Nothing braces us to continue than to hear about a writer who overcame rejection to go on to success. The Wall Street Journal reports that Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help was turned down by sixty literary agents.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg writes about how technology is affecting the book business:
“As bookstores disappear across America, some small operators are pursuing a novel survival strategy: The bookless bookshelf.
“Their vision was aided Thursday by HarperCollins Publishers Inc. which said it would make about 5,000 current paperbacks available to bookstores through On Demand Books LLC’s Espresso Book Machine. The desk-sized device can custom print a book in just a few minutes. That means even if a physical copy is not in stock, it’s still available almost immediately. . . .
“The hope is that the surviving bookstores will be able to boost revenue by selling titles that they might not have in stock. . . .
“It’s unclear whether other publishers will follow but the move represents a potential boost for retailers with limited shelf space competing with online retailers such as Amazone.com Inc., which offers millions of pirnt and digital books. . . .
“HarperCollins estimates 25% to 80% of its trade paperback titles aren’t available in bookstores because of space considerations. . . .
“Although On Demand Books once hoped to have more than 500 machines in use by the end of 2009, they have been slow to catche on. Today there are 23 installed in the U.S., with another 30 sold and scheduled for installation . . . .
“One leading publisher who asked not to be identified said his company is unlikely to make more titles available, in part because they are concerned that bookstores with the machines might then order fewer titles. Machines, this person said, don’t help market books. . . .
“In most cases, HarperCollins will receive about 70% of the revenue from an Espresso-printed title, with the retailer taking 30%.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that Kathryn Stockett’s runaway bestseller The Help was turned down by 60 literary agents. Then a fairly unknown director, Tate Taylor, bought film rights to the unpublished novel, which–after an initial rejection–was picked up by Dreamworks chief executive Stacey Snider and her business partner Steven Spielberg. The novel now has 3,000,000 copies in print. The movie will be released Wednesday, August 10.
Super-agent Andrew Wylie represents 750 clients, and, according to WSJ Magazine, is nicknamed The Jackal for his aggressive deal-making. In the magazine, he speculates on the future of the novel.
In the U.S., and throughout the world, the distribution of books will end up being a combination of digital and independent retailers. It’s very difficult for the chains to maintain a sustainable model. Independents will survive because people want independent bookstores to survive. They like a targeted selection accessible in a shopping environment. I go into my neighborhood bookstore, the Corner Bookstore [on Manhattan's Upper East Side], every Saturday and every Sunday, just religiously. And I buy books there because I want to make sure that the store will stay open.
I don’t think in the next 20 years people will have a screen in the library and access all their reading that way. I have a Kindle, and we have iPads at home. But I don’t use any of them. I find that I don’t have time.
Author Sandra Brown says:
“Early in my career when I was fretting over bad covers, poor distribution and the lack of promotion from the publisher, my first editor, Vivian Stephens, said this to me, ‘When you get the world’s attention, you’d better have something brilliant to say.” She was telling me that I should be concentrating first and foremost on my manuscript, that if I continually wrote good books, the rest would follow. I’m still easily distracted by publishing concerns, often to the detriment of the work-in-progress. Daily I remind myself that my manuscript is the only thing over which I have absolute control. It should be my focus, my main gig.”
In the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg writes about e-book success in an article headlined Cheapest E-Books Upend the Charts:
The nation’s largest book publishers are facing increasing pricing pressure on the digital front as the number of cheap, self-published digital titles gain popularity with readers seeking budget-minded entertainment.
Amazon.com Inc.’s top 50 digital best-seller list featured 15 books priced at $5 or less on Wednesday afternoon. Louisville businessman John Locke, for example, a part-time thriller writer whose signature series features a former CIA assassin, claimed seven of those titles, all priced at 99 cents.
“They’re training their customers away from brand name authors and are instead creating visibility for self-published titles,” one senior publishing executive who asked not to be identified, says of Amazon.
