SFFMP 161: Handling Foreign Rights Yourself, When to Incorporate, and New Audiobook Options

On today’s show, Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay answered some listener questions and shared their notes from the workshop that Jo and Lindsay attended in October, Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katherine Rusch’s Business Masterclass. It was a week long workshop that covered dealing with Hollywood offers, handling foreign rights offers without an agent, increasing writing productivity, estate planning and tax stuff for authors (including when it makes sense to incorporate and which type of corporation in the US), and updates from Kobo on their plans to add audiobooks to their catalogue, among many other topics.

Here are some of the specifics of what the gang covered today:

• Jo and Lindsay jumping into Patreon (right as Patreon changed their pricing structure and left folks in an uproar, of course!)
• New podcasts that Lindsay is checking out: Kevin J Anderson’s Creative Futurism and Mark Coker’s Smart Author podcast out of Smashwords.
• Whether NetGalley is useful for indie authors or primarily aimed at small presses.
• If it’s okay to sell print and audiobooks in other stores if your ebooks are in KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited at Amazon.
• Whether a pen name needs a separate social medial platform, website, and Goodreads account.
• Whether an author with a new series ready to go should consider self-publishing or traditional publishing right now.
• Saving money on taxes as a writer by incorporating.
• The importance of getting an accountant that specializes in finances for creative people, such as authors, artists, musicians.
• Keeping in mind that all the books you write are pieces of intellectual property and as such have some value.
• Tips for hiring a virtual assistant (or nine).
• Pricing for libraries if you’re trying to get your ebooks picked up by them.
• Kobo to add audiobooks to its store.
• Going non-exclusive with ACX or producing an audiobook through Findaway Voices in order to take advantage of some of the other up-and-coming markets besides iTunes/Amazon/Audible. Also being able to choose your price in these other marketplaces.
• Why you may want to set up your books at IngramSpark as well as CreateSpace.
• Why you don’t need an agent to negotiate on foreign rights deals.
• Waiting for publishers in other countries to approach you versus methods of gaining their attention.
• What to expect from foreign rights sales in terms of money and reception of your books in other countries.

That’s it for this week. Keep writing!

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