Neither annual market books for writers nor monthly writers' magazines contain much information on the gay market. The writer of gay erotica is on his own. In many ways this is not a bad thing. "Know your market!" is a sacred saying of the writing business. A mass-market writer may buy a market book and think that is all there is to it. That is a serious error, and one a gay writer, who has to buy issues to get the addresses of magazines, may avoid.
Building a market list of periodicals.
Step by step, here is how to build a market list of periodicals:
1. Get recent issues of gay magazines (or whatever magazines you think you may want to sell stories to), as many different titles as possible. Start with those around the house if they are recent. It is better to get a few different magazines each month than to subscribe to only one or two.
Naturally, as a writer you carry a pocket-sized notebook and pens wherever you go. You are unlikely to be allowed to borrow recent issues, but many gentlemen will be happy to allow you to look at their magazines at their apartments, perhaps over cocktails. After you know what you are looking for, you can obtain the information you need in under ten minutes.
2. However you obtain the information, copy it into a large notebook you keep at your desk.
3. On a blank page in your notebook, enter the title of the magazine.
4. About two pages into the magazine is the contents page. At the bottom of the contents page or in a vertical column on a nearby page is the masthead. The masthead is a box containing the names and titles of the people who work for the magazine.
(Notice the number of names. Contributors are only freelancers like you. Contributing editors are only contributors who somehow rate this entirely honorary title. The staff of a gay magazine is seldom as many as a half-dozen people. Compare this number of people to the number named in the masthead of a mass-market magazine like Vanity Fair, Esquire, or Newsweek. Think about this comparison when you do not get an instant report on your submission or when your story has not been perfectly edited.)
Look for the name of the editor in the masthead. Look for the person whose title is most nearly plain "editor." Write that name in your notebook. In truth you will probably never receive a letter from the editor. (Writers deal almost exclusively with associate editors or assistant editors. "Editor" is used in later parts of this book to mean the person who is doing the editing, but the title of that person usually is "associate editor.") But until you have a reply, address all your correspondence to the editor by name and title.
(In fact, anyone who works for the publication, including the publisher, may read the "slush." "Slush" is one of the nicer words for unsolicited manuscripts, including yours. Sorry.)
5. Under the masthead or at the bottom of the table of contents is a bunch of tiny type. Look there for the address of the editorial office, which may be different from the corporate address, the subscription address, or several advertising addresses. Write the editorial address in your notebook.
Read the rest of the tiny type. Is there a copyright notice? Not if there is not.
All magazines say they are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. Note any stronger discouraging language. Almost all gay magazines have disclaimers regarding the ages of photographic models and the meaning of terms like "kid," "boy," and "son," and disclaimers regarding drawing conclusions about the sexualities of the photographic models. Become familiar with the standard forms of these disclaimers so that you can note any significant deviations.
In the mass-market some magazines that say they never buy unsolicited manuscripts, in fact, do buy an over-the-transom (another word for "slush") submission from time to time. In the gay market, however, do not send your manuscripts where they are unwanted.
6. Look at the contents page. Does it list any fiction at all? A beginner will find it hard enough to sell fiction to magazines that use plenty of it. He hardly needs the disappointment that will result from sending stories to magazines that never or rarely print stories. Enter on the appropriate page of your notebook the number or the date of the issue of the magazine that you examined. Enter the titles of the short stories (if any) and the bylines of the stories. A few magazines do not show the bylines on the contents page; in these cases turn to the stories to find the bylines.
Enter the approximate length in words of each story. To find the approximate length, count the words found in one inch of a column and multiply this number by the length in inches of all the columns in the story. If the width of the columns changes, of course, adjust this procedure accordingly. Make an educated guess if the words in a column wrap around an illustration. This word count is for your own information and it will serve its purpose if it is accurate to within three- or four-hundred words.
7. Read the stories.
For the moment, ignore the titles, the blurbs (editorial comments about the story meant to entice you to read it), and pullouts (excerpts set in large type).
With a little experience you can scan most stories instead of reading them word for word. Devise a shorthand way of recording the nature of the stories. For erotica, personal ad code can be used to summarize the kinds of people and sex in the story and number of stories will fall into categories: biker, cowboy, frat house, and so forth. Some stories can be further classified according to genre: detective, one-night-stand, romance, science fiction, historical (specify the period), and so forth. Describe the story in a line or two.
If you work in other genres, of course, you will need a different scheme to catalogue stories. If you do not know enough about your chosen genre to devise a suitable scheme, you have not read enough of it.
Pay particular attention to stories that are difficult to categorize or that differ in many ways from the run of the mill. The magazines that run such stories are surely more receptive to really original work.
8. Now study the titles, blurbs, and pullouts. In confession magazines these are always more racy than any story the publication would consider running. The confession "I was a part-time mistress" cannot turn out to be the story of a prostitute, but is always that of a dutiful wife who plays the part of a mistress in enacting her husband's fantasies to save their marriage.
But in most magazines, the story described in the large type describes the story the editor wished he could have run. There is always some discrepancy between the story described in large type and the story that is actually printed. But when the difference is very great you may see the opportunity of providing the editor with a story that is more like the one he wanted.
9. If you wish, note features that pay for reader's experiences, jokes, or other fillers. By the word, fillers are the best paying part of any magazine that does pay for them. Some writers specialize in fillers.
I do not suggest that you write fillers. Sometimes you will run across an item that is right for one of these features or you will write a one-page fantasy that has no chance of going anywhere as a story but may do as a reader's experience. Few freelancers are doing so well that they would not welcome a $25 check for a few minutes' work or for material that is valueless otherwise.
Fillers are sold on an all-rights basis and seldom carry a credit line. Sometimes even publications that do not advertise the fact will pay freelancers for readers' experiences. Be sure however if a payment is not advertised that you arrange for payment first. Unless an editor has agreed to payment beforehand, he is entitled to use submissions to a readers' column free.
10. When you visit a newsstand flip to the mastheads and the table of contents of familiar magazines. When the editor's name has changed or there is a change in the pattern of the fiction, find the means to examine the issue more closely.
