So I made a poll on twitter and asked people to choose my next blog post. I gave them three choices. A post about science fiction books, a topic on which I am well-versed and somewhat of a minor expert. A post on writing craft, on which…well, I’m pretty good, if I do say so myself. Or a post on something in the publishing industry…of which I’m a participant.

Of course they chose the one I didn’t expect them to pick. The one where I didn’t really have a great idea. But the people have spoken. How’s that for a motivational intro?

Then I remembered a chat I was having in one of my Slack channels with some other writers, and I was talking about my next book deal and how it came to be, and the other writer was surprised to find out I hadn’t written any pages when I sold it. And this was a writer who has an agent and is on submission with their first book. So I figured that if they didn’t know and they were interested, maybe other people would be. If nothing else, I’m going to put a lot of personal stuff in here about how it worked with me, so at least you’ll have one example.

Let me put out a whole bunch of caveats up front.

1. There are a LOT of variables in this process. Where things vary, I’m going to try to explain how they vary. But inevitably, there will be situations I don’t cover.

2. I’m going to talk about book deals with major publishers and nothing else. This is not to say anything negative about other forms of publishing. It’s just all that I know about. If you want to talk about self-pub or small press publishing, I simply don’t know enough to be part of that conversation.

3. I’m going to talk a lot about specifically what happened with me, because I know I can do that with a lot of accuracy. But even then, things happened between my agent and my publisher that I probably don’t know. So anything I get incorrect is not intentional. I’m going to share to the best of my knowledge.

4. I’m not going to talk contract negotiations or going to auction or how you get to a certain advance size. This is about how you get your contract to write a book, and how you decide what that book will be. Negotiations and such are agent territory, not writer.

5. And lastly, this is the writer perspective. An editor certainly knows more about that side of things. But I will try to extrapolate. With that said, forgive me, acquiring editors, for what I get wrong on your side.

6. This is for normal people, not celebrities. Rules there are certainly different. But you knew that.

Okay, that’s it. Buckle in, and here we go.

The First Sale

This one is the easiest, because it’s the same for almost every author and it’s pretty simple. For that reason, I’m going to be brief. You write a book. The entire book. Forget the crap you see on TV about getting an offer based on just a sample or a pitch. That shit doesn’t happen. Or, if it does, it happens so rarely as to be irrelevant.

Once you write a book, you query literary agents. If a literary agent likes your book enough, they sign you to their list. You then work with the agent in some form of shared work (different for every agent/author combo) to prepare the book and submission materials, at which point your agent sends them off to editors along with the manuscript for somewhere between 2 weeks and 2 years, and eventually you get an offer for publication.

Congratulations! You have a book deal and you’re going to be a debut author!

That’s where the first variable comes in that might decide your future books. When you sign a contract, it’s going to be for a certain number of books. It can be just the one book that you’ve already finished, or it can be more. It probably won’t be more than three for a debut author.

If the deal is for multiple books, the contract may specify what those books are. Or it might not. If you’re selling a series, it will specify books in that series. If not, it may say something like book to be mutually agreed upon later. More on that in a bit.

My story: My first deal was for two books: PLANETSIDE, and a book in the same series. That was pretty interesting to me since I originally planned PLANETSIDE as a stand-alone. Doh! But you do have input. If I didn’t want to write SPACESIDE (the sequel to PLANETSIDE) I could have said so, and we probably would have just done a one book deal. But I was getting my first contract and I was excited, so of course I wanted to write it. It turned out to be a good decision (for both me and the publisher.)

After Your First Deal.

After your first deal, things get very muddled and there’s a lot of ‘well, it depends.’

But one thing that’s almost universal is that everyone really wants to see the sales numbers of your first book before they get too far down the road on anything else. So probably don’t expect much to happen regarding future books until your book has been out in the world for 45 to 60 days.