As digital sales surge, publishers are casting a worried eye towards the previously scorned self-publishing market. Unlike five years ago, when self-published writers rarely saw their works on the same shelf as the industry’s biggest names, the low cost of digital publishing, coupled with Twitter and other social-networking tools, has enabled previously unknown writers to make a splash.
The issue of pricing has been paramount since Amazon launched its Kindle e-reader in November 2007. The device exploded, driven by the wide appeal of $9.99 digital best-sellers that were available on the same day as the hardcover edition. . . .
Books are facing competition from a wide array of cheap digital entertainment—from Netflix Inc’s streaming-video service to Apple’s Inc.’s iTunes store—easily accessed via tablets, options that don’t exist on dedicated e-reading devices.
All of which has helped boost the sales of Mr. Locke, the self-published thriller writer. Mr. Locke, who published his first paperback two years ago at age 58, says he decided to jump into digital publishing in March 2010 after studying e-book pricing.
“When I saw that highly successful authors were charging $9.99 for an e-book, I thought that if I can make a profit at 99 cents, I no longer have to prove I’m as good as them,” says Mr. Lock. “Rather, they have to prove they are ten times better than me.”
Mr. Locke earns 35 cents for every title he sells at 99 cents. Altogether, he says his publishing revenue amounted to $126,000 from Amazon in March alone. It costs him about $1,000 to have his book published digitally, complete with original dust jacket image. He also hires an editor to work with him at additional expense.
In March, he sold 369,000 downloads on Amazon, up from about 75,000 in January and just 1,300 in November. His titles are also sold by digital bookstores operated by Kobo Inc., Barnes & Noble Inc., and Apple.
Mr. Locke has more than 20,000 Twitter followers, uses a blog to promote his books, and personally answers hundreds of emails each week. “It’s all about marketing, but they have to like your stuff,” he says.
Amazon pays all authors who use Kindle Direct Publishing, the retailer’s independent publishing service, a royalty rate of 35% on digital titles priced below $2.99, and 70% on e-books priced between $2.99 and $9.99.
Tolstoy’s War and Peace contains 675,000 words. Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears has 250,000 words. In most cases, our novel shouldn’t be anywhere near as long as these two.
Here is Jack Bickham–one of the best writers on writing–on the length of a novel:
How long should my novel be?” . . . . The answer to the first common question –about length–may be answered in a general way; Length may be determined by the requirements of your publisher, especially if you plan to work in a genre. Harlequin romances, for example, are written to a rigid length requirement. On the other hand, if you have no such genre or publisher guidance, then you should plan to keep your novel’s length somewhere between 60,000 and 90,000 words. . . .
“Books shorter than 60,000 words are published, certainly, and a novel of 50,000 words has a chance. But lengths failing far below the 60,000-word norm are rarities that many publishers don’t often buy because they don’t fit traditional production and selling strategies. Books longer than 90,000 words are very expensive to publish, will cost more at the bookstore, and consequently represent what may be an unacceptable risk for many publishers.
Edith Wharton added helpfully that “one should always be able to say of a novel; ‘it might have been longer,’ never: ‘It need not have been so long.’”
The legendary Simon & Schuster editor Michael Korda in Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller 1900-1999, talks about what makes for a bestseller:
Critic and editor Roger Burlingame summed it up in 1947 about as well as it could be put:
“Certain themes are sure-fire for a lot of people. A sizeable following is guaranteed for a novel with a religious background. Books on success, self-improvement, the techniques of a popular game can be counted on. Mysteries have a special public. Certain authors have their own bodies of disciples. Someone once said that ‘an author is likely to be successful if he writes the same book over and over again.’ But what makes a book spread over all the groups and classes is a known and inexpressible secret.
“We can say that public taste has widened immeasurably in the last fifty years. Many of the old bars are down. The public will accept realism. Tragedy, every aspect of life. Snobbery or squeamishness are gone. But it will accept sound romance too. It is probably safe to say that a good book has, today, a better chance of being a best seller than ever in American history.”
