I agree with you 100% regarding contract negotiations. If an author is dead-set on having approval over packaging, then that’s something to be hammered out at the time the deal is being inked, not to be kvetched about afterward because things didn’t turn out to your liking.

The same is true, to be honest, about the size of the advance. If an author feels what’s being offered by the publisher doesn’t provide her with fair compensation for the rights to her book and to allow her to take the role in promoting it that her publisher is expecting, then honestly, it’s the author’s job to either negotiate a larger sum or (gulp) walk away.

Walking away from an offer of publication is something few authors (especially if they are just breaking into the market) are going to be willing to do, though, whether it’s over the size of the advance or veto power over packaging or what-have-you. The publisher has more cards than the author, to be frank, because they have many good books to choose from. Unless you’re lucky enough to have your book go to auction or be bought in a pre-empt, most authors want the publisher a LOT more than the publisher wants the author. And even in an auction or pre-empt, there are probably some things a publisher won’t concede, even if it means losing the book/author. It’s pretty hard for authors to know what those non-negotiables are or when to concede vs walk away.

But yes, once the deal is ironed out and signed, it’s too late. Oh sure, you can bellyache all you want, but in the final analysis, it’s probably not going to do much good.l

Most authors aren’t ready to do that, and the publishers know it. Barry Eisler’s letter is just closing the barn door long after the horse has bolted.

I don’t think it’s as difficult to get cover approval as some of the commenters on the DA thread suggested (altho probably impossible for a category line, obviously.) First thing you’d have to do is make it clear you want it UP FRONT, not after you’ve accepted the offer.

This goes back to my old old article about what to do when the editor calls and makes an offer. DON”T ACCEPT. Write down the details and say you’ll call back.

Then take the time to figure out what’s important to you and what your sticking points are. Talk this over with your agent, if you have one. The agent may or may not be on your side, which should tell you something, either about the agent or the sticking point. Then bring those points into the negotation BEFORE the contract is written.

But even if you ask for cover approval, and don’t get it, and decide to not to walk, every author who knows enough to ask, and when to ask, helps make a little chip in the wall for the next time.

I tend to think covers and titles might as well be voodoo, they are so unpredictable. I would object over something egregious about the cover, and I’ve certainly been disappointed in some covers I’ve had–but others like my Fabio ones, which I thought were a bit silly, really helped make my career.

It’s like TV ads, some are hits, some are flops, there’s an art and a science to it. I sure don’t know what it is.

Termagent, I agree with you about advances and the amount of promotion we’re being expected to do nowadays being out of sync with each other in a lot of respects. But at least in my case, I blame my total lack of marketing/promotional savvy at least partly on the fact that I was too shy/too embarrassed to contact my publisher and ASK what they thought I could do that would be both effective and relatively inexpensive. Now, it’s entirely possible they would have blown me off and/or had no advice to give me, but since I never even attempted, we’ll never know. So now I know, should there ever be a next time, not to be so shy and retiring.

That’s a double standard, in my opinion — for if we’re partners, where’s the give-and-take about “this cover really doesn’t work for me and I cannot see how to market it”? Instead, we’re told “the cover is what it is”, and there’s no sense of partnership in one party dictating to another.

Were the advances more palatable, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way, LOL.

Again, they’re not always right in their decisions. I will claim to my dying breath that publishers who passed on my books were just plain fools, lol. But I also recognize that publishers are not in business to give struggling artists a break.

I don’t think I have great awe of traditional publishers. I just think too often, their expertise is undervalued and underappreciated. That isn’t to say they are always right. As I said at the beginning, I’m not intending to be the rah-rah cheerleader for major publishing houses. But I do have a problem with the mentality that says they are totally irrational entities that make decisions without any solid data or reliance on previous experience. No, they aren’t infallible. But who is?