Yes, we discussed commonly misused words back when The Editing Hour was a semi-regular post, but there are so many, many more. So I think today we should take a break from Facebook and Twitter for a few minutes to pay homage to the English language. When I quote, I’m quoting from Chicago 16.

1. Altogether vs. all together: Although my parents were altogether angry that I burned the turkey, they were happy that we were spending Thanksgiving all together.

2. All right vs. alright. It’s all right, all right?

3. Anyone vs. any one: Is anyone home? Have you seen any one of my golf clubs?

4. Avenge vs. revenge: To avenge is to exact something for a wrong (My grudges were avenged.) Revenge is usually used as a noun, but as a verb means to “inflict harm on another out of anger or resentment.”

5. Averse vs. adverse: “Adverse means ‘strongly opposed’ or ‘unfortunate’ and typically refers to things, not people” (The adverse weather conditions caused the hikers to turn back before lunch.) “Averse means ‘feeling negatively about’ and refers to people” (I am averse to eating spinach.)

5. Bemused vs. amused: Bemused means “bewildered” or “distracted,” not amused.

6. Beneficience vs. benevolence: Beneficience means capable of doing good; benevolence is the acting of doing a good deed. “The first term denotes a quality, the second conduct.”

7. Biannual vs semiannual: Biannual means every two years while semiannual means twice a year, or every six months.

8. Enormity vs. enormousness: I discussed this one last time, but I have to hammer it home. Enormity does not mean largeness. It means “monstrousness, moral outrageousness, atrociousness.” Enormousness means “abnormally great size.”

9. Flammable vs. inflammable. They mean the same thing. Because so many people mistakenly believed inflammable meant not combustible, the term flammable was introduced to avoid dangerous confusion, and now has become the standard.

10. Feel bad vs. feel badly. My dad used to say, “You smell like a horse—with your nose.” To feel bad is to be sad or sick. To feel badly is to touch something unskillfully. In other words, it’s feel bad, not feel badly.

11. Forego vs. forgo. To forego is to go before. To forgo is to go without. (Just remember “fore” is in “before.”)

12. Reason why: Although “the reason because” is incorrect, according to Chicago 16, “the reason why” is just fine: “Although some object to this supposed redundancy of this phrase, it is centuries old and perfectly acceptable English.”

13. Less than vs. fewer than: These are two phrases I hear people confuse all the time. When discussing counting nouns (nouns that take an “s” in the plural like “pens,” “bananas,” and “cars,” use fewer than. When discussing partitive nouns (nouns that can’t be counted like “coffee,” “sun,” and “wind,” use less than.

14. If vs. whether: I run into this one all the time in my own writing. I’m never sure which one to use, but I generally go with “whether.” Here’s what Chicago 16 has to say about the difference: “Use whether … to introduce a noun clause (he asked whether his tie was straight) and when using if would produce ambiguity. “If you say, ‘He asked if his tie was straight,” that could mean whenever his tie was straight, he asked. … ‘Call me to let me know if you can come’ means that you should call only if you’re coming; ‘Call me let me know whether you can come’ means that you should call regardless of your answer.”

That’s all for now, folks. But since today is the first day of March, tell me: Is it coming in like a lion or a lamb where you live? Bonus points for anyone who can use one of the above commonly misused words (correctly) in your weather report.

A Writer/Editor on the Reality of Royalties

If you’re thinking about writing books, it’s helpful to know some of the basics about how much money to expect, how advances work, and when—if ever—you’ll collect royalties. There’s much confusion out there, especially since all we generally read in the press is that Sarah Palin got $5 million for her book, Barack Obama $500,000 for his. Or that “Tiger Mother” Amy Chua received an advance “in the high six figures” for her controversial memoir on child-rearing.

I did some quick research, added to it what I know from my own experiences as an author and editor, then ran this summary by a few agents and editors to make sure it’s sound.

For starters, forget that $5 million advance. Most first-time book authors are lucky to get $50,000. (And at a small house or academic press, $5,000.) Any advance that is six figures is considered strong, tiger mother or no. In these tentative times, you have to be a pretty big celebrity—or an author who’s already got a track record of producing bestsellers—to earn in the sevens.

What’s more, that advance doesn’t all come at the front-end, and it’s shared with an agent. Read on….

Advances
An advance is actually an “advance against royalties”: A publisher gives you money when you sign a contract to produce a book, but you have to earn that money back through book sales before you start earning additional money from royalties.

Suppose your book will be published in hardcover and will sell for $20. If your royalty is 10 percent you will get $2 per copy sold. If you get a $10,000 advance, you will need to sell 5,000 copies before the book “earns out” and you start to receive additional royalties.

The amount of the advance is based on how many books a publisher thinks it can sell. Classically, an advance reflected a book’s earning potential in the first year, less costs to the publisher (for designing the cover, paying for paper, printing, binding, shipping—not to mention marketing and publicity). This isn’t always true any more.

