[00:00:01.610] - Sunyi
Hi, I'm Sunyi Dean.

[00:00:03.770] - Scott
And I'm Scott Drakeford.

[00:00:05.980] - Sunyi
And this is the publishing Rodeo podcast. In 2022, we both launched debut novels in the same genre with the same publisher in the same year. But despite having very similar starts, our books and subsequently each of our careers went in very different directions.

[00:00:22.050] - Scott
That pattern repeats itself throughout the industry, over and over. Why do some books succeed while others seem to be dead on arrival?

[00:00:30.650] - Sunyi
In this podcast, we aim to answer those questions and many more, along with how to build and maintain an author career.

[00:00:38.570] - Scott
Everyone signing a contract deserves to know what they're really signing up for. In an industry that loves its secrets, we'll be sharing real details from real people. We'll cover the gamut of life as a big five published author, from agents to publishing contracts, finances and more.

[00:01:00.770] - Sunyi
Welcome to the Publishing Radio podcast, where every week we find new ways to make Scott Drakeford cry. And this week we have with us Nick Binge, the author of Ascension. And I first encountered Nick when I saw Harper shilling copies of his book, his Arc advanced reader copies on Twitter. And the description intrigued me a lot, so much that I posted and asked very nicely if they would like to have one of my first born children in exchange for an Arc. And that point, Vicky Leach, who's Nick's editor and also my UK editor, commented and said there's no need for first born children, just like some of their blood or something would be sufficient. Anyway, I got the Arc of Ascension and read it and was really, really happy to give an endorsement for it. But we're going to talk to Nick today about all the fun things involving film rights and foreign translations and big sales and stuff like that, because you might think it won't happen to you, but it could do, it just happened to someone. And also, to be honest, there's so little information about that side of publishing. Like when I was looking into it, as scant as information was, there's still more information about what it's like to be mid list and what it is like to navigate film deals and translation rights and all that jazz.

[00:02:16.160] - Sunyi
So, yeah, feel free to introduce yourself, Nick, even more than we already have.

[00:02:20.590] - Nick
Hi, I'm Nick. I just go on record and say I still never got any of that blood SUNY, so I'll be keeping an eye out for that at some point. And yeah, I think Sunny's basically covered everything. I'm author of Ascension, which I've been really fortunate and really lucky that certainly in the publishing terms has seen a lot of success in a lot of different areas. But I think it's easy to see and I think you talked about this a bit before in the podcast, but it's easy to see these kind of successes from an external perspective and think that people have just immediately hit big. And people don't really talk about the years that go in beforehand or kind of the pitfalls and other things that are going on. So, yeah, I was writing for years before any of this happened, but it has happened. I'm big fan of the podcast and keen to just kind of shine a light a little bit on kind of some of the nitty gritty, some of the contractual stuff that's involved as well with film rights, some of the kind of terms and conditions and what they mean.

[00:03:21.520] - Nick
Because when I was going through it, literally every time I got sent something, I was having to contact my agent or someone to be like, I don't know what any of these words mean, what these terms mean, I don't know what back end means, I don't know what purchase price means. I know nothing. And it would have been useful, I think, going in to have a little bit more of that information.

[00:03:44.310] - Sunyi
Absolutely. You wrote some books before Ascension, is that right? Just to give some context for it?

[00:03:49.420] - Nick
Yeah, I could do a very quick kind of yeah, go for it. What happened? I started writing a while back and I wrote a couple of novels that died on query after the classic query trenches of submitting to like 100 different agents and all of them saying some variation of it's not right for the market or I didn't fall in love with it or something like that and just kind of plugged along and keep writing. I mean, I look back at them, I look back at the first novel I wrote, which I was really proud of at the time, and now I'm like, it was terrible. I know why no agents picked that up. It's a really derivative nonsense. I kept writing and it felt like I was getting better, which was good. And so, after a couple of books that died in the query trenches, I wrote a book called Professor Everywhere, which was a little it was allowing myself to, I suppose, be a little bit more experimental. A little bit more niche and weird and kind of playing around with stuff and ended up because I was kind of frustrated with the whole querying process.

[00:04:47.820] - Nick
Submitting that to a prize. It was like a Southeast Asian literary prize thing for unpublished work. And they really liked it, they shortlisted it and then they said that they wanted to publish it. And I was like, yeah, this is it. I'm going to be a published author. And I was. But they were a very small press. And I think, looking back on it now, there's not a huge amount of difference between what they did and what I could have effectively done self pub if I had a bit more information. And I knew that guy, except for the fact that they made me sign over all my rights, which I didn't really understand or know anything about at the time. But that's part of the game. So yeah, that was fine. And I was excited to have a book and then I wrote Ascension and that's obviously where things hit it big. And I think the moment that I knew that I had something on my hands here was when I came back. As I said, I've been in the query train just before I knew how it went. I'd spent months and years waiting for rejections from people, the occasional full going out, so I wasn't super hopeful.