11. Include in your survey magazines you would not ordinarily buy as a consumer. Some magazines advertise in other magazines; order sample copies of the unfamiliar ones. For market magazines you do not need the all-picture magazines that some magazines bill as too hot for their regular issues. These do not contain stories and naturally do not buy stories. Hardcore magazines sometimes contain considerable copy, but it is not bought from freelancers.
Do not ignore magazines on pulp or those using only or mainly black-and-white photos. Some such magazines do not pay freelancers well or quickly, but others are reliable markets. Production quality is not well correlated with treatment of writers.
12. Cross-reference sister publications in your notebook. Some magazines make a point of mentioning their relationship to others. When they do not you can detect the relationship by looking for a coincidence of editorial address.
13. When you make a new entry in your notebook, write a letter to the publication---but not if it is related to a publication you have written before. Address the editor by name. Write: "If you have available prepared writers' guidelines, I would be pleased to receive a copy. I have enclosed a #10 SASE. Sincerely, . . . "
SASE means self-addressed, stamped envelope. A #10 envelope is an ordinary business-sized envelope, about 4 1/8 inches by 9 1/2 inches. Use #10 envelopes for all your business correspondence.
A short letter like this needs only two first-class stamps, one for the letter and one for the return envelope. Do not get the envelopes mixed up. Attach the SASE (folded into thirds lengthwise) to your letter with a paper clip. Record this transaction---the expenditure of two stamps---in your transaction journal. Show the date, the name of the addressee, the amount of the postage expended, and the purpose of the letter (in this case "request guidelines").
14. When you receive a response, staple the mail cover---your SASE---to the response and do not throw the response away, even if it discourages you from sending anything to publication. Of course you hope the response will help you prepare a submission that the periodical will buy, but even if it does not, it does help to prove that you are conducting your writing career as a business---a thing the IRS may ask you to prove.
Periodicals that most want freelance contributions respond quickly (that means within a month) and state what they want to buy, what they pay and on what terms. Most likely the guidelines will apply to all the related publications. If so, do not then request guidelines from the related publications.
Some requests for guidelines will go unanswered. Some publications that buy freelance work simply do not have prepared guidelines. But at first you should concentrate on publications that responded to your request.
If you follow the above procedure for a few months you will have a better market list than you can find in any book and a better one than most of your competitors, including some who have worked in the market for a long time.
(In the gay market, however, there are serious drawbacks to thinking of other writers, especially the good ones, as competitors. Only a fraction of literate gay men buys erotica regularly. Although the market is small, it has plenty of room to grow and will grow if more good writers produce better gay erotica. Magazine and book publishers do receive many more manuscripts than they could ever print, but most of the manuscripts are horrible. Editors seldom complain of having to return too many great manuscripts, although the kinder sort of rejection slip seems to imply such a complaint. Not enough good writers are working to keep the magazines full of good stories, as a careful market survey should reveal. Good writers are always happy to see other good writers working in the market. As always, there is plenty of room at the top.)
Understanding the market.
Although you should send for writers' guidelines and should read them, guidelines are seldom informative or accurate in describing the kind of stories a magazine buys. A better guide is the magazine itself.
A guideline might say: "We want stories that go beyond the usual formula stroke piece." Yet when you read the magazine---the stories the magazine actually bought---you may find the stories are all ordinary formula stroke pieces. If you do have a story that transcends formula, send it first to a magazine that is printing such stories.
Guidelines are better at describing stories a magazine does not want. Taboos vary. Magazines sometimes run stories that violate their taboos, but a beginner should not ask an editor to consider a story that lies outside the magazine's guidelines. Likewise, sometimes magazines run stories that far exceed the length requirements given in the guidelines. Such a story might have got read because the editor recognized the byline, or because the editor happened to have two good stories that were too short and he was looking for something longer to take up the extra space. But on a normal day if the editor pickups a story that feels too thick, he is very likely to shift it to the reject pile without reading it.
Many periodicals have a rapid editorial turnover: editors quit, editors are fired, editors are rehired and quit again. A new editor, even one who enjoys the confidence of the publisher, is frustrated in his attempt to change the directions of the magazine. The magazine he puts together today may not appear on the stands for six months. What the writer and the public see is his predecessor's product. Moreover the previous editor has probably committed the magazine to an inventory of stories that the new editor is obliged to use.
Watch for indications of new directions in writers' guidelines and elsewhere. Editorial turnover is an opportunity for new writers (and a peril for frequent contributors). While many editors are happy to discover new talent when they can, the new editor is especially eager to develop a stable of freelancers of his own.
Late payment occurs with several magazines that are otherwise good customers. Some magazines clearly never intend to pay writers on time and that is the way they have done business for years. Other magazines have occasional cash problems. Yet others are on their way out of business.
Watch for sudden changes that suggest a financial problem. The change is the important factor. Some magazines have always been slim, some have always been printed on newsprint, and some have always had black-and-white photos on the inside pages. Those magazines may be quite healthy. But a magazine that changes suddenly from thick to thin, from slick pages to newsprint, from color to black-and-white may be in trouble. You may not want to send stories to such a magazine until the situation stabilizes.
The magazines that always pay late are a fact of life. You may want to keep them on your list and to send them stories rejected by everyone else. After all, late payment is better than no payment.
You should eliminate from your list slick magazines that do not pay freelancers. A magazine that can find the money for slick paper and four-color photos but cannot find the money to pay writers clearly does not have its heart in the right place. You may want to eliminate some magazines for moral reasons: trendy, new, slick magazines aimed at the gay market but which have virtually no gay content, for example. Move magazines that did not respond to your request for guidelines to the bottom of your list, but do not scratch them off. You may want to send them some excess inventory from time to time, just to see what they are about. Just about the bottom go low-paying magazines that use only formula pieces by the same three or four writers every month.
At the top of your list, and everyone else's, go magazines that pay on acceptance or within thirty days of acceptance ("on acceptance" does not mean there is a check in the letter accepting your story, but means when the accounting department gets around to cutting you a check, which amounts to the same thing as within thirty days). Reserve a special place for magazines that may not pay well but often run innovative, well-written stories.
