← The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Shooting the Shit About Your Deepest and Darkest Book Money Questions: PART ONE
00:38:08
Shooting The Shit
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- [00:00]
A
Hi there. We've got a lot we're really excited to tell you about, but I'm going to make this real quick so you can get to the episode. The Deep Dive is coming up at the end of January. The lineup of speakers is incredible, and the range of topics is mind blowing. You do not want to miss out on the last Deep dive ever. Then the beta reader matchup is open once again, with the matchups going out early in February. Sign up to kick your creative year off with a bang. Lastly, there's an amazing writer's workbook available, which will make the perfect gift for you or the writer in your life. Head to our website the Shit About Writing to find out more.
- [00:40]
B
Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with Literary Agents Carly Waters and Cece Lira, where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business. If you've ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug and pull up a chair. Hi everybody. I've really been looking forward to this episode. This is one that I've kind of been cooking up for a while, and cece was gracious enough to run with this one with me. I think we're going to have a lot of interesting conversations about money because I think it is one of those things that underpins so much of what we talk about in the framing. And we always talk about how this is a business, and you guys came up with some really great questions about the business within its context and how you feel about it as writers. So I think we're going to have some really interesting conversations. We actually got so many questions. We're going to do this as a part one and a part two. It is going to be broken up, though, in terms of weeks, because so part one, as you guys are listening to it, is kind of like our shooting the shit. And then the week after that is a bonus episode, and then part two is going to come after the bonus episode. So just so you know, you know part two is coming. If you are listening to this on the day that it comes out, we love you. Thank you. And then stay tuned for the Part two in a couple of weeks. Yeah, but we have so much to talk about. We got a lot of questions. And thank you guys for following along with kind of the anonymous question box. I've used that a couple of times and I kind of like it because obviously there's the question box feature on Instagram, but the anonymous questions are kind of nice. And there's actually a Bigger space for you guys to write in your questions. So I do like using that app. It's called ngl, if you guys ever want to use it yourself. And then, Cece, you got a question? We got one question, the dm. So you pop that in as well, right?
- [02:20]
C
Yeah, we got one question in the podcast. DMs. Not my. My personal DMs. And we obviously popped it in anonymously. Yeah. People say it's not polite to talk about money. People say it's taboo to talk about money. I disagree with both. I, you know, I know Carly does too. We actually love being honest and transparent while obviously still being mindful of confidentiality and talking about the things. Because, let's face it, taboo things are the most interesting things to talk about. So let's do it.
- [02:49]
B
Yeah, I love that. And I feel like Cece and I also have this in common. As individuals. We love being like, you know, we invest and we talk about the stock market, and we're just. We feel like as women and as business people, like, anything we can do to further conflict. Conversations about women and money or anybody. Entrepreneurs and money, creatives and money. You know, it's always good. And I feel like I'm the person in my friend group that's like, always just so open about it because in my day to day work, obviously it's completely siloed as from the business point of view, but I'm just so used to talking about money, constantly talking about negotiation. And I was chatting with a friend yesterday and I'm like, yeah, I'll like, I. I'm your go to for all those things. I love. I love chatting about that.
- [03:24]
C
And it's really interesting because I grew up. I don't know how you did, Carly, but I grew up. It's like, you do not talk about money. Absolutely not. It's very like, it's impol. Light. You know, a lady doesn't talk about money. And. And like, as an adult, the more I grow into myself, the more I realize that, like, I love money. I love money. I'm unapologetic about the fact that I love money.
- [03:46]
B
Okay.
- [03:47]
C
I love money. And. And I want to talk about money more because I don't. I don't necessarily love that we live in a capitalist society, but we do. And so talking about the thing that drives all the forces around us is essential. So, yeah, let's do it.
- [03:59]
B
Yeah, we need to, like, pin that with our, like, conversation about Porsches and make like a mega reel from all of our conversations this year. But yes, we have lots of good stuff to talk about, so we kind of. We're going to jump around a little bit. So we, you guys have tons of questions about advances, you know, like book advances. You guys had questions about royalties and marketing and can writing be a job and how agents and money kind of work and the business side of things and offers. Anyway, so many different buckets of questions. But before we get into that, as you guys know, every Tuesday we have a substack come out for our subscribers. And we have lots of great stuff coming out in tomorrow's substack, so I want to highlight those before we move on to the questions. So we have one of our author Q and A is coming out, Shailen Gandhi, author of Love Letters for Other People, who's going to explain why she's a big believer in not hiring an editor before querying your work if you're pursuing the traditional route. And you guys know I have strong feelings about that as well, so I'm really looking forward to that one. And then we have two Tisnatya Beta reader matchup alums, Kristin Wallet, author of As a Last Resort, and Erin Kite, author of A Christmas in Maine. They write an excellent piece in which they show the step by step evolution of two query letters that landed agents. So I know you guys love seeing actual real query letters that gets agents. So definitely don't want to miss that one. Cece, what else do we have coming up in the newsletter tomorrow?
