”

Garak: “One of my best friends shot me once, and that was a gesture of affection.”

Rugal, visiting the grave of his adopted Bajoran parents: “We are the sum of all that has gone before. We are the source of all to come.”

 

Orb factor: A magnificent accomplishment; 10 orbs.

 

 

Black Library, why don't you commission her? Pretty please

Edited August 21, 2021 by Petitioner's City

[Petitioner's City]

Sorry for the double post.

 

Another person who I'd love but realise it isn't perhaps possible - given his age - is the venerable and brilliant Brian Stableford ("Brian Craig"); I did really enjoy Pawn of Chaos, and I like the idea of author-driven or individual-interpretation-driven rather than continuity-driven approaches to the IP, something which allows vastly divergent takes on the setting. I feel like Pawn of Chaos did that very well as an early 'modern' BL book, although I've never read his earlier late 80s/early 90s Warhammer Orfeo trilogy. 

 

I know this causes issues with the fans - which is unfortunate - but not everything needs to fit together, or even fit into the 'present' of the setting. It would be really nice to have texts that fit into moments of the IP's history, or which creatively interpret some piece of it. 

[grailkeeper]

Aconite books seems to have very strong BL DNA. Not only are a lot of their authors bl or former bl authors, a lot of their staff like commissioning editors are former bl employees. I'd bet everyone important there is former bl qnd it may have been set up during their time there

[Petitioner's City]

It is common in the industry when an editor moves on (either to another company or their own) they do solicit their own contacts - this happened, for example, when Marco Palmieri was let go from pocket during the recession and eventually taken on first by Tor - he would have David Mack's first original trilogy at Tor.

 

And British tie in sci-fi is a close-knit world too.

[theSpirea]

Was disappointed to hear Peter McLean might not write for BL again but was still hoping for Michael Fletcher. I have reached out and asked him if he's working on anything for BL. The reply is not positive at all and the case is what we all believed: BL simply doesn't want to pay. It makes you wonder how cheap the BL is if self-published writers consider the commission to be low.

 

Michael R Fletcher wrote:

The stories were fun to write and I'd definitely be interested in doing something longer. Unfortunately, it's unlikely (though not impossible) that I'll do more. There are two factors at play: First, I'm focused on writing my own stuff. I've got a few trilogies to wrap up, and a pile of other story ideas I'm dying to get to. Second, the Warhammer folks--while awesome to work with--haven't offered enough to make it worth the time.

 

BL is charging ridiculous amount money for LEs of rather questionable quality. Their regular hardcovers are also more expensive than your usual Fantasy/Sci-Fi hardbacks (which I usually get for around $15-20). More and more the GW/BL is pushing me out of the hobby.

[DukeLeto69]

@theSpirea you are conflating two different (but related) things.

 

Authors are paid for novels as follows:

 

1. They will have an agreed royalty rate. This will be a percentage of the price of the book. If you are Abnett your percentage will be higher than if you are Joe Bloggs.

 

2. The publisher (in this case BL) pay the writer an advance of these royalties. The value of this will vary but generally will be determined by the sales of previous books. The more you sell the bigger your advance. However, this advance has to be paid back to the publisher BEFORE you start to receive any further royalties (it is basically a loan but not one that you have to pay back except through recouped royalties).

 

So that is one reason authors love hardbacks and Ltd Ed so much because (for example) 5% of £50 is £2.50 and 5% of £18 is £0.90p whereas 5% of £9 is £0.45p

 

So if (for example) your advance is £5k then some decent hardback sales will recoup the advance sooner and THEN you will start to receive royalties.

 

It is a similar model in the music industry.

[DarkChaplain]

The trouble then also comes in the form of incredibly small print runs, and direct-only sales. Heck, BL themselves don't even sell print editions via their own site anymore, instead pushing folks through even more hoops to get them from GW directly, which has localized stock on a lot of items and is terrible to browse for these products, all while Amazon and co don't have anything but the ebooks and far, far, far later paperbacks, which have lower margins to recoup royalties on.

