A matter of perspective

[ksmith]

Paging through this month's--well, October's--VANITY FAIR, the one with a topless Paris Hilton on the cover. Found an article entitled The New Establishment 2005, and saw that Dan Brown, author of the ubiquitous DaVinci Code, is ranked number 46. Seems that prior to taking the book world by storm, he was considered "a lower-midlist thriller writer" who had "reportedly agreed to write The DaVinci Code and his next book for $400,000 combined."

Is $400,000 a typical advance for two books by a lower-midlist thriller writer? If so, how can I become a lower-midlist thriller writer, please?

Comments

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Part of the question that must be asked is exactly what that $400k was buying. Is that hardcover and softcover rights? World English or just North America or just USA?

Not that it isn't still a princely sum compared to the advances on most SF/F books, but there are many ways to slice that money.

And, sadly, the answer to your last question is "write a thriller." I don't think it's coincidence that many old school Romance novelists moved into Romantic Suspense and then into just plain Suspense-with-female-protag.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

And, sadly, the answer to your last question is "write a thriller." I don't think it's coincidence that many old school Romance novelists moved into Romantic Suspense and then into just plain Suspense-with-female-protag.

Which is why I have been working over a thriller outline in my mind for the last few months. Not much written down, but it tells me something that when I ran the idea by Madame My Agent, she said that there were several possible markets for it.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Not that it isn't still a princely sum compared to the advances on most SF/F books, but there are many ways to slice that money.

I know. Payout can take years--$400K spread out over four years, with taxes, agent's commission, other expenses. Still a decent income, but you won't be buying that Cape Cod cottage anytime soon. Unless you can keep it going at the same level or better for 10 years or more and shepherd that money carefully and if you can do that, you're doing damned well. It's the career I dream of.

And even if I reached that point, I would still not be in the upper reaches that most people think of when they think of a successful writer.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Acting is even more disparate. People see the big actors and think, "Oh! I wanna do that and earn all that money!" and meanwhile, most wannabe actors are waiting tables. A bunch of them get regular or semi-regular gigs on TV or in commercials and earn a decent living that way. But the big stars are the great exception.

At least writers can hold down regular day jobs while pursuing the writing career. Actors have to be ready to drop everything to chase the audition or take the short-term gig.

And even though the upper echelon of writers probably doesn't earn anything close to the upper echelon of actors, they at least don't have to deal with paparazzi...

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

A second cousin of mine went to New York City decades ago to be an actor. He had a few parts, but wound up becoming an executive in a non-profit organization, which mostly killed off his acting career.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

Cape Cod cottage?

Snicker. Cape Cod is in eastern Massachusetts. Eastern Massachusting housing prices are very bad jokes--if you don't already have a house in Eastern Massachusetts, rotsaruck being able to afford to buy one! It's the land prices underneath the houses...if there is a small house up for sale on anything other than a postage stamp lot, watch a developer buy it, tear it down, and stuff a McMansion full of cookiecutter gabling--gingerbread houses without the gingerbread decor (for old-fashioned gingerbread houses, visit Martha's Vineyard, where the lots in one of the towns are all owned by the Methodist Church and the picturesque cottage houses owned by people who lease the lot. There is an empty lot in that town, where once lived a woman of ill-repute. Since she was violating the standard of the community she was required to leave, and did so, taking her house with her--she did own the house, but not the lot. The houses are small and have lots of bric-a-brac on them, but then the lots are also quite small. Once upon a time there wree quite a number of old gingerbread houses with incredible amounts of bric-a-brac all over then exterior on the mainland, but that went massively out of fashion in the 1960s--the upkeep was very expensive for painting, for example, so the houses that had it, almost all were stripped of it, and often resided with aluminum or later vinyl, or sometimes plain wooden clapboards or shingles, or the concrete-ish stuff). Back in the 1990s Painted Lady houses came back into fashion--big old Victorian houses with multiple colors of paint on them and wooden siding. But the really gingerbreaded houses never did get put back to their full gingerbread configurations, and new houses, didn't get any but occasional bits of bric-a-brac on them. Now they get all those overdone gables and eaves, and I've heard comments that those things are highly promoting of leaks over time.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Snicker. Cape Cod is in eastern Massachusetts. Eastern Massachusting housing prices are very bad jokes--if you don't already have a house in Eastern Massachusetts, rotsaruck being able to afford to buy one!

I knew the prices were through the roof, which was why I used it as an example. I used to have a manager who would tease me about writing that Big Book and moving to Cape Cod, where I'd wear sunhats, big sunglasses, and artistic earrings and foster my Young Protege (tm). Both he and his wife came from Money, though--not W-level Money, but maybe enough to edge into Town & Country. In any event, they probably could have afforded a cottage, but for the fact that gingerbread was so not their style.

Not my style either, come to that. Former Manager grew up in the Seattle area, I *think* on the San Juan Islands. I like that area a lot.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

Posted by kaygo on 2005.09.17 at 19:59
Snicker. Cape Cod is in eastern Massachusetts. Eastern Massachusting housing prices are very bad jokes--if you don't already have a house in Eastern Massachusetts, rotsaruck being able to afford to buy one!

I knew the prices were through the roof, which was why I used it as an example. I used to have a manager who would tease me about writing that Big Book and moving to Cape Cod, where I'd wear sunhats, big sunglasses, and artistic earrings and foster my Young Protege (tm). Both he and his wife came from Money, though--not W-level Money, but maybe enough to edge into Town & Country. In any event, they probably could have afforded a cottage, but for the fact that gingerbread was so not their style.

Not my style either, come to that. Former Manager grew up in the Seattle area, I *think* on the San Juan Islands. I like that area a lot.

Ah, but a Methodist originally retreat on Martha's Vineyard is part of an island, as opposed to Cape Cod, it's "Cape Code and the Islands" and the they're separate mindspaces! Cape Cod traditional houses typically are clapboarded or had cedar shingles, with the clapboard houses painted, and the cedar shingled houses and cottages, weathered bare wood--either it started bare, or the weather stripped the paint off. There's a paucity, if any, of gingerbread, and in the shingles houses tend toward being rustic cottages, with pine interiors.