The Royalty and Other Fictional Characters

Who on earth thought of this cruel term called royalty? There is nothing royal about it. It is bloody unfair to term the few coins we authors make (when someone buys our book) as royalty. It just creates false impressions. Just makes it hard to be an author.

Does anyone here know JK Rowling? She is the one who added being a wizard as a career choice for many an unsuspecting kid. She has done something similar for other Muggles too. She has inspired many people to take up writing as a profession. So what are her own credentials? Impressive. Her personal wealth of £545 million, gets her to rank as thirteenth richest woman in Britain. In 2006, Forbes named Rowling the second-richest female entertainer in the world.

One of these newspapers that I was reading told me that not very long ago, her lifestyle was like mine. In those days neither of us was a billionaire. I still kept my part of the promise. She went ahead and became rich. Authors are never rich. So what's the secret?

Whenever I tell someone that I have written a book, they always look at me and turn green. What do you do with all that royalty, they ask. I have to keep up the pretense. It is all about the image of being a billionaire author (I mean, JK Rowling is one). I guess I can't blame these guys. If people know that you get paid in the form of "ROYALTY", it is logical that your readers expect you to have a lifestyle of the rich and famous. It is too much pressure.

My friends need to know this. I get royalty when someone BUYS my book. Yet each of those fellows will come up and ask me for a free copy. What is this about insisting on a free copy of my book? My boss wants one, my colleague wants one. I go to a party and the host introduces me as an author and then all the bloody guests want a free copy. So if you want to know how my book made it to the bestseller lists, I bought most of them to gift to my friends, relatives and colleagues. I have to sneak in to my neighborhood book store and buy a few copies at a time so that when someone asks for a copy - oh yeah... another one of those misers who will not support a struggling author - I have to gift him or her one of those copies.

My colleagues are cruel. Last week when everyone was being given out their annual increment letters, some jealous guy went and told my boss that I did not need the pay rise. My boss too just shook hands with me and said pretty sheepishly, "You are a rich author. You get paid in royalty. I know this salary is just your pocket money Abbey. So... no... I won't embarrass myself by giving you a raise." It is hard being an author.

Brilliant Idea for Software Developers

If you ever wrote a Job Description for an author or an aspiring writer, one criteria should be spelt out in bold letters - the ability to handle rejection slips. It is a death blow to one's ego. Handling that without seeking professional help in carrying out psychological repairs is not easy.

When I was sending out my manuscript to various publishers, I had initially taken a cautious approach. I would mail my stuff with a polite covering note and add a silent prayer while licking the stamp. You can't fault me for praying. I would send off the manuscript with the same fondness with which a parent sees off their child to college. Nobody expects them to dropout.

Then came the next bit - waiting for the mailman to bring in the response. I would bunk work just so that I could be there in person to receive the million dollar advance that the publisher might be sending me. Heck that's not how the real world works. I would get a prompt response back from the publisher. Yeah how long does it take to say "NO" - which part of the "NO" are you having difficulty comprehending, my friend would ask in a helpful manner.

Priya mentioned that these days the editors send electronic rejection slips. That's taking the art of insulting to new heights. Can't you take a couple of minutes to write a few lines to the person whose dreams you are stubbing out.

The only way of coping with this impersonal rejection slip system is to seek tech support. Maybe someone will figure out a technology that lets all aspiring authors to send one copy of the manuscript to every publisher in the world simultaneously and then stay pasted on the screen until he/ she goes through the darn story syllable by syllable. Thereafter, there would be an annoying pop up that asks the publisher, "Have you sent the million bucks yet?"

The accompanying piece of software the authors will need to install will allow all rejection slips to be filtered out so that it is only the acceptance letters that flow through to the in-box. Any takers?
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This blog entry was inspired by the comment Priya left on my blog. She talked about the auto-rejection slips sent by publishing houses.

How to Get Your Novel Published?

And You Thought Writing the Novel Was the Hard Part?

You have the novel ready. And you are now ready to count the steady flow of royalty. You have practised the odd moment of living it up like a rich person. So why is the publisher not grabbing your manuscript.

Heck - that's the reality check. Your publisher needs to feel that your manuscript is going to be the next Harry Potter or whatever last made a few good millions - for the publisher. Yes... you read that right. The publisher is really trying to gauge the readership of your novel. So in a very simplistic manner, they are not really trying to figure out if your plotline was intriguing or not. They need to know how many people are likely to BUY your novel.

How do you find a publisher?

Option 1: Get yourself invited to a dinner party where publishers are hanging out. Then try and strike up a conversation with one of 'em. NOT RECOMMENDED.

Option 2: Go to a literary festival or a writers' workshop. Helps to get you in the queue to pick up a few visiting cards of publishers and employees of publishing houses. Try and listen in to the panel discussions. That always helps. Listen to other writers and editors and publishers.

Option 3: Find yourself an agent. In US they have a book called the Writers Market. You can buy it off Amazon.com or a bookstore. That lists basically, which publisher is publishing the genre of novels that yours fits in. They list names of agents who will represent you to the publishers. Here is an interview with Eric Simonoff - the agent who represented Jhumpa Lahiri. Some of the agents want a "Reading Fee" - a hefty sum of money to read your manuscript with no obligations. Heck, it is a tough world.

Option 4: Keep sending the manuscript to the publishers directly. Most websites have addresses where you can mail the manuscript. Some want electronic version, some want the hardcopy, some want a pink bulldog to go with it. Whatever they want and in whatever format they want it - you increase the probability of someone reading it if you follow instructions.

And I don't know if I should say this to you, but... well... be prepared for the famous "Rejection Slip". I was told by an engineer that the number of rejection slips will always be one less than the number of manuscripts you have mailed, since one of them will be the acceptance slip. In mathematical terms the rejection slips will be n-1 if n is the number of manuscripts mailed. Well - he was wrong. I got more rejection slips than manuscripts mailed (one publisher sent me two of those pre-printed ones).

See sample Rejection Slip below

Dear

Your writing has a refreshing style and the plotline was really gripping and fabulous.

However... - this where it gets creative -

a) we have just stopped publishing this genre/ category of novels/ poems

b) we are understaffed and will not be able to pay attention to the manuscript for the next five years/ sixty months - whichever is later!

c) you have just missed the submission deadline for the next five years.

Yours sincerely (if THAT is sinecerely, I wonder what is not)