“Oh, definitely, but I still read them all,” she insisted.
D looked at all the books the woman carried and smiled. He doubted if she was telling the truth. “Are you gonna get a bag for all of that?”
“Oh yeah, I had a bag and lost it somehow. Now I have to get a new one after I get my books all signed.”
Double D smiled with nothing left to say. White people, he thought to himself. They’re crazy about their books. How many black people even know about the Book Expo America?
When Jackson finally wrapped up his signing, it was seventeen after three, and only five people were waiting to have the new book signed by DeWayne McDonald.
After a few minutes of nothing, D complained to a volunteer. “Damn, don’t folks know these books are for free?”
The volunteer grinned awkwardly with no comment.
Vincent looked on from the back of the empty line while awaiting Jackson, who was still conversing with fans and readers away from the tables. But the writing was on the wall for D. He had less support now as a veteran author than he had several years ago as a relatively unknown.
Vincent thought about it and sighed. There are just too many writers in the street genre right now, and the audience is definitely not loyal. They’re following someone new every week; new author, same damn story. So, there’s nothing I can really do to save his career, but ask him to change genres. And I doubt if he’ll be willing to do that.
In the middle of his thoughts, Vincent was snapped back to attention.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Sell-Out,” someone commented with strong emphasis.
Vincent turned and faced Debra Price, a popular African-American romance author from the 1990s. She had been part of his first group of New York Times best-sellers years ago. But Debra’s era of light sex and melodrama relationship novels had been outdone by the more explicit sex and heavier drama content that came afterwards. She couldn’t seem to match the zeal of the new batch of popular erotica authors, like Zane, Noire and Mary B Morrison, who all led to the success of Chelsea Christmas.
Vincent forced a smile and attempted to remain cordial with her even after she had slighted him. “Hey Debra, how’s things been going?”
Tall, voluptuous, light brown, and loud in her white blouse, black jeans and short-cropped hair, Debra frowned at him and leaned to her left, placing her left hand on her left hip, while staring at him crookedly. “I don’t believe you even asked me that,” she responded. “How the hell you think I’ve been doing? I’ve been struggling to make ends meet ever since you dropped me.”
Obviously, she continued to take her split with Williams & Klein personally. So Vincent gathered all of his recollections to counter hers if needed. “You haven’t been able to sign with another publisher?” he quizzed her. It wasn’t as if Williams & Klein had blackballed her. She was free to sign wherever she wanted to continue her writing career.
“Are you trying to be a smart-ass? Have you seen any books out from me lately?” she snapped at him.
Vincent was indeed being facetious. It was the only way he thought to deal with her at the moment. She had surprised him and had come on strong.
“Well, have you tried to publish anything?”
“Of course, I tried.”
Well, what do expect me to do? Vincent thought to himself. If you’re so great of a writer, then find another publisher.
Instead of telling her that, he told her, “Trust me, in this economy; the industry is tough for everyone right now.”
“Oh really? Well, it doesn’t seem to be so tough for your white boy author. Is it only a tough economy for black writers? Terry McMillian seems to be doing fine.”
Vincent had heard enough from her already. Debra had always compared herself to everyone else, but each writer had their own careers and audience. He said, “Debra, you’ve seen it for yourself what’s happened to black writers. The readers interests have changed, and they no longer respond to your stories. And Terry McMillian still has a crossover white audience that we could never really build for you.
“You remember how hard we tried to push to get you on Oprah?” he reminded her. “But it just didn’t happen. Oprah chooses who and what she chooses, and it’s rarely black books or black authors. So call her a sell-out.”
“She is,” Debra piped.
Vincent told her, “Look” and paused. I just had this same conversation with Natalie this morning, and she doesn’t seem to get it either, he thought. But he didn’t want to tell Debra that. Instead, he told her, “At the end of the day, I have nothing to do with what the readers choose to like. But publishing is still a business, so I have to continue to provide them with what they want to buy. And I can’t stop my career with yours. New books and new authors have to come out. That’s just the way it is.”
“Yeah, I see, so now you’ve moved on to new white authors,” she stated. She had been waiting to say that. How in the world could a black author maintain a career if even black editors preferred to sign white writers instead of their own?
Vincent shook his head and said, “Okay. DeWayne McDonald is a black author who I still publish, and look at his line right now. He used to have a long line too. But the black reading community apparently has a real short leash.”
