Is It Possible To Have Too Big A Story?

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Laura Stamps

As for sales, royalties differ according to publishers. Some give you very good contracts, and some don't. I have experienced both in my career.

But it's still more profitable to get a smaller percentage and sell tens of thousands of books than to get a higher percentage and sell in the low four figures.

For instance:

15% for a $15.00 book x 2000 copies = $4,500
versus
8% for a $8.00 book x 20,000 copies = $12,000

And of course if sales for the $8.00 book are in the range of 30, 40, or 50K, the difference in royalties (though still at a lower percentage of a less expensive book) grows greater and greater.

[ray gower]

Cooper is Ms Steel but with a Jefferey Archer type bitchiness

[Laura Stamps]

Originally Posted by ray gower

Cooper is Ms Steel but with a Jefferey Archer type bitchiness

What a hoot!!! Thanks for the info.

[drosdelnoch]

Ok coming at this from a diffent angle.

Authors in thier contracts are given a percentage of sales, however they are also given a sub ahead of publication which has to be earned back before they start to make any money.

Now lets go through this from teh start. Lets say that we've written a book and managed to sell it to publisher A.

Now our contract says that we have to write a three book series to fulfill the contract. Each book gets us £3,000 up front, however we dont get the sum for the book until the first one is complete etc.

Now the contract also says that we get 10%. This is of the sale price, not the cover price. We think cool.

So out comes our book. Its been lucky enough to be printed in Hardback as the publisher thinks we have potential with the cover prince of £18.99
Not bad you think, I get £1.89 of each book sold, magic. We then end up selling 5,000 copies (not bad for a first time author considering that hit books can sell around the 17,000 hardback). So off we toddle and do the math and think cool I am about to get £9,450, minus our up front payment of £3,000 and we're about to get a nice little cheque for £6,450

Not big money but its a start. So the royalty cheque comes in for a lot less. What happened. Well the contract stated that you got 10% of the sales price. Amazon sold 3000 copies of your book for £10, eeekkkkk. So that now means that you made £1 per book, so thats £3000 plus £3,780

Thats a hell of a loss, plus the publisher could have some way of messing with the figures so that you get even less. Not that they will do but it used to be done in the past. So off you go with book two and have it out in time and do the same again. However during the release of book 2 your original book is out in paperback. Well the moneys not rolling in but its getting there.

What IM saying is that a number of subs are never achieved and authors feel that they were left wondering was it worth it after all after writing the book, they had to do a hell of a lot of unpaid publicity in an effort to sell the book and yet come out with a measley sum. Now how authors tend to make money is foreign sales and upon completion of contracts when they come to sign another they also renegotiate the sales figures for their previous work, so where they were getting 10% originally, then they manage to get between 12 and 15%.

Writing isnt for everyone and as such it should never bee seen as a way print money. Yes the thrill of getting published is probably a buzz like no other, however very few are ever successfull enough to make a living at it and even fewer ever make serious money.

As a person who aspires to write for the love of it rather than an end goal, I always think that a good writer is someone who reads alot. When you do that you start to see the architeture behind the writing so that you can figure out how its been created etc. It gives you idea's, you can then also start to see whats wrong with the pieces or have ideas that would make them better.

Try it, to not know a number of authors from genres that you wouldnt normally read is not a good way to go. I may not read a lot of romance but I have embarked on the odd Jackie Collins to see how the genre works, likewise Ive read Jilly Cooper and also Danielle Steele. Theyre not my cup of tea but it is a good way to expand your reading knowledge and to see how others work the whole thing to thier advantage.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I don't know how it is in the UK, drosdelnoch, but at least in the US contracts and royalties are somewhat different than you describe them.

The percentage stated in the contract is based on the cover price of the book, with a few exceptions, such as when the book goes OP and is remaindered, or if there is a special "bargain" edition sold to a dealer like amazon at a lower price (often the exact same edition with a special mark on it -- this happened with the TP edition of one of my books). With regular sales, though, no matter what the bookstore or distributor sells the book for, the author gets the percentage off the cover price, because the publisher gets the same amount whether the bookstore or amazon offers their customers a deal or not.

Also, you don't get to negotiate for a higher percentage on your royalties unless the sales of your first book were very good indeed -- certainly not if you haven't earned back the advance. And with many books the foreign rights are never sold at all -- so most of the time, for most authors, the advance is it, that's all they are going to see.

[theDamonfreak]

I have trouble with this. My plots always tend to be WAY bigger than I first plan them to be. For instance, (I can't yet comment on my fantasy trilogy, as it's HUGELY complicated with several different big plots swirling around each other), my horror trilogy, The Hybrid Theory, is quite complex. There are several main characters and their relationships with each other, the sub-plots with different characters feeding into the lives of the main characters, and yet more sub-plots feeding into those!

I guess a novel has to have more than just the main plot, to give the characters realistis dynamics. The sub-plots with more insignificant characters can be used to give the main guys their memories, fears, likes etc, rather than just basing those on situations.

