OK...

[ksmith]

I accept that this is true:

From alg's most recent post (http://alg.livejournal.com/101844.html)

Too many authors find their careers in tatters because they took that $150,000 advance thinking the publisher was going to push the book harder because they paid more money for it. That is hardly ever the way it happens.

I would like to know why? Given that this is, afaik, a pretty high advance for SF (although maybe not F), why wouldn't the publisher follow up this above-average investment with above-average push?

Comments

[technosage.livejournal.com]

It's a good question. My guess? Probably not wanting to put more money into something they think isn't going to move. Cut your losses.

I've been reading Writing the Breakout Novel again, and Maass has some powerfully important things to say about marketing, sales, and the making of careers. Namely, it doesn't matter who puts how much money into a book. The only thing that matters is the book itself.

When I put on my publishing hat, I know that's true. I won't waste my time or effort, anymore, on trying to massage a blurb for a book that just doesn't have "it". I expend my time and energy on the few that do.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

But my question is, if the book didn't have It, why did the publisher pay 6 figures for it in the first place? I'm pretty sure that an advance that large for a genre book would need to be approved by a couple of layers of management unless the editor was very senior. I could understand cutting losses if they paid $5-10K.


I have Maass's book, and mean to read it after I kick J5 out the door.

[technosage.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the book changed hands and went to an editor who didn't believe it. Perhaps the book failed to live up to the promise because the author couldn't do her revisions. Perhaps it was contracted on premise and the real thing didn't measure up.

6 figures is a lot, yes. And I think Anna may be using the big number to make the point that not only doesn't promotion make a book, but also that 6 figure advances aren't all that common. And even if you do get one, it's not a guarantee.

Did you ask her? I've found she's very good about answering questions. She likes to talk. *g*

Maass book is worth reading. I reread it every time I start a new project and I find that each book is better for it. Good luck with J5. We're eagerly awaiting her.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

There are two aspects to a book breaking out:

1. The book is wildly appealing to many readers

and

2. The readers who are most likely to find the book wildly appealing are aware the book is available.

That first part is in the author's control (more or less). It falls under the heading of "write the best book you can" for whatever definition of "best" applies to the sort of book you are writing. What makes a romance novel bestseller is not the same thing that makes a literary bestseller (though I would argue that "understanding the applications of English" is paramount in both cases*).

The second part is the trick. The author can do a good deal about this (I have a loooong-overdue post from World Con on that subject), but in large measure this is something authors expect the publishing house to do (and the publishing house is in many ways better equipped to do it).

But there are many ways the publishing house can fail in this regard, and the author can't do a damn thing about it except try to counter and/or workaround it. The most common ways the publishing house can fail the book:

1. Don't push the book. When the sales force goes to the bookbuyers for their thirty seconds, books below the level of MEGASUPERULTRALEADER are going to get about three seconds apiece, if the authors are lucky. That's not hyperbole.

The sales force is motivated to try to boost books they have been told are likely to move: An individual sales person looks good if they move a lot of books. With limited time, they will more likely promote the books that the company is pushing, be it "everything in genre X" or "this up-and-coming author." They will not waste time pushing books they haven't been told can move.

This becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's very annoying. But the basic economics underlying it are inescapable. Similar principles will apply to which titles get front-of-store promotion and co-op dollars.

2. Put the wrong/inaccurate/misleading spin on the book. This leads to the book being picked up by the wrong audience, and avoided by the people who would like it. This is not common, but it happens, and many a book has been murdered by the company doing something wonky on the cover that just didn't match the story found inside.


So what's an author to do? Like I said, I have a long-overdue post collating a lot of info I got at WorldCon, but the short answer is: the author needs to (a) write the best book they can, and (b) promote the hell out of it to the readers who are most likely to want to read it. The publishing companies all have tracking and forecasting departments, and if they see something getting ordered and moving more than they had expected, they will take notice. An author who can accomplish this for several books in a row will move up the company's internal ladder and start getting the push from the sales force as well.

(Yeah, I say this so blithely. But it really is just basic economic principles. The hard part is getting these forces into play. Overcoming institutional inertia is hard.)


*

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I look forward to reading your Worldcon post.

I still have the same question, though--if they've paid 6 figures, isn't that enough of an investment on their part to guarantee some push on the genre level? Don't they need layers of approval, including some buy-in from marketing, that would guarantee some minimum level of in-house push?

I know that books tank all the time, but are genre publishers really making that many 6-figure mistakes?

What is the lower limit on the pay scale where the publisher says, you know, we really need to give this some support? If not $150K, is it $250K? Half a mill?

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Some possibilities:

1. Editor who bought the book is no longer with the company, and no one at the company cares anymore.

2. Advance was given in a fit of temporary madness. As a wise editor of my acquaintance once pointed out, "Remember, when you win an auction, you are paying more for that book than any other publisher thinks it's worth."

3. Book looks really good at first blush, but author does not produce final draft that is as good as hoped/expected, or author alienates everyone by being a pain in the butt.

Seriously, combinations of all these are more common than you'd think. Sometimes an author has an aggressive agent who can talk up the book, make it look as if the author has a huge platform, gets the editor sucked into the enthusiasm, and then the editor leaves and the author is not happy with who is assigned to take over the book and proceeds to act like a primadonna (because she's worth 150K!! and of course everyone else will want to pay her that much for her next brilliant tome).

More than one editor has let his ego get in the way and spent all his whuffie convincing everyone to shell out his entire acquisitions budget on a single book chasing the latest fad....and when it comes time to actually market the thing, everyone else has gotten over it and the editor, having used all his social credit, can't get anyone else to care. Office politics is an ongoing game, and a single coup is insufficient to see a book through to success. It must be coup after coup, and a wise editor buys the book cheap and spends the wuffie on convincing the sales and marketing people to get behind the book.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Ok.

I guess it's because I'm familiar with sf/f editors, and see pretty much the same ones all the time, and figure that if any of them made a mistake like that more than once, they'd be out.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

It doesn't happen often in our genre, because the market is well-known and the editors are not "celebrities" in their companies (I don't know if it's the personality profile of SF people or what). OTOH, I have seen celebrity editors fuck up big time, and still keep their position because they have that much cult of personality and convince the folks over their head that the occasional high-priced mistake is the cost of doing business at that elevated level, i.e. that for every high-priced mistake, there are a dozen high-earning successes. Which isn't all that crazy, really.

I have come to the conclusion that the upper levels of business are like relativistic speeds--at that level, the simple equations go kaflooie and everything gets weird and counterintuitive.