[00:05:51.410] - Nick
But I moved back to the UK, I lived in Hong Kong at the time and I moved back to the UK and started Querying Ascension. And to cut a long story short, in a month I had seven offers from agents and I was like, okay, this is different. This is not the experience I went through last time. That was a bit crazy. One of the reasons I went with the agent that I went with at the time. And I think this is something to think about. For those of you who are kind of out there in those trenches and looking for agents. And anyone that has to make various decisions is not just because the agent was great, but because they were part of a big and very well established and very well connected agency which I think has genuinely made a very, very large difference to certain things that have happened down the line. So they had their own quite large translation rights team and this is CNW, who are my agency in London. So they're a big agency in their own right and they've got loads of huge authors and they're fantastic, but they're also owned by Curtis Brown who are huge, so they've got all those connections there and then they were also owned at the time by just umbrellas of organizations underneath one another.

[00:06:58.700] - Nick
They were owned by Original Talent Group who were then bought later on by UTA. So technically they're owned by UTA now. And what that means is that, yes, I have my agent and yes, I have the resources at CNW, but I also have the resources of Curtis Brown and I also, when necessary, have the resources of UTA, which obviously makes a fundamental difference. It meant that I had a dedicated translation rights team as part of the agency who are working for me. It meant that Curtis Brown has dedicated book to film agents. Like their entire job is taking these books and pitching them to film people and stuff like that. And it meant that they had connections with kind of people all over the world. And I think had being at a smaller agency, I think the book still would have done well because obviously there was something marketable about it that people liked, but I don't know if it would have done as well without having those connections. And so I think that's something to be really aware of in agencies and the way that they kind of interrelate and play with one another.

[00:08:01.440] - Nick
And if you are going with an agent, thinking about the kind of those I didn't realize beforehand the idea that agencies are sometimes owned by larger agencies that are also owned by larger agencies and they all have those kind of integral connections between them in the publishing industry. So, yeah, that was that. And then Ascension went on sub. About seven or eight months later. We did a couple of edit passes with my agent. We were kind of ready to go. We went on sub in the UK first. My agent was thinking we were going to go sub on the UK first, hopefully build some buzz and then go sub on the US because he was very adamant that we were going to split rights and he was only going to offer UK and Commonwealth rights to UK publishers, which we did. That went to auction eventually between five publishers in the UK. And I can talk about how auctions work in a little bit as well. So it ended up going to auction in the UK, ended up selling to eight countries in translation, so eight foreign deals, various countries in translation at different times during that period.

[00:09:05.620] - Nick
And actually, I don't know if I can talk about it too much, but I literally just got an offer from a 9th today.

[00:09:14.050] - Sunyi
Did you talk to him about strategy before going out or did he just kind of say, this is how it's going to be, or do you know strategy?

[00:09:21.660] - Nick
Then he told me what his strategy was and I went okay, because I really didn't know very much about the industry at the time, so I didn't really feel like I was in a position where I could argue with him or wanted to argue with him. I trusted him. Sorry, go on.

[00:09:41.210] - Scott
Was that those strategy sessions or whatever you want to call it, was that part of your selection process with those seven agents that you had offered to you? How did you navigate that?

[00:09:56.430] - Nick
I definitely did ask in kind of relatively vague terms, I suppose, about strategy. I asked the things like, who are you planning on submitting it to and why, and different agents told me different things. But one of the things that did sway me to Alex was he told me when he was calling me on the call about the various resources that CNW had the book to film agents. The translation right, team all. Of that kind of stuff and how we would lean onto that to find I remember him specifically mentioning at the time the way that it's part of his strategy and CNW strategy to find diverse income streams for authors that aren't just the book deal and that you find your income streams in various ways. And that was attractive to me, obviously, and he was the only one that really actively talked about that and kind of pitched that to me, and that's very much what he's managed to do for me or we've done together since. So, yeah, that was great. And then while it was all happening and this was the bit that was I mean, it was also real at the time, right?

[00:10:53.890] - Nick
I'd gone from nothing to this five publisher auction and these translation rights and was kind of losing my mind a little bit.

[00:11:01.720] - Sunyi
When it happens, it happens quick.

[00:11:03.280] - Nick
Yeah. When it happens, it happens quickly. That's definitely true. And I think I remember really clearly, I was in bed, it was, like nine or 10:00 p.m.. I was, like, reading a book, ready to go to sleep, and I get a text from Alex that just says, remind me the age of your protagonist again. And I was like, Weird text to get at 10:00 p.m.. But I text him back around mid forty s or whatever, and he was like, okay. And I remember really specifically, people are asking because they're thinking about who might play him in a movie. And I was just like, what do you mean people? Who are these people? Are you chatting about the office? What's going on here? I kind of didn't sleep that night, basically. And then a couple of days later, basically, they booked a film. Agent Luke at Curtis Brown at the time had been getting a lot of interest, and an offer came in from a big production company that I'm not actually allowed to go into the exact details quite yet of the names and everything like that, but it was great. It was fantastic. And he said there was a lot of excitement about it.

[00:12:24.130] - Nick
And part of that is there is very much, as I call it on the discord group when we talk about it, there is very much a phenomenon in the publishing and entertainment world called the Hype Train. And when that Hype train starts going, it really starts going and it picks up steam. And what I discovered was there are so many individuals within the industry, particularly book scouts and film scouts, whose entire job is to get tickets for the Hype Train. That's their job. That's what they do. They put their ear to the ground and they listen for when the big books are getting talked. Yeah, Hype builds Hype when, for example, a book is going to a five publisher auction or something like that, and then they take that and they run to another publisher or another or a production company or something like that, and be like, here's this book. You need to get in on this. And the more that builds up, the more that builds up. And so that's kind of part of what was happening at the time, and it's why it all kind of snowballed, I think, to some degree.

