Dear Karin,
Could you tell us how auctions are handled. Do they usually lead to six figures? And what about pre-empt deals? I’m assuming a lot of money has to be on the table for an agent to agree on a pre-empt. Is there a time limit on those things? What happens if it’s a “no” on the pre-empt. And do you know of any auctions that have ever soured?

With a lot of input from my agent here are the answers:

1) Auctions can lead to six figure deals but not always.

2) A pre-empt deal is when a publisher comes in with an offer that is enough to convince the author/agent to take it off the table. Generally speaking, it’s a lot of money that can take something off the table, but other things like promises for marketing and promo and if it is a publishing house that author/agent feel is the right house for the book. Also, don’t make the assumption on what a lot of money is. $25,000 can be a lot of money for one book but miniscule for another so the actual amount of money is dependent on the project.

3) As far as time limits there is no hard time limit if that is what you mean. For a pre-empt, it’s whoever gets to the agent in time. For auction, every agent has there own way of doing things. Some send out their auction guidelines when they set an auction date. Other agents once they set an auction date kind of let things play out and are more laid back about auction rules. Everyone has their own way of doing things and there is no right way or special way that is going to get the most money. It depends on the agent, project and how author wants to proceed.

4) And yes, people do turn down preempts. It’s a decision by the author and the agent when they feel they can find a better deal elsewhere or by going to auction

5) Auctions can sour because they aren’t being handled properly by the agent or people can get upset when an agent/author decide to go with an underbidder because they feel that that house is a better fit than the house that actually wins the auction.

And thanks for asking!

K*

duties call. Engaged daughter and I spent the better part of the weekend doing wedding related stuff. At a bridal tea yesterday, hosted by my Mother-in-law, I um, had a few too many mimosas, came home, took a nap and felt groggy for the rest of the night. No writing at all this weekend. I miss my story!

The wedding is like19 days away and I have so many lose ends to take care of I’m really beginning to feel the pressure. The kids finally booked their Hawaiian honeymoon yesterday. They went back and forth on exactly which island and for how long, but they are both happy, so the MOB (mother of the bride) is happy. And what really made me happy was finding the perfect shoes Saturday to go with my bee-u-tee-ful dress. Of course, I need to get fitted for it tomorrow, and would rather not, but whatev.

We meet tomorrow with the event coordinator at the country club to finalize the reception details. There I’m in great ands. Not only is this person the best EC I know, but she is a family friend and she adores my daughter so I know when we walk into that room after the ceremony it’s going to be picture perfect. Everyone I have worked with: photographer, florist, baker, linen, DJ, dress shops, and the church have been incredible. I feel very fortunate that we are in such good hands. And, they all want this event to come off without one glitch. I know that on their end all will be perfect. I told my daughter and son-in-law the other day after some drama not of their doing showed up at their doorstep, “Look, at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that you two show up in the church and the priest is there to marry you. Nothing and no one else matters.” And I meant it. Sure, I want this wedding to be beautiful, elegant, and memorable, but at the end of the day it’s about two people who love each other, and who want to spend the rest of their lives together pledging that promise before god.

I know issues are going to pop up, but like I told my kid, “Think of the worse case scenario, then ask yourself, does it really matter so long as you get married?”

It’s going to be my mantra for the next 2 and a half weeks.

Okay, so, does anyone have any OMG! wedding moments they’d like to share?

K*

Oh, and PS, hop on over to Murder She Writes. All week, we’re giving away prezzies to the commenters who guess who the five new lethal ladies will be.

To say that Dancing With The Stars royally sucked last night!!!!

OMG! The highlight for me was that Maks is back, but as much as I love Misty May she is not the right partner for him! Gah! Poor Karina, she is stuck with…? Hell if I remember who it was, but he was not right for her, and I could see her going much sooner than later. Susan Lucci? Talk about a deer in the headlights, and that smarmy dance partner of hers? Didn’t Jane Seymour have him a couple of years ago? Shivers. Sadly, I was not feeling the two new dancer girls at all, or Corky or the other new guy. I was sooo disappointed.

The biggest laugh and show stealer came when Cloris Leachman called Len a bastard for giving her a 5. As entertaining as that was (watching her dance was not) the show didn’t get started for me until Warren Sapp and the cutie from Down Under took the floor.

