One reason NOT to hate the French

[Spriggan]

Looks like some people have been pre-ordering Elantris too.  Today your ranking at Amazon is 59,951, you where at 62 a while ago and when you first got listed were like 200,000 or something.  3 of which were made via your site!  yea I made a buck fidy!  At this rate you'd need to sell about 300 via our amazon like for me to be able to afford my history book.

[The Jade Knight]

EUOL:  Will it be possible for us to get foreign copies of Elantris through you?  (You didn't answer on this thread)  I'd sure enjoy the French version…

I'm also curious to know how your finances as a writer work - do you pay your agent separately, or does he get a cut of these contracts?  When you sold the rights to Tor, which rights did you sell?  Perpetual US publication rights?  I know that with short stories it's common to sell first North America publication rights, but I don't know much about selling novels.

[Chimera]

I'm also curious to know how your finances as a writer work - do you pay your agent separately, or does he get a cut of these contracts?  When you sold the rights to Tor, which rights did you sell?  Perpetual US publication rights?

I can't answer all of these, but they teach you in creative writing courses that it is the industry average for an agent to get 15% of whatever you get. Any agent who is asking for you to pay them is probably a scam. They only get paid if you do--however, agents are much more adept at getting deals and also getting foreign rights, so it kind of balances out. But because agents only want to support someone who is going to sell it is just as hard to get an agent as it is to get a publisher. Brandon was lucky in that his agent was considering his work when his editor decided to buy his book, so Brandon contacted Joshua his agent and Joshua took him on and got a better deal for Brandon than he would have been able to himself.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Yes, I would like foreign copies in any languages I can read (spanish, french, Greek, English) Well, probably not Greek, since it's not modern Greek I read.

[EUOL]

The answer to the first question (whether you can get foreign copies or not) is: I don't know.  

Now, I'm probably going to get a few copies in each language.  (Or, at least, I THINK I will.)  However, there will be only a couple of those.  I guess the question is how do you buy any books in foreign languages?  There's probably a way, but I'm not sure about it yet.  It will be a while, I think, before any of the foreign ones come out.  

Chimera has the right of it regarding agent cuts.  They only get paid if you do.  When I got my first offer from Tor, they wanted all rights.  Joshua talked them down to only North American English (which includes the Philippines for some reason.)  They wanted World English (England/Australia) but we decided to hold onto it.  

So, that's another reason to have an agent.  He knows how to argue for all of the things that you want to keep.

[The Jade Knight]

Probably based on a tradition of a hundred years ago (when the Phillipines were ours).  That's all very interesting.  Keep us posted on foreign copies when you find out more, eh?

[Spriggan]

you can always by foreign copies via amazon.

[CtrlZed]

We ship North American copies to the Philippines . . . that's why they're part of North American rights.  (No one in their right mind translantes any kind of fiction into Tagalog, anyway.  Now I'm going to prove that I'm not in my right mind by translating the last line of the Elantris Prologue. "Natapos ang buhay na walang hanggan noong sampung taon."  It flows better in English.  The Filipinos realize this and buy the English copies whether they understand them or not.)

[Chimera]

Psst...Isaac (aka CtrlZed)...have you introduced yourself yet? The thread is under Site News.

Thanks for the Tagalog. It was very...enlightening. And you wondered if you would ever use that language again!  

P.S. I like the Avatar. Where's it from? Did you draw it? When are you going to draw me one?  

[EUOL]

I like your avatar, Chimera.  It fits quite well, I think.

[Spriggan]

I like your avatar, Chimera.  It fits quite well, I think.

You're just now telling her this?  You're not doing very well on the Boyfriend front, you're supposed to tell her that every day.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

finally, CtrlZed posts. WHen you first registered, I pointed out to some people that this was the coolest nick I'd seen in a while.

[Chimera]

You're just now telling her this?  You're not doing very well on the Boyfriend front, you're supposed to tell her that every day.

Tell me that he likes my avatar everyday? If we are discussing the Boyfriend Front, then I have to say that I hope that his "terms of sweet endearment" would extend beyond that. To at least compliment my hair, or something.  

EUOL actually has told me he likes my avatar. And I'll probably keep it. I just think CtrlZed's drawings are cool, especially the stuff he did for Mistborn--he may get to illustrate some stuff in the book, like chapter headings. I hope he does!

[CtrlZed]

Chimera: Yup, that little drawing is something I did a few years ago for a children's meteor math game I worked on at my old job.  I loved doing the explosions when the ships blew up.  I agree with EUOL--your avatar is pretty cool, but if you want another, I wouldn't mind whipping something up.

e: Glad you like the nickname!  It's my favorite keyboard combo.  I'm thinking about basing a magic-system on it. Ctrl-z is the bad magic, and "up, up, down, down, A, B, A, B, start" is the good magic.

[Chimera]

Geesh. That's a more creative magic system than I can come up with, and I have been thinking about it in the back and front of my mind this entire vacation.

I give up. I will probably always be one of those fantasy writers where magic just kind of happens, rather than being based on complex and cool rules.

But I'll keep trying. Maybe I'll surprise myself one day.