That you do not like the stories in a magazine should not necessarily commit it to the deep. Think what it is you do not like. If the ideas are stale and the stories poorly written, the editor knows that as well as you do and will welcome your fine work. (A few publications in the market do aim for mediocrity. This is the McPorno theory of publishing. Some publishers think that readers want a predicable product even if it is bland and boring. Be suspicious if a magazine never runs anything better.)
Perhaps all the stories in a magazine contain boots and whips, whereas you are the sort of person more likely to giggle at the sight of a studded jockstrap than to breathe heavily. Aaron Travis, while he was an editor at Drummer, wrote to a contributor: "SM is ultimately about obsession, will, and imbalances of power; it can be represented by the crudely overt (Masters and Slaves) or by the exquisitely subtle." Titclamps and leather are the windowdressing of the SM story. If you write well enough and can find something worthy of your talent in the complex dynamics of submission and defiance, pain and pleasure, and freedom and bondage, then you certainly may dispense with the cheap props.
If every issue of a magazine is a theme issue and the fiction always follows the theme you are unlike to be able to guess what themes will be under consideration when your story reaches the editor. Once you are publishing regularly you may develop a contact who will tell you what themes are being considered.
Many magazines are loosely themed around the seasons. Learn to think in magazine time. If you write a ski lodge story in late October and it lands on the editor's desk the second week of November, the editor will be working on the swimsuit issue for May or June. Many editors would be pleased to receive---in June---a cheerful little secular Christmas story. Note that both the December and the January issues are on the newsstand before Christmas and both are billed as special gala holiday issues.
Some stories are set in any season. Some publications, and particularly those numbered rather than dated, take no notice of the changing of the seasons. Sometimes an editor will think a balmy, tropical nights story a nice diversion for a February issue. But generally, when you send seasonal material at an appropriate time, you show a professional regard for an editor's needs. Editors notice and remember getting what they needed when the needed it.
Lead time of most gay magazines is about six months. Printing four-color photographs at reasonable rates takes that long (and it is the photographs that most magazines are about). If a story turns on some bit of news or a fad that is likely to be short lived, the story will seem very stale when it appears. This drives article writers nuts---and it is also why articles in this market are interviews with timeless divas, and historical and travel pieces, rather than breaking news. If a story is based on prescience, the editor must share your foresight. Stories relying on things less certain than the changing of the seasons are dangerous. Dangerousness is not a quality that editors are hoping to find in stories.
When magazines are dated, the date is usually when the magazine goes off sale. This doubles the writer's chances. A Valentine's day story might go in the February issue, which says it is the February issue right on the cover, or it might go in the March issue that will be on sale on Valentine's day. Publications that are numbered rather than dated usually will not be interested in seasonal material. They might buy a Fourth of July story, but that it is a Fourth of July story is less likely to be a selling point, and they probably will not try to put it in an issue that is available around the Fourth of July. And of course, even an editor who is looking for a horrorific Halloween story will not buy a horrible one.
I hope that no one has bought this book with that he might sell a homoerotic story to Harper's or Atlantic. James Baldwin could sell a story with homoerotic elements to Playboy. You cannot. Some crossover plays, movies, and novels have cracked the mass market. The following elements are accepted by general audiences: stereotypical drag queens, homosexuals from far away and long ago, discreet or insane lesbians, bisexuals (especially ones that are good parents), dead homosexuals, dying homosexuals, homosexuals who affirm nongay values, very unhappy homosexuals, silly homosexuals, psychotic homosexuals (especially if murderously misogynistic), guilty homosexuals, homosexuals who want families, old and harmless homosexuals, alcoholic homosexuals (better if also consumptive), homosexuals who never kiss, and the old standby, evergreen favorite: suicidal homosexuals (best if successfully suicidal). If it appears in fiction on the pages of The New Yorker it may be a homosexual; it is not a gay man.
Because homosexuals are amply supplied in the mass market, it is unnecessary to create them for the gay market.
Gay magazines throughout the market, kinky and vanilla, publish stories that are off their usual beat (far more often than, say, you would find a Redbook story in MS or a Saturday Evening Post story in Commentary). Sometimes a writer composes a story with one gay magazine in mind, gets the story back with a rejection slip, and then sells the story to a magazine that has never published anything like it before. Send a story first to the magazine most likely to buy it. But if that fails send it out again and again.
Every writer gets rejection slips.
New writers get more rejection slips. Part of the reason is obvious: Beginners' stories are often not so good. A large part too is that experienced writers less often write a story without some idea of where to sell it and more often send stories to the correct magazine. Fame is a smaller factor than new writers think.
Even good stories get rejected, even when they are properly prepared and sent to an appropriate magazine. When a magazine is overstocked, stories must be returned. A story may be good, but too similar to a story the magazine is already committed to. A story may be rejected by mistake or by quirk. Good stories can be rejected for many reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the work.
By the time a story comes back, the writer should be able to look at it more objectively. Read it again for typos. Revise it again if that seems necessary. Then send it out again.
The indispensable Aaron Travis advises: never send a story back to an editor who has rejected it unless he has explicitly asked to see it after certain changes are made. A friendly editor who sees something promising in your work may take the time to jot a few notes on how a story might be improved. That is not an invitation to resubmit a story, and according to Travis a story resubmitted under these circumstances almost never works out. Instead, send the editor who was interested in your work another story and the first story---whether you decide to revise it or not---to another editor.
(I have sold a story I resubmitted, but only to an editor who was already buying most of my work and after an exchange of many letters. The editor objected to it because it was one of the first safe-sex stories to appear in a national magazine, and for that reason the effort involved in coercing the editor to accept it was worth my while. From a business standpoint, resubmission does not pay off.)
Naturally, do not hesitate to resubmit a story to a magazine that has changed editors. If an editor has bought some of your work, be sure to send him stories if he moves to another magazine in the market. When an editor buys one of your stories, send him another right away.
