Agent-Editor Negotiations
Oct. 27th, 2010 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deborahjrossFrom Ingrid Sundberg's blog: Let’s Make a Deal: An Editor/Agent Mock Negotiation
MONDAY:
The Agent: Submits a client’s book to a variety of appropriate editors around town.
The Editor: Is excited to see a submission from this agent in her mail box. She’s a good agent and often sends great work! She decides to read it as soon as she can.
WEDNESDAY:
The Editor: Reads the book and gets very excited about it. She’s so excited about it that she calls the agent and lets her know that she is putting together an offer!
The Agent: Calls all of the other editors she’s submitted the manuscript to and lets them know that she has an offer coming in on said book, but she would still like to give the other editors a chance to take a look at the work and see if they are interested.
The Editor: Takes the book to an editorial meeting and shares it with the team. They discuss the viability of the book. This is a first time author, but she thinks they should put together a competitive but modest offer for the book. The editor then runs a profit and loss statement on the book to find out the numbers. In the profit and loss statement they estimate that the book will sell between 2000 and 5000 hard cover copies, and 5000 to 8000 paperback copies. With those kind of numbers the editor knows that the highest advance she could offer is about $17,500, but she’d rather start low – somewhere around $12,000, hoping after they negotiate they will land in the ball park of $15,000.
Keep reading...
MONDAY:
The Agent: Submits a client’s book to a variety of appropriate editors around town.
The Editor: Is excited to see a submission from this agent in her mail box. She’s a good agent and often sends great work! She decides to read it as soon as she can.
WEDNESDAY:
The Editor: Reads the book and gets very excited about it. She’s so excited about it that she calls the agent and lets her know that she is putting together an offer!
The Agent: Calls all of the other editors she’s submitted the manuscript to and lets them know that she has an offer coming in on said book, but she would still like to give the other editors a chance to take a look at the work and see if they are interested.
The Editor: Takes the book to an editorial meeting and shares it with the team. They discuss the viability of the book. This is a first time author, but she thinks they should put together a competitive but modest offer for the book. The editor then runs a profit and loss statement on the book to find out the numbers. In the profit and loss statement they estimate that the book will sell between 2000 and 5000 hard cover copies, and 5000 to 8000 paperback copies. With those kind of numbers the editor knows that the highest advance she could offer is about $17,500, but she’d rather start low – somewhere around $12,000, hoping after they negotiate they will land in the ball park of $15,000.
Keep reading...