- [05:15]
C
Yeah, so we have Jen Brasksma, author of Befriending Betsy, sharing an essay about planning to co author a book with someone who died five years before Jen, even though she'd lived. So she discusses the how, like, the impossible can become possible and how there are no shoulds in writing. You know, like the should, should, should. And I think that's a really interesting way to kick off our community and our listeners in terms of like, the new year and how. Listen, let's face it, we all hear about shoulds all the time. What are the shoulds that you should listen to?
- [05:48]
B
Yes. So if you guys are not a substack subscribers, you can become one very easily over on our substack. Go do that. And if you are, look forward to that coming out tomorrow. Okay, now let's get into our questions. Cece, do you want to start? We got a lot of questions about advances and so do you want to throw that question to me and then I can answer it?
- [06:07]
C
Sure, let's do it.
- [06:08]
B
Okay.
- [06:09]
C
All right, first question. I'm curious if there Is any industry data on what percentage of deals are 4, 5, 6 figures, etc. If no data is available, Speculation works too, too.
- [06:21]
B
We got a lot of this version of this question, I will say. So this is somebody's anonymous question they sent in. But I kind of deleted some of the other ones that came in because all of you guys were very interested in this. So we're not able to have really specific data on this. The data that we have access to, you know, is mostly what I'm going to reference a lot is going to be the Publishers Marketplace data, which is where agents report deals. There's, there are agents that don't report deals. So there's going to be again information we don't have. Some of the, you know, things that we talk about are going to be anecdotal to ourselves. I'm not going to talk about specific clients. So for this one I pulled a report from Publishers Marketplace they did every quarter and they usually do this around book fairs, more frequently around London Book Fair and Frankfurt Book Fair. So they did a third quarter 2025 analysis of all the six figure deals. So I couldn't find on Publishers Marketplace them breaking down the difference between like four or five six figures. But I thought this was interesting. I think you guys are going to like this because they broke down the six figure deals in the quarter. There was 140 of them that were reported and I'm going to kind of break them down for you. And this is going to kind of segue in also to another question that you guys had as well about six figure deals and things like that. So first of all, six figure deals, there was 140 in the quarter. That kind of seems like a lot to some people. That's going to seem like not a lot to other people. Right. So these are going to be the rarity, of course. Right. These are the largest deals that are, that are happening and being reported. Publishers Marketplace loves to report on these ones because they also feel like the more, I don't know, the more newsworthy or buzzworthy books and so they focused on these. So I'm going to break this down and again this is going to be a lot of numbers. So if you guys are listening to this at like 1.25 speed, you might want to slow it down because I'm going to be spitting a lot of numbers at you. But first thing we need to clarify is what these different words mean. So if you're not familiar with Publishers Marketplace, they have their own terminology about how they describe Deals and the different levels, sometimes we call them. So I'm going to be talking about major deals. Major deals are $500,000 deals and up. So that's what a major deal is, a significant deal. If you hear me say significant $250,000 deal and you know, between 250 and 500. So like that, that range and then a good deal is 100, so 100 to 250. So those are the ranges. We're going to talk about the breaking down of the six figure deals. And again, you're going to hear me spitting some, some numbers at you, but we'll all bring it back into context.
- [08:38]
C
So and for, for our baby listeners who are just starting out this journey, we do, we are referring to advances, right? Advances. It doesn't mean that's all the author made because there's royalties and earning out and we'll get to all that. But we are talking about advances.
- [08:52]
B
Yeah. And then one thing I wanted to note which I thought was interesting is obviously 2025 is kind of somewhat over, but the reporting isn't kind of concluded for this. But in 2024 as a whole, there were 600 six figure deals announced, which was up 17% 17 over the year before. And so it'll be interesting to see when we get this data at the end of this current year, 2025, where we're at. So, okay, so let's break it down. So of the major category, we're going to start with major. And just as a reminder, major is $500,000 advance deals and up. So of all of these, 12% of them were nonfiction, 21% of them were fiction and 1% was children's. So you can see not a lot of children's deals in that bucket. A lot of them could be fiction at 12% nonfiction. Then in the significant category, this is the 250 to 513% of this bucket of six figure deals was 13%. So nonfiction, 13% significant fiction deals. So fiction deals, 250 to 518%. And then children's significant deals, 9%. So a bit more in the children's bucket there. And then good deals as A reminder, that's 100 to 250. Nonfiction, 23%. Fiction 28%. Children's 19%. So you can see a lot more concentrated in that 100 to 250 range of the six figure deal. So I thought that was interesting. If it's hard for you to kind of conceptualize me speaking it as a reminder, you can always get A Publisher's Marketplace subscription, as anybody can pay for it, I believe it's about $30 a month and sometimes they'll have different promos going on. But it will be kind of a recurring theme through this, you know, segment that CCNI recording is. It is the place where agents report deals and information. And so it might be something that you kind of want to check out on your own as well. Cc, anything else you want to talk about? The breakdown. I just thought those stats might be interesting for folks.