However, do not let a magazine that pays on publication acquire too large an inventory of your work until you have some experience in dealing with them. If they have agreed to buy two or three stories, do not send them more until you are confident that they meet their obligations. Sometimes a magazine will keep a story in inventory for a very long time---a complaint I hear more frequently these days from writers in the straight market. When a very great delay occurs (more than a year after the story was accepted or more than several months beyond a scheduled publication date if there was one) you may wish to write the editor to ask if the magazine is still interested in the story. If there is a new editor, he may offer to return the story. In theory you should be offered a kill fee, a percentage of the agreed price. In practice this does not occur in the gay market. If you continue to hear nothing of your story for many months, you may write again. In the ultimate you can send the editor a certified letter stating that you are withdrawing the story. Then you can sell the story to another publication, provided you have a carbon or electronic copy of the story.
Working for free.
As a rule writers should not work for free.
An exception should be made for small, gay community publications or other community publications where no one gets paid or makes a profit. Not many holdovers from the underground presses of the Sixties still exist.
Most local gay papers and certainly most local straight entertainment papers are profit-making ventures that can afford to pay something. Be realistic in your expectations of payment and do not insist on copyrighting material, such as a bar-gossip column, that cannot possibly be of any further value.
Adopt a local paper as home base. Few of the papers run fiction and, in general, journalism is not especially good training for fiction, but there are several advantages to having a pet local paper.
First, any kind of writing for publication helps you to demystify your own copy. Communicating with the written word is a tricky business. When your copy is read by an editor, you soon will learn the freakish interpretations that can be put to what you thought was direct English prose. You will discover that words do not always mean what you think they mean. You may also get the chance to see what happens when an editor alters a comma in a vicious, vain queen's copy.
Second, the experience of seeing copy transformed into print is very useful. At many little publications everyone helps in the copyediting and pasting up. You can learn what printers understand and what they do not. You can find out what it is to have to shorten a tightly written story by several lines to make it fit space, come to understand the differences between copy and proof and more importantly the differences in what can be done with each, and gain the ability to look at a piece of copy and envision what it will look like in print.
Third, most such publications exchange issues with like publications elsewhere. As a member of the staff you can pore over this material to keep in touch with what is happening in the rest of the country---usually while the news is still new. You can acquire the addresses of the papers while you are at it.
Fourth, you may get the opportunity to review books. The reviewer may not get money, but he ought to get the review copies of the books he writes about. This is an inexpensive way of acquiring a nice library and a knowledge of gay book publishing. In reviewing books it is desirable to actually read the read the books, to avoid panning the works of one's betters, and to make constructive remarks.
Do not agree to edit. Many of these publications sustain their precarious existences by burning out one editor after another. Beware of being caught up in the frenzy. Limit what you will do, but do that well.
The book market.
The book market is more reliably covered in The Literary Market Place and Writers' Market than the magazine market. Once you contemplate a book, you will have plenty of time to research the market. Few publishers will want to hear from you until you have completed your manuscript---especially if it is fiction.
Most publishers have a particular flavor to their lists, but the books a publisher issues are much more diverse than the stories a magazine buys. Book publishers have fewer absolute taboos. Without being foolhardy, write the book you want to write and then find a publisher.
At present only one or two publishers in the country regularly issue frank works of gay erotica. A few others will issue anthologies of gay erotica and, rarely, a novel that is pretty hot. The shame is that none of the small gay houses still issues erotica, at least not written erotica.
I except here the book factories that buy works for hire that are sold only in adult video stores and by mail order through little ads in the back of gay magazines. Some people have a talent for producing these works and can turn out one in a week. Payment is about $400 for 40,000 words. If you wrote one of these every week and sold it, you would be making more money that 99% of all freelancers ever make regularly. But you would not get your name on the covers of the books, you would never be invited to a book signing, and not even the sleaziest publication in the country would ever review you. And of course you will never get a dime more for the work than what you were paid at first.
Even if you wanted to, you probably could not give up on selling your novel to a real publisher and sell it instead to one of the book manufacturers. Their guidelines are too strict to admit a book written with serious intent.
Real books come in three kinds:
Hardback books which seldom sell for less than $20. I assume every reader knows what a hardback book is. Hardly any gay erotica is issued in hardback except one or two anthologies and soft-core picture books that are supposed to be art.
Trade paperbacks are paperbacks designed to be sold in the book trade, that is in bookstores. These are seldom cheaper than $12. They are put together like hardback books and use a high-quality paper. Only a few works of gay erotica are issued in this form, although many namby-pamby issues of the gay presses appear in this form.
Mass-market paperbacks are the kind of paperback you see in wire racks at supermarkets. The paper is coarser than that used in trade paperbacks and a variety of processes are used in the bindings. However thick these books are, they seldom sell for more than $10. Gay erotica, of course, does not turn up in many supermarkets, but most of it is issued in books of this form.
Aside from frankly erotic books, there are many gay books of all three kinds issued both by very big houses and by the smaller gay presses. Since erotica is out of the picture at the gay presses, there is virtually no difference between the sort of book that might appear on the gay list of a big house and the sort of book that might be issued by one of the gay presses. Thus, the author might as well submit her book where she is likely to get the most money, which is with a large house that issue gay titles in hardback.
Records.
Records are an essential part of any business. For a writer some records are an important part of the creative process.
Copies.
The importance of keeping copies of everything you write cannot be overemphasized. Always keep a copy of any material you send out. If you work on a typewriter, keep a carbon copy or a photocopy. The trouble and expense of making such copies is nothing compared to the disaster of a lost manuscript. Writers who work electronically may feel secure because their material exists in disk files. But there is no security in a disk file that is not backed up. Indeed, one hears more often now of material lost through hard disk crashes than of material lost in the mails---and the postal service has not improved.
Writers should make some provision to save false starts, sketches, and notes. Electronic writers should resist the impulse to send such fragments to oblivion. The writer with a typewriter should have little difficulty keeping a box for such odd papers, but the computerized writer will find it a little harder to remember to save a scrap to directory reserved for such items. Again, the electronic writer have more difficulty going through his scraps, but the effort pays off frequently.