[00:13:27.930] - Nick
So, yeah. And we ended up with two offers from two different production companies that we had to decide between. So there was kind of auction scenario there auction scenario in the UK. We had an auction in France, I think, as well, and then we sold the right to a riverhead in the US about a month later. And that was, again, that was an interesting strategy because his idea was we pitch it early, we build buzz, so that when we go to the US, people already know about it and they're excited about it. And that worked kind of perfectly, it seems.

[00:13:55.360] - Sunyi
It's a weird one. Sorry, I was just going to say that's a weird one. My only experience that's the other way around, because my agency is American, so the fact that I'm here, we pitched the States first, and then the UK was kind of like the afterthought, which was a bit weird to me, because for a book set in the UK, that was my target market. But I was going to ask as well if you feel able to answer. If not, we'll cut the question. But yeah, I was going to ask as well whether the percentages are the same when you do that way around. Because typically, if you sell the deal in the States, the UK side is like twelve to 15% of the original American deal. I don't know if that scales the other way if you sell UK side first, because is the US a bigger market for you still?

[00:14:35.340] - Nick
Basically, the US is still a larger market. I remember you talking about and I'm happy to talk about my deal sizes and stuff like that, that's fine. I remember you talking about the difference between your UK and your US deal. My US deal was larger, but not nowhere near to the same scale. And I think the difference was my UK deal went to auction and my US deal did not, so there was nothing to specifically push up the US deal in the same way. So my UK deal ended up being 25,000 pounds for one book, standalone book. But then my US was, I say only, but in terms of kind of percentages and things like that. The US was $40,000 for the book as well. So it was higher, but not ten times higher. And I think the auction scenario played into that. I think I would have got a lower UK deal if that hadn't been the case. I don't know. It's complicated, I guess, but we didn't have the leverage to kind of push the US deal up.

[00:15:32.640] - Sunyi
You've done really well out of it so far.

[00:15:37.850] - Nick
By no means was I disappointed. I was absolutely thrilled. It was amazing. So, yeah, that was happening. So the auction in the UK, people don't know how your auctions work. There's a variety of different ways that they can work, and I think that runs slightly different in the UK to how they are in the US. There's usually a little bit more of a kind of blind bid scenario going on. They try and kind of obviously play publishers up against each other and try and get the highest deal possible. The UK does a similar kind of thing, but I think they tend to be a little bit more transparent. So my auction was done in a couple of rounds, where basically Alex said, okay, everybody table a bid, right? And they all did. And then Alex then said what, told all the publishers, okay, this is what the highest bid is, and this is the money that is currently the highest. Now we're going to do a second round. Can everybody table the second bid? And what I found really interesting, actually, was some people tabled a second bid that was actually quite a bit lower than what the highest bid was the first time round.

[00:16:40.150] - Nick
And I think that's maybe because they didn't have the approval to offer more money, or they just wasn't there for them, but they still wanted to bid anyway, because it's not always about the money, right? There are a variety of other things, and actually, what swung it for me with half a Voyager, even though they did at the same time end up being the highest bid, what swung it for me really, was the marketing plan and marketing deck that they sent, which so good. They are very good.

[00:17:06.490] - Sunyi
They are so good at marketing. Every time I discuss Harper Voyager with friends on the UK side, I really think they are so smart and savvy. It was just between Titan who couldn't compete, and between Harper, but it's same as yours. Titan was like, we're going to offer this amount of money that we know is below the Harper one, but they were trying anyway, because they might as.

[00:17:26.930] - Nick
Well no, the same thing happened. We had an offer from Titan and they offered again, and the rebellion as well offered, but it wasn't as high as the big five could do. And then we had Shet. It was it was wildfire. So it was headline imprint that were kind of competing with Harper. Really interesting thing, actually. Really pissed Alex off by pulling out of the auction in the second round bid, quite high offer, and then the second round, they turned around and they were like, actually, we're rescinding our offer because we've decided that, I don't know, we don't have enough in house support and we don't want it anymore. Even though they actually gave an offer the first time, which was odd.

[00:17:59.730] - Sunyi
Take it personally, that's my suggestion. (laughing)

[00:18:02.890] - Nick
Yeah, absolutely. We printed out the editor who made the offer and throw darts at her face. Anyway, that's how the auction went. We made the decision. I mean, we had a couple of calls with the two kind of top competing editors to chat to them as well about vision and stuff like that, and then we made the call to go with Harper Voyager, and then, interestingly, with the film stuff in terms of auction, as it were. It wasn't really an auction in the state. That industry is far more opaque, if any industry can be, than the publishing industry. As I've discovered, the kind of the Hollywood film industry is even more so, and basically it's like the wild west out there, and people do whatever they want. So my book to film agent didn't I believe all he said to the production companies that were bidding were you're in a competitive environment? He didn't say how many other people were bidding. He didn't say what their bids were. He was just like, be aware you're in a competitive environment, just to push them up. Which, I mean, worked in the end.