[theSpirea]

From my experience with different publishers, and music industry as well, it's not always about royalties. Often the authors are offered flat rate no matter how the book is going to sale. I was only illustrating that a self-published author prefers to self-publish based on what BL offers.

 

This is something Josh Reynolds mentioned in one of his interviews that not all BL writers are offered royalties.

 

Whether it's a percentage or fix rate, he's not the first writer to comment on what BL pays and it not being much.

[cheywood]

BL undoubtedly relies on the popularity of its IP to attract and keep authors, but it does seem like they’re willing to spend when it comes to authors like Abnett and Tchaikovsky. I wonder how they determine pay rates.

[Knockagh]

I remember years ago chatting to a guy who worked in a GW near me. He was obviously an intelligent enough young guy who could have done many things and from his modelling and painting very talented with his hands. His pay in GW was just awful but he was ecstatic that he got discount on FW products and GW models. It was an abusive employer employee relationship. This type of behaviour is not limited to GW and is very widespread on family farms but GW make vast profits, they treat investors really well and have been quick to portray their virtues in the past. To hear that our authors aren’t properly rewarded really is sad. I love the IP but I would rather the authors went elsewhere than were used.

I haven’t seen that employee in years and I hope sitting in GW for years didnt damage his cv too much.

[DukeLeto69]

I should add that I believe the royalty rates on e-books is generally higher than it is on paper books. However, the price of e-books is also generally lower than paper books. So the author earns more per unit sold but needs to sell more units.

 

Both this and the post above relate to freelance authors. BL also have GW employees who get to write novels for them.

 

Not sure of their actual job titles but two examples being Nick Kyme (who is a Senior Editor) and Rachel Harrison (who is a senior art buyer).

 

Clearly I don’t know this for sure but I suspect they are treated as freelance writers when writing a novel (or short etc) but will be expected to do this on top of their normal job role duties (for which they receive a salary).

[DukeLeto69]

BL undoubtedly relies on the popularity of its IP to attract and keep authors, but it does seem like they’re willing to spend when it comes to authors like Abnett and Tchaikovsky. I wonder how they determine pay rates.

As I say above, it will be primarily driven by sales figures. If you are a big selling author you can negotiate a better rate (be that royalties %, advance or flat rate).

 

In addition, some publishers will want big names on the books as in itself it can create marketing opportunities.

[DarkChaplain]

I should add that I believe the royalty rates on e-books is generally higher than it is on paper books. However, the price of e-books is also generally lower than paper books. So the author earns more per unit sold but needs to sell more units.

 

Both this and the post above relate to freelance authors. BL also have GW employees who get to write novels for them.

 

Not sure of their actual job titles but two examples being Nick Kyme (who is a Senior Editor) and Rachel Harrison (who is a senior art buyer).

 

Clearly I don’t know this for sure but I suspect they are treated as freelance writers when writing a novel (or short etc) but will be expected to do this on top of their normal job role duties (for which they receive a salary).

 

I mean, we're talking BL here. BL used to price ebooks close to the same as hardcovers, and only lowers the prices when the paperback rolls around. We've had releases like Wolf King for 35€ or something, as an ebook, which lasted 1-2 years until they released the regular hardcover at slightly less.

 

Looking at the first Darkblade Omnibus, I could (and probably will despite owning the old edition and German-language singles) buy the paperback on Amazon for 15 bucks most days, ~17 on a bad day. The ebook directly from BL - where no revenue split with Amazon or Kobo or iTunes happens at all, flat revenue for the publisher! - costs 14,99€ or $17.99. The UK price is £9.99, which is less than 12€ or slightly under $14.

 

Broken City is even worse, where the ebook literally costs $9.99 but 11,99€ - the relative value of USD and Euros should be apparent from above, but let me reiterate: The appropriate EU price would be 8,50€, not 12€. The UK price is a mere £6.49, which is ~7,50€.

