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12th Feb 07
M. R. SellarsOkay…
Between here, there, and everywhere I get a ton of email. Some of it Spam, some of it Treet. (Both of which I thoroughly enjoy, fried, on whole wheat, with a slice of american cheese.)
Some of it is important, some of it isn’t. Some of it warrants a reply, some of it doesn’t. But, what I am on about here is the stuff that needs a reply, but there is so much of it that I don’t have time to do so. Therefore, rather than cut and paste and all that, I am going to answer some of these Frequently Asked Questions here in my blog. Some of the questions truly are asked frequently. Others, not so much, but I found them worthy of a response for one reason or another. So, without further rambling from me (or, not so informative rambling anyway) here we go:
1) I’m interested in being a writer. Can you give me some tips for writing a good story?
Well, let’s address part one of that– Are you insane? You need to be if you want to actually be a writer for a living. Just thought I’d get that out of the way. As to tips, if you ask several authors the same question you will get several different answers. The points where we would all agree, however, would probably be the following: Write about something you are familiar with. If you aren’t familiar with it, then GET familiar with it (ie research). Be passionate about what you are writing. Passion is what makes a good story, not just words joined together in coherent phrases. Accept constructive criticism, and ignore those who have nothing constructive to say. Learn the difference between the two. Write for yourself and no one else. You can’t please everyone. It took me a few bad reviews and a good friend’s advice in order to learn that lesson. Even though you say you are listening to me now, you really aren’t. You will need to learn this lesson on your own just like we all have. The best I can do is tell you what I just did so that you can be prepared for what you have to face. And finally, this is supposed to be fun. If it ain’t fun, the story is going to suck, so stop and write something that’s fun.
2) Will Eldon Porter’s story ever be revisited?
For those who may not have read the RGI series, or aren’t far enough into it yet, Eldon Porter is an antagonist within the story arc who has made two appearances…well really twp appearances and a couple of mentions…throughout. He’s not a particulary nice guy. And, to answer the question, yes. Eldon will return. When, I am not saying…I don’t want to spoil the surprise.
3) Can I have your checks?
This was in response to an earlier blog, and isn’t actually frequently asked. In fact, this is the only time it has been asked. I just thought it was funny. BTW, the answer is NO. 
4) Have you ever considered a Rowan Gant Investigations Movie?
Hey, I’d love to see something like that. In fact, a script was actually written. However, I don’t have much control over that…I mean, YES, I have the rights to my works, therefore if someone wants to make a movie based on the books they have to come through me first. However, I don’t have sixty-million laying around in order to finance a movie….so, unless somebody in Hollerwood decides they want to make an RGI movie, I guess we’ll all just have to be happy with the books.
5) If an RGI movie were made, who would you cast in the various parts?
Well, just like the previous answer, I would have no real say in that. The movie folks don’t give a flying rats a** who I want to play the parts. All I did was write the books and create the characters. I couldn’t possibly know who could properly personify them…That said, IF I had some sort of say in it, I think it would be something like this–
Rowan Gant – John Corbett (yes, he’s a bit tall, but they can do all manner of cool stuff with camera angles…hell, they made Gary Sinise a double amputee in Forrest Gump, I think they can probably make Corbett look a bit shorter than whoever played Ben.)
Felicity O’Brien – Lea Thompson (although, if said movie were to be a few years in the future, Scarlett Pomers would be perfect, and my absolute first choice, if she could do the on again-off again accent and toss about a bit of Gaelic. Right now, however, she’s only like 19 or something, so she’s a bit too young…Especially if Corbett was playing Rowan.)
Ben Storm – Jimmy Smits (I know, he’s not actually Native American, but I think he could pull it off. However, there may well be a NA actor or two out there I haven’t thought of.)
Constance Mandalay – Jewel Staite (throw some makeup at her that would get rid of the girlishness, put her in a power suit and give her a Sig Sauer, and I’m betting the loveable ships mechanic from Firefly would make a great hard nosed FBI agent. Just my personal view.)
The rest of the characters I haven’t really given that much thought where a movie is concerned. However, on other involvements–
Director – Michael Mann, Joss Whedon, Chris Carter (one of the three)
Music – Mark Snow, Greg Edmonson, Tommy Shaw, and James Young (all of the above)
Of course, like I said, the above is all just daydreaming…
6) This wasn’t so much a question as an estimation by someone pointing out that authors don’t actually make a ton of money. Although, the question, however rude, “how much do you make?” has been asked before. So, here is how getting paid as an author works…
Typical royalties are something like 10-12 percent of wholesale, per copy, minus returns (people also don’t realize that the book industry is just about the only one where the merchandise is returnable by the distributor forever.)
So, let’s say you buy one of my mass market paperbacks. They retail at 8.95… Wholesale price to a distributor, on average (depending on quantity discounts, etc. for given distributors) is going to be something like 3.75. Direct to a bookstore probably something like 5.40… Most sales go to the wholesaler/distributors, but for the sake of argument we will average these two which gives us something like 4.58. Soooo, I get right around 46 cents per copy sold (in reality it is less, because like I said, the bulk of the sales go to distributors at a higher discount)…
Now, let’s say 10,000 copies sell during a year (I wish!!). I make a whopping 4600 bucks. NOT 46 Thousand…Four Thousand Six Hundred. However, let’s consider that of those 10,000 copies, 4000 get returned to the publisher. (this is not unusual, as bookstores rotate stock. In many chains, if it hasn’t sold in thirty days, it gets returned to the distributor. If it happens to get damaged in shipping, oh well, too bad so sad, the distributor returns it to the publisher for a full refund..) So, remember, my check is minus returns…So, it now becomes $4600 minus $1840, which leaves me with $2760. But, MR…you say…you have seven books out there. Yeah…So, 7 times $2760 works out to $19,320.
Now, understand, I’m not complaining here. I’m just answering a question. While the calculations above are simplified for the sake of not having to explain all of the intricacies of a royalty report, the end result is pretty much the same. Not wealthy, just making a living.
What about your advance, you say? Well, advances are nice, but unless you are a really big name, they aren’t usually more than 2-5K…AND, the name ADVANCE is literal…It is an ADVANCE against your royalties, so it isn’t free money. You literally won’t see any royalties on that title until such time as it has sold enough copies to have made back the advance monies.
Okay, so there’s your lesson in collecting an author’s paycheck…
And, that’s all of the questions for now. I’ll collect a few more and answer them in a future blog…
MR
