My Book Deal Ruined My Life
Taxes, weight gain, depression, loneliness—book advances are like lottery payoffs
“You hear about these big contracts coming in, and it whets your appetite,” said Leah McLaren, a columnist for Canada’s Globe and Mail, who landed a book contract with HarperCollins Canada in 2003 for her chick-lit novel, The Continuity Girl. “You start to think, ‘This is my lottery ticket …. It could be optioned for a movie or become a huge best-seller!’”
Indeed, securing a deal with one of the many esteemed editors at publishing houses like Knopf or Doubleday or FSG seems like fulfilling a kind of New York–specific American dream. Visions of six-figure contracts, KGB readings and TV appearances dance through writers’ heads. Even better: no more office, no more boss.
“But then, it could completely disappear and sell five copies,” added Ms. McLaren whose own book was published to little fanfare as a paperback original in the States this spring. “And you’ll never be heard from again. You’ll disappear. And that’s the real risk of writing a book.”
Could such doom await lucky-seeming, envy-enspiring book writers?
Look at Jessica Cutler, a.k.a. Washingtonienne, the D.C. sex blogger who was paid a six-figure advance for her novel, based on the experiences she chronicled on her blog. Suffering under the weight of a lawsuit from an ex-boyfriend, who claims to have been humiliated by her writing, she has now filed for bankruptcy. She can’t even pay her Am-Ex bill.
Then there are the truly epic downfalls of authors like James Frey, whose fabricated memoir caused his life (and his seven-figure two-book deal with Riverhead) to shatter into a million little pieces. Now he’s writing two novels without a contract and posting on the blog and message boards on his Web site, bigjimindustries.com—the literary equivalent of living in a trailer park.
And even before the potential post-publication humiliation, there’s deadline pressure; crippling self-doubt; diets of Entenmann’s pastries and black coffee; self-made cubicles structured with piles of books, papers and unpaid bills; night-owl tendencies; failed relationships; unanswered phone calls; weight gain; poverty; and, of course, exhaustion.
So forget the American dream! Getting a book deal seems more like a nightmare.
In 2002, Daniel Smith, a former Atlantic Monthly staff editor, received the news that he’d gotten a book contract for Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination in a sweltering phone booth at the MacDowell Colony, an artists’ retreat in woodsy New Hampshire. “There was no cell-phone reception at the time, so you had to get into these poorly ventilated—meaning there was no ventilation—phone booths. You sweat like a pig in there, and that’s how I got the news. And it was extremely exciting,” Mr. Smith told The Observer. Next Page >
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Deborah Smith
NYT bestselling author of A Place To Call Home
This is an extreme view of the book-writing life, to say the least. A bit like the instructor at drama camp telling the kids "Don't try to be a successful actor -- you'll end up like Anna Nicole Smith!"
Writing books is like any other job -- it has its good days and its bad. Disappointments, frustrations, you name it. But most career writers spend six months or a year steadily crafting a decent book, not endless years agonizing over a wannabe-opus. They do their job, they move on, they make a good living, they roll with the punches.
The examples selected for the Observer article are hardly typical. If the authors cited share anything with the failed lottery winners, it's an inflated sense of reality and very poor abilities to manage their opportunities.
I have to say your examples aren't typical of my experience with the writers I know. But I can say that with every book you write and manage to sell to a publisher there is a new journey and adventure waiting for you. Is there sometimes a lack of money or publicity or recognition along that journey?
Sometimes. The key is to ask yourself why you write? What is it that motivates you to put pen to paper?
If it's just the money, you can forget about having a lasting career in publishing. It has to be about the passion for the story that you are writing and wish readers to see. Without the passion, a writing career will be shortlived.
But coupled with that passion there must be a sense of what the business demands and what you need to do to stay viable in the business and much like any other career, every year in the business should bring new insights and connections to keep your writing career going.
Finally, besides passion and professionalism, there has to be a strong will to persevere. Publishing is not for the faint of heart.
How do I know this? I published my first book in 1999 and two years later the line for which I was writing folded. It took me another 2 years to sell my next book, but after that, I've been lucky enough to continue to sell on a regular basis.
So, those are my three Ps for publishing: Passion. Professionalism. Perseverance.