 

BL prices make no :cussing sense, especially with ebooks. None. I paid two bucks less for Broken City in print, and this is a common symptom. They're among the most ludicrously priced ebook publishers on the market, with bloated editions full of full-cover marketing material that outstrips some of the big hitters of SFF's illustrated novels in size.

 

Aconyte, meanwhile, seems to go for 9,99€-15€ paperbacks with 8,75€ ebooks in most cases, which makes much more sense, but with most larger publishers, you'll actually notice a price difference between print and digital - with GW/BL, not so much. With those, you can be happy if you're not getting ripped off by buying in your local currencies instead of pretending you're located in the UK during payment.

[Petitioner's City]

Royalties are never a given, nor even much more than pocket money. The tie in writer association have this great series of interviews with some of the giants of tie in writing and editing, like Greg Cox, at https://iamtw.org/articles/business-part-one-the-deal/

 

QUESTION: What’s the price range that a studio charges a publisher to license a TV series tie-in? Does the publisher pay an upfront license fee? Or is it something played out over time and that is linked to sales?

 

Greg Cox: The price for a license is going to depend on its perceived value. I imagine GUNSMOKE goes a lot cheaper than STAR WARS. Generally, though you pay the licensor for X books at a time. Maybe $80,000 for four books at a time. Then you renegotiate after those four books are concluded.

 

And usually the license for each book extends for a specified period of time, somewhere between 6-9 years, usually. After that period, you have to renegotiate with the licensor if you want to keep reprinting those books. Usually you’re allowed to sell off whatever you still have in stock, even after the license has expired. And, of course, the licensor gets paid a lot more than the eventual author(s).

 

QUESTION: How do the royalties typically break down on a tie-in? In other words, what percentage of the sales price of a book goes to the publisher, the studio, the creator of the show, the actor, the writer of the tie-in?

 

Keith R.A. DeCandido: If the creator of the show or any of the actors get any kind of money for it, that would come out whatever the studio gets from the publisher, and would depend on what the deal the creator and actor(s) have with the studio (which will vary from person to person).

 

Tie-in authors generally get 1% – 3% of the cover price for royalties, if they get any, as opposed to the 6% – 8% they’d get if it was an original piece.

 

Greg Cox: Generally, I would budget for an 8% to 10% royalty on a tie-in, with 2% going to the author and 6-8% going to the studio.

 

QUESTION: What about for gaming-relating tie-ins?

 

Matt Forbeck: For gaming-related tie-ins, the rates seem to be better. Starting writers get 4-6% of the cover as a royalty, and the top authors presumably get far more.

 

Gaming publishers often offer new writers a royalty (4-6%) with a modest advance ($4k-6k). On the two novels I’ve had published so far (out of a total of nine contracted and in production), both earned out their advances in the first quarter. My statements show sell-in and have a reserve for returns.

 

QUESTION: Is it better for an author of a tie-in or novelization to take a flat fee or a royalty (if given a choice)?

 

Steve Perry: You learn to live on your advances – royalties are considered found money for most writers most of the time. And they ain’t ever gonna tell you how many copies shipped. A hot paperback book will have a sell-through of — correct me, editors, if I’m wrong — 60-70%, and most books not that good. 50% makes most houses happy. So if your royalty sheet comes in and shows that your book sold sixty

thousand copies? They probably shipped twice that many.

 

That said, I’ve been lucky enough to be connected to a couple books that hit big and earned out the advances — and quite a bit more.

 

For a lot of people, money in the hand is worth theoretical money down the line, and a big flat fee up front will be more appealing than waiting a year or two for royalties that might not materialize. If you believe the book is going to do well and you have a choice, you might want to risk that for what could be a nice pay out.

