Hello to new writers and your summer publishing questions answered, Round 4

Contract issues, synopsis and manuscript lengths, agent offer etiquette and a reminder of what we're doing here.

Holy moly do you know how to make a birthday girl feel special! On Sunday, I launched a 24-hour discount to celebrate my birthday and we now have over a hundred new paid subscribers in our ranks. Welcome! As some of you are new here, I want to remind you of my mission and how I like to do things to keep us beleaguered writers safe, hopeful, and happy.

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A note about this month: in August, I put out an open call for publishing questions and there were nearly a hundred of them, each one pertinent and good. I’m hoping to get through all of them, which means quite a few rounds of these publishing questions. I want to keep things diverse here so I’ll try to pepper straight-up publishing advice articles in-between these Q&A rounds, but autumn is literary festival season and I have a ton of travel and speaking commitments. Please be patient as I get my ducks in line, my child integrated into a brand new school, my novel over the halfway point, et cetera. I know it’s a crazy time for you all, too.

And that should do it! Without further ado, let’s keep tackling your publishing and writing questions. And thank you again to all our new writer friends who have joined us here!

The text versions of each of the below questions are written out in the footnotes for those who have a hard time reading the text in the images or who have disabled images.

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Question 1: How can writers avoid getting screwed when they are asked to start work/revision on a book without a contract?

The text of this question is written out in footnotes

Caitlin’s question⁴ is in response to something we answered last week about R&R’s (Revise and Resubmits) but that question concerned writers who don’t have an editor or agent yet, while Caitlin’s addresses people who have an agent and a publisher who has orally promised a book deal but—for whatever reason—hasn’t sent over the book deal for signing yet.

Caitlin’s book was pre-empted by a Big Five publisher and was fast-tracked because it was on a timely topic. What this sped-up timeline meant for her was that she delivered the entire first draft before the deal was inked. While this isn’t wildly unusual in publishing (where people still fax things so everything is slow), it does leave the author unprotected. While Caitlin got a promise of a book deal both verbally and in an email to her agent, because of the time crunch she turned her book in before she actually had a contract which is a risky move.

Things generally work out, but there are worst-case scenarios. One happened to me. Right before Covid hit, I was in a similar good-faith situation with a film producer who was leaving their current company (we’ll call it Pineapple) to set up a new company (which we’ll call Mango). I was supposed to be under contract with Pineapple to write the feature screenplay adaptation of one of my novels, but the producer who wanted to do the film wanted me to follow them to their new company Mango, which wasn’t off the ground yet…so I was asked to hold out just a little longer until Mango could be created and my contract would be with them, instead of Pineapple. But guess what? Covid hit, Mango never got created, and I never got the 100K that was due me because the entire thing collapsed. (I should point out that I did not start the work the producers requested without the contract because I no longer do Hollywood stuff on spec—that money was meant to be an advance for the next leg of work on a project already started.)

So in this case, working outside of a contract was a risk I took that quite literally did not pay off. I moonlight in magazine writing, and I have to say that the magazine world of contracts and kill fees makes it safer terrain to tread than publishing, where you are often asked to work on spec for reasons of goodwill, favors, and “exposure.” Because of this, there will be a LOT of times you’re asked to start work without a contract. Generally, your agent will advise you whether it’s worth it or not to move forward without the contract in hand, but you have to trust your gut. If your gut tells you not to start work without a contract, demand one. If you have an agent who isn’t doing right by you, turn to The Author’s Guild. For a super reasonable annual membership (like $139), you can get the writer/lawyers at The Author’s Guild to help push for a contract—they’ll even have a lawyer review it for you.

If the contracting entity wants you and your work badly enough, they should be able to speed up the contract-writing.

Question 2: If I get an offer of rep from an agent, but other agents are still reading, what do I do?

Let’s all hope that Beth has gotten some good news while she’s been waiting for me to respond!⁵ These agent communication questions are always tricky. The good news is that nothing makes an agent come to life faster than hearing that someone else is interested in your work. There are two paths forward here. Let’s explore them.