Many ideas age well. Sometimes after six months or even after several years, the writer's perspective on a scrap may change or develop. And a scrap may give a writer something to work with when he is staring blankly at a white page or a screen. I have got stories from a single line jotted on the back of a business card and from a few yellowing pages of typescript.
Plot lines, images, characterizing details, and authentic speech usages do not descend upon the writer like manna. Good fiction is based upon acute observation. Memory dulls observation. If you cannot record what you observe in a journal---and I for one find journals tedious---form the habit of jotting notes when you observe things of significance. What exactly is significant is hard to say: a peculiar way that someone uses a word that reveals his mental equation, how a shadow falls on the psi-shaped line that divides a beach boy's abdomen from his thigh, what he says when he has been properly fucked for the first time and does not know what to say, a curious graffito, a discarded item on the pier: what it is, why someone brought it, why it was discarded.
No one can command insight, but anyone can be ready when it comes. Being ready means having a stub of pencil and something write on: Scribble, scribble, scribble. It is yours.
Even a computerized writer may keep a scrap box, for not many will take the time to enter every scrap into a file. Each little note goes into the scrap box to wait its turn to come to the top to be fit into a mosaic of fiction.
"Where do you get your material?" They will ask. Then you must smile discreetly and avoid laughing in their faces.
Needless to say, completed works must be saved even if they have be offered in vain to every appropriate publisher. In time the right way to revise the material may occur to you, or you may wake one day to discover publishers who beg you to send them anything.
Correspondence.
You should also form the habit of saving correspondence: originals of incoming mail and copies of your replies. Naturally all items of business correspondence must be saved as business records: your requests for guidelines, the guidelines themselves, cover letters of manuscripts, queries of all kinds, even rejection slips. These records help to show that you are in business, even though a particular item, such as a rejection slip, is of no other use in itself.
You should make and save copies of more personal correspondence. My very successful Travels with Lizbeth began with letters I wrote to Steven Saylor that he had the foresight to save. Those letters seemed trivial to me when I wrote them. But even letters that seem trivial may contain good ideas or fortuitous turns of phrase. In the literary business you are likely to acquire a number of very literate correspondents who will inspire you to write very thoughtful and literate responses. Whether you use your correspondence or not, save it. Your biographer will be very pleased to have such a wealth of material.
Transaction journal.
The transaction journal is the financial record of your freelance writing business. You must keep such a record for tax purposes and you ought to keep it so that you can use it for planning. The transaction journal shows that you are in business---a useful thing because to many people a freelance writer looks like a bum. If you are successful it will show that and you may be able to use it to establish credit.
If you keep the transaction journal properly it will serve many purposes. Almost everything you do in the writing business costs money, so if you describe your transactions adequately, the transaction journal is a history of your activities. If you cannot recall how long a story has been on an editor's desk, you can turn to a well-kept transaction journal to see when you expended the postage to mail the story. If you keep your transaction journal up-to-date and you make detailed entries in it, you probably will not need to keep a card file to keep track of your manuscripts.
The transaction journal should be kept in a small book with sewn, prenumbered pages. Entries should be made in ink and corrections made so that the originals are not obliterated, but are struck through with single lines.
Entries in the journal usually have the following parts: date, category, audit number, amount, and description. The date is the date of the transaction: the day you spent money or used a stamp, or the day you received a payment.
The category helps you to break out expenses at tax time. You may wish to keep records of business expenses that are not deductible or not fully deductible according to current tax law; be sure these expenses are recorded in categories of their own, apart from possibly similar categories of expenses that are fully deductible. Consult current tax forms to set up categories that will help you fill out Schedule C more easily. Some categories that might be useful for a beginning freelancer are:
COMMISSIONS AND FEES: commissions you pay to an agent if you have one;
DEPRECIATION: if you have chosen to depreciate equipment;
LEGAL AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES: legal and accounting fees;
OFFICE EXPENSE: if you qualify for the home office expense or if you keep an office apart from your home;
REPAIRS AND MAINTENANCE: parts, and labor if you pay someone else to do the work;
TRAVEL: travel, including local fares, you do for your business and your meals while out of town on business; you may want to keep two categories of travel expenses, one for travel that can be supported as an 100% deductible expense, and another for travel that you believe you do for your business but may not be fully supportable as a business expense on your taxes;
VEHICLE USE: for business use of your own car;
MEALS AND ENTERTAINMENT: this is for business lunches and so forth where you entertain someone else and supposedly conduct business, an expense that is not fully deductible;
TELEPHONE: all long distance calls you make in the course of your business and other business telephone expenses, but you cannot deduct the cost of local service to the first line to your home;
EQUIPMENT: equipment you buy that you choose not to depreciate;
SUPPLIES: paper, ink, pens, staples, and so forth; technically supplies are things that you expect to use up in a year or less, but inexpensive equipment items like staplers or books are often entered as supplies;
POSTAGE: stamps as you expend them,
PRINTING AND COPYING: for many businesses this would be a supply expense, but because this is likely to be an especially important expense for your business, you may want a separate category;
DUES: this may not be a fully deductible expense under new IRS rules;
PUBLICATIONS: again, you may want a separate category for this expense because of the special importance of books and magazines to a literary business.
You are better off having more well-defined categories than having a few broad ones because it is much easier, if it is necessary to do so, to combine several small categories than to break out expenses from a general category. In particular, you should keep records of expenses which you feel reflect the cost of doing business even if those expenses are not deductible, but you want to keep these in separate categories that you will not claim on your taxes. Of course you must also have a REVENUES category for payments you receive.
The audit number is merely a serial number. Call the first transaction you record in a year 101, the next 102, and so forth. The audit number is used to identify documents that are related to the transaction. When you enter a purchase, copy the audit number on the receipt that is related to the entry. When you enter a revenue, copy the audit number to the payment memorandum that accompanied the check. File the supporting documents according to audit number. Then it will be an easy thing to provide the document that supports a given transaction if you are required to do so.
