I have a terrible confession to make

Wut?

 

I am an idiot. I blame my idiocy.

 

Any word yet from your publisher?

 

No, not yet. She sent a nice email that she'll get back to me by the end of the week. So in the meantime... 500 words a day.

 

Keep at it, my friend.

Go, go, go!

 

There is a group of hipster parents and their babies at the coffee shop. They are discussing which environmentally friendly, memory foam crib mattresses are the best. The headphones will earn their income today.

 

You can't even consider yourself a serious writer unless you use one of these:

Typewriter Inspired Mechanical Keyboard™

 

Such a great thread, wanted to add a few thoughts from very occasional author but full-time spouse and sometime-helper to an agent. Will bounce around as I think of things. (Breaking it up into 2 posts).

PART 1
* Yes, if you can, definitely get an agent, for reasons that go behind putting food on my table. Some of it's just industry-related reasons: The major publishers will not accept unagented queries or manuscripts. Obviously the bigger publishers provide more money. That said, plenty of smaller publishers, many of them outstanding, do take unagented material. The advances will be lower (probably much). But if you do have a book that sells, you are getting money right away since you don't have to earn out, which most books won't. In fact there are some houses, especially digital, where there aren't advances, but higher royalties and, same thing, you're getting money right away.

* Probably goes without saying, but agents only get paid when you do. If someone is charging you, run.

* Beyond that, an agent will help navigate you through the publishing waters and will always look out for you, in addition to all the other things (knowing editors, knowing who's looking for what, establishing those relationships, knowing who might be looking for a work-for-hire, etc.). The publisher, the editor you love, will not look out for you. That's not their job. And publishing and publishing contracts are such unique beasts, you really do need a literary agent. I unfortunately learned this the hard way. My first book, nonfiction, I sold on a query letter and a proposal that was no more than 10 pages. Smaller publisher, but an established one, smaller advance. My wife was not an agent at that time. We knew NOTHING about the publishing world, other than what we'd picked up from books like Writer's Marketplace. We had a friend who was an entertainment lawyer look at it and she did but said she was not familiar with a lot of the stuff in the contract, since she did not have publishing experience. She changed a couple of things.

Only later did we realize just how bad the contract was for us. And how much gets changed in negotiations. This experience played a role on my wife's journey to becoming an agent.

They can also play the role of the bad guy with the publisher, so that the author can concentrate on what they want to concentrate on: writing the book. And depending on the agent, some help you with edits a lot, some not as much.

* Whether you have an agent or not, general rule of thumb (with plenty of exceptions): you sell nonfiction on proposal, with fiction you need the whole book. Proposals are going to vary in length. The basic things they'll have, though: Synopsis of the book; author bio; list of Table of Contents (literally putting Chapter 1: TTKT. Chapter 2: TKTK.); Expanded Table of Contents (one-page description of each chapter); Marketing plan (This is HUGELY important. Talk about how you think the book can be marketed. Talk about your media contacts. Don't be shy about dropping names of people who could blurb it or interview you or editors at top places or big podcast folks who will have you on. If you have a huge social media following, brag about it. Play up whatever platform you have. If you are an established figure in your field, brag about it and talk about how that community will be so interested in what you have to say, they'll pay $24.99 for it); Comparable books (like it sounds. What books have been published that are similar to yours, but more importantly, how will yours differ, what's going to make people buy your book instead of theirs); Sample chapters (anywhere from 1 to 3. I sold my second book to a Big 5 publisher with one sample chapter, but if you can get two, that makes it easier to sell). And don't worry that you'll have to adhere 100 percent to the proposal if the book sells. It can change drastically. In the proposal for my 2nd one there were probably four out of 15 chapters that stayed the same.

For fiction, there are exceptions to the the-novel-has-to-be-done rule. Once you've been published, it's much easier to sell a novel with a detailed proposal (book cover blurb, outline, 50-100 pages), especially if your first book has done well.

* With fiction, some editors certainly still have the time and clout to actually really edit, but they also have a million other things going on. This becomes frustrating when you get a pass on a novel and the editor says it just needs a few things here and there. It's like, well then help edit it and buy the book! You're probably not going to find your Maxwell Perkins, but there are still, of course, a ton of great editors who will help you and change your life, in addition to the book.

* TF's advice about never signing two-book deal. For nonfiction, I'd say definitely. Usually the publisher will have an option on the next one, but that just means seeing a proposal or sometimes even the idea. If they like it, they'll offer up a new advance. If they don't, you can shop it elsewhere. For fiction, two-book deals are pretty common. So an author might sign for $250,000, and that'll be 125K per book. Which is great! But as mentioned, sometimes when you break it down it becomes a bit more pedestrian. You might sign the contract in 2016. you'll get a big chunk on signing the contract, but then the book doesn't come out for 2 years, when you get another chunk. Then the second book comes out two years later. So now that contract has been extended over four years (and as mentioned, take out taxes and 15 percent for the agent). Now the money's not quite so impressive. Obviously it depends on the writer's life situation. If they wrote the book but still have a nice job that they enjoy and is full-time, that money's just great extra money. But when you're making your entire living on it, you have to stretch it.

