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

[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.