In a Growing Market, Child-Size Advances

The letter from Barbara Markowitz, a Los Angeles literary agent, raised a provocative question. Children’s books, she wrote, are known to represent the fastest-growing segment of publishing. But if so, Markowitz wondered, “why aren’t the advances and royalties paid to children’s-book authors commensurate with this expanding market?”

For the author of a book aimed at preschool children, an advance of $2,000 is not uncommon, Markowitz reported in a telephone conversation later. Once, she said, she expressed surprise to an editor who proffered such a figure. “He said: ‘We’re in prehistoric times,’ ” Markowitz said.

Maybe so, but as it happens, illustrator Chris van Allsburg split an $801,000 advance from Houghton Mifflin for the book version of “Swan Lake.” Maurice Sendak probably had to borrow a Brink’s truck to cart home the advance that Farrar, Straus & Giroux gave him for “Dear Mili,” an original Grimm fairy tale the house bought just for Sendak.

Francine Pascal, creator of the “Sweet Valley High” series, routinely commands advances of around $50,000 for young-reader books that are written by a committee that Pascal supervises. Ann M. Martin, author and creator of the wildly successful “Baby Sitters Club” series, also earns comfortable, five-figure advances.

But in Salt Lake City, a prolific and veteran writer of books for the 8-to-12-year-old market named Ivy Ruckman said, “I have been writing for 16 years, and if I depended on royalties and advances, I would go down the tubes.”

If book-writing were her sole support, Ruckman said, she could not support herself. “I would have to be writing three books a year, and I’m not going to do that, I don’t want to dilute my work like that.”

As it is now, said Ruckman, “I think the question is how much more the publishers make above what they are going to share. There’s just not too much trickle down to the authors.”

One difference between books for younger readers and books for adults lies in the structure of the deal. A book for very young children, first of all, is likely to be a picture book. In rare cases, an author will illustrate his own book. More often, the author will share royalties and advances with an illustrator. Unlike adult books, moreover, most books for children and young adults are structured as “hard-soft” deals; that is, contracts for both hardcover and softcover editions.

Many such deals are put together by packagers, thriving middlemen whose presence is much more keenly felt in the children’s market than in adult-book trade.

Print runs are likely to be much smaller, but children’s books also tend to have a far longer shelf life than their adult counterparts. As one editor of children’s titles put it, “Children’s books really are published for the backlist.” If a big-selling adult title is visible on shelves for a matter of weeks or months, “children’s paperbacks can be displayed for much, much longer,” this editor said.

Because new children enter each age group every year, the children’s-book market also is self-replacing. As a result, a book for children that was popular 20 years ago may remain popular, and may sell just as steadily today. This timelessness means that even with a low advance, “an author may in fact earn more money over the years than for an adult book,” the editor said. “The potential is certainly there.”

Amy Berkower, one of the most successful agents for children’s books in New York, disputed the suggestion that advances had remained stable. While some of her authors, like Pascal, Martin or Jim Howe, bring in especially large numbers, “I also sell books for $5,000 to $6,000,” Berkower said. “For those books, that is not an unfair advance.”

Such news was of scant comfort to Mary Batten, an author in Los Angeles of both children’s and adult titles who said the advances she has been offered recently for children’s books were no larger than what publishers proposed 20 years ago. Based on her own experience, Batten said, “It has been just amazing to me to read about the booming book business in the arena of children’s publishing.”

Superstars exist in any field, Batten said, and their huge remunerations should not be taken as any kind of norm. “I’m just talking about your general author of children’s books,” she said, a breed she sees as seriously endangered.

“I am obviously not depending on children’s-book writing to make a living,” Batten said. Other than the superstars, “I don’t see how anyone can support themselves solely on children’s books.”

Batten, who has turned to “a whole range of writing,” mostly for adults, said she had a question for the ostensibly successful publishers of children’s books.

“Where is the money going?” Batten asked. “Why aren’t they sharing the bounty with the authors?”

One literary agent in New York suggested the answer may be that “children’s books are still sort of like the stepchild. They are not totally taken seriously. Even though they are making money, they are still just ‘juvie’ books.”

Five years ago, Wilton, Conn.-based Janus Adams was just another disgruntled parent complaining about the lack of culturally diverse learning materials. Today she is not only an award-winning publisher of children’s educational materials but the founder of “Harambee: The Book Club for African-American Families and Friends.”

With a $19.95 life-membership fee, “Harambee”--an African word that translates to “Let’s all pull together”--is based on what Adams calls “the feelings that we share as African-Americans when news of a good book find is passed from friend to friend.

“When it comes to positive, beautiful images of ourselves--from those of us most privileged to those most disadvantaged--we have all been deprived,” Adams added.

Only about 100 black-oriented bookstores exist in the United States, Adams said. “This naturally impacts what publishers can undertake, thus worsening the outreach even further.”

But Adams believes most publishers are operating under a false perception regarding the viability of an African-American book-buying market, and she is hoping that “Harambee” will demonstrate the vitality of that market.

Offering titles that range from Bill Cosby to Paul Robeson, Adams’ brainchild reflects a move toward specialization in book clubs. Late last spring, for example, Circulo de Lectores, the first nationwide Spanish-language book club, also was launched. Circulo de Lectores offers works by contemporary Latin writers as well as U.S. best sellers in translation, health guides, children’s books and religious and reference works.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: In honor of 40 years of publishing Isaac Asimov, a writer of fiction, nonfiction and “fanciful limericks,” Doubleday recently offered up this laudatory rhythm of its own:

“They say that in the Beginning,

Doubleday couldn’t help winning

when we published young Isaac,

whose talents were seismic,

Now 40 years hence we’re still grinning.”

WINNERS: Melissa Green, William Logan and Jeffrey Harrison are the most recent recipients of the Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poet Awards. The honor is presented annually by the Academy of American Poets.