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Collaborations are the proverbial double-edged sword  they can hurt you even
as they help you. They're fun to do, but they're harder to sell than solo
novels. If you get one with a big-name author and no one has ever heard of
you, the chances are the book will sell pretty well and you'll make some
money, but you'll do ninety percent of the work and even though a lot of
people will read the book, no one will know who you are. If you get one and
you are the big-name author, the collaboration won't sell as well as your
regular work, you'll do ninety percent of the work, and the few of your
regular fans who read the book will complain that it isn't much like your
usual work.
And now the careful readers and the math whizzes among you will be saying,  If
Collaborator A and and Collaborator B each do ninety percent of the work,
that's one-
hundred eighty percent. That doesn't add up.
Unfortunately it does. Collaborations are much more work than solo novels.
They can be much more frustrating. They present special legal problems. They
can cost you in a lot of hidden ways.
And you're saying,  Yes, but my friend and I have this idea and we still want
to do a collaboration.
All right. If you're going to do one, here are the things that I've learned
that can help you, and the things I've found out the hard way can hurt you.
"
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Always determine in advance who will do what and who will own what.
And put down your agreements in writing.
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Now you're going to say,  Okay, that one doesn't apply to me because I'm going
to be doing my collaboration with my best friend. Next!
Wait. Please. This is the most important thing that you can do, right now, to
make sure that you and your friend are still friends after the collaboration
is done. I lost a friend  a good friend  over a collaboration, and I might
have lost her anyway, but if we had written down, in advance, what each of us
would be required to do to complete an acceptable collaboration, maybe we
wouldn't have ended up never speaking to each other again.
Here are the absolute minimum number of things you need to agree on, in
writing, before you start your project.
1. Who owns each character and the universe you have created (or each part of
it), and whether either of you has the right to do solo works in the universe
or whether it can only be used for collaborative ventures.
2. What each of you may and may not do to characters owned by the other.
3. Who gets final edit on the manuscript or manuscripts, or if this will
change
from book to book, how you will determine in advance who will get final edit
each time. (And I'm telling you right now, you cannot both have final edit.
Only one person can ever have the last word. Figure out before you type the
first word who that person is going to be.)
4. How you will divide the work itself.
5. What will happen to the universe and its characters if one or both of you
want to drop out.
6. How you will resolve differences if one of you does work that the other
deems unacceptable, inappropriate, or simply wrong for the world.
7. Whose name will go first on the cover. It's going to have to be the same
one
every time, so figure it out now.
There is a further list of things that you'll need to work out in advance if
one or both of you have already sold solo works, or has an agent and/or a
publisher.
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1. Whose agent or agency will negotiate contracts and subrights.
2. Who will deal primarily with the editor.
3. Who will write outlines and treatments.
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4. How the money will be divided in both best- and worst-case situations,
and who will be the one who receives payment and will be responsible for
paying the other one.
An agent can help you with some of this stuff, but some of it you're going to
have to figure out on your own. It isn't fun. It is important.
If you're like most potential collaborators, this little list has startled
you. None of us, when we're sitting down with a friend hammering out story
concepts and shaping our universe and characters together, is thinking,  Now
who's going to get first billing on the book and who is going to edit whom,
and what happens if my friend turns out not to be able to finish his half of
the work so that I get stuck doing all of it? We're just having fun, playing
around with the magic of creation, and all the things that can and eventually
will go wrong are still a million miles away. Please believe me when I tell
you that all the best intentions in the world won't help you when things start
going wrong. Then you need to have things in writing.
"
Write a good outline and stick with it.
This doesn't seem like such a big deal. You and your friend share a vision.
You've talked endlessly about it, you know who your characters are and where
you want them to go, and the fact that you don't have the whole story worked
out doesn't seem relevant.
However  from my own experience here  the act of writing changes the vision,
and even with an outline you can end up in trouble. My friend and I had agreed
to write a book together in a universe that I created in which the heroine was
so strong in her faith and her love of her fellow humans that she transformed
and redeemed the fallen angel who was sent to lead her astray. It was supposed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]