[00:19:10.800] - Nick
So that happened and that was great. And then when the film details came through, that was when I learned, I think, a whole bunch of new terminology that might be interesting to anyone who ends up getting an option or offered an option or has interest from somebody else.

[00:19:28.360] - Sunyi
Can I start out a basic first and say, just sorry for people who are listening? And I'll clarify this to you. So when it comes time to talking film sales, you're selling not the rights to the film, but just the option.

[00:19:41.610] - Nick
Yeah, absolutely. It's essentially kind of like a deposit to some degree, where they pay you a certain amount of money for the rights to make that film for a certain period of time. So usually 18 months, sometimes 24, sometimes twelve to 18 months is common, where they'll pay you a certain amount of money, and in that 18 months, they have that time to make the film. At the end of that 18 months, usually, if they haven't made it, they have two options. Either they say, actually, we're not making this, we've decided against it, in which case all the rights come back to you and you can shop it again if you want to, or sell it to somebody else if anybody else is interested, or they can re up that option fee. So they pay the option fee again for a further 18 months. They're like, well, we still want to make this, but it's going to take us a little bit more time. We're going to pay you another option. And so that's the initial amount. And then when the film or TV show actually gets made, they then pay you the full amount, which is called the purchase price for the rights, which is usually significantly higher.

[00:20:49.260] - Nick
But what's interesting is anybody can buy an option to a film, right? So often it's production companies, but sometimes it's individuals. So it might be an individual screenwriter who is like, oh my God, I love this. I want to try and adapt it and try and sell it myself to a studio. It might be a director who's passionate about it. Sometimes it's even actors. That happens sometimes when they get really excited about books. But often, often it's production companies one.

[00:21:15.850] - Sunyi
Thing I was going to ask a question.

[00:21:17.190] - Nick
Sorry, go on.

[00:21:17.750] - Sunyi
Which is, did either your film agent or Alex ever talk to you about whether any of those particular groups made a film more likely? Because an option is usually the point at which most books stay and the film doesn't ever appear, which is fine, it's free money. But I just wondered if any of them ever said, like, whether a production team buying those rights versus, say, a random screenwriter made it more or less likely for it to ever actually happen.

[00:21:40.190] - Nick
I think a production company is going to make it more likely because they've got a whole team working behind them, right. And they'll have more experience doing that than an individual. I suppose that depends who the individual is. You know what I mean? If, like, I don't know, Leonardo DiCaprio decides that he wants to buy the option to your film, there's probably more likely than like, a random screenwriter in La. That's all I'll go. So a production company are kind of the people who, let's say they buy the option, they're going to start to put together people like the director, the screenwriter. They might start to do some casting and things like that. And then what they do is they then take this package and they bring it to a distribution studio. And so the studios are the people that provide the money. They're where the real budget for the film comes from. So when you see films that have budgets of like 50 million or stuff like that, that's studio money, not production company money. They take it to studios and hopefully get the studios to go, yeah, this looks great. We're going to fund this and we're going to distribute it, and we're going to get it in cinemas, and we're going to do all that kind of stuff that gets done.

[00:22:49.880] - Nick
And studios are then split into kind of so there are some very small studios and then there are what are called the major studios. So the majors are it's kind of like the big five are publishing the five major studios. It's universal. Paramount, Disney, Warner Bros. And Columbia, which is also Sony. Those are the five kind of majors, though I think that these days as well, the really big streaming services are being considered majors as well. So Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon, stuff like that, they're being considered major studios too. And then you get what are called the mini majors, which are things like Lionsgate, a 24, stuff like that, like slightly larger, slightly, slightly smaller studios that still have clout but don't have maybe quite the same budget as like Disney does or like Paramount does. And what's interesting, the reason this was important, contractually, is and if you're kind of in that position where you're looking at doing an option deal with a production company, is there's various ways that money can come to you through that contract. The first is obviously the option. The other obvious one is the purchase price. But sometimes, and if it isn't in there, and if you're in a position where you're negotiating this, you might want to talk to your agent about getting it in there is what's called a studio setup fee.

[00:24:10.020] - Nick
So it's basically when the production company goes to the studio and it's called setting it up, basically the studio agrees to fund them, you can get in your contract a little clause that says that you get a payout because the studio has just funded them a ton of money, right? So with a major, you might get an extra payout for a major or a slightly smaller payout for a mini major, but it's contractually written in. So even if the film doesn't get made, just the act of setting it up with a studio is another way for you to earn money and then they have to save.

[00:24:40.490] - Scott
Can I ask real quick, are all of these that you're mentioning so you've mentioned the purchase price and now potentially a studio setup fee. Are those all stipulated in the option that's bought or are those all yes.

[00:24:55.310] - Nick
So when you get the option contract, there's very clear language about when money comes to you and all of that sort of thing, all the way to the film getting made and beyond. Right. So the other thing that's usually in a contract is what's called back end, which is basically a percentage of the profits from the film. So it's usually about 2.5% or 2% of profits from the film if the film gets made. What I was told, and I believe from talking to other people that this rings mainly true, is that you will never see this money. And don't count on it. Because even if the film gets made, and even if it does extremely well, because Hollywood and film and TV producers in general, their accountants are very good at making it so that films don't make a problem classically, for example, star wars never made a profit even though it did hugely wonderfully. Well.