Caridad Piñeiro, www.caridad.com
SOUTH BEACH CHICAS CATCH THEIR MAN, September 2007, Downtown Press
MOON FEVER, October 2007, Pocket Books
HOLIDAY WITH A VAMPIRE, December 2007, Silhouette Nocturne
SECRET AGENT REUNION, August 2007, Silhouette Romantic Suspense
Gwen Cooper
Author, Diary of a South Beach Party Girl
As in any creative endeavor--music, film, dance, etc.--writing produces a small number of envy-inspiring success stories and more than a few casualties strewn by the side of the road. When so many people want the same thing, how could that not be the case? But up the middle of that road (along the lines of the "Hey, it's that guy" category of working actors) are the ones who may never become fabulously rich and famous, but who nevertheless manage to pay their bills and live their lives in relative comfort--with the added bonus of getting to do what they love for a living.
I wish there had been more coverage of such writers in this piece, as this story seems intended to discourage aspiring writers from making the attempt. So I'll only point out that there's a name for people who are so afraid of failing, they don't even try to win. They're called losers.
Jack Alcott
Author, Grim Legion
Sigh ... Yeah, I experienced all the degradations outlined above, and am still left wondering why I ever pushed myself to write a novel in the first place. And yet, I'm even now plotting to hold myself hostage and do it all over again ... My book, Grim Legion, is an admittedly semi-pulpy historical thriller -- so I didn't even have any literary pretensions to keep me going while writing it. Grim was originally written in six months, from 5 to 8 a.m., before heading out to my day job (rewrites, arrgghh, took another two years). Yep, up well before dawn, my eyes glued half-shut with crusty sleep, drinking cup after cup of scalding, mud-like coffee while staring at the often immobile cursor on my laptop screen and thinking, "move, damn you" ... The very essence of creativity ... Somehow, though, the work got done, and while I never had visions of big dollar signs dancing in my head, I had hoped I'd get lucky and earn a few bucks, maybe enough to buy myself a Fender Telecaster (my other hobby that pays nothing). Oh well; my book's been out there for a few months and I've yet to see a check. But it is on Websites in England, Japan, Germany and even New Zealand, and that's a kick (I have readers in Auckland!). And Joe Queenan, he of the rapier pen, gave it a fairly positive mention in a column in The New York Times Book Review. So I can at least frame that and hang it on the wall of my study ... Now if only some hotshot Hollywood agent would pick up a copy of Grim and get it made into a movie -- ka-ching!
Jack Alcott
Author, Grim Legion
Sigh ... Yeah, I experienced all the degradations outlined above, and am still left wondering why I ever pushed myself to write a novel in the first place. And yet, I'm even now plotting to hold myself hostage and do it all over again ... My book, Grim Legion, is an admittedly semi-pulpy historical thriller -- so I didn't even have any literary pretensions to keep me going while writing it. Grim was originally written in six months, from 5 to 8 a.m., before heading out to my day job (rewrites, arrgghh, took another two years). Yep, up well before dawn, my eyes glued half-shut with crusty sleep, drinking cup after cup of scalding, mud-like coffee while staring at the often immobile cursor on my laptop screen and thinking, "move, damn you" ... The very essence of creativity ... Somehow, though, the work got done, and while I never had visions of big dollar signs dancing in my head, I had hoped I'd get lucky and earn a few bucks, maybe enough to buy myself a Fender Telecaster (my other hobby that pays nothing). Oh well; my book's been out there for a few months and I've yet to see a check. But it is on Websites in England, Japan, Germany and even New Zealand, and that's a kick (I have readers in Auckland!). And Joe Queenan, he of the rapier pen, gave it a fairly positive mention in a column in The New York Times Book Review. So I can at least frame that and hang it on the wall of my study ... Now if only some hotshot Hollywood agent would pick up a copy of Grim and get it made into a movie -- ka-ching!
Virginia Henley
NYT bestselling author of Seduced and Desired
You cannot just decide to write a book on a whim, and think you will become an overnight success. Talk about wanting immediate gratification!
Writing is hard work. It is also a lonely profession. If you do not have passion, persistence, and the ability to keep your bum on the chair, while you aggressively pursue your goals, you will never achieve success in any profession, let alone writing.
Virginia Henley
NYT bestselling author of Seduced and Desired
You cannot just decide to write a book on a whim, and think you will become an overnight success. Talk about wanting immediate gratification!
Writing is hard work. It is also a lonely profession. If you do not have passion, persistence, and the ability to keep your bum on the chair, while you aggressively pursue your goals, you will never achieve success in any profession, let alone writing.
I understand the emotions and frustrations of the authors interviewed in the Observer article, but c'mon...each one has had the unbelievable pleasure of seeing their name on the spine of a book.