Side note: This is why I’m a huge fan of the two book deal for a debut author if you can get it. Because I was working on SPACESIDE when PLANETSIDE came out, so I didn’t need to worry about a new deal because I had a book to write. By the time I was ready to start something new, we already knew that PLANETSIDE was selling really well. And if PLANETSIDE hadn’t sold, I’d still have been guaranteed a second book. Some debut authors on a one book deal never get that second one.

But let’s talk about all the different things that can happen after your first book publishes.

a. You’re on a multi-book deal, so you keep working on your books that are under contract. Not much to say about that.

b. You’re on a one book deal and your book sold well. What’s well? Hard to say. If you earn out your advance, that’s definitely well. No debate. Can well be something lower than that? Probably. Too many different situations to say for sure. And there are levels of well, and those too have an effect on what happens next. So let’s leave it at ‘you sold well.’

c. You’re on a one book deal and sales aren’t what you’d hope.

Let’s address b and c.

First b. If you sold well, another book deal is probably inevitable assuming you have a reasonable working relationship. Everybody made money on the first book, and everybody knows it. There is pretty good parity of information–everybody knows the same things.

So what are your choices for your next book?

1. You may or may not have an option clause in your contract. If you do, your current publisher probably has the right to look at your next book first, usually for 30 or 45 days. And it probably specifies in your contract what you have to submit for that (I think mine was an outline and two chapters.) If they do, then you submit your proposal to them. Note: You don’t have to sign with them. They just get the first chance to make an offer. If you can’t come to terms, then you’re free to submit elsewhere. More on that in a bit

2. If you don’t have an option clause (or if you do) and you want to write a sequel to one of your previous books, your only likely avenue is with the same publisher. It is very unlikely that another publisher will even consider it. On a positive note, when selling a sequel of a successful book, you can probably work a deal while submitting very little material (see variables, below)

3. If you don’t have an option and it’s not a sequel, you can choose to pitch your next book to your same publisher, or you could choose to submit to multiple publishers (your agent will likely help you decide.) Whether you choose to go to one publisher or many may impact the amount of material you have to submit. More on that in a bit.

Variables:

There are a lot of variables that go into that next sale if it’s not a sequel.

1. The option. Options are generally seen as not favorable to the author, but they aren’t all bad. One thing the option clause does for you is specify the exact time you can deliver it, and what the proposal has to entail. That might include chapters, it might be just an outline, but it’s definitely not the whole book. So no matter what, you get to try to sell a book without writing it first, which is nice.

My story: My option clause on my first contract said that we could submit our proposal no earlier than 45 days after acceptance of book 2. Because I wanted to get working on the next project, we submitted right at the 45 day mark. I actually submitted two proposals. I proposed Planetside 3, and THE WEIGHT OF COMMAND. For P3, I sent just a short outline. After all, the publisher knew I could write a Butler book, and we knew it would sell, so I didn’t need to bother with pages. TWoC was similar in style to my first books in that it was also a first person story and in the same sub-genre.

About 30 days later, my editor got back to us. He wanted to do a two book deal, but he didn’t want TWoC. He wanted Planetside 3 and 4.

At that point, my agent and I discussed what I wanted and took our own action. First, I wasn’t feeling Planetside 4 creatively, so we countered with Planetside 3 and a book to be named later. Simultaneously, she asked me for some more chapters of TWoC so she could put it on wider submission. I wrote and revised something like 8 or 9 chapters, which she felt like, with the benefit of my sales record, was enough.

That all went well. My editor at Harper Voyager agreed to Planetside 3 and a book to be named. That book later became THE MISFIT SOLDIER, available everywhere on 2/22/22. (Hey, a guy has to do his promotion when he can.) And on the other side, there was no print interest from publishers for TWoC, but Audible Originals wanted it and offered me the same advance as Harper Voyager did for P3, and that was only for the audio rights, which meant I could still sell the print rights everywhere. THE WEIGHT OF COMMAND is finished and will be available on audio in the fall of 2022 with the print book coming from Falstaff Books six months later.

Back to the more general topic.