Deborah looked on at DeWayne McDonald’s empty line and frowned. “Vincent his street audience is not in here. Most of them are in jail, ready to go to jail, or are fascinated with it. So he’s in the wrong place to promote his books. You need to take him down to Riker’s Island or Sing Sing to do a signing,” she quipped.
“But that’s who you wanted to replace me with,” she continued, “him and Chelsea, because that’s who you thought were hot at the moment. So, what are you gonna do with him now, replace him too?”
In the heat of the moment, Vincent blurted, “That’s the nature of this business. And while you authors make all the big money to be the big stars out front, us unknown editors hold down our positions by going out and signing the next wave of writers. And if your book sales can’t keep up with your output, then you get cut just like I would if I don’t get out there find the next hot author. Now what part of that equation don’t you understand? My paycheck is on the line just like yours.”
Deborah seemed to settle down a bit, swayed by his passionate explanation. But then she insisted, “The same way you marketed and promoted me in the beginning, is the same way you should have marketed and promoted me in the end. But you didn’t do that. Instead, you moved on to the new flavor of the month, and that ain’t right, Vincent. We have families and lifestyles to provide for. You can’t just drop us out the window after making six-figure a year and expect us to be able to fly. With what?”
Vincent thought about it and said, “Deborah, that’s the way it is with all entertainment businesses. If you no longer have an audience who can provide you with the lifestyle that you’ve become accustomed to, then what are we supposed to do, put authors on welfare for the next twenty years until you figure it out? Well, that’s not gonna happen.”
Debra argued, “But you set us up for that. Every time you raised the stakes for us, you got something out of it too. But once we’re no longer able to hold it down, you move on to the next what’s happening. And that’s just not right.”
Vincent frowned and said, “No, I don’t raise the stakes like that, your agents do. They’re the ones who keep asking for all the money. If I had it my way, I would sign everyone for fifty-thousand dollars and let you clean up on the royalties. That’s the safest way to keep a career going. But no, you guys all want these big advances, which makes everyone’s job harder. Then you turn around and complain when it’s over. But we never ask you for the money back. What would happen if we started doing that?”
Debra snapped, “Oh, come on now, Vincent that money is all tax write-offs. But we don’t get anywhere near the money these white executives get when they leave. No one asks them for money back either. And they leave these companies with millions of dollars in their pockets. Th
ey don’t get dropped off at the door steps with a sorry note and a sandwich in a bag like we do.”
Vincent looked her in her eyes and asked her, “Do you think it’s any different for me? I’m not an executive with stock options. So how do think I leave the company?”
“With a new damn job offer, like every other editor does. I’ve been around the business long enough to know that.”
“Yeah, and I start back from scratch again, just like you need to do,” he told her. And that was enough. Jackson was now there beside them.
Vincent even introduced them. “Jackson, this is Debra Price, another New York Times best-selling author.”
Jackson smiled, nodded and reached out his hand toward her. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
However, Debra was not pleased. She didn’t even look at his hand. Instead, she told him, “Try using your real name for a change and stop disrespecting your Italian family. We call that sell outs in my community.” And she walked away from both of them.
Jackson looked at Vincent and joked, “You sure have a way with black women.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. But don’t bother yourself with that sell-out talk,” he advised his author. “Black people change their names for the audience all of the time; Redman, Method Man, Jay Z, Diddy and all the rest of them. How many of them come out with their real names like Kanye or Tupac? So don’t even think about that.”
Nevertheless, Nikola did think about it, all of the time now. He loved being someone else. He wouldn’t change it for the world. People responded to him different as Jackson Smith, as if he were some kind of superhero. But as Nikola Tubollati . . . he was just another Italian immigrant son with big American dreams.
He shook it off and said, “You don’t have to worry about anything like that getting to me. I know the difference between being loved and being ignored, trust me. And the more these other authors complain about not getting any attention, the more I realize how fortunate I am.”
Then he placed a soft hand on Vincent’s shoulder. “So thanks again for giving me this great opportunity.”
Vincent smiled and felt good about himself again. “Oh, thank you, my friend. You have no idea how good it feels to hear that.”
As the two men faced each other and shook hands with their broad smiles, DeWayne McDonald looked on from his lonely author table and wondered.
Yeah, that fucking faggot, he thought to himself bitterly. He changed the boy’s name to make him a hit, but I wonder what else he changed about him. He probably turned him the fuck out in his bedroom, D assumed. But I ain’t going out like that. My self-respect is worth more than this book shit.