[00:25:48.590] - Scott
I mean, is there any potential? There probably not from the standpoint of somebody signing an option on a book. But I have read that people who maybe have a little more leverage have gone after gross percentages rather than net for that very reason, so that they're not subject to funny accounting methods.

[00:26:09.750] - Nick
There is probably some scope to make those kind of things. I think, as with all contracts, there's probably scope for just about everything, right? If you have the leverage to argue it. But I would suspect that many production companies would just say no to you. But worth asking. Always worth asking. The worst people can say is no.

[00:26:32.980] - Sunyi
I've got two questions I can throw you away, if that's all right. One is, I wondered if Alex ever discussed shopping agreements with you and if so, you could, I don't know, maybe. Explain that to listeners. If not, don't worry about it. And I guess the other question is whether there's a way for authors to look at the production companies that have offered options and evaluate them. Because obviously some of them are going to be like the film equivalent of a micropress, which might be okay, but definitely not asking out of any kind of personal interest.

[00:27:04.470] - Nick
I think the first question I don't know the answer to because I'm not sure I know what a shopping agreement is. Or maybe I have a different term. What are you thinking?

[00:27:15.720] - Sunyi
Just a friend of mine recently accepted one and I think it was something along the lines of essentially they get less money for their option. I think that was when a particular person, like a director was interested in the film option. And so the idea is they offer less money so they can then go out and possibly have a better chance of spending that budget towards acquiring a team, essentially.

[00:27:39.570] - Nick
Okay.

[00:27:40.420] - Sunyi
There were ups and downs to it, but yeah.

[00:27:45.330] - Nick
We didn't discuss that because fortunately we weren't in that position. The sound of that immediately set off like alarm bells in my head. That felt like red flag to me.

[00:27:58.010] - Sunyi
It would too. Although in this case, I will say that director right. It was a friend of ours that had basically the person who directed approached her personally, but they were basically offering like a regular option or a shopping agreement and they talked it through. And it would just be easier to ask someone who's gone through a shopping agreement, maybe because it doesn't apply to you at all.

[00:28:23.190] - Nick
Yeah, it's not something I went through.

[00:28:25.650] - Sunyi
Don't worry.

[00:28:26.870] - Nick
There's so many options, there's so many different types. That's the thing. It's so complex.

[00:28:31.810] - Sunyi
Yeah.

[00:28:32.800] - Nick
For the second though, I think it is difficult. I think you just have to try and look at what they've done. Look on IMDb, look at what they've made, look at kind of who's been involved, see if they've done any adaptations in the past. I was fortunate enough that the production company that we went with is very established, like to the point where you go on their IMDb and you recognize all of their films. So I never had any questions there. I was like, oh my God, these are important people.

[00:29:09.020] - Scott
I'm making list of all these.

[00:29:10.860] - Nick
But I think yeah, in the same way with small presses. Just Google as extensively as possible.

[00:29:16.450] - Sunyi
Yeah, I recognize some of the films they've made, but they are not in the genre. That is my book.

[00:29:22.050] - Nick
Yeah, that's the interesting thing about production companies sometimes is they don't work like publishers in the way that they have like a niche or a genre because when they kind of sell them to studios, they can sell them around to other people. You know what I mean? Yeah. It'd be more akin to an agent that's got representing various genres than, like, a publisher, if that makes sense.

[00:29:48.830] - Sunyi
No, that's really helpful, actually.

[00:29:50.420] - Nick
Thank you. So production companies do do a wide variety of things. So, for example, I'm going to ask you to cut this because I'm not allowed, and they're going to tell me, offer it if I do. But for example, my option is with who have done everything from just such a random array of things that are definitely all not in one genre by any means.

[00:30:27.040] - Scott
And it's just like so they're definitely casting Jack Black for Ascension, right?

[00:30:33.690] - Nick
Yes. Every role in your contract coming to America, saying that Jack Black, and going to take every single character. Yeah, too bad we have to cut this.

[00:30:50.450] - Sunyi
We can probably leave in the Jackpot line. It'll just be a bit weird.

[00:30:57.250] - Scott
Zero context. Just throw it out there.

[00:30:59.430] - Nick
Anyway.

[00:31:01.970] - Sunyi
Bearing in mind I wrote a lesbian vampire novel. I went and looked up this company and they made and I was like, okay, anyway, that's good.

[00:31:12.780] - Nick
That's established.

[00:31:14.310] - Sunyi
Yeah, I'll know more in a couple of weeks because I talked to them a day before your launch party. So we'll see.

[00:31:21.530] - Nick
Okay, cool. Exciting. So, yeah, I was thinking of other things I was going to say about the kind of contractual stuff. Other things are important to know, I suppose, with options are that usually the first option payment is on account, which means that it's taken from the purchase price. So when you get the final purchase price, it will be minus the first option payment. But then usually and if it's not, you should make sure that it is succeeding. Option payments are not on account. So if they go to the end of the first option period and they have to pay your next option payment, that will not be taken off the purchase price, that's an additional option payment that they need to pay you. And that's relatively standard, I think.

[00:32:09.440] - Sunyi
Did anyone ever discuss with you, like, a TV show versus film and whether that was a possibility or was film was a thing?

[00:32:16.300] - Nick
Yeah. Okay, so we had two offers and one was for a TV show and one was for a film. Those were two very specific pitches. And yeah, that was something that I thought about.