- [10:43]
C
Yeah, I think that a lot of people ask, you know, why are the ranges so wide in Publishers Marketplace? Like a nice deal is anything from 0 to 50,000. And I think we can all agree that it's a very big range and they move up in pretty, pretty big chunks. You know, then you go from, from 50 to 200, 100 to 2, 250, 250 to 500. Like. And I, I feel like, so I, if anyone's frustrated about this, I share your frustration. But at the same time, this wide range I feel like allows for more people to be comfortable sharing. Not everyone reports the range of advance that they got. Like I, I have reported deals where, you know, my client did not want to share and sometimes there are other factors besides the client not wanting to share. And then some people do. And so please remember we are talk, we are talking about a big, big range and we are talking about those that are announced with that range. Obviously there are more, there are more that are not captured because not everyone announces all deals and even when they announce the deals, they don't necessarily mention the range.
- [11:46]
B
Yeah, yeah. And this segues into another question I wanted to touch on, which was somebody said when publishers marketplace says six figure deal, are we talking in the 100 grand category or the 300 grand or more? And so when people say six figure deal, when they spell out six figure deal, usually it's in that like one to three range because if it, or you know, the one to two range because if it was 250 and up, then it would be in the significant category. So when you see like six figure deals spelled out like that, it's usually, yeah, just like hitting that cusp of the 1 to 2 and that like lower range of 6 figure. Hopefully that helps.
- [12:22]
C
It's interesting because I mean I agree that that's usually the case most likely, but I've seen a situation where the author wanted to announce the range, the publisher didn't. The publisher was like, please don't announce the range. Like they just did not want to. And then the compromise was to say it was six figures, even though it was actually not in the good. It was in the. I'm just gonna say higher. I'll leave you to wonder whether it was significant or major. You being our listeners, not Carly. Carly knows. But yeah, I've seen, I've seen situations where that was like the compromise, you know. So it is possible that when people spell out six figures as opposed to using the good, major, significant, it's possible that they're just trying to be discreet, you know, like I'll say it was six figures, but I'll leave people to wonder whether that means 100,000 or 800,000.
- [13:06]
B
Yeah, there's a lot of politics with this as well. Right. Because as you alluded to, not everybody says, oh, some inference policy is like we don't announce the level. And then. But you know, there's pros and cons, as you said, it's very client dependent, of course, like we would. We only want to do what the client wants to do. But it does really help with announcing the deal because it can garner subrites interest. Right. Like translation rights in TV film. Because a lot of people in the suburbs, world and scouts are reading these reports. So sometimes when you report something right away that day, often I'll get emails from scouts or different subreddits, people being like, hey, you know, do you have rights for this? And you know, who do I contact for rights for that? So it is a way to kind of build that buzz. And obviously the levels can impact that as well. So. So yeah, that's the answer to that.
- [13:50]
C
There are also other ways to like kind of look at clues. So if something is preempted, you know, you can assume and it is an assumption that, you know, we're talking about good money because usually agents and clients won't accept a preempt unless, you know, whatever was offered makes. So preempt is essentially when a publisher says, hey, don't go to auction. I'll give you offer for you to take this off the table. You know, no one else will get to bid. I'll be the only one. And it's a gamble because the publisher might be offering something that you might be able to get at auction, or the publisher might be offering something that you might not be able to get at auction. You will never know because again, this industry is institutionalized gambling. So another thing to keep an eye out for, if a deal does not have any specific words attached to them like major or significant or whatever, if it Has a preemptive. Sometimes that means that good money was paid. Again, there are clues. This is, this is not a business that's like super. I mean, it's people's money, right? So they have the right to keep that private. This is a business that requires interpretation is what I'm saying.
- [14:51]
B
Yes. And if you read a lot of Publishers Marketplace like I have for the past 15 years, then you kind of know the quirks and the way that they report things. Okay, the next question was one that CeCe wanted to answer. And the question is, why don't royalties scale proportionally to profits?
