I’ve been trying to get writers to act in a business-like fashion with agents and other aspects of publishing. And to do so takes overcoming fear at times. It means taking risks.

My wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, is doing a fantastic book on her sight called The Freelancer’s Survival Guide and her current chapter is on risks. Read the comments after my last Sacred Cows chapter on agents and money, then go read Kris’s chapter in her book. And the comment from Steve Perry after it. It will help on all this and help you balance the fantasy of an agent we all want and the reality of a business practice we all need.

Would you e-mail a perfect stranger and offer to give them control over your money? Sound like an internet scam? Sure it does, yet this is what fiction writers do all the time.

I have touched on this in a number of different ways in the other agent chapters in this book, and had no intention of coming back to it in a stand-alone chapter. Then I started getting private e-mails about how I was wrong about agents, about how they were partners to writers, about how this agent or that agent had taken great care of the writer. Fine, except for one issue. With attitudes like those writers had, they are setting themselves up for a great financial fall.

Now, to be clear, I have no problem with the standard model of writers hiring agents when they need one, usually early on in a career, and usually to handle contracts and other details like that after the writer has gotten an offer from a publisher. All that is fine and dandy as long as the writer knows what they are doing, walks into the relationship with eyes open, and keeps the employer/employee relationship clear. Agent is the employee of the writer, not the other way around. (I give eight suggestions on how to hire and keep an agent at the end of this chapter.)

As I got the letters from published writers taking me to task for not being balanced, I wrote back and asked each writer if they had met their agent. And if the writer had done a financial check on their agent. And if the writer had even been in the agent’s office or in the agent’s home.

Most had met their agent only once, usually at a convention. None had done a financial check, and none had been in their agent’s home. But all backed their agent completely and believed in them completely.

In other words, they were trusting their entire income, which could add up to millions over a number of years if they started to hit, to a complete stranger, a person they really didn’t know, had spent little or no time with, and had done not one lick of checking out.

So I ask the question again: Would you e-mail a complete stranger and offer to let them handle all your money?

Again, of course you wouldn’t, yet by sending out query letters to agents you picked out of a market guide or heard about from a friend, you are doing EXACTLY the same thing.

Back to a few basics I have mentioned before, but want to stress once more to be clear about this money topic.

Basic #1: Agents are not trained or regulated in any way.

Now, in the real world, lawyers are often hired to handle money in one fashion or another for a client. Lawyers have seven years of college which includes three years of law school and State Bar Associations that watch them and handle complaints. They also must pass one nasty test to become a lawyer after finishing law school. Even then, any sane person would check out a lawyer first to handle money matters.

I got one young professional writer comparing their agent to a real estate agent. Now real estate agents are trained and take licensing tests and have organizations in each state to kill their licenses if problems arise. (Book agents, none of that.)

And nowhere in the sales process of a home does the buyer hand all the money to a real estate agent and say, “When you get around to it, send the seller his share.”

Nope, money goes directly through to the seller, with the real estate agent getting a check at closing for only their percentage fee. So not sure at all where book agents and real estate agents are alike. That comparison has always puzzled me, and just doesn’t fit at all on the money side.

Basic #2: Normally, all money is sent to the agent first under the agent’s name.

For those who do not have an agent yet, let me be clear here. In the standard agent/writer model, a publisher sends the agent ALL the money, and then when the agent gets around to it, the agent sends the writer the 85% share.

Why do I say when the agent gets around to it? Because, that’s how it works.

I had one agent who had this “policy” that I fought for seventeen years. If a check came in on Wednesday, I would have a check cut on the following FRIDAY and mailed to me. The agent sat on my money, and all the other writer’s money in that agency, for upwards of two weeks before I could cash a check.

Those of you who understand money just went “Wow!” That’s right, imagine millions running through that agency office every month because they have many NYT Bestsellers in their house. Now imagine earning interest on that money while it sat there. It’s called “the float” and it’s a normal business practice in many agency offices.

You can change this policy by asking in the contract negotiations that the checks be split. The publisher sends you directly the 85% and the agent her 15%. If all writers did this in all future contracts, a vast amount of the money issues with agents would just vanish completely. But agents will tell new writers that can’t be done. Why? Because they like the control and the float. But of course it can be done. Just put it in the contract with the publisher.

