HW: Hawkwind - Sonic Assassins

[Ian Abrahams]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Henderson Keith" <keith.henderson at PSI.CH>


> Andreas offers...
>
> >just ordered the book from Amazon.de (German version) as a "Pre-release".
> >I´m looking VERY MUCH forward to it. The passages of the book which you
> >gave me to read last December during our breakfast I think were amazing.
> >If the rest of the book is only half as good it will be the definitive
> >book about Hawkwind.
>
> German version??  Really, was this somehow part of the 'deal' that you
> got, Ian?

All publishing contracts include a translated edition clause, though sadly
in this instance I think Andreas ordered it from the German version of
Amazon, not a German edition itself :-)

>BTW, *did* you have some sort of deal (i.e., advance and
> the like) to write such a book?  How does that even work?  No need to
> publicly divulge anything you feel isn't anyone's else (darn) business.
> (I just ask 'cause my sister-in-law gets contracts to write 'small-run'
> books and was wondering how it works, though from what I'm reading
> yours isn't so 'small-run' if it's so high on the preorder rankings!...
> and I thought maybe someday I could do a 'reference' book on global
> space-rock, in the vein of the Freeman's krautrock guide and Chris
> Williams' excellent UK-Psych book, so just a one-stop-shopping
> alternative to their works, but was never sure anyone would ever care
> enough to have one (in print), given what one can now learn online,
> e.g. in the virtual pages of A-I.com and the like.)

Yes, there is a deal, and a contract, and an advance. Generally advances
against royalties are either as a percentage of cover price or as a
percentage of the price received from the distributors. The later is a
higher percentage, but it pretty much evens itself out - there is only so
much cake whichever way you try to cut it.

Particularly thank goodness for the advance. My petrol bill is sky high and
the quarter in which I was most intensive on interviews saw my telephone
bill triple!

Mind you, surprisingly good value for fifty minutes telephone time from
Cornwall to British Columbia ;-)

> Anyway, this Saf
> Publishing...they are 'part of the system' (global distribution,
> connected to some sort of major company?) or are they like a true 'indie
> label' (to use that analogy...does it work for publishing?)?  A lot
> (or heaps?!) of indie music goes through Amazon these days, yeah, so
> not so sure how to tell.

Well, they are a sort of indie label in a way - to pick-up on the analogy -
a small operation being distributed through a major. They actually like to
draw the comparision with indie record labels, finding talent (and me!) and
sending it off into the big world. Aside from Amazon (and Student World!) it
should be in Borders, Waterstones and Ottakars in the UK - and there is
American distribution also.

>
> Crikey...now which version do I buy?  How many pages is it?

See above - sadly there is only the one edition to choose from! The
publishing blurb says 224 pages, but thats less important than word count,
which is around 114,000 - 115,000 as it stands.

Ian