more about the CCM Strategy (Literary and Nonfiction Authors)
Intellectual Property Environmental Dynamics & Often What's Missing in Author's Packages
What we instruct, what we advise, and what we help make possible for agents and authors:
Copyright or Patent Protections Case Study (when warranted) | Confidential Advisory for Authors under Contract
Audit & Valuation Advisory | Confidential Advisory for Authors under Contract
Litigation Proof Mobility Messaging (viral impact) consult | Confidential Advisory for Authors under Contract
STRATEGY II: Own the Value-Added Chain in DISTINCT MARKETS
CCM | Novel Marketing Support Program - going beyond what publishers will undertake for authors
...substantial confidential tasking on behalf of our exclusive author clients that goes beyond publisher commitments to our authors
months 6-7 | identify and get to know the manager and staff of every bookstore in author's area
months 7-8 | build relationships with store employees and owners of independent and specialty bookstores
months 8-9 | build relationships with store employees and owners of independent and specialty bookstores
months 9-11 | promote author's book and build friendly relationships
months 12-18 | send a detailed Marketing Support Plan as well as advance reviews, press releases and a copy of the book (publisher directly contacts chains' upper management, chain distributors, wholesalers)
months 12-18 | build a list of magazines, newspapers, ezines, and websites where author can request reviews
months 12-18 | check on e-sites that conduct author interviews or profiles
months 12-18 | determine which site-based reviewers are willing to read electronic files (the ones that review ebooks as well as bound volumes)
months 12-18 | determine which search sites and magazines can be correlated with the background or setting of author's story. Absent regular reviewing, they may run reviews of books their readership may enjoy
months 12-18 | ask author's publisher about securing bound galleys to send out for review purposes. If galley editions won't be available, CCM can print out the single-spaced manuscript copy, fasten it in a folder and ask a few people to read and review our copies. Both previewers and reviewers receive a tag line to use with their review. These reviews serve to provide adequate promotion for both our author and the reviewer. Book previewers and reviewers with a dedicated connection to books or writing are encouraged to mention their position in the tag line.
months 12-18 | build up contact list for book groups in author's region; contact the larger groups and suggest author's book as one of their selections and offer to have our author attend the discussion meeting to talk to the gathering or to answer member questions
months 12-18 | contact chat rooms, forums and message boards talking about our author's book in order to generate essential buzz; coordinate with bookmark distribution, flyer distribution, website promotions, e-dispatches
months 12-20 | coordinate (regional) author book tours; coordinate with country's literary agent; help author to hang out where writers assemble and share ideas; locate and help underwrite, promote some organizations and groups that put on joint signings, panel appearances, or other functions at schools, libraries and bookstores.
months 14-24 | help polish our author's speaking skills and help author volunteer time, talent -- roundtables, sympsoia, 'wokshops', lectures, video chats, web chats, etc...
What we instruct, what we advise, and what we help make possible for agents and authors:
- Grant of Rights - If the worldwide rights are sold, then YES to translations of Author's book(s), NO to virtually all other plum considerations - TV, movies, play adaptations, etc.
- Competing Works - Where the author is typically enjoined from writing another work that competes with a title under publisher's contract, and essentially YES, but only if publisher agrees not to publish books that compete directly with our author's titles YES, when the agreed condititions are limited to the author not being allowed to formularize and re-write a book already under contract
- Author's Warranty - YES, but only if the client author's liability is limited to the author paying the publisher's costs for something that is clearly the author's fault, and nobody else's fault; further, authors are instructed to keep all permissions for a minimum of 10 years; our objective, to help our client avoid being involved in frivolous lawsuits
- Manuscript Preparation - The manuscript is the deliverable described in the contract; therefore, we insist that the intellectual property attorney draft a description of the book as exactly as what the author has agreed to write, with some flexibility thrown in for good measure; and NO author payments to a publisher for Indexing a book - we advise the author to handle this chore
- Viability & Publication Delay - We work with literary agents who insist the publisher must describe exactly what makes an author's manuscript 'fit for publication'; we urge a cautious YES to an Intellectual Property Lawyer and Author-client to agree YES to some copy-editing so long as no other material changes are made; and we work with our clients as to how to agree, YES, to this part of negotiations so long as the author retains all advance money paid and so long as the full rights revert to the author for future sale elsewhere should the publisher drop the project
- Copyright - We only work with authors who insist upon retaining their copyright
- Proofing, Editing - We can help our client-author agree that YES, a publisher can reserve the right to make revisions subject to the author's approval and subject to the author's editing of any subsequent errors; and, we help our client's rep' say YES so long as the author is not expected to pay fees for correcting errors or problems that are due to the publisher or to an outsourced book designer, typographer, research editor, etc.