Their dream come true.
So, write if you *must*, otherwise don't. It's a tough, tough business.
And while you're at it, decide if you're writing for yourself or to sell...there's a huge difference. The competition is absolutely fierce--I've seen stats that somewhere between .05% and 2% of unsolicited manuscripts actually get purchased for publication, and that literary agencies reject 99.5% of everything they see.
Still, I know many writers who make a living. Sure, some keep their day jobs for the security or, more likely, for the medical insurance. And the income amounts are absolutely all over the place. And, sure, we all dream of "the big one" and "that book-to-movie deal" and "reaching bestseller status and staying there." But, we all know it's like acting--the top 10% make the big bucks and get the attention.
We don't write strictly for the money, though most of us certainly do want to be paid a fair wage for our work. We write because characters and story ideas keep running around in our heads...and we have to get them onto paper/screen...and we are compelled to share them with others.
So, some advice to wanna-be-published-authors: you must develop a thick skin in order to deal with rejection, you must continue to ingest doses of reality, you must continually study the industry, the market, and your craft, and...
...oh, yeah, you must keep your butt in the chair in order to keep creating and to meet deadlines...it's part of the job.
Janet Wellington
Author, Writing Coach, Independent Line/Copyeditor
www.janetwellington.com
My first book was published last fall. It's called A Home on the Field, HarperCollins, and it tells the story of an all Latino immigrant soccer team in a small rural town in the South and the struggle the boys and the town go through in dealing with immigration. I got a modest advance and was given about five months to write the book, a deadline which I made. It has been a positive experience. I didn't become a millionaire but anyone who thinks that will happen with their first book or ever is dreaming. I learned how tough the publishing business can be. There are a lot of humiliations that come with publishing as a first-time author but there are also wonderful moments as well. If you get more than five people at your first reading consider yourself lucky. I think people should consider what their motivations are in writing a book. If you just want to get rich there are better ways. I wrote the book to tell a story about events I thought could shed light on the issue of immigration. The South is being transformed by immigration and now the country is realizing the same. The boys on the team, they play at the local high school, have much to share with the country on this issue. The book is going into paperback this fall and will be translated into Spanish as well. That is a publishing success, but the more meaningful one is I realized a dream of mine. And like they say in sports, no one can take that away from you.
Oh, give us a little break here! Who couldn't responsibly handle a 2 million dollar windfall? Obviously some people.
As to a big book deal, I'll take two, please. Or one, even.
Promise you it won't ruin my life. On the other hand, maybe more articles like this one will scare wouldbe writers away.
Less competition. Great! Go for it.
carl brookins
author
A Superior Mystery
Old Silver
The Case of the Greedy Lawyers
Just to note, lottery winner William (Bud) Post does not, in fact, currently survive on food stamps and Social Security checks. He died in January of 2006.
I'd just like to point out that this is far and away the most erudite and well punctuated comments section I have ever come across. But that's no surprise. Everybody keep writing!
Oh wah wah. Only in a culture as rich and decadent as ours can people whine about such things. Hello. The fact that it is even remotely possible for thousands of people to contemplate a life as a book writer is an astonishing freak occurrence in the history of the human race. Consider yourself lucky. Though for sure, that freelance tax is insane (note to writers: yeah, keep voting for Democrats).
I wrote three books, all by request of the publisher (and no, I won't pimp them here). They're all junk, but I made my deadlines and I made a few (very few) bucks. I even got some radio time for one of them. Big deal. After five minutes the thrill of having your name on a book goes away. Most of what gets published is crap, my crap included, so who really cares. Real talent generally will out in the end, and for another few your garbage will make you good money, but it usually has to be good, workmanlike garbage (channeling Steven King....). A tiny tiny bit of you will get rich, but going in expecting that is a recipe for misery.
If you're moved to write, then write. Don't expect to make money and don't expect that anyone anywhere will give a darn. My wife at the time didn't even read my freaking books. Though I do believe my mother read them. Thanks mom!!
The best thing about having been published is that people, for some odd reason, are very impressed by it. They just don't know any better.
Wait, you're allowed to MISS your deadlines?
I was told in no uncertain terms by my publisher that my book had to be in quickly, because if we missed summer and slid into fall the book would not sell. Period.
As a result, I drew up an outline and wrote the book to outline at a pace of 4,000 words a week. Since my book was about my zany adventures as a real-estate agent (plug: it's the pick in Newsweek this week) I also had to keep cozying up to customers and showing condos.
