I was thrilled by the paltry flat $6000 they paid me to edit the book. No royalties. I was young and just so flattered that someone would actually pay me real money for something writing-related. And $6000 was like a third of a year’s rent! Score!

The book went on to four printings and over a hundred thousand copies sold in just the first six months and is still going strong several years later. I try not to think about it too much, or I want to cry.

Um… Well, because I didn’t have an agent, my first novel was (“allegedly” as I now put it) published by someone in his garage with a lot of good intentions, very little business acumen, and NO CASH!

In short, an agent sells your shit, gets you paid for it, and takes a paltry 15% for his/her trouble.

Plus, I now have an agent whose whole business is built around foreign rights.

http://www.brailleinstitute.org/los_angeles

In my (limited, I admit) experience, they have been great about responding to requests for Braille versions of books. If I understand it correctly, they do not have to buy subrights to make a Braille edition, which speeds up the process immensely. They will also provide audio versions of books, but they are usually manufactured to be played on an atypical playback system. They aren’t for commercial use.

If you know someone who could use this information, please pass it on.

You aren’t published there yet, are you? If so I’ll be sure to pick something up while I’m there next summer.

Like, if there was a braille Chinese copy of “Old Man’s War” that would be a definite “I kick ass” moment, would it not?

An unfortunate mind worm – any time I see “Estonia”, I have flashbacks to Elbonia. Want to take third class there?

ps: As a long time lurker, first time poster I’ve gotta put my obligatory gush about how much I love the Scalzi works and how I preordered ZT and The Sagan Diaries months and months in advance for my boyfriend’s birthday.. then proceeded to be unable to wait when they arrived and gave them to him early so *I* could read them! :)

True. But given that the most oft-cited stat is that most agents reject more than 95% of the material they receive, and many more besides are content enough with their current client lists that they are not open to new ones . . . well, those chances seem astoundingly small, too.

But then again, as you further point out, it’s all subject to the vagaries of subjectivity and timing, anyway.