[00:32:29.250] - Sunyi
Is it true they pay you for every episode if it's a show?

[00:32:32.660] - Nick
They do. Yeah, they do. But that's complicated as well. So if it's film, they'll give you a purchase price and then they'll pay you for every episode. But that will also be on account. So let's say, for example, your purchase price is 100,000 and they're going to pay you 10,000 for every episode, but they're making ten episodes. Well, that's your 100,000 because it's all on account as taking off the purchase price. So it's not actually additional. If they went on to make a second season for some reason and made more episodes, then they might have to then pay you more. But usually it's just kind of built into the purchase price. And the purchase price you get because it's complicated and it's why it's good to ask. Kind of more money baked in at different points, like the studio setup fees. Because, as everyone will tell you, films and TV adaptations can die at any point. Like any point. Even when you think like, this is it. Like, we've got a cast, we've got a script, we've got like, yeah. People will turn around and be like, Nope, it's not happening. It's dead. And that's obviously more often.

[00:33:38.540] - Sunyi
Yeah. I had a friend whose show was filmed and died before it hit screen.

[00:33:46.240] - Nick
Because of COVID That's rough, but important to know that the purchase price, the full purchase price, is paid to the author on the first day of principal filming. So it doesn't actually need to hit screens the first day that they are on set with a camera, with an actor in front of the camera. That's the day that you get the purchase price. I think it has something to do with insurance. I think, technically, the film is insured from that day onwards. So if it does collapse at that point, the studio gets their money back because of COVID or whatever. So it doesn't really matter to them financially. Presumably, that person would still have got the purchase for that production even if the production didn't get made, which sucks in of itself.

[00:34:28.340] - Sunyi
What were your decisions like when you were looking between film and TV, if that's okay to ask.

[00:34:32.970] - Nick
Yeah, I mean, there was obvious narrative decisions about kind of what I thought the medium would work best in. There were financial decisions as well. And part of the reason that we swung the film is that they offered me more money, which is a big reason. And the film production company were significantly more big and well established, I think. And it was felt that they probably had more gravitas and likelihood to be able to push this thing through if they were really behind it. Because, actually, when it comes to kind of like, creative and narrative decisions, I'm very much not a purist. I've had a lot of people ask me, too, what do you feel about people adapting? And I'm like, they can do whatever they want with it, as far as I'm concerned. I'm putting my faith in them because I think they're such fundamentally different mediums. I think some of the best adaptations I've ever seen are absolutely nothing like the book. And some of the worst adaptations I've ever seen are trying to be too faithful to the book.

[00:35:33.050] - Sunyi
Blade Runner.

[00:35:33.940] - Nick
Yeah, blade Runner is a perfect example. Right. Annihilation is another wonderful example. Almost nothing like the plot of the book, but it still manages to capture the same vibes, things like that. I was very like, you have a vision, you run with it. You do what you do, do what you want with it.

[00:35:53.490] - Sunyi
It doesn't change, but it does boost your sales so people will discover your book in other ways.

[00:35:58.850] - Nick
Exactly, yeah.

[00:36:02.290] - Scott
Is there anything contractual related to that or is that just kind of off the record conversations you're having with those bidders in terms of faithfulness to the book?

[00:36:15.190] - Nick
Nothing contractual. I think there was obviously discussions had about like both teams were like, we really want you on board. This is an interesting thing. I see both teams were very much when they were trying to get the option, we're like, we really want you on board creatively. We want you to be part of the discussions. We really want your vision, all of that kind of stuff. And I was like, oh, that's amazing. That's really cool. But obviously nothing was written into the contract. It was kind of a gentleman's agreement, as it were. And none of that has happened.

[00:36:45.940] - Sunyi
I will comment on that, actually, because if an IP is established, it is a little different. And also the things I've heard from some other agents and people that if the IP is specifically Ya or middle grade so, for example, Twilight, the films were very true to the books and they had to do that because that fan base is expecting a true adaptation. And if it isn't a true adaptation, they're going to go tell all their teenage friends, oh, the Twilight films suck, and then they won't go see it. So I think it does depend on the IP, whereas an adult, it's like, I guess no one cares, so we just get whatever Hollywood kids.

[00:37:26.430] - Nick
Yeah, definitely.

[00:37:29.310] - Scott
Adults don't read anyway, so it doesn't matter.

[00:37:35.490] - Nick
So, yeah, I think contractually, as far as my adaptation was concerned, I think the case for certainly a lot of adult stuff is they can do pretty much whatever they want to it. If they want to turn around to me and say, we're not telling you anything. Shut up, go away, they are contractually allowed to do that as long as they pay me the money. And they've been good and they answer my questions and they talk to me and stuff, and I'm not precious and I'm not like, trying to have more of a creative say. But I think if I was someone that really wanted to have a major creative say over it, I think I would be probably quite frustrated by the process.

[00:38:20.190] - Sunyi
Did anyone ever have a conversation where they talked about basically what option offers look like in terms of size, or did they just range massively the way publishing does? I don't know if it's a fair question to ask.

