Writers: Some 'Truths' About Selling Your Novel Examined

[locustsofdeath!]

That's my problem, Lady F. I have to be really moved by a story idea to even write it. I start/stop a lot and abandon stories or scripts as soon as I'm no longer passionate about them. It just doesn't feel right to crank 'em out...each story has to be special, in my mind anyway.

[Lady Festina]

I imagine that the best sellers of the world start out caring - there's a lot of craft that goes into each book - but I guess after a while they become industrialised and it's easier to keep producing ready meals to a recipe than to run a Michelin starred restaurant..... Horses for courses. (Not in the restaurant.) Metaphors more mixed than a bright blue cocktail. Best stop.

[Emperor]

I imagine that the best sellers of the world start out caring - there's a lot of craft that goes into each book - but I guess after a while they become industrialised and it's easier to keep producing ready meals to a recipe than to run a Michelin starred restaurant..... Horses for courses. (Not in the restaurant.) Metaphors more mixed than a bright blue cocktail. Best stop.

Unfortunately some start out that way - look on James Patterson's works, ye mighty, and despair:

Despite a relatively low profile compared with authors such as John Grisham and Tom Clancy, and a near-total absence of critical acclaim, Patterson, 60, has had more number-one bestsellers in the past five years than Grisham, Clancy, JK Rowling and Dan Brown combined. He reportedly sells more than £60m-worth of books a year, and last week it was revealed that he is the author most borrowed from British libraries. The "by the same author" page of his latest novel lists 48 previous titles, which he produces at an average of three a year, and sometimes far more, often working with collaborators in a back-and-forth process whereby he supplies detailed plot outlines, then edits drafts written by others. A former advertising executive, he has, on occasion, paid for his own TV advertisements and market research. "James Patterson has mastered the art (if you can call it that) of writing mindless, page-turning bestsellers that sell millions of copies, then disappear as quickly as last night's fast-food meal," a critic for the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper once wrote - an assessment the author's US publisher still uses in promotional material, albeit in subtly altered form: "Patterson has mastered the art of writing page-turning bestsellers - Chicago Sun-Times."

...

Patterson's books are designed to be addictive in an almost physiological way, cycling rapidly between tension and resolution. Sentences are short. Chapters are rarely more than three pages long, and usually end on cliffhangers. His titles are completely unimaginative, but they dangle the promise that the next fix is imminent. His most famous series, featuring the African-American pathologist Alex Cross, are called Jack and Jill, Cat and Mouse, Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, etc; the Women's Murder Club series, starring the hard-bitten detective Lindsay Boxer, are called 1st To Die, 2nd Chance, 3rd Degree, and so on. (Patterson deals with the challenges of writing in the first person as a black man and a woman mainly by ignoring the matter.)

...

He writes ceaselessly, he explains, because it doesn't exhaust him. "These books are entertainments," he says. "It's a very different process than if you're trying to write Moby-Dick, or The Corrections. That's painful. That's different from very simple, plot-oriented storytelling. If I was writing serious fiction, I'd want more rest time."

Patterson is open about using collaborators, though he insists his plot outlines are much more than a rough sketch of an idea. "As one of my agents said: 'If you gave me this outline, I could write the book.'"

...

Patterson finally gave up the day job a decade ago, but the adman's sensibility remains fundamental to the thriller production system over which he presides. His focus is on building the "James Patterson" brand, and so it makes perfect commercial sense to find a reliable subcontractor for the manufacturing part of the operation - the writing - while he concentrates on product design - the plot outlines - and on promotion.

www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/feb/16/usa

Even more depressing than the "creative" process is the fact they sell like crack-covered cup cakes ;(

[Lady Festina]

In fairness to the overproductive monster (Patterson), at least he recognises that there is something called "serious fiction" and that he doesn't do it....

Maybe the unspoken thing here is the similarity between popular fiction and comic books. Episodic. Short sentences. Cliffhangers. Pacey action. Massive generalisation I know as there are languorous (sp.) and philosophical comic books too.

But with attention spans falling and competition for people's time from TV, film, games etc, maybe the "read a chapter in 20 minutes, full of action" approach is a good way to compete. It's why the Sun sells 4 million copies a day and the Times doesn't.....