Of course, there is, as everyone says, then always the danger of either moving away from the main plot for all of the story or most of it, as the writer/reader gets too tangled in the sub-plots to remember anything else, or simplifying them so much, glossing over the emotional impact on the main characters, that the sub-plots seem pointless in the first place.

'Tis a tricky balance... one I know I'm still working on. ^_^

[drosdelnoch]

No problem Teresa, but thats how it worked in the UK, Ive talked to a number of authors who each have said about how it came out. THey each have written numerous books so know about the renegotiating about previous percentages etc. So whilst it may be a bit much I had to jump in to defend authors from the people who think that they got paid per page or per word. Silly logic but it does need correcting.

[TheUltimateChosenOne]

Are you kidding! Theres some famous writer named Robert Jordan that writes over 1,000 page books. The books are thiker then my hand!
Stories come in all shapes and sizes, just like people!
Best luck on your story!

[ray gower]

Has to be said, there is another rather more famous writing Robert, Heinlein, whose books could often cover the whole history of a civilisation, their sociology, physiology and all the other 'ologies, a comparative critical prase in comparison with one or more other civilisations, plus a taught story, all in a volume only slightly more than a tenth of that

[Omphalos]

Ill bet that part of it is that if a writer writes a multi volume story, say 5 books, and the books are 200 pages or so, the reader will be pissed off that they had to make 5 purchases, and give the author 5 paydays. But if they write monsters, there is no reasonable complaint there (other than they are overwritten or padded, which is not as bad to author/reader good will).

[Malloriel]

Personally, I entirely admire what it was Robert Jordan was attempting to do, and hope to employ the idea of it in my own work. The problem I ran into was when you really get involved in the plot of one of the several dozen main characters only to have it jump to someone else, thus frustrating the reader. Then you settle down, reluctantly, to find out what's going on with this set of main characters only to have it jump yet again. I mean, my word! The end of one deals with Rand and the taint on the male half of the One Power, and in the next book it's hardly addressed! You end on such a compelling note, yet don't immediately address it in the first line of the next book?? Why on EARTH would you do that to us?

There were too many contributing stories and players to be crammed into one series, I feel. I admire how he was showing that people once connected obviously can lead separate lives with little to no contact with each other, direct or indirect, yet still play utterly integral yet independent parts within the overall scope and resolution of the conflict. It is entirely beautiful, admirable, and complex. I just feel he should have chosen one story to tell with the others as more supplemental material.

He, unlike others, though, was always working on a personal time limit with an unknown but inevitable end. It was all he could do to get them out before he passed, and nearly succeeded. I believe for that reason, if no other, the manner in which he chose to express the lives of his characters can be forgiven, no matter how frustrating a chapter by chapter progression may be.

I also think that a series of 27 books may not be considered too many, or a book of 2000+ pages may not be too many if the writing is well done and the story compelling. If the words used are those necessary, and the content not merely fluff. Anything well written to the size it should be, large or small, is exactly as it is meant to be and reading it won't leave one with the feeling they've been short-changed, or suffered through what could have been 8 chapters long and instead was 34.

Anything written well can defy the odds and conventions. I think it's when the writer is missing some point in themselves or their approach to writing that the reader begins to feel it.

[WafflesToo]

@ Malloriel: That is probably the biggest thing that killed the Wheel-of-Time series for me. I managed to slog my way through the first five books before giving up, and I never felt that it was all that good past book three.

It's a shame he will never get a second chance to do better

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Now bear with me on this one. I know in some circles Robert Jordan might be pretty well loved, but honestly, if it IS possible to have too big a story, the Wheel of Time would certainly be an example.....

[Malloriel]

I don't disagree with you, Manarion. I admire the man for what he attempted to do, but I think the jumbled, mashed up way he approached everyone's involvement could have been more limited, at least.

I just have to keep him in mind and NOT do what he did with my works. My epic, stretch-till-forever works that eat your eyes.

[kenpat]

Originally Posted by Manarion

Now bear with me on this one. I know in some circles Robert Jordan might be pretty well loved, but honestly, if it IS possible to have too big a story, the Wheel of Time would certainly be an example.....

I have started to reread these in preparation for the final ones release next year.
I haven't read them since they first came out and had read up to volume 8.
I'm now midway through book 3 and already feel differently than I did when I read them first. Whereas before I was totally wrapped up in the story this time I'm not finding it so engrossing and would now agree that a lot of it seems like padding. It may just be me.
However I have read almost all of Peter Hamiltons books and loved every page, so long books do not scare me.
I think the problem with long books with lots of characters and subplots is that you may cease to care about most of them because you can't keep track. Maybe that's just me again, with advancing age and senility approaching.
As a slight diversion but still on subject, I note that Brandon Sanderson (the author who will complete the WOT series) has already announced that there will be 2 books released not 1. Bet they're both giants.