This month we have competition news, expert advice on working in collaboration with other writers, Ten Top Tips for promoting your non-fiction book, successes stories and ideas to inspire you plus the usual useful websites.

• Editor's News
• Successes
• Expert Advice
• Top Tips
• Useful Sites
• Inspiration

EXPERT ADVICE

Joined Up Writing - How to successfully collaborate with an other author

by Maureen Vincent-Northam

If you find the idea of penning a novel or non-fiction book daunting, why not team up with a writing buddy and complete this marathon task together? There are many advantages to co-authorship, but be sure to join forces with the right person. Choose your partner because you respect their work and their judgment, not simply because they’re your best friend.

The benefits: 

- A major writing project is less intimidating

- There’s potential for twice as many ideas

- You’ll have a built-in support system

- More writing gets done – you won’t want to let your partner down

- Editing and rewrites are halved

- Marketing is shared

Finding and communicating with your writing buddy

Your ideal writing partner could be someone at your local writers’ group. As well as the group’s monthly gathering, you might meet up once a week to thrash out ideas and swap completed chapters.

Online writing communities are great places to get together with like-minded folk – this is how Lorraine and I met. It’s easy to outline a plan of action and to send drafts and completed files by email, which is what we did when writing The Writer’s ABC Checklist. For more immediate interaction instant messenger services such as MSN are ideal.

Decide who’s doing what, when (and how)

For it to become a match made in heaven, co-authorship roles and responsibilities need to be clarified before you begin writing.

This is easily sorted if you or your writing buddy have explicit knowledge or are tackling your own specialist topics. But what happens when the borders are less obviously defined – if your book requires you to interview people for example? How will it be decided which of you gets to talk to the baked bean magnet and who gets to visit the chocolate factory?

Other things to bear in mind
It can be harder to maintain consistency when a piece is written by two authors.

It suits some co-writers to work closely together on each section or chapter of a book – particularly if they have differing writing styles. Working in this way, choosing or omitting certain words and phrases as you go, might get tedious but should help ensure the book gels together as a whole. For Lorraine and me – our writing styles are very similar – it was easier to be allotted sections dependant on our expertise, preferences and occasionally the spin of a coin.

Some publishers have their own house style. But when there are no ready-made style rules co-authors need to agree on how they will write certain words so that the work remains consistent. Many of these will be words that can be written with or without hyphens, such as email/e-mail.

A book’s ‘voice’ generally should remain the same throughout. The exception to this is when a novel depicts two diverse characters and in this instance the use of different author voices can work very well.

Joint copyright
Copyright is owned jointly in a piece of work (article, play, novel, non-fiction book and so on) which has been written by two or more authors.

Under UK copyright law joint authorship is defined as ‘a work produced by the collaboration of two or more authors in which the contribution of each author is not distinct from that of the other author(s)’. In other words each writer has to make a fair – though not necessarily equal – creative contribution to the work and simply suggesting a darn good idea doesn’t make anyone a joint author!

Copyright lasts for an author’s lifetime and 70 years after their death, or the death of the last surviving author in the case of co-authorship.

Public lending right and co-authorship
Public Lending Right (PLR) is a government-funded scheme which makes payments to authors and illustrators whose books are borrowed from UK public libraries. You need to register with the PLR office and payments due are calculated on the estimated number of times your book has been borrowed nationally.

To qualify, you don’t have to be the copyright holder but you do need to be named on the book’s title page or be entitled to royalty payments from the publisher. For joint authors, the PLR will be divided between the collaborators. This might be a 50-50 split, or a different percentage share depending on creative input, but should be worked out before you register. With the percentage share agreed, each co-author then submits a separate application.

Authors who are eligible for PLR must, at the time of registering, have their main home in the UK or the EC Member States, or Norway, Iceland or Lichtenstein.
http://www.plr.uk.com

A joint author agreement
It’s sensible to agree some basic rules, and get these down in writing at the onset so that each is clear about where they stand if one author decides to abandon the project.

There have been court cases where a joint copyright owner was not allowed to exploit a copyright work without the agreement of the other joint owner or owners. The effects of such a case can be lessened by an initial contract outlining the forms of use permitted by each joint owner.

Draw up a document outlining the rights held by individuals and what should happen if one of you should drop out. This needn’t be a formal document drawn up by a legal professional, but it must be signed, and a copy held by each co-author. The main points to cover in an author agreement are:
 
- The name of each collaborator signing the agreement 
- The project title (or working title) 
- How the workload is to be divided 
- How royalties will be split 
- Whether the co-writer can carry on with the idea if the other pulls out 
- If an author leaves, whether the remaining co-writer can use their work, or research data.

Every collaborative relationship is different. Whether you meet up regularly in real-time, chat on the phone, or communicate by email, the most important thing is to find a system that is an enjoyable and productive experience for both of you.

Maureen Vincent-Northam is the co-author, along with Lorraine Mace, of The Writers ABC Checklist, a guide for writers aiming to be published in magazines, radio, TV, e-books and mainstream publishing.
www.maureen-vincent-northam.co.uk