2. Without an option. If you don’t have an option or you have completed your option, this is where it gets a little fuzzy. Remember, we’re talking about a situation where the first book (or series) sold well at this point. But there are a lot of variables here. For example: How well?

The general rule of thumb is this: The better you sold and the closer you are writing (in genre, style, etc) to your previous books, the less you have to submit to sell the next book.

If you absolutely killed it on sales, hit the NYT, or are generally a star in the business…one of the 1%…then you can probably submit widely with just an outline. If you’re Stephen King, you probably have to submit, I don’t know…a title? Nothing? Just ‘I want to write a book and I want you to publish it.’ That’s all I’m going to say about that, because if you’re this successful, plenty of people are going to help you figure it out.

So let’s address what happens if you’re mildly successful. You earned out but it was a small advance. You had a moderate advance and didn’t quite earn out yet, but you probably will as time goes on. Anything where you have a book where everybody made money but nobody’s getting rich.

If you choose to submit widely, you give yourself the best chance to maximize your money, as there may be competition, but at the same time, you probably have to submit more material. Why? Because at this point, you have an editor who knows you and what you can do. You can get away with sending them less because they have some level of trust in you. Other publishers/editors have only your sales data (provided by your agent, if nothing else) and your reputation.

Submitting widely will also probably take longer. You’re now waiting on multiple editors, not just one.

Additionally, you factor in here whether you’re writing something the same or different. If you’re changing genres, you almost certainly have to write at least part of the book, if not the whole thing. So if I wanted to write fantasy (and maybe I do one day) I’d expect that I’d need a good outline and maybe 50,000 words. That number might go up or down in the future, depending on my continued success. It’s something I’d discuss with my agent.

My story: Flash forward to the recent past, and I had completed my second two book contract with Harper Voyager and was finishing up work on TWoC, and after that, I had no books to write. It was time for another proposal.

I wanted to write something different. Not hugely different. It’s still science fiction. It’s just not military. It’s a generation ship book. On top of that, I wanted to do it in a different format. My first four books are mass market paperback releases, and that won’t work for this book. It needs to be bigger. So in conjunction with my agent, we figured that to submit it widely, I’d need an outline and some really good, revised pages. Personally I figured that was four chapters — about 10,000 words — because it’s a 4 POV book. So one chapter from each POV.

Lisa (my agent) and I worked hard on that outline. I think it started at 3000 and finished at 4200 words after multiple revisions. Because I really wanted to write this book.

Ultimately, I decided to only submit it to Harper Voyager. Here’s why:

a. I didn’t have any sample pages ready and I was still working on TWoC, so I didn’t have time to write them. My agent thought that we could submit to HV with just an outline. There was a chance they’d accept it just on that, or maybe they’d come back to us and ask for sample pages. But there was at least a chance that we could sell it without me writing any of it first. Why not take the chance? We could always write pages later and submit widely if this didn’t work out.

b. I really wanted to write this book with David Pomerico as the editor. Here’s a secret that you don’t hear very often from writers: Editors fucking matter. A lot. Personally, I often choose books to read based on who edited them. I’m that kind of nerd. But even if you don’t, the editor has a lot of responsibility for the quality of the book. They just do. At least with my books they do. Writing Generation Ship is a stretch for me as a writer–I’m growing my skills–and I know from experience that David knows how to help me stretch. I’m not saying there aren’t other great editors out there who could do this book. I’m sure there are. But I’m absolutely sure that David and I can do it together. We understand each other.

So we sent in my monster outline and I had no idea what would happen. Dead truth. I thought it was like 50-50. So much so that we were looking at different opportunities and I was starting to put together other proposals, so that I’d have a way to move forward if they didn’t want it.

But they said yes. David got back to us and not only did they want the book, they wanted to give me raise in my advance and they wanted to do it in trade paperback. It was basically the perfect offer. We went back and forth on a few things, tried to get more money, worked on some various clauses…you know…agent stuff…but in principle we had a deal for me to write the book I wanted to write with the editor with whom I wanted to write it (and look, I did the grammar right in that sentence in his honor.)