- [15:08]
C
I feel like profit might be the wrong word to look at this, but royalties often do scale. So what we call those elevators, right? Like when, when we as agents are negotiating a contract, one of the things we always say is, hey, when it comes to the hardcover, when it comes to even the trade paperback, like, we always try, like, we want escalators on those royalties. And so, for example, you could have a situation where the author is making 10% royalties up to a certain number of copies sold, but that number could go up to 12.5% after another rang to 14% to 15%. So they do escalate. And I wanted to make that clear. And they can escalate. I should say this widely depends on the format. There are formats where publishers will not offer escalators. It is a deal point negotiation. This is something where your agent, you know, is really going to offer value and it's part of, you know, an incentive. Well, the more copies are sold, the more money the author should make. Okay, so we're going to now answer a question that's. So we call this bucket. Hey, can writing be a job? Bucket, which is a excellent title that Carly came up with for this bucket. So here's the question. What ways have you seen authors monetize their skills to supplement income or balance a part time job with being an author? So I'll take that one. I think it's interesting that this person's already talking about the fact that a lot of authors do need to supplement their income with something else. It is not common, it is not typical for the average author to be able to make enough money from their advances and from their royalties to support their lifestyle. Now, obviously this widely depends on, like, what kind of lifestyle you have. Right. But again, not typical, not common. The average author will not be able to make a living off their books alone. And so one of the things authors do, which I find to be really interesting and actually really awesome for the Future of books is teach creative writing. Our very own Bianca does that. She teaches creative writing and she's been doing that for years. She loves teaching. She's an excellent teacher. She's an award winning instructor. And I remember when she stopped teaching at University of Toronto, they begged her to come back. They were like, come back. And just like, I don't have time anymore. Sorry. But anyway, so teaching creative writing is an excellent way to supplement, supplement their income. And I, I, I think that it's also interesting because there's something really special, I think, in terms of being a student about learning from someone who's, who's doing the thing that you want to do. You know, like, we all know this in various industries, sometimes professors are working professionals as well, and sometimes they're not. Sometimes their job is to, to be a professor first and foremost. And they might have previous experience, but it's always different when someone's like in the job market, the job market that you want to break into. So I find that to be really cool and it's, it's a wonderful way to do it. There, there are people who do all sorts of things though, right? Like, I'm not saying this is the only route.
- [17:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, no, I think I completely agree with you. And there are so many ways to do like virtual or in person and you know, your own kind of teaching school. I do have a module in my author's Publishing Playbook all about this. So if you are curious about this or you're at that point in your career where you're trying to figure out what are other things that I can, can do to monetize and how do I diversify that income. In my Author's Publishing Playbook course, there is a video about that. So if you're in the course, go check that one out. And if you don't have my course yet, you know where to go in my bio@cearlywaters.com course and you can grab it for yourself. All right, so let's hop to another question here. This is kind of a juicy one. I'm going to hop over to our agents bucket. So we had some people sending questions about, you know, us as agents or how agents think about things in relation to money. So I am going to, I'm going to answer the question. So somebody said, do agents ever get jealous, slash have regrets of other agents when clients that they could have represented become bestsellers?
- [18:51]
C
This person is using the word jealous incorrectly. They mean envious. Jealousy and envy are different thing. People, please, please. Writing emotion.
- [19:00]
B
I Love it. But you get. It gets at the heart of, like, how do agents feel? And a lot of agents have a story. Even publishers have this story, right. Of, like, oh, well, I read this, and I, you know, could bought this, but then I didn't, because xyz, Reason, or as agents, you know, things pass us by. You know, I will say I don't. I don't feel a lot of jealousy or envy. And I felt like this from a very, you know, young age as an agent, that I am in my lane, and when I am in my lane, I really, like, I do have to keep some blinders on. And so if I think that something is not right for me in that moment, the fact that it becomes a bestseller, does that change my mind? There's tons of books that I pass on that never become bestsellers or never sell as books. So then why I feel jealous about that? So I think that that mindset of, you know, do I feel jealousy? I don't know. I honestly think that I don't. And, Cece, I don't know if you would feel me, but I.
- [19:54]
C
You would never feel jealous. Jealousy is a corollary of insecurity. You're the least insecure person I know. Like, you would never feel jealous. Envy, I believe, is a corollary of being unhappy with your own life.
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A
Yeah.