Sigh. I hope half of them go home tonight.

That’s all I have to say.

Anyone else?

K*

And hitting the ground running. That was the quickest 2 days of my life.
Today is my youngest daughter’s 25th birthday! I can’t believe it. Time sure flies by. The big bachelorette and bachelor parties were this weekend. I have seen neither since my return home last night, but my spies tell me they are alive.

The wedding is less then a month away now, and I have a deadline that has crept up on me. Hitting forehead against desktop. Why did I actually think I had some wiggle room? My editor called me Friday morning in Tahoe to go over the 100 pages I sent her. The 100 pages I rewrote 53 times. She liked! Well, there are a few things I have to change but overall she loved the characters and their story. Whew. But she wants another 100 pages the week of the 29th, plus the changes. And oddly, I am not worried. I know exactly where this story is going. It will be more a matter of my typing speed and back holding up. Even though I had to rewrite those first 100 pages so many times it allowed me to get to know my characters, especially my hero, Stefan, who has been the reticent one. His lady, the Princess Arinarhod, is a pistol. Love her. And I love how she confounds Stefan.

So, for me, deleting chapters at a time, then rewriting them only to delete them again works.

Have you ever had to do that? Delete rewrite, delete rewrite, then delete and rewrite some more?

K*

Between deadlines, taxes (argh! But at least they are done!) wedding planning, (only 31 more days!), all of the other time sucks of the writing biz, and life, I’m toast. I just want to go veg, and that is exactly what I’m going to do.

I’m heading out to the great outdoors tomorrow morning. I’m Tahoe bound and can’t wait to get up there and do absolutely nuttin’. Except eat, read, sleep and drink some good vino. At first, I was horrified to learn that the place I’m staying has no Internet. But on second thought, I’m glad it doesn’t. I’ll be with family and commune with nature and hope the bear that broke into the house last week doesn’t come back. I am taking the laptop, I mean, I have this new series that is burning like hell to be written, and I can’t wait to get a few chapters down. I can’t help myself.

So, try not to have too much fun while I’m gone, I’ll catch up with I get back. If the bear doesn’t eat me.

K*

Dear Karin,

I’m going nuts and hope you can help me! I have a book that’s currently out on submission – with some partials and a full out. That’s great, but the submission process for that book took so long that I’m almost finished with my next book. I don’t want to start sending out new queries for a different book and maybe catch the eye of one agent with one book and another agent with a different book. (Especially since the books would hit different markets.)

Should I just stop obsessing and start querying? Or should I wait?

Signed, Obsessed.

Dear Obsessed,

You have me obsessed! What are you waiting for?? Get that story out there!!! And here’s why, the process, as you have already experienced, can take freakin’ forever and who is to say you will snag an agent with the book that’s already out there? And even though the work may be different markets, a well-rounded agent reps all of an author’s work. And for the sake of argument, let’s just say two different agents do ask to rep each book, in that case you need to explain the situation to both, get their feedback, or do some more research (and as an aside and this goes out to everyone: Always research an agent before you query them) and pick one for the full scope of your career. Chop, chop, Obsessed, get that work out there!

Karin*

Okay I want to stress the do your research first thing (and Obsessed I’m not implying you didn’t but as I answered your question it made me think of many who do not).
So, why on earth would you submit work to an agent you did not research? I mean this is your career! I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this in a subject line: Need Agent Help Now! Then to open the email and read: Agent So and So requested a full of my romantic suspense, does anyone know anything about her???

Signed, Desperate for information!

That, my friends is just really bad business. And there is no excuse for it. Do. Your. Research! Look at an agent’s author list, contact their authors. Check PM for deals. Check Predators and Editors for black marks. Ask questions. Lot’s and lot’s of questions. And when an agent offers, ask more questions. Ask for their author list and their author’s emails to contact them. If they will not give them to you, walk away. They are hiding something. Also agency contracts? They are not written in stone. If there is something you don’t like strike it. It’s your career, and you have the right to be comfortable with your agent.

Okay, ‘nough said.

Ciao for now,

K*

today, over at Murder She Writes. We’re talking donuts and obsessing.

