Hello! I have a few questions, please help! 1. Can my agent be from another country, for example can the publishing agency from USA publish my book if I'm in Bulgaria and we never meet? 2. How much money do you make per 1 book sale? How do they pay you? 3. Can i use phrases, jokes, a few sentences from another book, movie etc. something that is copyrighted or it is considered stealing and abusing copyright? 4. Does it matter the format im writing into or the program? I'm using kingsoft writer and writing in .doc files A4 page format.( i think). Does it matter at all? Are they going to force me to rewrite everything in another smaller page format to be able to fit perfect for the book ? 5. After the end of every chapter - leave the test of the page blank and start writing on a new page ?
Hello. I'll try to answer some of your questions: 1. Take a look at the https://www.writingforums.org/threads/challenges-of-being-a-foreign-writer.136750/ I have recently posted some questions regarding the publishing abroad over there. 2. Can't really answer that one. 3. I think not. 4. You shouldn't "fit" anything for the book, professionals do that once you find your publisher - they decide how your book is gonna look like. You need to adapt your manuscript to any specific requests when submitting to an agency. 5. Yes, each new chapter should start on a fresh page.
1. Yes, as per the other thread; 2. There's a lot of variation on this, depending on your contract, the kind of publishing, etc. You're paid a percentage (generally from as low as about 6% to as high as about 50%) of either the cover price of the book or the net amount the publisher receives for each sale (usually the lower percentage royalties are on cover price from larger publishers, the higher percentages are on net from smaller publishers). It's really hard to give a fixed amount. If you have an agent, the publisher sends the $ to the agent, the agent takes their commission and sends a cheque to you. If no agent, the publisher pays you directly, usually monthly for small publishers, quarterly for larger publishers. 4. You need to be able to save/export as a .doc file, and if you get a contract and need to work with an editor, you'll probably find it simplest to use MS Word for edits. The page sizes don't matter - it will all be electronically formatted. 5. Yes.
Before you send off a query letter, fist check to see if the agent sells your type of story. Second, find out everything about the agent. Read one of the books she/he sold. On the agents web site, they will tell you what to send, and how. You want to be able to tell the agent what the story is about in three sentences…this shows them you can write. Read up on how to write a good query letter…this is you thirty second shot at an agent. Spend a good deal on time on the query letter. Make sure your book is clean, and ready. If you’re asked to send chapters or pages with the query…One inch top, bottom, and sides. All double spaced. If you get rejects. Keep sending out to other agents. Rejects are normal.
4) You should check this out. http://www.shunn.net/format/format.pdf It is a fairly well known manuscript format. But you should probably only use it as a base format and make any alterations that your particular publisher expects, and it would be in your best interests to research your publisher/agent as much as possible. I'm not sure where you get the idea of "rewriting" everything to a smaller page size. A change in page size, or any formatting, really shouldn't require you to do anything at all to the text; unless you have been doing something evil and sinful and blasphemous like using white space to force page breaks.
1. Can my agent be from another country, for example can the publishing agency from USA publish my book if I'm in Bulgaria and we never meet? --Yes, definitely. Many agents are well schooled in foreign sales policies and will be able to sell your work abroad. It doesn't matter where your agent lives in comparison to you though, especially in this electronic day and age. 2. How much money do you make per 1 book sale? How do they pay you? --Every house is different, and you will have to check your contract. Most places pay their authors in royalties---a percentage from each book sold. Larger houses may pay an advance, too. Sorting out the amount of an advance is a tricky business that has to do with projected sales versus expenses. Math. I hate math. 3. Can i use phrases, jokes, a few sentences from another book, movie etc. something that is copyrighted or it is considered stealing and abusing copyright? --You can use up to 50 words without having to get permission from the copyright holder (at least in Canada. Every country's policies on copyright are different so look into that before you do it). You will still need to give the original author credit and make clear that you are quoting someone else's work though. 4. Does it matter the format im writing into or the program? I'm using kingsoft writer and writing in .doc files A4 page format.( i think). Does it matter at all? Are they going to force me to rewrite everything in another smaller page format to be able to fit perfect for the book ? --Check the house's submission guidelines. Most places are extremely fussy on the formatting. You won't have to rewrite, but be sure you send your document in a format the house can open else the whole submission will be moot. The designer will do all the final formatting, that will not be your responsibility. But if the house requests a certain format for submissions, you should follow their directions exactly. 5. After the end of every chapter - leave the test of the page blank and start writing on a new page ? --Not necessarily. If you've used most of a page, it can be helpful to leave some white space, but this is not necessary. I mean, do begin your new chapter at the start of a fresh page, but you shouldn't need to leave an entire blank page between, especially if your last sentence ends near the top of a page.
Thanks, I had exactly the same questions to ask. You saved me from spending hours looking for this priceless information.