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C
And again, you're not an unhappy with your own life person. No, I am sorry. If you're feeling jealous in your life, I'm telling you right now, it's coming from insecurity. And if you're feeling envious, it's coming from, like, there's something in your life that isn't well. And. And I've been there, and I want to tell you that life gets better, but go focus on you.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Like, you know, these feelings, they're. They're human feelings. They're really interesting feelings. But I. I have passed on books that I knew were gonna sell for. For a good amount of money. Like, I was very confident and in. I was right. And some I was not, actually, which is interesting. But I don't feel regrets because I. I chose this career. It's gonna sound so cheesy. Okay, I'm just gonna say it. I chose this career because I wanted to do something that I loved. Yes. Something that I was good at, something that made me money, something that, you know, was. Was important. But selfishly, I wanted to derive pleasure from my work. I wanted to feel like, oh, my God, this is so much fun. This is my job. How. How? Pinch me Pinch me. And I have that now. And if I sign something I don't love, even if it's going to be lucrative, I'm going to lose the magic. The magic that makes me so happy. And I'm no longer going to be happy. And then I'm going to become envious.
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B
So now I feel like I'm on the other side of that because, like, I don't romanticize this job as much anymore. So I wonder if you're ever going to fall out of that, like, romanticization of our job. Because I feel like for me, the job is. It's. It's a job. And I've been doing it so long, I guess maybe I've lost a little bit of that, like fairy dust. But I do feel it's just coming back to the.
- [21:30]
C
I think I'm just more of a fairy dust person. I think this is, like, about the personality more than the time. I don't know. I mean, I'll tell you. I'll tell you if it ever. If it ever goes away, but I don't think it just keeps growing for me. If anything, I love it more now than I did when I started.
- [21:46]
B
Yeah. And just kind of. I just wanted to come back to the question and then we can kind of jump to the next one. But this idea of, like, you know, what would make somebody feel jealous of something like that, the way that I think about it, because there's times as a young agent where you're like, I sell something and then I don't sell something for a while, and then I do. And then I, you know, and you're going through these, like, you know, highs and lows. And then at that moment when you're not as actively selling and you see a lot of deals in the deals, you know, trackers, you think like, oh, all of that's happening for other people. But I always thought that's happening for other people. That can happen for me, too. So it wasn't like, oh, I'm jealous when maybe I haven't sold something in a while. It's like, oh, other people are doing this. It's not, you know, it's possible. I've always felt like everything is possible. And I, you know, CC always calls me an optimist. So I do think that speaks to my. Like, I'm an optimist, but I'm a realist at the same time.
- [22:33]
C
I think. I think it's really just about how you package it. I actually think you're quite a fairy dust person, too. You just Frame it in a different way in your head. Like, you frame it more as combative and sportsy because that's just your personality, you know, Whereas I, because I don't have that sportsy channel, I probably just go, la, la, la, la, la. But I honestly think it's the same thing. I've seen you in highs and lows, and you're always like, more, more, more. When you're like, I guess, batting at a higher average. To steal a sports analogy from you, you just want more. You know, when your batting average is not as high as it once was for a short period of time, you want more. Like, I think it's about that, that wanting more. And that's a good thing, I think.
- [23:11]
B
Yeah. I think it's just that, like internal motivation. Right. Like, the motivation isn't for the external validation. It's because I want to be good at my job. Yeah. And I think that's what I bring it back to a lot. Yeah. Okay. Let's stay in our agent money bucket, because I have one to throw to cece. Okay. So a question for cece. As an agent, do you prioritize the clients that make the most? Is there a metric you have? Would a low earning client ever get let go? Just curious.
- [23:36]
C
That's really interesting. I will say I do not. And this might be because my client list is intentionally small. Maybe this will change if my client list grows. I just want to be honest about that. You know, I don't know. But where I am now, no, I don't have to prioritize people who make more than. And I think that, again, it's because I do have the luxury of time. I have the luxury of having a ton of energy. Like, I have way more energy than I know what to do with. But I also think there's a second piece to this. Right. Which makes me believe that even when I do have a larger list, I still won't do it. You never know what client is going to make even more than they are making now. What we do is gambling books break out someone's next book. Someone might be like a mid list author. Their next book might be like, bam, the biggest thing ever. There are examples in the publishing industry about this. Authors who are normal mid list authors and then they write a book where that book skyrockets their career and catapults them into stardom. As an agent, we know that. So I prioritize clients, I would say, based on how much I feel. Obviously, I try to give priority to all my clients. Right. But there's only so much time and there's obviously a limited amount of resources a person can offer. To me, the priority comes from writing, you know, writing and producing. Like I want a client who writes and produces and who takes this seriously. I love talent. Talent is essential. Talent is the floor. You know, like you're a talented author, great, good for you. That's like saying I have personal hygiene. I want to meet someone and marry them. Like no one's impressed by personal hygiene. I'm just being very honest here. What you also need to make it in publishing, in addition to this floor, is you need the right mindset. You need to be someone who does not stop, who keeps producing, who knows how to take notes and run with notes and improve your work. And you know, understand that promoting your work is important. And so that mindset is really important to me. And that's something that I'm always on the lookout for when I prioritize my clients.
