BIG IDEAS

Chalk one up or one down (depending on how you look at it) for Yusef Jackson. RADAR, the smart but not too well-known outside of New York media circles magazine - which is owned in part by Jackson - just announced that it is folding for good. For like the third time in the last five years. Jackson is only one of several people who tried to revive it.

But such is the nature of the magazine business these days.

On the other hand, he apparently still owns the brand and has entered into a sale/partnership with American Media, the owners of The National Enquirer, to continue with the RADAR website. According to Gawker, the RADAR staff was unceremoniously let go earlier today. The WHOLE staff. Dayum!

Seems from the ad that they’re still selling subscriptions, though. Risk-free indeed.

In only the way he can, Undercover Blackman gets deeper into the revelation that the highly lauded new book by Margaret P. Jones, Love and Consequences - the “true” story of a white woman raised by Black foster parents and brought into adulthood as a moll to The Bloods gang in Los Angeles - is, as they say in L.A. - um, bullshit.

Not everything’s funky with Black History Month where Black authors are concerned. There are a couple of real benefits. For example:

(1) If you’re lucky enough to get hooked up into the highly lucrative college and corporate lecture circuit as the result of your book, consider yourself a lock for speaking gigs in February. Every big and small college in America has Black History Month Lecture Series, and the going rate these days can be anywhere from $3,000 - $10,000 a pop for an author who is well known. Exponentially more if you’re a superstar. If  you plan it right and have a good agent, a full schedule of February speaking gigs can earn you a full year’s salary after taxes. That leaves the rest of the year to do what you love - write.

(2) Everyone knows that sales of books are very heavily influenced by the major Bestseller Lists - New York Times, Washington Post.  What you might not know is that those lists have very little to do with overall sales. Most of these lists track only a select list of major chain retailers - Wal-Mart, Borders, Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble…

That dozen books you bought at the Afrocentric Negro Book, Yohimbe & Hair Care Center, your church social and Joe, the dreadlocked incense vendor at the flea market? Don’t count.

That doesn’t mean you should stop buying from those places. By all means, support them. The author gets the money no matter how it’s bought (though bulk sales sold outside of a retailer get the author a lower percentage of royalty).

What makes Black History Month good is this regard is that, by guaranteeing the shelf and window space at places like Borders, it increases the likelihood that Black authors will make those bestseller lists. That’s key. Publishers give a book about a month to catch fire before their attention flows to the next project, and the lists are a heavy part of their consideration for future promotion. Don’t make that list and forget the long book tour you dreamed about.

Ain’t the book business grand?

So here’s something something your probably don’t know - how the book industry and the whole money thing works and how Black History Month throws black authors off a bit.

The Basics:

When an author signs a book deal with a publisher, there’s about a 1.5 to 2-year wait before a book actually comes out. Publishers need to work that far ahead to schedule printers, negotiate shelf space, promote to booksellers and coordinate shipments. In some circumstances - when a publisher really, really wants to move it fast or the author has a completed manuscript at signing - that can move a bit faster.

Following so far? Let’s move ahead:

So let’s use this month as the hypothetical date that Author X signs a contract. Given the timing above, if Author X is white and delivers his or her book according to contract, that author can expect the book to come out Summer or Fall of 2009. If Author X is Black, however, nine times out of ten, said author should not expect a release until February 2010.

Why? Shelf space. Thousands of books come out each month and the only time Black authors can be guaranteed prominent window and display space in major bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble is to launch in that short Black History Month schedule when they will only compete with Valentine’s Day love junk. Otherwise a company has to pay for that space, which cuts into their marketing budget and the author’s future profits.

Still with me? Now here’s where that gets really funky:

When you sign a book deal, presumably you get an advance. It is not a fee or a profit. Fundamentally, an advance is a no-interest loan to the author in expectation of profit. Why a loan? Because the costs for marketing, printing, travel and other pre-publishing costs counts against your advance. So let’s say Author X gets a $100,000 advance. If the author sells enough books for $100,000 “profit” after release, and the costs for marketing, printing etc were $98,000 — Author X’s first royalty check will be: $2000.

Understood? OK.

The problem is the timing. The industry pays authors only twice per year - April and October. April’s check is for books sold from July - December of the previous year. October’s check is for sales from January - June of the current year.

So let’s get back to our hypothetical Black Author X and what this means. His/her book comes out in February 2010. By getting pushed to February instead of Fall 2009, this scheduling means Author X will not receive a royalty statement until October 2010, because there were no sales in ‘09, which means of course, no check in April. And since production and marketing costs almost always exceed the first six months of revenue, that royalty statement is, more times than not, just a statement - of how much you still owe the publishing company on their investment.

So realistically, assuming Author X sells a great deal of books, he or she won’t see a royalty on a book deal signed in February 2008 until April 2011. Nearly three and a half years after the fact. With the Black History Month element, that’s a full year or so later than other authors.

Of course, the caveat to all this is that, frankly, the vast majority of authors never get a royalty check - ever. At least not of any substance. For most people, the advance is all the money they will ever see from that source. Money’s really made on lectures, rights and other ancillary income that you can squeeze out of the notoriety you hope to get by being published.

But there’s another side to this Black History book thing. See the next post…