These are notes from Life the Universe and Everything. Any inaccuracy is the fault of the note taker. by Larry Careera.

Traditional is awesome.
– He went independent because he was rejected 100 times.
– 99.99 rejection rate.
– Advantages of traditional. Publish house is supposed to help you in marketing. They are not very good at marketing. Some publishers will buy your book and not do anything for you and then reject you if you can’t return your advance.
– If you have a good relationship with your editor it’s fantastic. Some editors get editors who are the kiss of death. Editors kept kicking back the manuscript. Professional rout sometimes is not a great ticket.
Indi publishing:
– Get publisher to turn over books
– You get lost of 100K other authors. How do you get yourself to stand out?
– Either path you chose you need to have a good product. You need to figure out how to get your stuff in front of your audience.
– Don’t way around for the muse to inspire you. My muse is a mortgage.
Build your career
– by being prolific. The more you do it the better you get. The better house gets the more people will buy. And the more stuff (past items) they will go back to buy.
– Treat your writing like a job, not a hobby.
– Shakespeare was prolific.
– Michelangelo was always prolific
– The more you write the more you have a chance to be successful.
– You must understand most of the money you make is not on the hot book it comes from your backlist. It is the catalog of work you ruches. The larger your backlist the better for yourself.
– Each 6 mo. get a royalty check. And little items that are from the backlist.
– Most don’t quit their day job until 5-6 books in. you must keep putting new books out. You can get 5K books per book from your backlist. And if you have 20 books that are 20 times $5k from your backlist.
– Keep up with new books because your old books backlist drops and book stores no longer promote you. Most authors live off the backlist.
– You might get a hit book. That may not be enough if you have not learned to be prolific.
– Write books one after another that can get better each time.
– If you take 5-6 years to write a second book you lose your audience.
Agents:
– Take 15% of what you make. Anyone who takes money from you upfront, don’t use them. They’re predators. Money flows down. The agent takes a client you pay them nothing. The agent makes a sale. Gets $15% of the royalty. Agents are supposed to make better contract deals. Sometimes agents don’t understand the market like guns and monsters.
– If you enter into a contract and they don’t serve you. You can leave them.
– Publishers will screw you. Your agent’s job is to support you. Instead, you could have a contract attorney
A contract
– is an agreement between you and your publisher. It behooves you to read it and understand it. If you don’t understand it. Seek out a professional. There are some bad publishing houses that will have a bad contract. The contracts from small Utah publish houses and so predatory that they were known in England.
– The things you have to watch for. What rights are they getting?
– How long do they have to those rights?
– Is there a non-compete clause. If you write anything else we have the right of first approval. Want it forever and in any genera. If it competes with anything else we’ve purchased from you before then we have the power to prevent you to write that.
Sub rights:
– When you turn over a book, you agree to certain things. Publish a book in English and foreign language rights. Don’t sell your foreign rights. Don’t sell to other rights, if they don’t have a department assigned to those rights. Dan wells earns more money in Germany than in the US.
– Other important sub-rights: dramatic rights are movies and TV shows. If your publishing house does not have a Hollywood reprehensive then don’t sell your rights.
– Just because you sell your rights to Hollywood (an option) will pay you money to not let everyone else see it. Of Hollywood 100 options only about 1% goes into production.
– If your publisher has an audio section. If the publisher does not sell audiobooks. Make sure you get paid. Audiobooks get 1/3 income.
– Make sure the rights revert back to a point of time that is beneficial to you. Have them define a book in print that includes eBooks. If a publishing house goes out of business you can’t publish your book. Make sure you have a reversal of rights. Some authors approached publishers to get rights back.
Taxes:
– When you as a writer and get paid you are an independent contractor. You need to keep track of your own holding. You need to pay taxes. And get paid royalties. If you don’t pay taxes IRS will come in 3 yrs. and says you owe taxes and include fines and fees. Do not forget to pay your taxes. You need to report income. When you are at the level to pay mortgages you need to become an LLC. Most writers in Utah become an S corp (small corp. you need to incorporate your estate. Need to
– A tax professional can advise you what you can and cannot use as a tax expense. Rule of thumb of what you can deduct. Pigs get fat hogs get slathered. Computer, printer, etc. are legitimate expenses of a writing business. A big part of the presenter’s house counts because he works from home, so it counts as an expense. Go on a trip to count as an expense is questionable.
– Budgeting: you need to pay quarterly taxes. Fill in paperwork. Make good money to hire a CPA firm. Do not put it off the government will eat you.