- [25:28]
B
So I want to answer this question from my perspective as somebody who just has more clients. And so the way that I don't prioritize clients, I prioritize tasks. And obviously these become connected because the tasks are related to the clients that I have. And so I work in kind of like a triage mentality in the sense where like if an offer comes in, you know, that's obviously going to be my priority, you know, or it's like finishing a contract. I follow like kind of like little triage triangle. So the follow the money is like the top of my triage. Because again, if an offer comes in a contract, then my next bucket is just like clients and subrights needs. My next bucket is reading and then my last bucket is data. So I have, I'm looking at my little triangle right now because I share with my assistants. So they know it's like we have to follow this triage triangle. And so different things fall into different buckets at different times. And so that is how things get triaged for me. It's task based, not client. But they become connected.
- [26:21]
C
And I would never let someone go because they're not making money. I would let someone go because they don't want to write books anymore. And I don't mean someone who already has a book, by the way. That person will always be my client. I just mean we started working together because you decided to write this book. If it comes to be that you actually realize you don't want to write this book. Fair, fair. No one has to be an author. But then, yeah, it doesn't make any sense for me to be your literary agent.
- [26:47]
B
All right, we're going to take a moment and throw to our sponsors hey everybody, guess who's back from France. I was thinking of you guys listening to me talk about getting ready for the trip and practicing my French while I was doing my best order at the cafes. It went well. I was a bit nervous, but when we were in the countryside and I could take my time thinking about what I wanted to say, I was able to say it. Being a bilingual family is high on my list of things that are super important to me as a parent and a moment. If we're going to show them the world, we also need to appreciate and respect the language and culture by learning it. Imagine how much richer your travel experience could be if you could speak the local languages when you travel with Rosetta Stone, you'll gain the confidence to have real conversations and create deeper connections wherever you go. Rosetta Stone is the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive, intuitive method helps you naturally absorb and retain your new language on desktop or mobile, whenever and wherever. It fits your summer schedule. With 30 years of experience, millions of users and 25 languages to choose from, including Spanish, French, German, Japanese and more, Rosetta Stone is the go to tool for real language growth. You can learn faster and retain longer. There's no English translations. You truly learn to speak, listen and think in your chosen language. There's an intuitive learning process. You start with words, build the phrases and progress to full sentences. It's designed for long term retention so it sticks with you. You can work on your accent with the built in True Accent speech recognition technology so help you sound more natural. You can learn anytime, anywhere. It fits with your lifestyle with the flexible on the go learning style desktop or mobile app and there's incredible value. A lifetime membership gives you access to all 25 langu languages so you can learn as many as you want whenever you want. Don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential. Now the shit about writing Listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50 off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit Rosetta Stone slash. Visit Rosetta Stone.com today to get started and claim your 50 off today. Don't miss out. Go to Rosetta Stone.com today and start learning. All right Cece, what bucket do you want to tackle next?
- [28:45]
C
What bucket should we tackle? I wish we had like a live situation going on. Not for the purposes of not being able to edit, but just because I wish People could, like, give an opinion. What bucket should we go to? How about we do? Okay, let's do this one. I like this question. Advance question. Is it actually a good thing to get a big advance or does it set you up for a bigger chance of failure as you have a bigger risk of not earning out? Kylie, do you want to tackle that one first or do you want me to go?
- [29:11]
B
Why don't you go? Why don't you go? What do you think?
- [29:13]
C
Okay. Okay. So I think I want to first clarify something. When it comes to advances, because so many of these questions are about advances, a lot of people think of the advance as, my book is worth X, right? Like if someone pays me a 50,000 advance or a $500,000 advance, they think my book is worth X and that is my paycheck for my book. That, in my opinion, is the wrong way to look at an advance. I tell clients to look at advances in the following way. You're walking into the shark tank, you're pitching your book, and you want more than one shark to want your book, right? And hopefully more than one shark wants your book. But at least one shark needs to want your book for you to secure that investment. You've written a book and you want to partner to bring that book out into a big audience. And the publisher is the partner that can do that. They have the distribution, they have the know how, and they're going to take on the financial risk of doing all the things that need to be done with that book, from editing to production to distribution. And you won't have to pay for a single cost, a single dime of that cost. Right? Like, you're not going to pay for any of that. And you're going to get a little bit of the royalties and they're going to get a lot of the royalties because publishing is an oligopsony. But the publisher doesn't want you to feel like they have no skin in the game because you spent years writing this book. So the publisher goes to you and says, okay, we're going to split royalties with this percentage. Percentage X. You get X, I get Y. But I am going to give you some money up front, advanced, and you can do whatever you want with that money. And if this book does not sell enough copies to earn out that advance, you don't have to pay me that money back. Right? So I think it's really important to frame advances in that way as money that you're getting up front for a financial investment. I think that's important for various Reasons which we can get into later. But, but don't think of it as this is the entire paycheck you're going to get for this book. Like, your goal is to earn out. Is it bad or is it good to get a high advance? This person is asking an intelligent question because, yes, if you get a higher advance, you might not earn out. One thing to keep in mind is the publisher does not start making money once you earn out your advance. Typically, this happens sooner. This wildly depends on every situation. But a back of the napkin calculation is by the time you earn out half your advance, the publisher starts making money.