Some sample journal entries:
Date Description/Category Audit # Amount
1/10 SUPPLIES 105 1.09
Mailer for return of Swamp
Studs to typesetter; from
Floydada Drugstore
1/18 POSTAGE 106 3.09
Return galleys of Swamp
Studs to typesetter by
priority mail to Wm.
Rubble & Co.
1/31 REVENUES 107 (125.00)
Payment for "Hot Wax"
from ManTime Magazines, Inc.
appeared in Nov. issue
Notice that the payment is entered in as a negative number (is enclosed in parentheses). In this particular bookkeeping system, revenues are entered as negative amounts and expenses are entered as positive amounts. Bookkeeping systems are beyond the scope of this book. The important thing is to make the record. If your business is small you probably will not need a bookkeeping system. As your business grows you may choose to learn bookkeeping, to employ an accountant, or to obtain bookkeeping software. Whatever you do, the transaction journal will remain the key document.
In this system you enter the postage expense when you actually use the stamp and the revenue when you actually receive the check. This is called a cash account. It is suitable for a small business. However, you should also make notational entries that have no figure in the amount column for other kinds of events involving money.
2/1 NOTATION 111 ----
Bought stamps at Floydada
Station, $22
4/4 NOTATION 134 ----
"Guys in G-Strings" to
Blueballs, $200, First
NA Serial Rights, payable
on publication, to appear
in Oct.
One of these entries shows the purchase of stamps expected to be used in the business. The other shows a sale, although the author does not expect to receive the money until October. Another entry might be the purchase of a computer which will not be paid for until another time. The amounts are not entered in the amount column because this is a cash system, and amounts are not entered until they are actually received or paid. A system in which debts are entered in the amounts column when they are incurred and income is entered in the amounts column when it is earned is called an accrual system. Accrual systems are difficult for freelance businesses and require a greater knowledge of bookkeeping than can be imparted here.
The Market Notebook.
The market notebook and how it is constructed is described at the beginning of this chapter.
Blue Thesaurus.
A recurring problem for the writer of erotica is that sooner or later you must get down to that same old thing. Bringing fresh prose to timeless acts can be very difficult. Unfortunately, writers often overreach themselves in the attempt to invent new figures.
A blue thesaurus may be helpful. It is a loose-leaf notebook with dividers for various erotic subjects. Draw a vertical line down the center of the pages. On one side of the line enter apt or effective expressions you find in the works of others. That side is for study. On the other side of the line, enter expressions you make up which seem promising to you. That side is for use. When you are stuck for a bit of description or an expression, look through your entries. Of course writers in other genres will have differing difficulties---new ways to describe gloomy old mansions for example.
Sometimes it is impossible to top a phrase you have read. Do not be discouraged. No one yet has bettered the National Lampoon's Chris Miller who wrote the immortal: "throbbing, tanned athletic penis."
The Sale
Short fiction is not queried. That is, the author does not write the editor of the magazine to see whether the editor is interested in the story, but sends the manuscript whole with a return envelope and return postage. The manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter.
I do not like to write cover letters, and seldom write them. But some editors, even some who never read cover letters, like to see that they are there. Since a cover letter is very brief, there is plenty of space on it for editorial notes, and that may be all that it is good for. (You never get the cover letter back unless someone makes a mistake.)
Here is the whole text of a cover letter:
Enclosed is "Pro Jocks in Heat" which I hope you will find of interest to ManTime readers. I am sending photocopies because they are clearer than the originals, but this story is not under consideration elsewhere at this time.
I admire the production quality of ManTime very much, and especially enjoyed the June center spread of Lance Thudd.
My first book Swamp Studs will be issued by GayBOOKS!!! this fall. Please let me know if you do not receive a review copy. It deals with coming out as a gay man in the gay ghetto of Floydada, Texas.
Typed single-spaced, this letter would take up about two inches in the center of a page. No cover letter should be more than twice as long.
Mention of publication credits, if you have them, is very useful. It tells the editor that someone else thinks you can write. Evidence that you have looked at the magazine before will be welcome; the editor gets many submissions from people who have no idea what the magazine is about. The photocopies are explained because editors do not like to read material that is under consideration elsewhere, and photocopies are suspect on that score. (Naturally if you have sent photocopies, they are good xerographic photocopies and not copies you have run off on thermal FAX paper.) If you are making a simultaneous submission, admit it in the cover letter. The editor will never forgive you if she has not been warned and tries to buy a story that has already been spoken for.
Likewise, if the story has appeared elsewhere, say so in the cover letter. Major gay magazines will not buy second rights with very few exceptions.
Most important is what does not go in the cover letter: bomb threats, accounts of your lifelong friendship with the publisher, detailed descriptions of your dog's starving to death---if only you could make a sale and get it something to eat. I do not exaggerate by much. Many would-be writers put many flaky statements in cover letters. However, if you have the body of death and are willing to do anything to get into print, stick and 8 by 10 of yourself in the envelope. Nude.
(New writer paranoia being what it is, I ought to say immediately that business is not conducted that way. The 8 by 10 won't sell your story unless the story is passable. But it might get you a center spread.)
The cover letter, the story manuscript, and the sufficiently stamped, self-addressed return envelope are all clipped with a large, stainless steel paper clip (or some other rustless paper clip). Nothing is stapled or pinned. No brads, binders, or plastic covers. Address the envelope to the editor by name and title and affix sufficient postage.
After what seems like a very long time you will (usually) receive either your manuscript back with a rejection slip or an offer to buy certain rights in the manuscript. Naturally you will not have spent all that time waiting by your mailbox, but will have begun work on something else as soon as you mailed the manuscript. In fact, it is a good habit to put two or three pages of the next work through your typewriter or word processor before you leave your desk with the finished manuscript.
You should allow three or four months for consideration of the manuscript although most magazines will respond somewhat sooner. After that time (unless the magazine has stated in guidelines or in the tiny type under the masthead that it requires a longer time), write a polite letter to the editor inquiring of the status of your manuscript. If there is no response to that, you might as well consider the manuscript lost. (Always, always, always retain a copy of a manuscript you put in the mail.) When a manuscript is lost nothing can be gained and much may be lost by writing nasty letters. Before you send the story elsewhere, write a letter to the editor saying that you presume the manuscript is lost and you are withdrawing from consideration. You can send this letter through the regular mail. In this case the magazine never agreed to buy the story. Unless an editor begs for forgiveness move him to the bottom of your list.