[00:38:33.510] - Nick
They range hugely the way publishing does. It's almost exactly the same as a book deal, and there's very little scope of information out there about what it is. So they can be tiny. They can be like literally like, here's $500, and they can be really small, and that's quite common. And they can be like, you read about a million dollar option payments and stuff like that, which are ludicrous right. And anywhere in between.

[00:39:05.520] - Sunyi
Okay.

[00:39:05.860] - Nick
And I didn't really have a sense when I was going in, actually in, and it's true, I didn't really have a conversation with any of my agents about, is this high, is this low comparatively to other option payments? I did actually find out later on, for various other reasons, when we were getting into stuff, contractually, that what ended up being negotiated for me was the highest option payment that that particular production company had ever paid an author.

[00:39:37.710] - Sunyi
Congratulations.

[00:39:38.800] - Nick
Which, yeah, that's amazing. But I had no metric to kind of at the time to compare that against. I was just excited about big numbers piece of paper.

[00:39:47.930] - Sunyi
Do you think, like, publishing the size of option payment has any bearing on basically their attitude towards producing it and putting work in?

[00:39:57.950] - Nick
Yeah, I think it definitely does. I think it definitely does, because ultimately, that's money that they paid, like in advance, that's money that they're paid that they're not getting back, right. And if the film doesn't get made, that's money that they've thrown down the drain. And to a production company, $500 or a grand or something like that might not mean very much, and so that's fine. But if they're paying you five figures, six figures for something, then that's a lot of money that they've invested into something that might not get made. And so I think that's definitely true that there's more investment if they put more money into it in the first place.

[00:40:30.540] - Sunyi
Yeah, and I guess there was one other thing I was going to sort of ask before we take up too much of your time. There's a lot of discussion, which I always think is bogus, about how authors need platform. Need platform, need platform. And I was thinking about this recently when I think I was like a while back, I reshared one of your tweets. I was thinking, this guy does not have much of a Twitter platform, and actually most of us don't. And I just wondered if anyone ever even mentioned it, because you hear all these horror stories on Twitter of people saying, oh, an agent and publisher rejected me because my platform. And I'm sorry to say, the really cynical part of me doubts that every time it happens, unless they are writing nonfiction, I feel like none of these production companies are Googling him, going, oh my God, he's not got 10,000 followers on Twitter, let's withdraw our option.

[00:41:19.690] - Nick
Yeah, I think you're completely right. I don't think anyone in fiction is getting rejected because of the size of their platform. I think what people could get confused for adults anyway, is some people for adult anyway. Yeah. Some people are getting picked up because of the size of their platform.

[00:41:37.060] - Sunyi
Absolutely.

[00:41:37.630] - Nick
So some people, if they've got like a million followers on TikTok, and they've written a book that might move the needle in terms of them getting picked up, but nobody who's written a good book is going to have someone look at them and go, oh, you haven't got a Twitter account. Like, we can't possibly because I don't have any kind of platform. I kind of hate using social media. I've kind of forced myself to like Twitter, but all I really do is just tweet marketing stuff about my book and occasionally retweet other people and that's about it. It's a very quick story time.

[00:42:11.520] - Sunyi
Go for it.

[00:42:12.030] - Nick
I think it's very relevant. I had a run in with this a few years previously where I bought the same bogus that was being sold about. Like, you need a platform, you need a platform, right? And so I was like, okay, I'm going to make a platform. And I started this blog and I was really diligent with it. And it was like writing advice and stuff about writing. And it was really good, right? It was like, people were reading it, people were subscribing. It was a point where I was having like thousands of readers, like tens of thousands, like, people visiting the site, which was amazing, right? And I was like, this is it. I'm building a platform. It's going to be so great when my book comes out, because this is when Professor Everywhere was going to come out with my small press. And I was like, when my book comes out, I'm just going to share it on the platform and all these thousands of people are going to come on and they're all going to buy it and I'm going to be a bestseller and blah, blah, blah. And I did one post about the book where I was like, oh, by the way, thanks for hanging around on this blog.

[00:43:13.140] - Nick
Just to let you know, I've got a book coming out next month if you're interested, here's a link. And the only thing that happened was a bunch of people unsubscribed. That was it.

[00:43:25.630] - Sunyi
Wow.

[00:43:26.320] - Nick
That was the only thing that took place there's. A bunch of people like, oh, he's trying to sell me something. Not interested anymore. And I put so much work into it, I was so disillusioned it didn't move my sales and inched. Yeah, I was so utterly disillusioned that after that point, I was like, I have no time for a platform. And I've never really tried to make one since. And clearly, in terms of the publishing stuff, it hasn't made a difference.

[00:43:50.350] - Sunyi
I don't think it makes a difference. I think the people who make a difference are outliers and it is a viable path. But for me, the work involved in becoming a social media celebrity is just fucking harder than writing six books. And I'd rather write six books and have the backlog. So your mileage may vary. If you're really good at TikTok, you go for it. I fucking hate TikTok. I'm never getting back on that site from checking my Jujitsu instructors videos when he tells me to. Anyway, I thought I'd throw that in there because that's always one. It's like, I felt, in a way, like you're a really good example of a book that was very buzzy and hypey, but not on Twitter. Like, you are not very visible on Twitter, and that's not like a criticism. It's just that Twitter is not the real world. Twitter is this tiny pocket of people who kind of are, like, living in their own separate cave system from the rest of society. She says on Twitter all the time. It doesn't reflect what's going on with the people who have money, with the people who are selling books.