- [31:17]
B
Money.
- [31:17]
C
Again, back of a napkin. This is really important to keep in mind. I have heard people say, oh, I didn't earn out, so my publisher is not making money in my book. Like, that's not necessarily true. Two, yes, you might not earn out your higher advance. And so the question becomes, did you enjoy getting that higher advance? Like, was it useful? Did you put that towards marketing, publicity, et cetera? Like, there's a million factors to take into consideration. I personally feel like it's, you know, it's important to fight for advances. Not just because money, money is important. You know, we also make money off advances and royalties and, you know, all the other things that authors make money on because we make commission. But I think it's important to think of an advance as, you know how seriously your publisher might take you. It is not a guarantee by any stretch, but they pay more for lead titles and lead titles typically get more attention. Again, not a guarantee. I have seen situations where people were paid a lot of money and the publisher still did not give them them the proper attention they deserved. And I've seen the inverse. I've seen, you know, people get lower advances, but they do get a lot of attention. So I feel like it's, it's, it's signal. It's a signal. There's a lot of noise in publishing and an advance is a signal. And whether it's good or bad, it's just not that simple. It's not that simplistic. And it doesn't mean. Two, because this person is saying, and I, and I'll read, read their question, they're saying, hey, is there a bigger chance of failure as you have a bigger chance of not earning out? The fact that you haven't earned out doesn't mean you, you failed. Right? Like, that is not how this works. Depending on the size of the advance, it's virtually impossible to earn out. Unless of course, many, many, many years go by which is another factor of time. But I think it's important to keep that in mind. And I, I can promise you that I've seen situations where the author did not earn out their advance and then they went on to have another deal for, you know, that was, that was amazing. For a great amount of money. And I have seen situations where they have earned out their advances and that has not happened and vice versa. Right. Like there's just so many variables. So I think that's something to consider as well. It's not like good or bad per se, it's nuanced.
- [33:14]
B
Yeah. And I think the heart of some of these questions, because we did get some, as I said, some repeats of some questions is these theoretical questions of authors who have not been in this situation. They were like, what if I got this offer? Or I got this offer? I will tell you with near certainty. So I've sold over a hundred books. It's like less than one hand of. People choose the lesser amount of money. Money in general, people are always going to choose the higher amount of money because obviously there's ways as agents to kind of get your client to the situation that they want to be in, you know, without going into too many specifics about deal negotiation. But generally people are not. Once you see the money in front of you, it's, it's very hard to choose the lesser amount for a number of reasons. And again, this would be a one on one coaching situation. But yeah, anyway, that's my two cents.
- [34:05]
C
Interesting. All right, we are going to go to the last question of part one and it's a question that when I read it, I immediately. I'm going to have to discuss the premise of the question before addressing the question. Is aging ting a lucrative career or is it a gamble? Charlie, do you want me to start or do you want to go?
- [34:28]
B
Well, I want to know what your preamble, your context is. Did you.
- [34:32]
C
Is agenting a lucrative career or is it a gamble? The or like this is. This is an incorrect premise. Something can be a gamble and a lucrative career. This is not like. It is very important to be precise with language when asking questions. I'm telling you because you, what you're telling your brain is that gambles aren't lucrative and if you want to make it in publishing, you gotta, gotta, gotta rethink those, those barriers. So yeah, I know, I know people are like, oh, I'm just typing it away, doing it quickly. This is an important moment in your life. Asking smart questions like something can be both A gamble and a lucrative career. Anyway, that was my, that was my spiel. I have a lot of thoughts on this one, but I'll listen to you first. Unless you want me to go first.