There are many, many agents out there folks, who live off of the float, who hold a writer’s royalty check to help with their rent. Writers who have trusted an agent like this won’t know when a royalty check comes in because, guess what, the royalty statement is sent to the agent with the check. Or overseas money. Or audio or electronic money. Or movie money. Agents will send you the money “when they get around to it” and can afford it.

Are there rules against co-mingling funds? Nope. Again, back to no rules, no training, nothing. Often an agent or small agency will just have one checking account, won’t even keep a separate author funds account. They will pay the writer out of that account right along with their rent and power bill and their own paycheck. And we all know what happens when things get slow on income in that situation. What gets paid first, the rent or the author’s British royalty payment?

Basic #3: Agents will sometimes ask for power of attorney.

Yeah, I said that. Agents will often ask writers for various reasons to give them power of attorney. That means without the writer knowing anything about it or even reading a contract, the agent can sign it for you and transfer your copyrights.

I had no idea that this happened until about ten years ago a friend of mine told me he had signed over power of attorney to his agent to make it easier to handle overseas sales. I started laughing, thinking at first he was joking, and when I discovered he wasn’t joking, I wanted to slap him to wake him up.

Then I started asking around and discovered this is common practice in many agencies.

Back to basics #1. Agents are not regulated or trained in any way.

So now my question is this: Would you give someone you don’t know control over all your money and also power of attorney to sign contracts for you to sell all your stuff?

Is there any wonder that writer’s organizations warn writers against the worst of the scams against beginning writers? When it comes to business and writing, normally sane people just flat lose any business sense they have. As a group, fiction writers are the dumbest business people on the face of the planet. Period.

I was no exception to this problem. Now understand, I have owned many, many businesses over the years, went to almost three years of law school, and know how to handle money for the most part. Yet I hired an agent without knowing her, without checking out the fairly new agency she worked for, and gave her control over my entire income for a very long time.

And then when I switched to another agent, I DID THE SAME THING YET AGAIN.

As I say, writers, me included, when it comes to our writing, are the dumbest business people in the world. Period.

Solutions? There are many, actually. I have a good friend who is a private detective who has a fairly large firm (again licensed by the state) whose main job it is to research possible employees for corporations and small businesses. I’m going to ask him what it would take, what he might charge, to do the same for writers when they are hiring an agent. I think this needs to be a part of the future landscape of agents.

How do you know if the agent you are about to hire and put in control of your money doesn’t have two hundred past fraud cases against him in New York? (I know of one major agent in New York that has been sued for taking clients funds over a dozen times that I know about, yet he still has major clients and a ton of writers on his list. Why? He always settles the suits with a gag order on the writers.)

One more time: I am not against the standard writer/agent business model in publishing. I feel writers need good agents to help them through much of the early years. But for heaven’s sake, think like a business person when hiring an agent.

Basic BUSINESS rules for hiring and working with an agent:

1… Never hire an agent before you have an offer on a book. Old cliche that has been around for a long, long time. The agent you can hire before you have sold a book is not the agent you are going to want after you have sold a book.

2… Research, research, research the agent and agency. Talk to their other clients, both past and present, check into their finances, ask about how their firm handles money. (This is not counting all the questions about rewriting and such covered in other chapters.)

3… Talk to the agent on the phone a couple of times before hiring them. Never hire someone through an e-mail or the internet. Yikes, you do that, I know a bank in Russia who would like to send you an e-mail.

4… Always split all money in contracts. Never allow any agent to handle your money. Period.

5… If you are having an agent submit books for you (see other chapters for reasons to do and not do this), have the agent copy you on ALL letters to editors and ALL rejections.

6… Never let the agent make a decision or accept or turn down a deal without talking to you first. Of course, if they ask for a power of attorney, either laugh and ask them if they are kidding or fire them.

7… Remain in control of your speed, the subject matter of your books, and all other creative aspects of your career. Never let an agent tell you to slow down or write to order.

8… Never think of the agent as anything but an employee. They are not your partner and you do not work for them. They work for you. Period.

