Donald Maass
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OVEUST /\ [cj j ftrc4eai£] for "Packed full of fine analysis, solid advice, and thoughtful reflection on the state of contemporary publishing. It's further distinguished by more common sense than any book of its type that I have ever read. A treasure." —DEAN KOONTZ, author of Intensity DONALD MAASS The CAREER NOVELIST The CAREER NOVELIST A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success Donald Maass HEINEMANN PORTSMOUTH, NH Heinemann A division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 361 Hanover Street Portsmouth, NH 03801-3912 Offices and agents throughout the world Copyright © 1996 by Donald Maass. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. The author and publisher thank those who have given permission to reprint borrowed material. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Maass, Donald. The career novelist : a literary agent offers strategies for success / Donald Maass. p. cm. ISBN 0-435-08693-6 1. Fiction-Authorship. I. Title PN3365. M24 1996 808.3-dc20 96-17148 CIP Editor: Lisa A. Barnett Production: Melissa L. Inglis Text design: Joni Doherty Cover design: Jenny lensen Greenleaf Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 03 04 DA 6 7 8 9 for Beth CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IX INTRODUCTION XI CHAPTER ONE The Dream 1 CHAPTER TWO The Reality 15 CHAPTER THREE Pitching Errors 27 CHAPTER FOUR Choosing an Agent 39 CHAPTER FIVE More on Choosing an Agent 51 CHAPTER SIX The Marketing Game-. How I Sell Novels 63 CHAPTER SEVEN Strategy Session I. Breaking \n 75 CHAPTER EIGHT A Tour of the Genres 89 CHAPTER NINE Crossover Novels 111 CHAPTER TEN Numbers, Numbers, Numbers 119 CHAPTER ELEVEN Self-Promotion or Self-Delusion? 129 CHAPTER TWELVE Strategy Session II: Midcareer Damage Control 139 CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Bottom Line: Storytelling 153 CHAPTER FOURTEEN Collaborations 167 CHAPTER FIFTEEN Packagers and Work-for-Hire 175 CHAPTER SIXTEEN Contracts and Income 187 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Electronic Rights-. Power Source or Static? 203 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Strategy Session III: Managing Success 217 CHAPTER NINETEEN Staying Alive in the Land of the Giants 229 CHAPTER TWENTY The Economy and Publishing 237 AFTERWORD Wfto Will Get Rich Writing Fiction in the Nineties? 243 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PORTIONS OF THIS BOOK HAVE PREVIOUSLY APPEARED IN different forms in the following books and periodicals: Writer's Digest Guide to Literary Agents, Mystery Scene, Mystery Writer's Source Book, Science Fiction Chronicle, and Writer's Digest. I am grateful to edi- tors Kirsten Holm, Ed Gorman, Dave H. Borcherding, Andrew I. Porter, and William Brohaugh for their encouragement and for giv- ing me a chance to test my wings. Thanks to my editor at Heinemann, Lisa Barnett, whose faith in this project and whose expert shepherding made it possible. Thanks also to production editor Melissa L. Inglis and publicist Heather L. Smith for their excellent work. Additional thanks to my associate at the Donald Maass Literary Agency, Jennifer Jackson, whose comments on the manuscript and proofreading were invalu- able, and who held down the fort while I completed the manuscript. Thanks also to my clients and to all the fiction writers who have so generously shared their journeys with me over the years. This book would not be possible without them. ix INTRODUCTION IT IS THE DREAM OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, PERHAPS OF millions, to write fiction full-time. This dream has a powerful allure. To do nothing but create, to spend one's working hours in the dream state of one's imagination—who wouldn't treasure that? Making that dream a reality is the subject of this book. As a lit- erary agent I have journeyed with many writers from the submis- sion of their first manuscripts to the magic moment of giving notice at their day jobs, and beyond. Making the leap into full-time fiction writing can be frightening, but most who take the plunge also feel a powerful thrill. They are awed by the sense of freedom and they are humbled by the responsibility, for writing fiction full- time is not just a career choice, it is an act of faith in one's stories. It is saying, "My fiction matters." Can the dream actually come true? Yes, it can. While there is no official count, it is beyond question that there are hundreds of full- time novelists. Thousands more derive a significant portion of their income from fiction. With roughly five thousand novels published in the U.S. every year, there is clearly