- Publication - Authors deserve to see a conditional publication date limit; protective reversion of all rights provisions are a hallmark of legitimate dealings between our authors and their trade publishers
- Royalties - The division of money for domestic sales, often as much as 10-15% of trade hardcover book gross sales, after a minimum number of books have sold, with customary escalation terms built into contracts based upon negotiated break points that should correspond to the number of both domestic full price sales and discounted sales.
- Advances - Advances against royalties are often tendered to financially support an author while a book is being written and edited, with payments made at signing and upon reaching contractual milestones. We train authors who intend to write many books to hire agents who will fight against any contract clauses that favor cross-accounting schemes.
- Foreign Sales - We train up authors to look for any and all foreign royalties to be based upon the cover price rather than any net formulas or arrangements made by a publisher relying upon sales from its foreign subsidiary.
- Discounters & Book Clubs - We advise limiting a publisher's ability to discount as much as possible, especially during the book tour, the speaking engagement phase or the early three promotional rounds wherein the author is most heavily engaged.
- Sale of Rights - Applies only to authors who sell their exclusive international book rights: We work with literary agent affiliates who can negotiate a 50:50 split plus translation rights considerations to protect the income stream of their author-client.
- Payments - We help our authors bargain for firm payment schedules, often quarterly; contracts always include the services of an independent auditor to check a publisher's accounts.
- Reserve Against Returns - We advise limiting a publisher's reserve to 20% or less; the reserve retention period may last up to a year, reasonable market conditions prevailing - any longer than that, and the author might be perceived as an active investor in the publisher's business.
- Author's Copies - Many authors receive a dozen or more books gratis from a publisher without restrictions; free review copies to critics and reviewers are the norm; and, additional copies of a title can be purchased by an author or an author's production company at discount - often with restricitions as to re-sale and use.
- Revised Editions - Our authors' literary agents negotiate to have the author prepare revised editions; should the author not be available to make the revisions, then the royalty schedule basis is determined by the percentage of the original work that is revised by another author; further, new and revised edition costs are to be limited to a mutually agreeable amount if, and only if, such sums are to be debited against the original author's royalties.
- Out-of-Print - We help our authors and their agents define 'out-of-print' as being when a predetermined number of books have not been sold by a publisher during a specified time period or when two consecutive royalty periods produce no moneys to an author; thereupon, we advise that the rights to the book revert to the author.
Copyright or Patent Protections Case Study (when warranted) | Confidential Advisory for Authors under Contract
Audit & Valuation Advisory | Confidential Advisory for Authors under Contract
Litigation Proof Mobility Messaging (viral impact) consult | Confidential Advisory for Authors under Contract
STRATEGY II: Own the Value-Added Chain in DISTINCT MARKETS
CCM | Novel Marketing Support Program - going beyond what publishers will undertake for authors
...substantial confidential tasking on behalf of our exclusive author clients that goes beyond publisher commitments to our authors
months 6-7 | identify and get to know the manager and staff of every bookstore in author's area
months 7-8 | build relationships with store employees and owners of independent and specialty bookstores
months 8-9 | build relationships with store employees and owners of independent and specialty bookstores
months 9-11 | promote author's book and build friendly relationships
months 12-18 | send a detailed Marketing Support Plan as well as advance reviews, press releases and a copy of the book (publisher directly contacts chains' upper management, chain distributors, wholesalers)
months 12-18 | build a list of magazines, newspapers, ezines, and websites where author can request reviews
months 12-18 | check on e-sites that conduct author interviews or profiles
months 12-18 | determine which site-based reviewers are willing to read electronic files (the ones that review ebooks as well as bound volumes)
months 12-18 | determine which search sites and magazines can be correlated with the background or setting of author's story. Absent regular reviewing, they may run reviews of books their readership may enjoy
months 12-18 | ask author's publisher about securing bound galleys to send out for review purposes. If galley editions won't be available, CCM can print out the single-spaced manuscript copy, fasten it in a folder and ask a few people to read and review our copies. Both previewers and reviewers receive a tag line to use with their review. These reviews serve to provide adequate promotion for both our author and the reviewer. Book previewers and reviewers with a dedicated connection to books or writing are encouraged to mention their position in the tag line.
months 12-18 | build up contact list for book groups in author's region; contact the larger groups and suggest author's book as one of their selections and offer to have our author attend the discussion meeting to talk to the gathering or to answer member questions
months 12-18 | contact chat rooms, forums and message boards talking about our author's book in order to generate essential buzz; coordinate with bookmark distribution, flyer distribution, website promotions, e-dispatches
months 12-20 | coordinate (regional) author book tours; coordinate with country's literary agent; help author to hang out where writers assemble and share ideas; locate and help underwrite, promote some organizations and groups that put on joint signings, panel appearances, or other functions at schools, libraries and bookstores.
months 14-24 | help polish our author's speaking skills and help author volunteer time, talent -- roundtables, sympsoia, 'wokshops', lectures, video chats, web chats, etc...