Speaking of self-respect and worth, Darlene and Antonio had spent enough time at the Impact Publishing booth with Brittney and Jill to suck up some real quality information that served to prepare them for what Vincent’s veteran authors were all going through.
While all seated comfortably at the conference table, Brittney told Darlene and Antonio, “By all means, it’s your career, so you make your own decisions with it, but one thing all new authors have to realize is that advance monies are exactly that, advances that come out of your royalty checks. And when publishers are unable to recoup the money through books sales, not only do you never see a royalty check, but typically they will not sign you to a new contract. Once the other publishers see that, they also become reluctant to sign you. So at Impact, we like to be honest enough with our authors to advise them to focus more on successful marketing and sales, and less on money grubbing, because the greed will usually come back to haunt you.”
Jill sat there grinning and nodded her head. “That’s typically how it works.”
Darlene took it all in for consideration. She said, “Well, my agent told me that if you don’t ask for enough in the advance, that publishers often have no reason to market or promote you right. He said, they’re not really on the hook to lose anything.”
“So, you tell your agent to ask for specific marketing and sales goals within the contract,” Brittney advised her. “The more savvy agencies already do that. But sometimes, when you have a more compromised agency handling your contract negotiations, who may not really believe in your ability to sell, they tend to be more interested in getting the upfront money no matter what.”
Jill spoke up and added, “That can leave authors stranded out in the middle of the road, who often fire their agents and sign with new ones. But now you’re starting over from a deficit, which many agencies don’t like to deal with either, because now they can’t get their money.”
Antonio listened to it all in silence and finally said, “Wow. So is it best to ask for no advance?”
Jill and Brittney chuckled at his mention of the extreme.
“Well, no, it’s not that bad. You do want to get some form of an advance to make sure that the publisher is really interested,” Jill responded.
“But you don’t want to overdo it,” Brittney concluded. “That’s where a lot of the agencies can get their authors into trouble.”
Darlene was more reserved about the information. Since she already had an agent, who she trusted, she wasn’t going to allow an editor, who she had just met, to turn her into a skeptic.
“But what about when there’s a bidding war for the author? How does that work with the advances?” she asked.
Jill looked toward Brittney with a pause, but Brittney went right into her answer with no hesitation. “A bidding war would create your best case scenario, and not just for the advance monies, but for everything else you may want in the contract. So, for instance, instead of you and your agent asking for the most money, you may ask for the most author friendly contract, where you get more of a say so in how you go about putting your book out. Because in lot of cases, you’ll have publishing houses who will give you X amount of dollars, but at the same time, they won’t allow you the control over your marketing and promotions. In which case, you end up owing them all of this money, but with no real say so in how you make it back.”
Antonio understood it all. He said, “And then you end up back in the same boat as before, where you don’t make any more money, they drop you from your contract, and no one else wants to pick you up, because they all look you at you as used goods.”
Again, Brittney and Jill chuckled at him.
“You have a very warped way of looking at things,” Jill commented. “But yeah, in a nut shell, that’s how it can happen.”
“Or you can become a big hit and keep it moving. That happens too,” Darlene added lightheartedly. She didn’t want to seem like a hardhead, but she didn’t want the conversation to destroy her optimism either. Darlene planned to be successful whether she accepted a big advance or not.
The advance doesn’t determine whether you’re gonna be successful, you do, she told herself. She figured they had spent enough time there already. It was going on four o’clock, and there were other booths and publishing houses she wanted to visit.
She rose to from her seat and said, “Well, we don’t wanna take up all of your day. But we thank you for showing us everything, and for all of the good advice.”
Antonio took her lead and stood with her. “Yeah, you sure taught me a lot.”
Jill and Brittney stood as well.
“Okay, well . . . I’m sure we’ll see you around,” Brittney hinted cheerfully.
“Yeah, we’ll see you guys,” Darlene responded.
As soon as Darlene and Antonio walked away, Jill exhaled and looked to Brittney. “Wow, you are really putting yourself out there for her. You spoke to them for a couple of hours.”
Brittney grinned. “The more information she has about the publishing industry, the better it’ll be for us, because I know that Vincent is not gonna want to explain anything, or at least not with any patience. In fact, the more questions she asks him, the more she’s not gonna like his answers. Vincent has a way of being very curt at times.”