 

Donald Bain: Years ago, my cousin, Jack Pearl, a successful and prolific writer of about 100 books, including tie-ins and novelizations, was offered “Our Man Flint” as a tie-in writing project. He had a choice of a larger advance with no royalties, or a smaller advance with royalties. Like many writers with bills to pay, he chose the bigger bucks up front. The book was immensely successful, and he never again took on a project in which royalties weren’t part of the deal. I’ve opted for money in advance vs. a participation on more than one occasion, most notably when “Coffee, Tea or Me?” was published years ago. Jule Stein and Anita Loos wanted to turn it into a Broadway musical, but Hollywood was dangling bigger option money. I took the cash and ran, and have regretted it ever since. The book was republished last year as a “Penguin Classic,” and I’m working at seeing it end up on the stage.

 

Question: How common are these cross-collateralization deals in the tie-in world?

 

Steve Perry: Very. Most houses like to basket-account series because that means they aren’t any money out-of-pocket until the books earn out the total advance. Say you got ten grand each for a three-book series. Thirty K. The first one comes out, and sells pretty well, earns back the advance and another five thousand. The second one does the same. The third one tanks. Accounted on their own, you’d be ten thousand richer. Jointly, you don’t get a penny. A good agent can often wiggle on this one.

 

Max Allan Collins: Multiple book contracts, it’s been my experience, usually require all the books involved to earn out before royalties are paid — not just in the tie-in world. Wholly beneficial to publishing, not at all to the authors.

 

Question: What is good sell-through? What is bad sell-through? What is decent sell-through?

 

Greg Cox: Anything over fifty percent is considered a success, especially with I.D. sell-throughs routinely running in the thirties or forties.

 

Question: What is an “I.D.” sell-through?

 

Greg Cox: The term “I.D.” refers to grocery stores, drug stores, airports, train stations, etc. Basically, anything except bookstores. Sadly, you’re talking really high returns rates when it comes to these sort of outlets these days. “Sellthrough” is the opposite of the return rate. If 40% percent of the books are returned, then you have a 60% percent sellthrough, which is pretty good! (And, of course, where mass-market paperbacks are concerned, the books aren’t really “returned.” Only the covers are returned and the rest of the book is pulped.) I once had the ghastly experience of visiting a wholesale book distribution center in Louisiana, which is something that no author should ever see. Imagine a huge, hangar-sized plant with an entire assembly line devoted to the stripping and destruction of paperbook backs. The horror, the horror!

 

Jeff Mariotte: The ID system is the “independent distribution” system. Also known as wholesalers, or jobbers. They’re a big part of the mass market paperback business and the magazine business. Not as big as they used to be, since they don’t have the accounts for mass merchandisers like Target, Wal-Mart, and KMart, and there seem to be fewer places like 7-11, Circle K and drugstores carrying books. A few of them still rack the top 10 or so, though –usually stocked by the ID along with

the magazines. Some of them carry hardcovers as well, but not as deeply.

 

I’ve been to many a distribution warehouse in my years as a bookseller. Sometimes it’s very cool because you’ll spot books you had no idea existed. A trip to Bookpeople in Berkeley, for instance, is very enlightening. The more traditional jobber is a big airplane hangar-type building with rows and rows of shelves, those metal ball-bearing wheeled conveyer belts, and lots of cardboard boxes. Drivers take the boxes out, stock the racks, and bring back the returns. Half the space is probably devoted to shredding returned books and magazines and dumping the remains.

 

If, as an author, you have the opportunity to visit one, take a case of beer or a few dozen donuts with you for the team and you might get better rack placement for a while. There are always a handful of readers working there, but for the most part they are truck drivers and warehouse employees who could as easily be driving laundry routes or anything else. The system is a remnant of prohibition days, after

which the bootleggers had trucks, routes, drivers and warehouses and needed something to do with them. There are still a few old-timers around who remember the days when a grocer could get his fingers broken for buying TV Guide from the wrong source, because his jobber was mob-affiliated and TV Guide was a big seller.

