Sports Books Update

After a lousy year of telling many frustrated clients to just hang on, I'm really hoping you're right, and I think to some extent you are.

The sports book category has been terrible over the last year. Publishers have put their money into 'big books,' and a lot of those alleged big books have bombed. We've lost those good mid-list titles--not intended to be national bestsellers, but not designed for backlist--because publishers don't want to commit advances and manpower to books that will only sell in one city (which is the fate of most sports titles). All the money--what little has been there--has gone to big potentially national books, and few in the sports category.

A lot of authors have gambled on some of the smaller houses, just to get great book ideas into print. Sadly, I have had an unprecedented number of distraught frustrated calls from disappointed writers who took that gamble, only to find out how hard it is to get a small publisher to spend money during hard times. We've also seen numerous titles delayed, for random and seemingly inexplicable editorial and scheduling reasons (translation: booksellers are holding back, let's not shove a lot of titles out there when they won't buy them).


But back to In Exile's observation. I agree that editors at major houses are looking ahead. However: advances will be lower, expectations will be higher. They don't want to take risks, they want books with identifiable audiences, built-in promotion, and/or name brand concepts or authors. If an editor can't describe the project to his colleagues in one sentence, forget it.

None of that is new, but now it's more critical than ever. In the past, a good editor could whine a little to the editorial board and buy a book just because he/she really wanted it. No more.

So: I'm really hoping that when everyone goes back to work in September--no one in publishing ever works during the summer, quite remarkable--everyone will be in the mood to buy and look ahead and open the wallet a bit. For those of you who have been waiting, I hope your patience pays off.

 

The next big thing: Books without jackets. I guess if you can have books without pages (hi Kindle!) this was inevitable.

Probably makes a lot of sense, but I don't know what all the Author Moms are going to frame now.

http://www.observer.com/2009/media/jacketless-hardcovers

 

Andre Agassi autobiography coming in October, with excerpts in SI and a 60 Minutes interview.

Publisher claims a 500,000 first printing. This is code for "Maybe there are still some morons out there who believe this sort of nonsense."

http://www.sys-con.com/node/1080811

 

Swenk, JR and others: How much of a hit do books--autobios in particular--take when there are multiple excepts/interviews about/with the subject? Seems counterproductive to me, to give a lot of it away for free and then expect people to pay for the rest. You know, like newspapers online.

 

Excerpts (serialization), interviews, etc. are meant to whet appetites and are never counterproductive. Even negative press is better than no press at all.

 

I respectfully and passionately disagree with Mr. Cargo.

No question the publicity is great, but too frequently, the net result of those excerpts is a loss of sales.

A newspaper/magazine is paying for the serialization, it takes the best stuff. And the publishers give it up, because they know a spicy excerpt will create more headlines. So far, so good. But after the good stuff appears in print, and the potential book buyers have read it (for free), do they really need the book? They read the juicy stuff. Done. Suddenly you have a book surrounded by a media storm...with limp sales.

As for interviews, most publishers will not allow an interview until the book has been published. What's the point? You're promoting something that doesn't yet exist.

As an author, you have to hope the publisher doesn't sell you out by selling a huge chunk of material to offset your advance. But that's probably a whole different thread. :-\

 

John Feinstein's next book will reportedly be a biography of Dean Smith, for Little Brown in 2011.

And agents for Usain Bolt are making the rounds talking to publishers.

 

Just came across this website today and man is it good advice. I wasn't familiar with Rinzler (the site's author), but it appears he's a long-time book editor who's worked with Toni Morrison and Hunter Thompson, among others. It's as succinct a blueprint as I can imagine for trying to get a book idea sold. Be curious on the esteemed Ms Swenk's [fixed!] thoughts...

http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2009/10/29/ask-the-editor-the-top-5-secrets-to-getting-a-book-deal/

 

ah, now I feel foolish. Apologies

 

Sirs, Madames,

That's absolutely comprehensive. I disagree with a point or two--I think the chapter outline can run longer than the blogger here suggests. But there is so much that is right-on that my disagreements could pass as quibbles.

Re promotion & self-promotion, if you have sold a book previously, it's great if you can lay out what you did to promote it. That shows a little initiative and imagination and establishes that you know the drill.

Again, thanks for posting this.

o-<