K*

Can not exist without questions, ladies and gents!!! Send me questions! Karin@KarinTabke.com

I do have some exciting news to share though, my uber good friend, Edie Ramer, finalled in the American Title contest with her book DEAD PEOPLE!!!!! I read the first version and smiled while I read it (Edie has a wonderful sense of humor). She has since revised and it kicks more ass.

I’ll keep you posted on the contest front, I believe it launches in January.

Now, send me questions!

K* who is off to chop off more Viking heads!

PS, real quick, I have to share a funny with you. Last week I get a phone call from my mother-in-law who is an avid reader. She’s at our local BN.

Phone rings, Karin answers, “Hello.”

Mom, “Karin?” (she always does that, like who else answers my phone?)

“Yes, mom, it’s me.”

“Who’s that writer friend of yours who wrote that book?”

I pull the phone away from my ear, looked up at the ceiling, and rolled my eyes, then put it back to my ear and asked her, “Mom? If you had to hazard a guess, how many writer friends would you say I have who write books?”

She laughs and says, “Oh, yeah.”

“So? Be specific, which writer friend and which books?”

“You know, your friend, the one we had dinner with in New York.”

I had to laugh again because I know which dinner she meant and there were three of my writer friends. But she knows Allison very well, and is waiting with bated breath for her next book so I knew it wasn’t her, but I do know she gobbles up Rocki’s Bullet Catcher books.

“Rocki, mom?

“Yes! Rocki! Her, you know those guys she writes about.”

“Bullet Catchers, Mom. Her next one is NOW YOU DIE.”

“NOW YOU DIE? But the guy here said it was HIDE something. I read it already.”

I shake my head, I mean how hard is it for the clerk to really look at the computer? “He’s mistaken, Mom, the trilogy is FIRST YOU RUN, THEN YOU HIDE, NOW YOU DIE is the third one, it released last week.”

“Okay, I’ll go find it.”

She calls back. “They don’t have it!”

“I guess they sold out already. Good for Rocki! Did you order it?”

“I did, now I’m coming over there to get something to read in the mean time.”

She knows my to-be-read pile is towering. She depleted it a bit.

I love my mil.

Funny how that keeps happening.

I won’t be around much today. Hubby and I will be gone for the better part of the day. A dear friend of the family passed away a week ago yesterday and today is her funeral, to be followed by one hell of a party. No mourners allowed! That’s how Barb wanted it. Bright, cheerful colors and a party thrown in her honor. I can see her smiling right now and hear her cute little voice reminding us all to be happy. Sigh, she was one of the good ones who got away too early, and I’m going to miss her joi de vivre.

Her family was one of the very lucky ones to have her as a daughter, sister, wife, mom, mother-in-law, and grandmother. I was lucky to call her friend.

Every time I see her in my mind’s eye she is smiling, and so she makes me smile. I know she is no longer in pain and is now with her loved ones who went on ahead of her. So for Barb it’s all good, for those of us she left behind? We’ll find a way to go on until the times comes when we will all meet again,

So to Barbara, we love you, sweetie, rest in peace, baby, and never stop smiling!

K*

Tomorrow, the small but mighty Black Diamonds RWA chapter is having an author appreciation tea at a tea house here in town. Can’t wait! But I have to tell ya, while they do a good job, a couple of gfs and I went to a quaint B&B in Alameda a couple of Sundays ago to scout out a venue for my other RWA chapter’s holiday get together, and O.M.G! The Innkeeper had the scones nailed!!! The Devonshire cream was Devonshire cream flown in straight from those Devonshire cows in England! The tea was the best I’ve ever had, as well as the savories, and the everything else. I love high tea and well, I want to be able to make scones like Susan at the Webster House does.

Okay, I want one of those scones, now! It’s Friday so, y’all know I’m over at Murder She Writes blathering away. I have a busy ass weekend lined up, and while I’m writing today, I think I’m going to take the hubster out to dinner tonight. I want a steak. A big, fat, juicy, rare steak, a fresh green salad with lots of blue cheese crumbles on top, and a really mellow oaky glass of cab.

Mmm, scones and steak. I need to eat breakfast!

We go out at least one usually two nights a week for dinner. We live in a small town so the options are limited, so we usually have Mexican food, which I love, but Thai too, and sometimes Italian, but tonight we’re going out to the Delta to a restaurant that has a great grill.

What’s your fave out to dinner cuisine?

K*