[00:44:50.190] - Sunyi
Not for trade publishing anyway, I don't think.

[00:44:52.440] - Nick
Yeah, I think that's definitely true. So, yeah, don't stress about a platform. If you don't have a platform, use the time to stress about writing a good book.

[00:44:59.550] - Sunyi
Yes. On that note, if you feel up to, I guess, plugging yourself where we can find you, where we can hear about you. Because at the time we're recording, your book is two weeks from release, and we're hoping to release this that week or soon after, if that's okay. But to be fair, we don't really get sales from doing the podcast. I'm not sure any of our authors do. But for what it's worth, it's worth a shot.

[00:45:22.320] - Nick
Yeah. Always worth trying to plug.

[00:45:26.530] - Sunyi
Leonardo DiCaprio might be listening.

[00:45:29.270] - Nick
He might be listening. Okay, I'm going to address this directly to Leo. If you're out there, Leo, my book's coming out at the end of April and it's great. It's about a big mountain and everyone goes crazy and people die, and you're.

[00:45:44.370] - Sunyi
The right age for it.

[00:45:45.890] - Nick
You are the right age for it, Leo. You are the right age. This could make your career, is what I'm saying, because I think you need the exposure. So keep that in mind, Leo. And if you would like to find me, where am I? I'm on Twitter, nominally, occasionally at Bingewriting and Nicholasbinge.com. I have a website and that's about it as far as platform goes, but there's kind of links to stuff there if anyone wants to check it out.

[00:46:17.220] - Sunyi
Yeah, no worries. Thanks so much, man. That was Scott. Do you have anything else? I think we've overshadowed you of this episode.

[00:46:23.370] - Scott
No, not at all. I've just been sitting here taking notes. I have a full page.

[00:46:29.450] - Sunyi
I will be taking notes, actually. Well, might be borrowing your notes when I go through doing edits.

[00:46:34.600] - Scott
There you go. Yeah. I mean, this was fantastic, right? Like, the percentage of writers who get a book deal is fairly small, and the percentage of people with a book deal who then go on to get even, just an option, right, is quite small. So getting a little crash course on what that looks like, terms to look out for. I don't know if it's helpful because who knows if I or many of us will ever be in that situation, but it is, at the very least quite interesting.

[00:47:05.560] - Sunyi
I think quite a lot of people, a surprising number, do get options. I feel like I know a lot of people who just sit on them and okay, they sit on them for years and there's probably not a chance that the books getting made and sometimes that people are buying those options to prevent from books rights getting taken. But it's free money that you get. And I guess the other side of it is for every person I know that has an actual film option, there's probably two or three that have been offered a scammy one. So I think having some awareness of what is normal is really the best defense against getting taken for a ride.

[00:47:39.210] - Nick
And I think as well, that in the same way that even the very, very established publishers do, as we all know well, if they can try and screw you in some way in your contract, they will. That's not because they're evil. Well, maybe it's because they're evil, but it's because they're capitalists and it's because that's how the companies work, right? And so it's important to be aware little things about kind of options being on account and purchase prices and stuff like that and how they all work, just to make sure that if you're being offered something, it rings true. And if it doesn't ring true, maybe you want to ask your agent why.

[00:48:17.870] - Sunyi
Yeah, I'll just throw in one last thing, which I'll probably have to move around to another bit, but just as a cautionary thing for people listening. If someone comes to you and they want to buy your film rights, that's a red flag. And that's part of why I was putting so much stress on asking Nick to define options. Because wanting to option your film is different from wanting to buy your film rights outright. And most of the people I've met who've been scammed by these kind of predatory companies, it's that someone comes in and literally takes their film rights away and they don't ever get them back. And that's not the same as optioning. It it's really rubbish situation.

[00:48:53.400] - Nick
And you should also watch. So definitely that and if anyone tries to take all your film rights, you should say no to them. And you should also watch specifically, and I think this is more common amongst slightly more predatory, smaller presses at times than Elizabeth, the big ones. You should watch for publishers that try and take your film rights too. And you should try and hold on to those because they will try and sneak that into the contract that you're signing over all of your film rights to them as well. And then they'll shop it and then they'll take a commission on when really you should hold on to those.

[00:49:23.110] - Sunyi
There's no benefit because publishers cannot make films. So they're just going to be an extra middleman, taking even more of the money, which, best case scenario, you're getting, what, 2% of the whole thing? So it's already a low amount. Yeah. Thank you so much again for all of that. Really useful information for, hopefully our listeners and definitely for people that we know and hopefully for me. I'm not sure I can say that bit, but thank you again and it's really good to meet you in person as well.

[00:49:51.450] - Nick
Yes, good to actually put faces to Twitter handles.

[00:49:56.410] - Scott
Thanks so much, Nick.

[00:49:57.460] - Nick
Amazing.

[00:49:57.880] - Sunyi
Yeah, I'll see you in a couple of weeks, man.

[00:49:59.520] - Nick
Yeah, see a couple of weeks on you. I'm excited.

[00:50:00.800] - Sunyi
you've been listening to the publishing Radio podcast with Sony, Dean and Scott Drakeford. Tune in next time for more in depth discussion on everything publishing industry. See you later.