Now, under all that above, it is very possible to have a wonderful working relationship with an agent. You and a good agent can go places and both can make a lot of money and I promise that if you follow the above eight pieces of advice, you will have far, far fewer problems with your employee than you would otherwise.

Just keep repeating over and over the topic question of this chapter.

Would you offer a perfect stranger control over all your money and your future as a writer?

If the answer is no, then you and I are on the same page.

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Copyright 2010 Dean Wesley Smith
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This is part of my inventory in my bakery now. (Confused on that, read the Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing post about making money with writing.) I’m giving you this small slice as a sample. I’m giving you a taste, but not selling any of the pie. If you feel this helped you in any way, toss a tip into the tip jar on the way out of the Magic Bakery.

And I would like to thank all the fine folks who have donated. Once this book is done, I will send you a copy. The donations and the comments both after the posts and privately are really keeping me going on this. Thanks!

If you can’t afford to donate, please feel free to pass this chapter along to others who might get some help from it. Every week or so I will be adding a new chapter on the myths and sacred cows of publishing. Stay tuned. Upcoming are chapters on bestsellers, research, rejections, and so much more. This business has a lot of myths. An entire book full.

Thanks, Dean

One more post on workshops before the next chapter in Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing.

We have added a new workshop in the place of the agent workshop. Cliffhangers are a critical craft part of novels and in lesser degrees, short fiction. And cliffhangers are craft, they can be taught and studied.

Ever wonder how an author gets you to stay up late reading? Great cliffhangers are part of the reason.

There are upwards of a dozen types of cliffhangers, from action (where the name came from) to dialog to informational to reveal and so on. To use them in your writing, you have to know the tool is there, when to use it and how to use it correctly, including how to structure the beginning of the next chapter which is where the hook of the cliffhanger attaches.

One weekend in June you could learn these craft tools for your writing. Just check out the information above under workshops.

Any other questions about the workshops or to sign up just e-mail me with WORKSHOP in your subject line.

And also still room in the Character Voice workshop in April and the other workshops in June and July. The Money Management for writers will talk a great deal about how to set up extra cash streams for your writing income. Or, in Magic Bakery terms, how to slice your copyright pie even thinner to make more money on the sales. Also, a bunch of how to handle money as a freelancer. For a taste of that, read Kris’s guide on her website.

Hope some of you can make a workshop or two. As the two last week proved once again, they are great fun.

The second workshop this last week was a short story focused workshop lead by me and Tekno Books editor Denise Little. Thirty professional writers attended and it was great fun. And a lot of work. And I learned a bunch and had some wonderful discussions and conversations.

Writers came in from 13 different states and Canada. Florida, Texas, Maine, and lots of places in between. It’s always a stunner to me when we go through the room and people introduce themselves and say where they are from. Some of these people feel like old friends now, yet this group of friends is spread all over North America.

Denise Little came in from Wisconsin. I can’t begin to express my gratitude to her for taking the time and energy every year to do this and work so hard and for such long hours to give everyone fair feedback. A lot of us have worked for her, and sold her many stories, so she says it’s like getting 30 of her writers together all at once. Not sure if that’s a dream or a nightmare for an editor, but she sure seems to love it. And we love having her here. Thanks, Denise!

And wow, what a fantastic bunch of stories. You put thirty professional writers together and have them write short stories and it takes a long, long time to read all of them. But what enjoyable reading. Fantastic stuff. Often, and I do mean often, my entire comment about a story was “Wonderful. I’d buy it.”

And Denise would say the same thing more times than not. You will see a lot of these stories in books and magazines over the next year or so, that much I can promise.

Next up is the marketing workshop in two weeks, then in April we’re doing a Character Voice workshop. After this last week I’m tired, but excited about the new workshops coming up. I’ve got a ton to learn.

New Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing chapter up in a day or so.

Just finished the novel workshop here on the Oregon Coast. (Details of all workshops under workshop tab above.) Thirteen pro writers with some great new novels attended and they all mailed their book packages to a number of editors each today.

We worked on fine-tuning cover letters, proposals, and starts of first chapters, as well as giving feedback on all the books.