At the time, I resented the forced-march quality of this schedule, but now I thank my lucky stars that I didn't have ten years to write, because I fear I would have taken it.
Biographers, I salute you.
Alison Rogers
author, "Diary of a Real Estate Rookie"
http://tinyurl.com/2ag28z
Like many, it was my dream to publish a novel since I was, oh, 12. Through nearly 20 years of rejections and criticism and rewrites, my fantasies morphed into the understand of the reality that a book deal doesn't necessarily solve your problems or make you instantly rich and famous. The rejections beat me into shape until I was finally ready for the book deal I eventually got.
Publishing one's writing is wonderful. It allows you to communicate and share your ideas and creativity with others, and I was very lucky to have had a positive experience with it. I think it's incumbent among any publisher or agent dealing with a young person (like some of those in the article) who gets published for the first time in their 20s to warn them that publication of their book won't instantly make all their dreams come true. You really don't have to make yourself miserable over it - it should be something joyful!
And incidentally, if a book is largely completed when it is accepted, it won't take writers another five years to finish it. The problem comes when some kid gets an advance based on three sentences. There's the rub.
This may sound harsh, but we've become a nation of whiners, expecting every experience in life to make things perfect for us. We don't want to work hard. We don't want to shed any blood. We don't want to sacrifice.
I can guaran-double-tee you that if I was lucky enough to win the lottery, I wouldn't end up in bankruptcy, and I'd manage it well enough to leave a legacy for my children and my grandchildren. (Of course, they'd be in danger of becoming nouveau riche spoiled brats, but... meh.)
I hope the "nightmare" of publishing a book occurs for me frequently and often. I'm made of strong enough materials to weather the good and the bad.
I recently reviewed "The Diary of Petr Ginz" (Atlantic Monthly Press) for The Jewish Journal. Ginz wrote diary entries, novels, poetry and essays and also created evocative art (linocuts, sketches and paintings). He did this while in a Prague ghetto and then later in a concentration camp before being murdered at the age of sixteen in a Nazi gas chamber. Writers write because they are driven to do so. Period. If it's too difficult, then do something else. I have little patience for writers who complain about their lives particularly those who land hefty book deals.
In my nearly 20 years in publishing I've yet to hear of anyone whose life was ruined by landing a book deal.
I've also met a lottery winner, and lemme tell ya, he is one happy dude and so is his family.
Of course, the people I know have BRAINS in their bone box and USE 'em.
If I've gained weight from all those book contracts (rather than from too many trips to McDonalds) it's because I'm eating regularly!
I've landed several deals and am going after more. I'm danged lucky to be working in a craft I LOVE.
But I found this bit of wisdom from Kinky Friedman (also a survivor of many a book deal) who said it best:
"Before you go ruining your life, it goes without saying you first have to have one."
P.N. Elrod
You've got to be kidding me. I know a lot of writers, and not one of them is laboring under the delusion that you are forbidden to leave your home while you are working on a book, forbidden to take a walk or go to the gym, forbidden to choose a subject you actually WANT to spend a lot of time with, etc. As for the money, if you're paying an exhorbitant amount in taxes you evidently have an accountant who is stealing from you or you SHOULD hire an accountant because you're probably crap at figuring out how to file your taxes correctly.
As the saying goes, cry me a river. If you're so upset about selling your work and getting to do something you supposedly LIKE for a living, tell your publisher to give your book contract to someone else who'll actually appreciate it.
Okay, a word from someone who doesn't know whoever that woman is this guy is writing a biography of...
I wrote for ten years before I got my first contract. I had twenty books written when the miracle occurred and someone bought my book. For a stunning FOUR FIGURE advance, yes, I know, be still my heart. Well, you know what? I was and remain THRILLED.
Now, I'm selling them and writing more as fast as I can convince my publisher to take them. I've got contracts and a couple of verbal committments on five more books.
I write about two 90,000 word books a year AND have a full time job. And there's research galore for a fiction book. What has he been doing for ten years???? What is that? About one word a day??
Oh yes, I typed 'THE'. Must rest.
Is he reading her diary? Newspaper clippings? Interviewing friends? That should take him outside.
Sorry, I know the writer's life can be strange and lonely and few people understand that you ARE doing something when you're alone at home.
But still, maybe a few people are worth a ten year commitment for a bio, Jesus? Okay. Except honestly, Jesus would probably rather have you out feeding the poor. George Washington...maybe.