Assuming the response is an offer to buy certain rights, you may accept the offer, you may write to clarify the offer, you may make a counteroffer, or you may decline the offer outright (which will win you no popularity points). When you send a story to a magazine that has stated terms and rates in writers' guidelines or market books you should be willing to accept those terms and rates, at least for your first few sales. In the gay market rates are absolutely flat at many magazines and you will be offered no more and no less than I would be offered for a story. At other magazines there is no such thing as a standard offer, but in any event an offer to an unknown writer for his first sale to the magazine is likely to be inflexible.
Except for short filler items, you should not be asked to sell all rights to a magazine. This was customary under the old copyright law, but is not the way things are done today. One magazine I can think of still operates as was common under the old law. It insists on buying all rights, but as was done under the old law, routinely returns unused rights to the author upon request after publication. Rights are returned simply by a letter from the editor stating that he is returning the rights, but requesting that letter can be a pain if you are trying to put together a story collection quickly.
The editor should make an offer for "first serial rights" or "first North American serial rights." "First" means he gets to publish it first. "Serial" means he is publishing it in a periodical or "serial" as periodicals are known to librarians. Of course if you sell "first serial" rights, you must be sure that the story appears in no other publication first.
When a piece has appeared elsewhere first you can sell "second rights." But it does not go to "third," and "fourth" rights. After the first publication, all other publications get "second rights."
"One-time" rights means the publication gets to run the piece one time, but you do not promise that they get the work first. Many cartoons and other features are sold on a "one-time" basis. You might sell one-time rights to several different regional publications at the same time. For the sake of goodwill you should not sell the same piece to competing publications in the same region at the same time.
"Simultaneous rights" are unheard of in the gay market. You might sell "simultaneous rights" to publications that, by their nature, were not competitive, say an inspirational piece to publications of different religious sects. In any event, the idea of simultaneous rights is that two or more publications get to run the piece at the same time.
Occasionally a magazine may ask for "exclusive rights." If you sell on that basis you will never be able to sell the piece again unless they return the rights to you. In this case ask if they will take "first serial rights exclusive for two years." Then you will be able to sell second rights two years after the piece is published. Magazines that ask for exclusive rights usually are trying to be sure that you will not sell the story elsewhere until they have published it and may settle for first rights if they are sure you understand that first really means first---you will shelve the story until you see it printed in their magazine.
In the gay market it is not really very important what rights you sell so long as you sell some form of serial rights. There is almost no possibility of selling "second serial rights" in this market. You do however want to retain the book rights because there is a good possibility---better than that in the straight market---of selling a collection of stories as a book.
Because beginners are always interested in such things, I have explained more about rights than any fiction writer submitting short stories will ever need to know. If you receive an offer for "all rights" you must decide whether to accept the sale and worry about recouping the rights if and when you ever have another use for the piece. If you receive an offer for "first serial rights" then you have nothing to worry about so far as rights are concerned.
The letter of acceptance for the story usually contains the whole of the offer for the piece. If you accept the offer, and most often you should, you merely send an invoice to the person who wrote the acceptance letter along with any forms that may have accompanied the acceptance letter.
An invoice can simply be typed on a sheet of typing paper, or you can make up a form on your word processor. An Invoice looks like this:
Freddie Fumblefart
1878 Constitution Ave
Floydada TX 76969
April 17, 1998
*****************************************************************
I N V O I C E
TO: ManTime Magazine Inc.
6969 Castro St
San Francisco CA
DESCRIPTION DATE: No. 146A DUE
"Pro Jocks In Heat" short fiction
first N.A. serial rights 100
re: ManTime 3/99
supplied on floppy disc 25
TOTAL DUE 12500
TERMS: Jan., 1999
MY SOCIAL SECURITY / TAXPAYER ID No. 123-45-6789
*****************************************************************
I warrant that I am the author and sole proprietor of
this original and unpublished literary work.
Your patronage is deeply appreciated.
_____________________________
Freddie Fumblefart
The invoice should state the name of the work. Do not worry if the editor seems likely to change it. It should state the rights you are selling. The "re:" line is a notation that in this case the editor said the story would appear in March. Some editors will not tell you when they plan to run the piece, but you still might enter the name of the magazine because the editor may have several magazines. This publication pays you extra because in addition to the paper manuscript, you sent a disk file. "Terms" means when the editor promised to pay you. In this case it is January. In other cases the caption "on publication" or "on acceptance" might appear.
Although your social security number appears on your manuscript, include it here as a reminder. Some publications will still call you and ask what it is, and many will ask you to fill out a form that is supplied by the IRS.
Some magazines want the warranty and others do not. It does no harm to include it on all your invoices when it is true. You need not worry about entering ledger lines and such, but the word "INVOICE" and the date are essential, as is retaining a copy of this document.
Unfortunately payment on publication is a common practice which means you will be unlikely to see a check for about six months.
When payment is late, say more than a month or two after the publication of the magazine that contained your story, write a polite note to the editor. He probably knows that payment is late and he probably has no control over the situation except to make a plea to bookkeeping on your behalf. Persistence is important in getting paid, but you should allow a reasonable time between letters and you should not be nasty to the editor who will usually do what he can for you.
In theory legal action is a last resort. But if you actually sue, you will lose a customer whether the magazine was in the wrong or not. Unless you have made the mistake of extending too much credit to the magazine, the amount involved should not be enough to make a lawsuit worthwhile. Most magazines have been very late at one time or another. Naturally you should not submit more work to a magazine that is late until the situation is resolved. While my sympathies are always with the writer, I do wonder about the sanity of writers who will allow a magazine to owe them for dozens of stories at time. This is a difficult problem with no easy solution.
Book manuscripts are not mailed out whole. Write a query letter first. Such a letter should introduce yourself and should describe the book in under a page. I know it is almost impossible to describe a best-seller in under a page, but you must. Tell how long the book is.