a serious need for publishable novel-length material. Of course, the first problem facing any new novelist is writing a publishable manuscript. Many have the discipline to complete one; far fewer make it over the hurdle of publication. What makes the difference? Native talent? Some have it and others do not, that is true, but in my experience talent is only one prerequisite for xi INTRODUCTION success. Skills like plotting, self-editing, and market sense can be learned. This book discusses not only the basics of such skills but also the fine points that make learning the novelists' craft a career- long pleasure. Beyond writing lies the daunting business of getting published. Oh, the horror stories! You have to be at a writers' conference for only a few minutes before you hear tales of woe about rejection slips, slush piles, slow-to-answer editors, and glacially cool agents. It can be discouraging. A lot of published writers hand out the time-tested advice, "Be persistent." It's good advice as far as it goes, but it doesn't address fundamental questions that worry new writers, such as "Am I really good enough?" and "What am I doing wrong?" This book is designed to show newcomers not only how to break in, but also how to answer for themselves such questions as "What are my chances?" or "If nobody agrees to read my material, how can I know whether it is any good?" or "Is it worth revising my manu- script, or should I move on to the next?" For aspiring writers the farthest horizon is getting published. Once that point has been reached, it would seem that one's career should be all smooth sailing. One has, after all, passed the big test. One has been admitted, joined the club. After that, what is left but deciding what to write next? Sawier newcomers are aware of the challenges ahead. They know that publishing is full of pitfalls. Competition is fierce and first- novel advances are low; advertising and publicity support for first novels are often scarce. It is a tough climb; nevertheless, most new writers probably believe that given time and a little luck they have a reasonable shot at making a living, maybe even at making it big. Sadly, that is not exactly the case. The truth is that publishing in the nineties is ruthlessly focused on the bottom line. From agents' offices to retail stores, numbers rule. And what strange numbers! Once upon a time sales were all-important; today, figures like skip- in and sell-through can seal an author's fate long before the returns are tallied up. On top of that the game is, in many ways, rigged. Only a select few authors receive the dump bins, co-op advertising, publicity xii Introduction tours, and other hoopla that are essential to making a big splash. The system seems horribly unfair. The brutal truth is that authors whose work does not quickly find a sizable audience can be, and often are, rushed to the exit doors. In fact, while I have no empirical evidence to point to, I believe that fully 50 percent of the authors whose first novels have been published since 1990 have not made it beyond their second, third, or fourth book. I know this, in part, because I get calls from them every week. These novelists thought they had writing careers; per- haps they even gave up other careers only to discover that they have been mishandled, lied to, abandoned, ignored, or even worse. Their litany of woes is by now numbingly familiar: low advances, lousy covers, editors who left, publicity people who did not care, advertising that came too late (if at all), orders unfilled, opportuni- ties lost, books out of print before the next one appeared. Their voices are desperate, their attitude cynical. They ask for assistance, but often they are beyond help. Sound horrible? It is, but the fact is, too, that plenty of writers do make it beyond their second, third, and fourth books. Hundreds do make a living, and scores do make it to the big time. It is not all luck, either. What makes the difference in these cases is that such authors have found, by accident or by design, methods to overcome the thousand and one obstacles that publishing inevitably throws in one's way. If this book is about nothing else, it is about the practical, day- to-day solutions, methods, and techniques that I use to make my clients' careers happen. This book is the fruit of seventeen years on the job, of thousands of battles fought in the trenches. It is about marketing, contracts, hidden traps, strategies that work, ways writ- ers go wrong—in short, everything I can think of that you might need to make your career a success. So who am I to be handing out this advice? I am an independent New York literary agent, and have been for sixteen years.