Advances are almost never paid out all at once. Traditionally, half of the agreed upon amount was paid on signing the contract, with the other half due once the revised manuscript was delivered and accepted by the editor. In recent years, publishers have often been dividing payments into thirds, payable one-third on signature of the contract, one-third on delivery and acceptance of the manuscript and one-third on publication. (On my latest book, my agent negotiated one-half upfront, then one-quarter on acceptance and one-quarter on publication.) More and more payments are being divided into even smaller chunks, perhaps with a another portion of the advance payable when, for instance, a paperback edition gets published.

Royalties
Authors agree to accept as payment for writing and delivering a book either a percentage (royalties) of the profits from the book’s eventual sales, or else a straight flat fee (work for hire).

Under a standard book-publishing contract, authors earn a royalty on each book sold. Hardback royalties on the published price (list price) of trade books usually range from 10 to 15 percent. On trade paperbacks it is usually 7.5.

An “escalator” means that the royalty rate rises after an agreed sales threshold has been reached; for example, the royalty might be 10 percent for the first 5,000 copies, 12.5 percent up for the next 5,000 copies, and 15 percent thereafter. Royalties for special sales—books sold at special prices—may be lower, e-book royalties higher.

Some publishers may offer lower royalties by basing them on the “published price” rather than the “price received”—i.e., a percentage of the publisher’s receipts from booksellers, which is usually much lower.

Work for hire
In certain cases, a publisher may approach you to write a particular book or part of a text on a payment-only basis or as a work for hire. In these cases you will not receive royalties and you may not even hold the copyright.

Different publishing houses, different books, different advances
Most of the books we see in bookstores and on bestseller lists come from what we call ‘trade’, or general, publishing. But there is also academic publishing, professional publishing, and educational publishing.
Manuscripts may be printed in hardcover, trade paper, or mass-market editions. And then there are e-books. Whether a book is published as one or the other is determined by other books on the market, review potential, the concept and intended audience, and the quality of the writing. Sometimes paperback rights are sold separately–even to another publisher.

In academic, educational, and professional publishing, advances are small to paltry, and royalty rates tend to be lower than those for general trade titles; the payoff may be in robust sales for a built-in audience. In trade publishing, advances to authors are standard, but not the huge advances that attract headlines, especially for first-time authors.

Titles with color illustrations integrated throughout may have lower royalties because of the higher production costs.

The fine print
Almost all traditional publishers issue royalty statements every six months. This means that almost all authors are paid only twice a year and then only if their advances have earned out and there are royalties owed to them. Further, even if their advances have earned out, authors still never know how much money, if any, they will receive during any given pay period. This is because, usually, until receipt of the royalty statements, they never know how many books they have actually sold, or what reserve against returns is being held by the publisher for that pay period.

Reserves against returns: Unlike most merchandise, creative works like books and CDs are sold on a returnable basis. That means that if a retail bookstore orders 100 copies of an author’s book and doesn’t sell any of them, then the bookstore can return all 100 copies to the publisher, for credit—which the publisher charges back against the author’s royalties, as well. (Mass-market paperback books have only their covers stripped and returned, while the books themselves are required to be destroyed. Sales of these stripped books are illegal.)

In order to avoid overpaying the author, the publisher will withhold a percentage of the author’s royalties against returns. These returns tend to be higher at the outset, as reserves usually taper off during a book’s life. If, for instance, unsold books are being returned to the publisher at a rate of 50 percent—meaning that out of 100,000 books shipped to retail bookstores and wholesalers (who also stock outlets such as supermarkets), 50,000 books have already been returned unsold—then the publisher may withhold 50 percent of the author’s royalties, as a reserve against returns. (The amount of the reserve is determined by the publisher.)

Subsidiary rights: The licensing a book for foreign markets, magazines, movies, etc.) will increase an author’s income for it. However, there is no guarantee that a book will ever produce any sub-rights income.

Royalties are paid only on the sales of new books. Under current copyright law, authors earn no royalties whatsoever from the sales of used books, no matter how many times the used books are resold.

To give a brief summary, the biggest changes in CMS 16 are expanded information on producing electronic publications, including web-based books and e-books; an appendix on digital technology; a glossary of terms associated with electronic and print publishing; and a host of changes to Chicago’s recommendations regarding editorial style. (Note that I said “recommenations.” CMS is a guidebook, not the law. If you want to drop the comma before “and” in a series in your WIP, go for it.)

As for the editorial style changes, Amy Einsohn, author of The Copyeditor’s Handbook, went through CMS 15 and 16 page by page and compared the two, then typed up a 22-page handout outlining all the changes. For a copy of that handout along with 43 minutes of audio files and access to a forum in which to ask Amy questions, you can sign up for the distance version of What’s New in Chicago 16.

Meanwhile, a few highlights:

On Grammar
There are now new sections on parallel structure, problematic words like “enormity,” and bias-free language. (Expect a post from me soon on those problematic words!)

On Punctuation
1. Reminder not to put two sets of m-dashes in the same sentence.

2. Clarification that n-dashes mean “up to an including” or “through” and are not to be use with “from” or “between.” Eg: “The years 1930-1939 were difficult for everyone,” but “The years from 1930 to 1939 were difficult for every one.”

3. When a title or quotation ends with an exclamation point or question mark AND the sentence requires an exclamation point or question mark, include both marks if they are different. Eg:

Have you seen Help?!