Need Advice on Negotiating First Book Deal

littleking0007

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Hi everyone!

This is my first post here, and also my first book to be published - so am very new to all this. I currently have a standing offer from a publisher for my animal photo book, but I don't have an agent and need some advice on what's a reasonable advance, royalty, etc. from either a) another agent, or b) someone who has experience publishing several books.

If anyone is interested in helping me, perhaps you can comment here and let me know if you're knowledgeable or have done anything somewhat similar?

Also, I WILL be having a copyright lawyer look over the contract before signing anything - so right now I'm just looking for some general advice.

Lastly, I'm not looking to take on an agent at this time. (Long story)
 

popgun62

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I would suggest going here and reading it top to bottom. And a copyright lawyer is great as long as they have experience in the publishing industry. Otherwise, they may unknowingly give bad advice. Believe it or not, a legitimate literary agent would be better equipped to help with a contract than a lawyer for a lot of reasons. Tread carefully - a bad deal is worse than no deal.
 

littleking0007

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Negotiating the advance

I'm wondering if anyone has tips for negotiating a higher advance. I have some points below, but am wondering if someone has experience doing so with a publisher and knows what factors might resonate or strike home to influence a higher amount.

My points:
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  • I have a strong social media presence which will help secure a good initial portion of sales.
  • I myself will still have to invest more time & money into developing some original/exclusive content for this book (it's an animal photo book, so I need to travel a bit and whatnot).
  • I'm reducing my day job from full time to part time to concentrate more on the blog and related activities (one of which would be this book). Should I mention that?
  • Should I also just talk up the potential of the book?
Thanks for your thoughts!


P.S. The royalties are pretty standard from what I've read, so I'm just trying to concentrate on the advance at this point.
 

Old Hack

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You're asking questions we can't possibly answer, I'm afraid. A good advance is dependent upon the commercial potential of the book, and that's influenced by your platform, your publisher's market reach, as well as (obviously) by the quality of your book--which we haven't read.

What you need is a literary agent, who is going to help you much more than a lawyer in this regard.

Also, you've started two threads about this, so I'm going to merge them into one to keep things nice and tidy.