Back to the general:

That leaves us with just one more part. Unfortunately, it’s the negative part.

3. What if your first book doesn’t sell well?

First, you’re not alone. I don’t want to depress the general audience, but this is, unfortunately, what is going to happen to the majority of writers. I don’t know the exact statistics. I’ve read that 90% of writers don’t earn out, but I don’t know if that’s accurate (it probably is, based on people I know) and you don’t always have to earn out to get another deal. But definitely more than half of debut authors find themselves in this spot.

Your first book didn’t sell, and everything sucks. Because you find that nobody is willing to look past your sales number (or at least it feels that way) and you have no options. Maybe your relationship with your agent suffers (or ends.) I’ve seen that happen more times than you might think. The agent signed on for one project that they loved but now the writer and the agent don’t agree on what to do going forward. (But that’s another post for another day.)

The fact is, so much rides on that first book. That’s why debut writers are always stressed. It puts stress on everyone involved. I can’t speak for editors, but I have to imagine that it’s not great for them, either.

So what does that author do?

1. Write a new book. I think this is the most common. You start over, write something completely new, and take it out on submission on its own merits. Do your sales numbers from your debut still weigh on it? Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. Different people will tell you different things. (I had a conversation with one NYT best-selling author who had to change their name and use a pen name for future books after their first books didn’t do well.) So maybe it has to be a little better than it would have been if it was your first. But also, you’re a better writer now, so maybe it evens out.

2. Submit proposals anyway. I don’t know how often this happens, but I can think of at least a couple examples, so I’m including it. Your editor bought your first book for a reason. They saw something in it, or they saw something in you. The reality of sales is significant, but maybe they still see something. Would it be a hard sell for that editor with the other divisions of the publisher? Almost surely. Again, I don’t know the internal workings of every publisher, but human nature says that every editor has a certain amount of personal capital inside of their organization. Maybe they love your proposal and are willing to go to bat for it. Maybe they win. But I’d probably be working on that next book at the same time.

3. They quit. And yes, I know this is shitty and depressing. But it happens a lot. As it turns out, the dream of publishing is often not in line with the reality. The vast majority of books don’t make $10,000 for the author. Hell, the majority might not make $3000. And you spend a LOT of time and energy that you are taking away from other things to earn that money. When you’re writing your first book, it’s easy to overlook that and focus on the dream. Once you’ve been on the other side, it’s a lot harder to avoid the reality. And of course we move the goal posts on ourselves. At first, we want to finish a book. Then all we want is an agent. Then all we want is a book deal. And then all we want is a career.

My story: So I’m a success story, right? I mean, I am, for sure. But here’s how I see it. I got a book deal and then I got two more and then I got another one. My goal, after I moved the goal posts, was to write books that did well enough where people would pay me to write more books. And I made that. I get to write my dream book, and once that’s done, somebody is going to pay me to write something else. I’ve met my own definition of success. My first three books have all earned out.

Here’s what that means:

I haven’t calculated everything for 2021 yet — maybe I’ll do a post about that once I do with specifics — but my guess is that I made between 40 and 50 thousand dollars from publishing income in 2021, and that I’ll make a pretty similar amount in 2022 (depending on the timing of some payments and whether or not we sign a contract for more books later in the year, which is certainly possible. There are, again, a ton of variables.)

And I’m not here to tell you whether that’s a lot or a little, because everything is relative and everybody has their own view, so please don’t make it about that. I’m here to tell you that it is what it is. I started writing what would be my debut novel in 2014 and 7+ years later, I’ve had a ton of success (in relative terms to the average in the industry) and that’s what I make. For me, it was enough to quit my day job, but only because I have a pension and health insurance via my military retirement (health insurance being the big, huge, insurmountable for many Americans, one). But again, that’s another post for another day.

I hope you learned something. Or, if not, I hope it was at least interesting. Let me know in the comments if there’s something else along these lines that you want me to talk about. I’m pretty open.

Tags: mid-career author