 

It is a system riddled with ineffiency and waste. But it’s also got some tremendous benefits. The right question isn’t “what is the bookseller’s incentive to sell books?” If the bookseller doesn’t sell books, the doors close. But the returnable system gives the bookseller the very important advantage of TRYING to sell books that might not sell. How many new authors would ever break into print without that? Bookselling can’t be just about selling the “sure things,” but if computers ever completely run our inventory control systems that’s what it will be. Ordering might be more precise, but a million gems would never be published.

There's also an excellent thread on royalties with the trek authors at https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/authors-royalties-publishing-and-e-books.260473/

 

Chris Bennett and (again) Greg Cox have great answers on this. Cox:

 

The best part about ebooks, from what I've seen so far, is that they can bring new life to older books that might otherwise be out-of-print or hard to find. I'm starting to see ebook royalties for books that I haven't seen on sale in bookstores for years.

 

In general, though, royalties don't pay the bills. Royalties are like lottery tickets; if you luck out and write the next HARRY POTTER, you might be talking serious money, but usually it's just pizza money. Once in a while, you might get a check in the mail for $23 or some similar amount, which is always appreciated, but it's not something you really want to plan your budget around. :)

 

The advances are what you can count on. Royalties are the icing on the cake . . . if the book earns out its advance.

Bennett:

 

Publishers don't publicly reveal sales figures, but they're required to reveal them to their authors. We get biannual royalty statements reporting on the sales of our books in all formats, and some publishers have websites that let their authors track sales figures.

Most novelists have agents, but I've never managed to acquire one yet. As for royalties from e-publishing, those have been around long enough that all the basic contractual wrangling has probably been done by now, since all the contracts I've seen have come with clauses covering electronic reproduction along with pretty much all other possible forms that a book might end up in (e.g. book club editions, overseas editions, audiobooks, etc.).

^Well, as we've been saying, the bulk of our income is from advances, not later royalties.

Decandido:

 

Sales figures aren't revealed publicly, but we receive full royalty reports twice a year. Most publishing contracts stipulate that the author receives such reports every six months (even small press ones, though some small presses do it once a month). Sales numbers are generally internally proprietary, but the author is entitled to those numbers.

That's not remotely how it works, as a general rule. Royalties are a percentage of the listed cover price of the book in that format, period. It is not common practice for royalties to kick in after a certain number are sold -- rather, the author is paid an advance and then a percentage royalty as I just described. Once the number of sales is such that the royalty equals the amount of the advance, then money starts going to the writer -- what's called "earning out."

 

For example, if a publisher puts out a book of mine. They gave me a $10,000 advance, and a 5% royalty on each copy sold, and the cover price of the book is $10. That means I wouldn't actually receive any royalty money until after the book sold 20,000 copies, because then my advance would earn out.

However, the tie-in books generally have a lower royalty rate. As a general rule, an author of a tie-in book gets 1-3% royalties (or sometimes no royalties at all), while original fiction usually earns 6-8%

On what an advance would be, David Mack in the thread politely answered "I don't think any of us are likely to want to answer this."

 

There are other good sources of how it works to be a tie-in writer, but honestly on royalties BL might not be so bad when it gives them, given how low the royalty generally is for tie in writers.

 

A brilliant article in The Atlantic is worth reading too -

 

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/535005/

 

The income was worth it. “I got paid $5,000 for each of my novels,” Wagner said, “which in science fiction and fantasy is sort of a small but reasonable entry-level advance. Those books finished paying off my daughter’s braces, which was awesome. They were a good, reliable paycheck that always came on time, and I can’t say that about writing short fiction.”

Edited August 23, 2021 by Petitioner's City

[mc warhammer]

my last royalty payment was 85 cents. via cheque. my agent mailed it to me and attached a note that simply read "lol"

 

i'm sure it's a mixed bag at BL, but royalties and kickbacks aren't always as good as some imagine

Edited August 23, 2021 by mc warhammer