News

I had a writer with his first novel finished and publishers actually interested, good for him, ask me about recommending a publisher that would treat a new writer well. That they asked the question showed just how new a writer they were, because there are only two types of professional writers: those who have had a hard time at the beginning of their careers and those that will have a hard time later on. Maybe there are writers out there that were chosen with their very first novel to be the star of their publishing line. I meet them sometimes. They are bright, cheerful people who think that everyone is treated well before they’ve ever sold a book. If all their books do well, or at least, get rave reviews, because there are different kinds of success in publishing these writers will always feel well treated, but if their books ever cease to do well, then they will discover what the rest of us learned early that publishing is a business.

Publishers make money from publishing the books of writers so you’d think that would mean they value writers, and they do, but not in the way most beginners think they value us. No matter how nice an editor is to you during the honeymoon period, when they want your book and all that young, eager talent, the honeymoon phase does not last. Like any relationship it evolves. Oh, and when I say young I’m not talking age, I’m talking experience in the business. Trust me the wrong types of experience in publishing will age you even if twenty-five is still a distant dream. And that is actually young for most writers to break into the business, most are at least late twenties to fifties before they sell. Thirty something is about average for a first book. But however old you are its a really hard concept to realize that your literary baby is both a creative fragile creature and a commodity no different from a car or a television set, or a well crafted hand-made chair. The closest is the chair because the craftsman puts loving attention into it and makes it one at a time from scratch letting the wood talk to them and tell them the shape it most wants in much the way that a book idea, or character, comes to a writer and tells them what their story is, and like the craftsman who wants to have his chair sat in by someone who can appreciate both its beauty and its utility, so a writer wants readers that see the beauty of her story and enjoy it for what its meant to be a peek inside the imagination of another human being and maybe you’ll learn something.

A chair, you say, you’re comparing my literary masterpiece to a chair? Yep. A hand-made, well-loved, carved, caressed, sanded, dream of a chair, but yes, because when all is said and done the chair is for sitting on and a book is for reading. Your goal is that you will make a chair so comfortable, so beautiful that it will become a lot of people’s very favorite chair and they will buy lot’s and lot’s of your books. That’s the goal.

It helps to think of your book as a well-crafted useful item when you go through your first editing process. Your editor will make or break your experience with your publisher. They are usually the ones who read you first, they are your advocate to the publisher and all the other higher ups. Your editor is your defender in the publishing house as your agent is your defender during negotiations with the editor and the publishing house. Editors can be friendly with you, and you can even feel friendly towards them because usually their goal is to get the best book out of you on time so their publishing house can sell lot’s of the books and everyone makes money. A shared goal makes everyone happy, but during negotiations an editor cannot be your friend. No matter how many lunches, or dinners, or gifts are exchanged. Why can’t they be your friend?

An editor’s job during negotiations is to get the best possible book for the least amount of money. Your goal during the same negotiations is to get the most amount of money possible for the same book. You and she are diametrically opposed. Once negotiations are over, and your agent should handle that because the contracts are a minefield, then the editor and you go back to being on the same team. Until the next negotiations. Never loose sight of that. It’s important.

Sometimes your editor genuinely likes you and you like her, but if she gives you too much money and the book doesn’t sale she could lose her job. If you don’t get enough money for the same book but it does sell, you could still go broke waiting for that first royalty check. Do not quite your day job. The average advance for a first novel is around $4,000 and that hasn’t changed in years. Forget the people who get six figures for the first novel, that is a fluke, I’m telling you the truth, and you cannot live on the reality of a beginning writer’s advances. If you get that six figure advance more power to you, but the odds are not in your favor. It’s nothing personal, they don’t want to pay you money until you prove that you can deliver sales and make money for their publishing house.

If an editor picks a new writer and they begin to do well it helps both the editor and the writer in their career, and the opposite is also very true. Especially right now in publishing it’s bleak out there. It’s probably the hardest market for a beginning writer in decades. It’s also one of the most unforgiving markets in years for mid-list writers, those writers that sale okay, but have never broken out and found their audience. That, by the way, is where most writers spend their careers. The average shelf life for a new novel is six weeks, or less, before they are taken off the shelves, have their cover stripped and sent back to the publisher to prove how many books they didn’t sell.

I’ll give you a moment to recover from that last bit. I know it shocked me as a new writer. I had another writer tell me when my very first novel, NIGHTSEER, came out, "Get a box of your books from the publisher and put it in your closet, because in a month it will be gone forever." It was good advice. Harsh, but good. It’s the reality for most first novels. It’s a reality for most novels right now. If it does not sale most stores cannot afford to keep it on the shelves. Thousands of novels every year, some quite good, never stay around long enough for us to discover them. Think of it like those movies that come and go so fast you never get a chance to see them, but with books there are no DVD’s coming down the pike. It’s simply gone. I know the internet has changed that somewhat, but most publishers where you have a chance of making a living from working with them routinely take electronic rights in the first contract. You can fight it, but it can be a deal breaker.

Now NIGHTSEER actually never went out of print. It sold better than most first novels, but not good enough. The second book in the series, there was supposed to be four of them, was rejected by my editor. He said it lacked a certain je nes se qua, which is French for nothing, or something indefinable. But in the end he told me that the sales just didn’t warrant it. So, my first series died right there. That is one reason I appreciate the success of my two best selling series, the fact that Anita Blake has now hit double digits, and that the Meredith Gentry is coming out with #8 in December is amazing and wonderful to me, but both series are making my publisher money, and me money, true, but if I wasn’t putting money in my publisher’s pockets they wouldn’t be wanting more books.

Remember that chair, well I’ve found that thinking of myself as a craftsman makes it easier to be edited, to negotiate, and to appreciate my triumphs. Ironically the publishing house that rejected my second novel was purchased by the publishing house that bought the Anita books, and they reissued NIGHTSEER which has never gone out of print. I have now made more in royalties, by far than I did on the advance for that book.

Apparently, I’ve learned how to craft a very comfortable-cozy-curl-up-and-listen-for-that-strange-noise-behind-me chair.