From my side, the workshop worked fantastically, and not once was I bored sitting in a Clarion-style critique session, since we didn’t do this workshop that way at all. This was a brand new animal of workshop in structure and it worked. I am pleased and sort of stunned, actually.

For me, it was an honor to get to read these thirteen novels ahead of their publication. There wasn’t a dud in the bunch, all great reads, and with luck, the authors now have their presentation packages to editors clear enough that editors will snap them up and you will all get to read them as well.

I had a great time and I’m now looking forward to the next novel workshop in June. This new way of doing a novel workshop really worked. And thirteen new and wonderful novels are now on editor’s desks.

Great fun.

Up next in two days we start the Denise Little short story workshop. Denise is on her way and I’m madly powering through the first 30 manuscripts, enjoying most of them, actually. This is the fifth or sixth year we’ve done this workshop and I always enjoy it a lot, and learn a lot as well. How can you not have fun when 20-30 professional writers come together to talk writing and the business of writing?

So back to reading for me. New Sacred Cows post next week. Stay tuned.

But right now I get to go learn and have fun.

Cheers, Dean

Here is the myth clear and simple from the writer’s perspective. “I have sold this and that and I don’t need to learn anymore. What I am doing works.”

This myth is so nasty and so subtle that many, many writers just fall into it without even realizing they are in it. I had intended to write on another topic, then I went to a wonderful convention this last weekend and ran into a bunch of writers who were down this myth’s rat hole. Deep down it, actually.

When I hear a writer say they don’t need to learn (in one way or another), I just mentally wave goodbye. Their career is doomed to one of two paths.

First path: They stop selling and have no idea why. They will blame their agent or publisher or an event, but never themselves.

Second path: They sell the same book over and over and can’t change and don’t know how to change and don’t feel they need to keep growing and learning because they are still selling, but will wonder why sales don’t go up and they aren’t read by many people beyond their core readership.

Top writers never, ever stop learning. Long term professionals are constantly learning, since everything always changes so fast. And I don’t just mean keeping up with business. I mean craft issues as well. Just because a writer sold a number of things or two dozen novels doesn’t mean they still don’t have a ton to learn about craft.

The reason I teach workshops for professional and near professional writers is that it keeps me learning and thinking. The reason I write these chapters is because it keeps me thinking and learning and listening. And what is both frightening and fun is that the more I learn, the more I realize how much I just don’t know.

Loren L. Coleman and Kristine Kathryn Rusch pushed me hard for two years to do another master class. They are the other two main instructors at the two week master courses. Their reason for pushing was simple. We all learn so much when we teach them.

They were right. We’ve done two over this last year and stopped again because not only do we learn a ton by teaching, but they are really hard on us to do them. (Learning is always hard.) We might do one again down the road, maybe, but only because of the learning. We lost money on both of them. A lot of money, but it was worth the price because I came out of teaching both master classes with a ton more knowledge and understanding about both the business of writing and the craft of writing.

There is a rule writers should always follow. Money always flows to the writer except for continuing education. Sometimes that education can be a writer’s conference, sometimes a workshop, sometimes just a trip to New York to talk to your editors.

A number of years back I was teaching at a major writer’s conference and Tony Hillerman was speaking and I wanted to learn from him. I was one of the invited instructors at the conference, but luckily, I had an hour off when he was giving a panel, so I sneaked into the back of the room to listen and learn. At one point I realized who was standing against the back wall beside me. Mystery Grandmaster Lawrence Block. He was another instructor at the conference, but we were both there to learn what we could from Hillerman.

How does this I Know Enough myth get started? Actually, it comes from how we all start into this business. We all start by pounding the keys and trying to learn from everything and every book we can find so that we can sell. But in the back of all of our minds is the thought, “Once I start selling, I’ll have it made.”

Logical and normal. Of course, we also believe that rejections will stop coming once “We have it made.” And we believe we will get famous because publishing a book is something only famous people do. And we believe that having a book in print will solve all our writing problems.

Those thoughts are part of our dreams and our goals. We attach to the learning and the years of practice the idea that once “We have it made” all that hard work and pain and rejection and uncertainty will stop. Nope. Afraid not.