Paris Hilton...wouldn't be surprised, although most of the pop culture bios seem to be written in a long, caffeine soaked weekend.
But who is this woman...and don't bother to tell me, I could google her if I really cared.
And since you're plugging your books mine are historical romantic comedies and they'll be more fun than whats her names bio:
Mary Connealy
Petticoat Ranch in bookstores NOW!
Golden Days available through www.maryconnealy.com
More novels coming soon.
Okay, a word from someone who doesn't know whoever that woman is this guy is writing a biography of...
I wrote for ten years before I got my first contract. I had twenty books written when the miracle occurred and someone bought my book. For a stunning FOUR FIGURE advance, yes, I know, be still my heart. Well, you know what? I was and remain THRILLED.
Now, I'm selling them and writing more as fast as I can convince my publisher to take them. I've got contracts and a couple of verbal committments on five more books.
I write about two 90,000 word books a year AND have a full time job. And there's research galore for a fiction book. What has he been doing for ten years???? What is that? About one word a day??
Oh yes, I typed 'THE'. Must rest.
Is he reading her diary? Newspaper clippings? Interviewing friends? That should take him outside.
Sorry, I know the writer's life can be strange and lonely and few people understand that you ARE doing something when you're alone at home.
But still, maybe a few people are worth a ten year commitment for a bio, Jesus? Okay. Except honestly, Jesus would probably rather have you out feeding the poor. George Washington...maybe.
Paris Hilton...wouldn't be surprised, although most of the pop culture bios seem to be written in a long, caffeine soaked weekend.
But who is this woman...and don't bother to tell me, I could google her if I really cared.
And since you're plugging your books mine are historical romantic comedies and they'll be more fun than whats her names bio:
Mary Connealy
Petticoat Ranch in bookstores NOW!
Golden Days available through www.maryconnealy.com
More novels coming soon.
Oh dear, life is tough! Anybody who has been writing for a while, should know that there are very few people who are going to make a decent living from writing books. In Canada where a book considered a "good seller" may sell 6,000 copies, writers must do other things if they want to keep body and soul together.
One writes because one has to, just as one does other things because one has to in order to live.
Mary Soderstrom
Nine books published, still glad I'm married to someone with a good day job.
http://marysoderstrom.blogspot.com
l
1
Come on, everybody, lighten up.
Don't you get it? This amusing column is not for us, the struggling writers, with our stingy advances, boring day jobs and flabby thighs, but for all our friends and coworkers who persist in thinking that because we got a contract we are now millionaires.
Here's some perspective for both sides: I recently signed my first contract. The advance amount was FOUR figures, and I only get HALF of it this year. How 'bout them apples? And you know what? I'm ecstatic. My book is fiction, historical romantic comedy, something I had "self-published" (actually subsidy published, print-on-demand). I had jumped through hoops trying to publicize it, only to give up and get on with writing my next one. And that's when an editor at HarperCollins came across it and made me this offer, and changed me from would-be to "writer."
I don't like to tell people the amount of my advance, any more than I tell people my salary or rent, but I have told some people purely to let them see what it means to be a first-time "published author," and as proof that we do it for love, not as a way to get rich.
For me, it's all worth it, because someone in the publishing world recognized my unusual novel for what I had tried so hard to make it: a well-written, funny, sexy, and above all, literate, work of entertaining fiction.
Do I hope for big sales and a bigger contract next time? You bet! But what I want most is the readers I will gain from being published by a major publisher and having my book sold in bookstores.
Mr. Englander’s last words resonate with every real writer I’ve ever known: it’s all I want to do. As an author who worked her way up from a small Colorado publishing house to the “big time”, Berkley, I can say it has been (and is) worth anything I had to do to get here. Every penny of every advance has gone back into marketing. I pay for my own travel, conferences, promotions. What makes it worth it? That one fan who comes up to you at a conference or book signing and says, “I loved your book.”
Jeanne Stein
www.jeannestein.com
THE BECOMING
BLOOD DRIVE
All I can say is I am 10 times more inspired to write now than I have ever been. For many years I have always thought there was something wrong with me, some form of mental illness. And in way there is... I'm a writer. This artical put EVERYthing into perspective for me and the "visions" I have is normal. The writing world is scary, but I have been dealing with all its lows for many years. In the end my future, I know, will be nothing I haven't faced before. Thank you for your article and what it has done for me. You all will all be seeing me someday, good or bad reviews, you still know who I am.
It looks like you really had a nice time. notem6715
It looks like you really had a nice time. notem6715