As we look at the bestsellers of the past hundred years, decade by decade, we will, perhaps, get a sense of just what it is that makes Americans buy a book in large quantities, of that elusive and mysterious mix of elements and appeal that makes a book, fiction or nonfiction, a bestseller. Burlingame, no dummy, denied there was a surefire formula, and he was right. Certain factors publishers can predict, but not the exact way in which they are combined to produce, suddenly against all expectations, and out of the blue—a bestseller! . . . .
The lesson is, yes, there are rules, but they don’t apply to writers of real talent, and they’re not absolute for anybody. The only thing you can say for sure is that, yes, the ability to tell a story matters a lot, in fiction and in nonfiction, and having something new and interesting to say about familiar subjects is maybe at the heart of it all. . . .
The only thing you can say for sure is that, yes, the ability to tell a story matters a lot, in fiction and in nonfiction, and having something new and interesting to say about familiar subjects is maybe at the heart of it all.
The Associated Press yesterday had an article about the surge of e-book sales:
NEW YORK (AP) – The e-book boom has reached new heights, but not high enough to boost book sales overall.
Helped by millions of Kindles, Nooks and other digital devices given for holiday gifts, e-book sales jumped in January and surpassed purchases of hardcovers and mass market paperbacks, according to a new survey. The Association of American Publishers reported Thursday that e-sales more than doubled from $32.4 million in January 2010 to $69.9 million in January 2011.
Hardcovers sales fell from $55.4 million to $49.1 million, and mass market paperbacks, a format that’s declining as baby boomers seek books with larger print, fell from $56.4 million to $39 million.
Total sales, which include the education and professional markets, were $805.7 million in January, slightly below the $821.5 million reported last year.
Not all AAP members participate, but the survey includes results from Random House, Inc., Simon & Schuster and other leading publishers.
The new numbers “pretty much reflect reality,” Simon & Schuster CEO and president Carolyn Reidy said Thursday, although she cautioned that e-sales tend to be especially high in January as new customers test the format.
She said e-sales likely dropped after January but will settle at a level that’s still substantially higher than last year. Reidy said e-books were around 8 to 9 percent of the general trade market at the end of 2010 and she expects them to reach 12 to 15 percent of the market this year.
“When people start out with e-books, they like the convenience and the ease,” Reidy said. “They tend to experiment with different kinds of books.”
Reidy said e-book sales were as high as 50 percent of the total for some works, not just for commercial fiction, but for so-called “midlist” books that depend on reviews and word of mouth. She cited Mira Bartok’s well-regarded memoir “The Memory Palace,” which came out this year.
“You have people reading the reviews and buying the books electronically,” she said.
Yesterday a friend—a good writer—received her first rejection from an agent for her new novel. She was downcast.
I wanted to yell, “You’re discouraged by one rejection? One?”
I was more polite, of course. She needed a few words of encouragement, and so this is what I told her: John Grisham was rejected by 29 agents before Jay Garon took him on for Grisham’s first novel, A Time To Kill, and then the novel was turned down by the first 15 publishers who looked at it. Joe Haldeman was turned down more than a dozen times before Forever War found a publisher, and went on to win both the Nebula and Hugo awards. Twelve British publishers rejected J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel. Frank Herbert’s received thirteen rejection slips for Dune. Rudyard Kipling received this personalized rejection slip early in his career: “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”
Rejections are part of a writer’s career choice. New writers greet them with gloom and pessimism, and it’s easy to understand why. They’ve invested their talent, work, and self-esteem into a product, and now they learn somebody doesn’t want it. But for experienced writers, rejection slips are just another blip in a long career, to be treated with no more importance than a door-to-door cosmetics salesperson regards a “No, thank you,” at one house, before walking along the sidewalk to the next house. Ninety nine percent of writers deal with rejections. They are part of being a writer.
Sci fi novelist Kevin J. Anderson says, “Most aspiring writers give up long before their chance arrives.” A writer never knows when success will arrive, but knowing when failure arrives is certain: when the writer gets discouraged by rejection slips, and stops marketing the novel.