Second reason is that learning makes us all uncomfortable. There are entire books about this topic and I suggest you read a few of them. Learning tosses each of us into a state of chaos and our first reaction and desire is to return to status quo. But to apply the learning and to keep learning, sometimes we have to stay in the chaos and confusion for a while until we reach a newer and higher level of status quo. A new level of craft or understanding.

But a writer still lost in the myth that once you start selling you have it made and don’t need to learn will really, really fight this feeling of turmoil associated with learning. The status quo is just fine and dandy. “After all, I’m selling, right?”

This book, these chapters, are aimed at helping writers learn to become long-term selling professional fiction writers. You have no hope if you don’t love to learn, go after learning like it’s a missing food group and you need it to stay alive. Every long-term professional writer I know loves learning. We all struggle with it, sure, but in our cores, we love it, crave it, and go in search of any tiny scrap of learning that will help us through another day.

So running into those professional writers this last weekend who have no real desire to keep learning made me sad for them. Kris and I see it all the time. And the real problem is that if I accused them of this, they would become angry at me.

And that is where this myth gets really, really nasty and deadly. As with all myths, it is a belief system. With all myths, the belief system is “I know how it’s done, so I don’t have to think about it.”

With agents, most writers want to believe an agent will do the work and save them or sell their books. The belief system won’t allow them to keep learning, which is why these past agent chapters have caused so much anger among some people. These posts forced their belief systems into learning chaos. And the most anger came from writers who had agents, had sold novels, were happy with their agents, and didn’t want to question the system. Of course, without questioning, the agent is free to steal money, slow down a career, and eventually kill it without the writer even being aware anything is going wrong.

With making money at fiction myth, writers not making decent money grab onto the myth that you can’t make money in the business because it gives them an excuse to not learn how to become better writers and better at marketing to make a living. Just lately this belief caused one writer to write me and declaim how he can’t sell, how unfair New York publishing is, and that he’s going to self-publish his own work instead. That writer is not willing to learn and keep practicing so that his work will be good enough to sell in New York.

Every myth in this book is tied into this overall myth of thinking that once a writer starts selling, they won’t have to keep learning.

Notice how I haven’t said a word about the 500 pound monkey in the room? The big, big issue in this myth.

Ego.

Every writer needs an ego to keep pushing through this business. Actually we need huge egos, and mine is no small animal. But combined with my ego is the intense fear I won’t know something, that I won’t have a skill I’ll need to finish the next book, that I will be behind some business trend.

That fear of not knowing just does a tap dance on my ego, keeping it mostly under control and learning. Never once have I ever let the ego win and thought I had enough learning. In fact, the fear always wins. Always. Which keeps me learning and searching for learning.

But alas, a number of the writers I met this last weekend had let their egos win. They were too published, too successful to need to keep learning. They had “graduated” as one said to me.

In one panel Kris and I were doing, Larry Niven walked in and sat down. He didn’t stay long because at that moment we were dealing with beginning writer issues in the panel, but he came in to see what he could pick up. I sat in two of his panels for a short time for the same reason.

Writers need huge egos mixed with a desire to keep learning. I feed my ego by letting the fear of not knowing something turn into a stroke for my ego when I learn something. I still buy how-to-write books and am constantly reading how other writers work and think. And I am teaching a bunch of workshops this year to work out topics I felt I needed to focus even more on, such as Character Voice, Marketing, and New Technologies. I hope to know a lot more by the end of this year than I do now, and then find new things to learn next year. And the year after, all the while practicing what I am learning by pounding the keys and turning out new story and new novel after new story and new novel.

I have published somewhere around one hundred novels now and a ton of short fiction, and written even more, and I am a long, long ways from graduating in this business. The day I think I have learned it all, just toss a shovelful of dirt on my face because I will be dead.

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Copyright 2010 Dean Wesley Smith
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This is part of my inventory in my bakery now. (Confused on that, read the Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing post about making money with writing.) I’m giving you this small slice as a sample. I’m giving you a taste, but not selling any of the pie. If you feel this helped you in any way, toss a tip into the tip jar on the way out of the Magic Bakery.