 

PART 2

*TF on only writing it if it consumes you. Without a doubt. My second book, I had the idea, wrote a proposal, sent it to a few places, got rejected. Three years later I revisited the idea because I had never stopped thinking about it. Reworked proposal a bit, sold it. It was my dream book to write. The only problem with that: I've had other ideas since but nothing that has consumed me as much. So I think I'm going to have to accept that I won't enjoy the next book as much. And that makes me think,well, maybe you shouldn't do another one then, if it isn't going to consume me like that. But...I loved writing both books so much, I think I will give it another go. Even if it won't mean as much to me as the second one did.

* Random thought. @Azrael's line about the New Yorker's prices staying the same: It's amazing reading memoirs from old New Yorker writers or books about its history and seeing how little the writers were paid during the William Shawn days. I realize NYC wasn't as expensive to live in then, but good god.

* Nonfiction advances. Six figures with NY publisher definitely possible, desirable. But again it's going to be partly related to the market and to who you are. If you're a bigger name, it's easier to get that money. If you're a first-time author, it's going to be tougher. The sports market is a different beast. The top guys are probably still getting good money but otherwise it can be tough out there. I heard of someone getting like $80,000 less than a decade ago for a sports bio. Got about 10,000 for his next one after the publisher turned down the option and he had to go to a smaller publisher. But it was an idea he loved, he had enough other income to make it work, and he wanted it to be a book so he took the deal.

* Your sales of your first book will matter. If your book doesn't sell, it's going to be harder to get a second one. Sucks, but that's the way it is. In this way, it can sometimes be better to be a debut author in fiction. You can be the hot new thing, or at least lukewarm. You don't have a track record that the bookstores will hold against your publisher. Lots of agents LOVE debuts because there's so much potential there.

* Ghostwriting can be a great career. I have a friend who's been a full-time ghost for 20 years. Supports his family, they travel, have great house. He writes for politicians and sometimes just normal people with big bucks who want their story told and don't even care if it's with a traditional publisher. There are some ghostwriting companies you can get involved with, who can play middle man for you, handle some of the negotiations, and will connect you with good subjects.

*You're not limited by anything when it comes to writing. Most of us here, as journalists or former journalists, probably naturally drift to nonfiction. But you can write anything. Literary fiction: Az pretty much covered that. Yeah, you can get decent advance but....; YA: Lots of great money in YA, or....advances for 5,000. Same thing with Middle Grade. Maybe you have a great picture book idea (sometimes the editing on those can be more frustrating than a 100,000 word novel); Romance: Romance always seems to survive and a few years ago it was thriving. Horror's very hard to sell because there just aren't a lot of places for it. Erotic romance has plummeted. (but cue up William Goldman here for any industry, including this one; nobody knows anything. any genre could rebound tomorrow, whether Dystopian or erotic). Thrillers and mysteries. Doesn't everyone want to write one of these? God damn it, I do. Find a great character, become a best-seller, turn him into the next Jack Reacher with a book a year, or the next Baldacci with three or four different series running. My father-in-law asks me why I don't write one and it's like, well, I could write one. Would anyone want to buy it? Would anyone want to read it? Those guys are so fucking talented (I saw Lee Child give a talk once and he said that when thriller writers get criticized, he likes to say that a great thriller writer will have an easier time writing a great literary novel than a literary novelist would have writing a great thriller. Who knows if true, but I sort of agreed with him. Lee Child also had such a great origin story; losing his job, figuring out how to support his family, creating Reacher, the rest is history). Then again, ink-stained wretches have made it big, from Michael Connelly to John Sandford. From newspapers to the top of the bestseller lists. So write that thriller with the hard-boiled detective or the PI who's unlucky in love and life.

* Self-publishing, it's tougher to break out these days. Way too much supply. And, in a way, Kindles are full now (not literally). People filled up but there's always new things coming out. Reading lists get so big, they become more picky in adding to it. But yeah it can still be done. And there are authors who are traditionally published who will still occasionally dabble in self-publishing, if it's something they can't sell to NY and the agent is fine with them self-publishing or it's a passion project or if it's just a good book that for whatever reason the publisher doesn't want. If you've explored all options, it can be a great way to get it out there. Sometimes it's also better than a bad deal with a publisher and you end up doing better.

* Everyone wants to be a writer. Everyone. My wife will get a query and reject it and I'm in mourning for the person (my fellow writer heart bleeds) and she'll be like, he's a brain surgeon, he'll be okay. And I'll say, don't you see, that makes it even *more* tragic and poignant. He's at the top of the world, the best of the best, but his dream, the thing he wants more than anything, is to be a writer.

All this said, there are so many variables in the biz, you have a million paths to writing a book. Good luck.

 

STG's posts should be here, too:
Writing for mags like The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, etc.

 

bump, for the weekly inventory of our word counts.

How's everyone doing?