- [35:11]
B
Okay. How do I feel about this? Well, I mean, the answer to both. I agree with CeCe. The answer to both is yes. The ALA did a survey of literary agents in America who are members of the ALA across North America. And they made a pie chart based on the data of, of agents revenues. Obviously it's self reported, but it was very interesting to me to look at that, you know, because a lot of people think like, oh, it is really hard when you're starting out because you have to kind of build up, you know, obviously the revenue that you're making through your advances. And then obviously you want books that sell royalties that you can kind of like build up the sustainable long term revenue that's quite steady. And it was really interesting to me to see the split because I think, I don't know if other people were surprised by the number of agents that made. I think there was like a bucket of, I want to say like 200 to $400,000 and then there was a bucket of, I think like 400 plus. And like there's a lot of agents out there making a lot of money. And cc, I don't know if you remember this, this survey, but it's, it definitely is lucrative because you agents essentially have a minority stake in the projects that they are working on. And so it's an IP business, it's a royalties based business. And so if something really takes off, then agents get a cut of that. Right? That's kind of how the model works. And so when things really work, things really work. And so it's, it, it definitely can be lucrative. It's just, it's, it's not to say that everybody can be lucrative at it.
- [36:33]
C
Yeah, I think that, you know, and I understand the way this person, like I'm assuming that this is what this person means. Is this a stable, stable, lucrative career or is it a gamble like I'm interpreting and you tell me if I'm wrong person who's listening. But if the question is stable, then no. So there are careers out there and I used to, to, I used to be a part of said career where if you have a really great education, right, like if you went to certain schools and got certain degrees and you are really, really, really hard working, right, you can count on making a certain amount of money and there is a specific range and that's good money. You can, you can count on that if you have these things. Now these things are hard to get. I am not discounting them by any means. I'm not saying it's easy to get a great education. I'm not saying it's easy to, to do all this, but it's so much more predictable. There are careers out there that you can go and I have friends who are still in it. Like, you know, by next year I'll be making X and you know, I'm going to go to law school and once I graduate, it's a top tier law school. Once I graduate I am most likely to get a job in X and then I'm going to, you know, if I get a job at this firm, like I know what I'm going to make by year three, four or five. And sure, AI is changing a lot of that, but we're not going to get into that right now. That stability, that predictability that does not exist in me during time. Like I, I do want to say that, I do want to point that out and I think that that might be what that person was trying to kind of get to. Like they were saying, hey, is it a stable, lucrative career? And agenting is very lucrative. I would not be doing it if it weren't lucrative. As has been established before, I like money. Nobody's happy if they're struggling financially. Like, I'm sorry, but they're not. Oh, I have moments of joy. Great. I like struggling financially. I know what that's like. And that is very hard. And it's very important to be making good money. So yes, it's very lucrative but at the same time it's not a predictable career. There is a gambling element to it. There's a huge gambling element to it. And both things can be true.
- [38:24]
B
I just want to cut in because I found the chart. Remember I was alluding to crazy that I couldn't figure out the chart. So if you saw me looking at my other screen, that's what I was doing. Okay, so the chart was respondents with six plus years of agency experience. So it's saying this person, you know, these people have kind of been in the business for a while. So like there was, you know, 6.6 people didn't respond. So there's that then. So people making less than 25k, 7.1% agents making between 25 and 50k, 14.7% agents making between 50 and 100k, 25.9%. This is the largest bucket. If you're following along numerically. Sorry. If you're a visual person and you're having to listen to me spew this out. So agents making between 100 and 150k 13.2% agents making between 150 and 200k 15.7% agents making between 202.55.1% agents making over 250k 11.7% and remember, this is all self reported, of course. And there's people who aren't part of ala. Like there's a lot of caveats, but I just kind of wanted to frame that. So there's like a huge bucket of people making between 50 and 100k, but people making between 100 and 250, that's also half the chart. So there's a way to make, you know, a good solid six figure plus living.
- [39:43]
C
Yeah, exactly. And people should not be discouraged by if anyone's thinking about being an agent. The money is an important piece, but it's more about like reframing your brain than anything else.
- [39:53]
B
Yeah. All right, well, that's the end of part one, guys. We look forward to recording part two and we will have that for you in two weeks.
- [40:00]
A
Cece Lira is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Association. If you'd like to query CC, please refer to the submission guidelines@www.wsherman.com. carly Waters is a literary agent at P.S. literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies or position of PS Literary Agency. Hi there. We've got a lot we're really excited to tell you about, but I'm going to make this real quick so you can get to the episode. The Deep Dive is coming up at the end of January. The lineup of speakers is incredible and the range of topics is mind blowing. You do not want to miss out on the last Deep Dive ever. Then the Beta Reader Matchup is open once again, with the matchup going out early in February. Sign up to kick your creative year off with a bang. Lastly, there's an amazing writer's workbook available which will make the perfect gift for you or the writer in your life. Head to our website the Shit About Writing to find out more.