Here are some sample descriptions:
Swamp Stud is a short story collection. Most of the stories have appeared in magazines like Blueballs, Yellowsnow and ManTime. All of the stories are explicitly erotic. Several stories deal with a central character who comes out in the watersports scene of the gay ghetto in Floydada, Texas. Several of the other stories investigate the erotic adventures of professional jockeys.
My novel is based upon my extensive travels throughout South and Central America and my five years' residence in Columbia. My central character is an attractive, brown-skinned young man who grows up in a small South American village. Because he obviously differs from the others he sexually abused repeatedly by the bigger and older men according to the code of machismo. He verges on the brink of despair and possibly suicide until he is rescued by a kindly European traveler.
Certainly you should mention any pertinent credits. Mention any book credit. That will assure the editor that you are prepared to deal with proofs and other aspects of getting a book into print. If you do not have book credits, or even if you do, say why you are qualified to write the book: you grew up there yourself, you are experienced in the scene you are writing about, or whatever applies. If you are famous or infamous for something, mention that or anything peculiar about your life or writing that might make a publicity angle.
This really can be done in a page or less. Address this letter to an editor by name at the publishing house. Odds are good that your letter will be answered by someone else. The response may be a refusal to look at the book, a request for the whole manuscript, or a request for sample chapters and an outline.
If sample chapters are requested, send photocopies. An outline should give four or five lines to each chapter and should not exceed three or four pages. Aim for a two-page outline.
Whether you send chapters or the whole manuscript, address your correspondence to the last person at the publishing house who wrote you. Include a briefer cover letter mentioning that you have permission to be sending what you are sending. If the work is not under consideration elsewhere, be sure to say so.
Eventually you may get a letter offing to publish the book. This usually includes a summary of the publishing contract. In some cases you will receive the contract itself. A first book contract is somewhat more negotiable than a first magazine sale. There may be an exchange of letters before the terms are clear and acceptable to both sides. When an editor offers to publish your book, it is not an act of charity on his part. He thinks the house can make money on the book. You may not get him to offer better terms, but he should not blame you for asking and he will not withdraw the offer just because ask for clarification.
If you did not get the contract to begin with, the editor will send you one when the terms are agreed upon.
For books it is customary and correct for the author to grant all rights to the publisher (but not "work for hire" or "outright purchase"). The book publisher is supposed to exploit the rights as fully as possible and to share the proceeds with the author in accord with the terms of the publishing contract. The book contract should provide for the return of the rights to the author if the publisher has not issued the book within a certain time or if the publisher allows the book to go out of print for a certain period.
The word "advance" is sometimes used in slightly different senses. A payment based on an outline, an idea, or a partial manuscript is an advance. That type of advance is out of the question of a first book of erotica---or of any other kind of fiction---unless the author is famous or infamous. That type of advance is sometimes offered to an expert for a work of nonfiction, to an established author, or to a celebrity for his or her memoirs (when a competent ghostwriter is lined up---and the ghostwriter should get all of the advance).
When a publisher has a complete manuscript in his hands and is planning to publish it, he should pay something for it right then. This too is called an advance. The author should insist on this type of advance and should take his manuscript elsewhere if he does not get it. Payment of the advance may be divided several ways: part on acceptance (as soon after the contract is signed as bookkeeping can get it out), part on publication, and possibly part thirty days after publication. In any event, when the contract is signed the publisher owes the author the advance whether or not the book sells a single copy.
Either type of advance is deducted from the author's royalties, but is his to keep in the unfortunate event that royalties never amount to so much. (Of course the first type of advance should be returned in the event that the manuscript is never completed.)
Most books never earn back their advance. That is, they do not sell so many copies that royalties ever exceed the advance, and the author never gets anything more than the advance from the work. In many cases, the author of a book to be issued in paperback cannot realistically expect to earn royalties beyond the advance. For this reason authors always want larger advances. (And also because royalties, even if they exceed the advance, may not be payable until a year or more after the book is published, which will be something like two years after the contract was signed. The author will want the means to live in the interim.)
Terms of the subsidiary rights, which includes the motion picture rights, foreign rights, performance rights and so forth are always negotiable, especially in a work of gay erotica in which these rights are more or less worthless. The size of the advance and the basic royalty structure are much less flexible. If the advance is to be paid in parts, you may negotiate to have more of it paid earlier. You probably will not be able to increase the overall amount by much or by any. If you really think your book will sell very many copies, you might negotiate for a larger royalty after the first ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand copies are sold. At that point the publisher would be making money and he could give you a little more. If he thinks your book will not do as well as you think, he might give a little on this point. If your book does sell forty thousand copies, he will be pleasantly surprised and will never miss the extra point or two of your royalties.
All book contracts provide for reduced royalties in case the book is remaindered and sold at deep discounts. Indeed the author may get nothing on such copies. However big chain stores are able to negotiate small discounts with the publisher for copies they sell. Unfortunately, many publishing contracts call for a disproportionate amount of these small discounts to come from the author's royalties. The author may not be able to remove this clause altogether, but perhaps he can limit the percentage of the copies sold at these small discounts.
Once you understand the publishing contract and agree to its terms, sign the contract and return it to the publisher. Sometimes you will return all the copies the publisher provided for his signature, and he will return a signed copy to you, but you should make a copy of the contract you signed to consult until your copy of the completed contact arrives.
I do not know of any writer who does not wish he could renegotiate his first book contract. Part of this is a trick of perspective. The first book credit changes a writer's relationship to the market. He forgets the position he was in when he sold his first book. He becomes jaded. He forgets the indescribable triumphal joy he felt when he first held his first book in his hand. It is good after that, but it is never like the first time.
I certainly do not advise anyone to give it away. But the publishers of first books are taking a chance. I advise you to be firm in dealing with your first publisher, but I also know that you will be glad of whatever you get just so long as you get into print and that later you will have some regret.
It is much the same thing as learning you can get money for turning a trick. You regret what you gave away for little or nothing. In a way. But you had a good time or you would not have done it at all.