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Emanuel
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 133
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 04:28 pm: | 
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Since there are so many new authors signing up with new publishing companies like Triple Crown Productions, Black Pearl Books and Urban Books, I wanted to ask-are they gettin' paid? Anyone have any idea on what kind of contracts these authors are getting? Are they getting advances? Would they be better off publishing independently? If you have the inside scoop, let us know what's up. |
Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 65
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 05:09 pm: |
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Hi Emanuel,
I have moved on to one of the major conglomerates.
But I was with DOOR OF A KUSH for two years, a small black house that was started by Black businessmen in Bel Air, California.
I never received an advance and have gotten almost no royalties and I've sold about 15,000 books (3 different titles) under their house.
They're wonderful men, but other than a video they made about me and sending me on a 5 city tour in 2004, they don't do ANY publicity , which really sucks. You have to promote yourself.
These men are in Radio and Electricity, so that shows you...this is like a hobby, and was only spurred on because they heard me talking on the radio about my books being firebombed.
As for getting paid....
The problem is the cost to produce the books is very high---especially in their case, they do really high quality jackets, paper, the books could rival any major house in production quality. So they have to earn that back before there's any royalty.
They leased my autobiography, but I retained all rights to my books. Their other authors basically also retain rights after one year.
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Emanuel
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 134
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 08:52 am: |
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Well, my first book was published through print on demand publisher Publish America. Their standard contract gives authors 10% royalties, 2 free books, a symbolic $1.00 advance and discounted books up to 50%. Out of all of the print on demand, vanity publishers, it's probably the best deal for someone who just wants a book published but doesn't want to spend money to do it. But like you said Snakegirl, it's all about marketing anyway-no matter how you get published. It's wise for all authors to set money aside for marketing.
I posed the question because I see a lot of street fiction on the Essence bestseller list from publishers like TCP and wondered if it is worthwhile for the authors. I've also been hearing about a lot of self-published authors who've been getting 2-book deals. And you never really read about the details of a publishing contract in a press release. Hmmm. |
Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 66
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 02:56 pm: |
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Hi Emmanuel,
Some of my early books were recently liscensed for inclusion on a Network University CD ROM LIBRARY ANTHOLOGY. Here's a portion of the official offer --notice the royalty breakdown and such---that was sent to my agent. I have removed my agent's name:
Dear Mr. _________,
Alexander Street Press is an academic publisher specializing in scholarly research collections for university libraries. I am writing to let you know of our interest in the works of Kola Boof as follows:
We are currently publishing a landmark collection of literature by African, African-American and African Diaspora women authors in electronic form. Entitled Black Women Writers, this collection will comprise over 100,000 pages of the most important novels, poems, autobiographies and feminist essays from the nineteenth century to the present. The collection will be sold online by subscription and as a CD-ROM for purchase to large academic libraries.
This is a high profile initiative that has already received a favorable response from a variety of leading academic institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and others.
Currently we are near completion on three similar projects in African-American studies: the Black Drama collection, which includes more than 1,200 plays by major authors; Black Thought and Culture, a collection of non-fiction literature comprising the most important essays, articles, autobiography, and interviews by more than 75 leading figures; and Black Short Fiction with over eight thousand short stories and folktales from many countries in Africa and the African Diaspora. We have agreements with a number of prestigious writers for these collections, including Ossie Davis, Rita Dove, Amiri Baraka, Derek Walcott, Toni Morrison, Cornel West, August Wilson, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and the Estates of James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Paul Robeson, Carl Rowan, Zora Neale Hurston, and Malcolm X, among many others.
We propose:
To include these texts in a high quality electronic collection that is carefully constructed and indexed to provide researchers with precise and exhaustive searching capabilities.
We seek non-exclusive rights to include these texts within the Black Women Writers collection.
In return, we offer an agreement that:
1. Provides for a royalty of 20% of revenues, to be prorated based on the number of pages you license to the collection. We calculate the prorated share as follows: the number of pages you contribute divided by the total number of pages in the database.
2. Runs for an initial period of five years, and is automatically renewed every year thereafter unless terminated by either party with 90 days' notice.
Pays royalties twice a year.
Protects all literary property, as purchasing institutions are required to sign a license agreement that places restrictions of the use of the database. Further, we expect this to result in additional sales of the print editions, as Black Women Writers will bring hundreds of new students and scholars to these works under limited access. (I would like to stress that this project does not provide any means by which the works would be freely available over the Internet. Use of our collections is restricted to the internal library systems of purchasing universities only. Research is limited to local access at these institutions.)
Our particular expertise is in comprehensive indexing. We index every text in the database with dozens of fields and extensive bibliographic information, which enables innovative scholarship to take place. For example, a researcher can identify all uses of a particular word or phrase over time and can ask specific questions like: “Show me all works written in the 1880s that discuss literacy”; “Give me all works with the word violence within 5 words of woman”; “Show me all works that mention African Feminism”. This allows for comparative and historical study across texts of major authors on a scale never before possible.
Currently, we have agreements with more than 200 publishers and copyright holders, including Penguin Putnam, Random House, Faber and Faber, Knopf, Warner Books, Oxford University Press, and Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
Our website provides further details about our company and our scholarly collections: http://alexanderstreetpress.com/.
Our goal is to create an archive that will promote the study of African-American and African Diaspora feminine literature. We want to make an archive as comprehensive as possible, to enhance scholarship and to provide an unparalleled resource.
We hope that you agree that this is an attractive arrangement and that you would like to receive a contract from Alexander Street Press. I look forward to hearing from you, and please let me know if you have any questions about this proposal or the project itself. You can reach me at (703) 349- or by email at __________.
Best regards,
Isabel Lacerda
Rights Editor
Alexander Street Press L.L.C.
3212 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
Ph: (703) 349-
Fax: (703 ) 842-
www.alexanderstreet.com
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Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 67
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 05:25 pm: |
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I hope that's detailed enough 
LOL
You said you wanted details.
You know, when you write a book---I bet you know never ever think about a publishers and universities buying the "CD ROM" rights.
I never did either until now.
And I NEVER wanted my books to be in E-Book form, but now they will be.
It's becoming such a gigantic and complicated business.
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Emanuel
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 136
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 - 11:54 pm: |
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That's excellent info Snakegirl. It would be nice to hear from someone who signed with TCP or from someone who self-published then turned around and sold their rights to other major publishers. |
Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 68
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 03:44 pm: |
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Emanuel, keep my email in your records in case you ever need me.
kolaboof_email@yahoo.com
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