And I would like to thank all the fine folks who have donated. Once this book is done, I will send you a copy. The donations and the comments are really keeping me going on this. Thanks!

If you can’t afford to donate, please feel free to pass this article along to others who might get some help from it. Every week or so I will be adding a new chapter on the myths and sacred cows of publishing. Stay tuned. Upcoming are chapters on bestsellers, research, rejections, and so much more. This business has a lot of myths. An entire book full.

Thanks, Dean

Notice above I now have a tab and page with a listing and links to all the chapters of the book Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing. Make sure when you are going back to read the discussions in the comments as well.

New chapter coming soon.

Back from the RadCon convention in Pasco, Washington. Great fun, great people, great folks running everything. I want to thank Bob Brown for the fantastic job he did. Kris and I had a blast.

And talk about feeling like an old guy. Wow, the convention was swarming with young readers and fans. In fact, if I had to guess, I would say at least 75% of the convention was under 25. Maybe more. Does my heart good to see the kids coming into the conventions again.

A couple of interesting conversations happened at RadCon as well about agents. Basically, over the weekend, three different people asked me if I could give some advice about agents. My first question was always, “Have you been reading my blog? I may not be the right person to ask.”

Their response was no, they haven’t been reading these Killing Sacred Cows posts. I told them to do so and read all the comments afterwards as well, but they insisted on asking me their question anyway. All three had the same common issue. All three couldn’t get their agent to talk to them, to mail out their book, to respond to any kind of communication. They wanted to know what I thought they should do.

Note: All three had gotten an agent, all three were published writers. All three were basically stopped writing by their employee. I have no idea if I helped any of them, or if they will show up here and actually read these blogs. But it sure made me sad.

Sad for the state of publishing, sad for the state of new art coming into writing. This current system will change, as systems in publishing always do, but we will lose a generation or more of writers along the way.

Another writer on a panel went on and on and on about how you can’t make any money writing fiction these days. I just sat there sort of trying not to laugh, then asked him point blank how much a writer made if their book hit a hardback bestseller list in just royalties, not counting all the other income streams from such a hit. (You know, cost of book times 10% royalty to be low times 100,000 copies which might hit a list, might not, but it’s low.) $25 book times 10% times 100,000 copies. Luckily, that’s no money.

The writer made some comment about it being a fluke that anyone hit a bestseller list and I asked why it was a fluke when there were 1,530 different spots last year on any one of the major bestseller lists. And some writers only hit the Publisher’s Weekly list while others hit the USA Today list while others hit the New York Times bestseller list, which means there were far more. Actually, last year, 660 different books hit the hardcover PW bestsellers list.

Yeah, can’t make any money at this business. I make a nice living at this business and wasn’t even close to a list last year. Just head-shaking how silly and ground into myths many writers want to stay. They sure won’t let facts and math get in the way of their belief. It’s why some of these Killing Sacred Cows posts make people angry. I made that guy angry this weekend simply by giving him facts and math. He wanted to hold onto his belief because it excused his not working, his laziness, his inability to learn how to write commercial fiction. Just easier to blame the system than himself.

But besides those sad moments, it was great fun, great meals, great time with everyone, including some old friends I hadn’t seen for a while. Thanks again, Bob, and everyone at RadCon who put on such a great convention. Thanks for letting us be a guest. We’ll see you next year.

Kris and I are going in as special guests of honor to a wonderful science fiction and gaming convention this coming weekend called RadCon.

The convention is in the middle of Washington State in the Pasco area at the Red Lion Inn. Guests include Ellen Datlow, Larry Niven, Patricia Briggs, John Dalmas, C.J Cherie, Chris and Steve York, and so many more. Great fun, great weekend.

We are doing a free couple hours of the Kris and Dean show, and some other publishing panels. If you can make it to the convention, stop by and say hello.

I’ll be back next week with another chapter of the book, and maybe starting up a new feature as well.

All writers who are looking to a future in publishing should be reading Mike Stackpole’s current series of blog posts. You can find the latest here.

Questions about it and my opinion about what he is saying are welcome here.

Cheers, Dean