[wild-seven]

I'm nearly finished with my YA/Fantasy/Romance novel, "The Errant Adventures of Nippy Nibblebobber and His Little Pal Gorglydork". Nippy Nibblebobber and Gorglydork run amuck in the kingdom Zajizz until they accidentally rescue Princess Cockwallow from the evil Baron Uvulva and save the day. Think anyone'll buy it off me?

I'd buy it if it has a glossary of technical terms, a few Venn diagrams and a 'How to' section 

[HOO-HAA]

Very interesting reading. I'm quite surprised by how much money the responding authors are getting paid for advances - my understanding is that publishers, in the current climate, are paying smaller advances. For the kind of money being paid out in advances to these guys, their books would have to be selling (to clawback even median rates) very well. My understanding (from talking to successful authors) is that even the larger publishers will generally only print 5 - 10K copies of a debut novel. A successful debut novel would be one which sells 5K copies.    

My next novel, FLU, is going out on a UK indie press which has great success in getting their books on the right shelves (Waterstone's, Forbidden Planet etc.). It will see an initial run of 2K copies and my advance reflects that - it's considerably lower than what's highlighted in this article.

Another thing - I don't have an agent. I have no intention of getting an agent, at present, for a number of reasons. One reason is following advice from a major publisher at the World Horror Convention - a good agent may be worth their weight in gold, but a bad agent could literally ruin you. I'm not in the position to know the difference, right now, so I'll keep flying solo.    

[Jim_Campbell]

Very interesting reading. I'm quite surprised by how much money the responding authors are getting paid for advances - my understanding is that publishers, in the current climate, are paying smaller advances.

Keep in mind that the survey is four years old, and is in USD, as I recall, the exchange rate was near enough two dollars to the pound back then, so you'd need to pretty much half those numbers to get a figure in sterling.

Cheers!

Jim

[HOO-HAA]

Ah. That might explain it, alright. Four years ago would have been the height of the boom. Economically, things were very different and publishers could have afforded to pay more for advances.

It's a very different story now. 

[Emperor]

Vampires are bound to appeal to youth. They stay up all night, get wasted on illegal beverages, are strong, fearless(when your dead what's there left to be scared of) and have lots of non commital sex before returning home to sleep all day.

What could be better than that?

Angels apparently:

www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/26/angels-vampires-anne-rice
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/04/teenage-fiction-cult-angels

So if you were looking to hook your bandwagon to a trend then ignore those mopey vampires and go straight for some complex kinda fallen angel type. Looking at it though I think my teen deities is stealing a march on these characters because... where do you go once the angle craze is played out? Young gods that's where. Bang out a trilogy and have them sitting their waiting to scoop up the audience as they move on. Ka ching!!

[Zarjazzer]

Ancient Atlanteans, baby! That's where the "kids" are (or will be after my sublimimal Mega-Corp sponsored mind control drug via Youtube).

Ancient Atlanteans! they could be cool God like angel types with vampiric tendencies or another rip off,say, hyper intelligent colours! Think of all the crayons I'll sell.

Da Plot-Whiny teen emo- brat (male/female/androgynous as picked by audience research) meets cynical, drunken Ancient Atlantean. Hey, AA used to help mankind until he/she/it decided they were all shit (after the sixties maahhn we gotta blame somebody) but now he realises humanity could be noble if only it wasn't full of whiny teenage emo-brats...

[HOO-HAA]

There is definitely money to be made in Young Adult fiction or Dark Fantasy, as it's now called at my local Waterstone's. Set your story in an urban setting, throwing a helpless, innocent girl into the mix, and, whether it be vampires, she-wolves or a dizzy mash of them all that give her sleepless nights, the kids will lap it up.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Should she/he be a social outsider?

There seems to be a strong theme of alienation in a lot of modern teen stories. Bella Swan of Twighlight gets moved from Phoenix to Forks Washington [new girl in unfamiliar town=outsider] and the same thing pretty much well happenened in the Tv series Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Buffy sent to Sunnydale due to previous disruptive behaviour[teen rebel in other words.]

Do outsiders make for better protaganists or has that itself become a cliche?

[HOO-HAA]

I reckon you're right.

And I wouldn't worry about cliches, either. As your Twilight/ Buffy example proves, the cliches never die - they simply get recycled.

So eat your heart out.

[I, Cosh]

I wonder if Jobo Pooks has chanced upon this thread.

http://www.2000adonline.com/forum/index.php/topic,23629.0.html