by David Poyer
A version of this article appeared in THE WRITER magazine, October 2001
issue.
Is there a magic key to getting published? After 25 years in the business, I’d have found it - if it existed. But it doesn’t. Even pitching sequels to books that made money, I’ve been turned down.
But in the last few months things have started to click. First,
with the help of a first-rate agent, I placed the seventh novel in an ongoing
series. Then we signed a three-book contract with another publisher.
After that, I managed a bidding situation for a friend’s literary novel.
Working with a partner, I then helped a new writer secure an agent and a
two-book contract, and, last but not least, placed a children’s book written
by two poets I know.
Thus, I've been involved in selling a total of eight books in the last few
months. The sales occurred in various ways, but never in the way they’re
“supposed” to - by writing a manuscript and sending it off to an agent.
My conclusions: A writer needs to understand how the market works today,
how to use proposals, make contacts, in short, how to act rather than
wait passively to be noticed.
In that spirit, then, here are four case studies of how today books move from concept to a contract, and the seven “habits” beginning writers can learn from them.
Habit number 1: Follow a banjo act with another banjo act.
This is the simplest case I’ll present. I’ve been with St. Martin’s Press since 1983, in a long and rewarding association with George Witte, who is now the editor-in-chief there. The Dan Lenson novels (The Med, The Gulf, The Circle, The Passage, Tomahawk, China Sea) are works of modern naval fiction. I run the stories about ten years behind current events, so it was time to do a Desert Storm book.
Black Storm focuses on a team of marines sent into Iraq to locate a biological weapon. My primary selling tool was an 11-page proposal. It consisted of a cover, which I did with a scanner, Wordperfect 2000, and a color printer; a title page; a six-page, double-spaced chapter outline; and a paragraph each on narrative structure, research requirements, author bio, and literary and film agent contact data.
I sent the fourth draft of the proposal to my agent, Sloan Harris of ICM.
After incorporating his suggestions, I sent the proposal to George.
We had a contract within a month.
Habit number 2: Diversify
With Black Storm contracted, and my Hemlock County books with Forge at a good place for a hiatus, my long-term plan said it was time to start a new series. That’s how I’ve worked for years: keep two or more series going, quite different in terms of milieu and style, and alternate writing the books. It’s literary crop rotation, but it also keeps me from being totally dependent on the fortunes of one genre.
What people seem to want from me these days are sea stories, but I’ve done two historical novels and they got good reviews. So, it seemed natural to try a historical sea novel. I’d never read any fiction about the Civil War at sea, and I’ve always been fascinated by the era.
I began by envisioning seven books that would cover the principal phases and theaters – for example, the opening of hostilities, the blockade-runners, the war on the Mississippi. Then I tried to create some fictional characters who would fascinate me (and the reader) enough to keep us all going through that many books. When I thought I had them, I wrote a series outline, one paragraph per book.
Then I did a proposal for the first volume. But since this was a new concept, not a sequel, this proposal was much longer than that for Black Storm. This time I included a two-page Series Introduction, complete texts of Chapter One and the pivotal Burning-of-Norfolk Chapter 15 (a total of 16,500 words), a fifteen-page single-spaced outline, and a marketing plan. The proposal took three months to write, between previous commitments and book tours.
After the usual - his critique, my polishing - Sloan circulated the Civil War at Sea proposal to five carefully selected houses. We got several indications of interest, but good offers eventually came from St. Martin’s and Simon & Schuster. Interestingly, the offers were identical per book, but St. Martin’s offered a two-book contract, while S&S wanted three.
All other things being equal, I prefer to deal with more than one publisher. Paranoid? Maybe, but I learned this lesson back when my total income came from freelancing for magazines. I learned from experience that editors move on, and new editors bring their own favorites with them. Publishers change direction, and companies go broke. Depending on one person or company for your entire paycheck is just asking for trouble.
But I still postponed my decision until I could meet personally with editor Marysue Rucci, who had made the offer for S&S. We got along, and since I had the other books going at St. Martin’s, I decided to try my luck with Simon & Schuster. Sloan and ICM wrapped up the contract, I wrote the other 29 chapters, and Fire on the Waters was published in July 2001.
That’s how I diversify – different series, different genres, different publishers. It’s not a guarantee against sudden storms, but it gives you the reserve buoyancy to ride them out.
Habit number 3: Be aware of trends in the marketplace
It’s worth noting that this was the second time I’d gone through this whole
process. The year before, I developed and marketed an idea for a female
Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent investigating modern-day crimes
in the US Navy. Not one publisher made an offer. They said Demi
Moore’s flop in the movie G.I. Jane proved the combination “women” and “military”
did not spell commercial success. If I’d been reading the trade papers
more closely, I could have saved myself three months of work. Well,
someday its time will come, and the outline and opening chapter are still
on my hard drive!
Habit number 4: Make and keep up good contacts throughout your career
Lenore Hart is a novelist, poet and short-story writer who completed her MFA at Old Dominion University last year. (Lenore and I are the two main judges for the First Coast Novel Contest discussed below.) Her thesis was a literary novel, set in the early 20th century, about a young Virginia woman who takes over her waterman father’s boat after his death. Defying the mores of the time, she becomes a waterwoman. One of Hart’s thesis advisors, Oprah novelist Shari Reynolds (Bitteroot Landing, The Rapture of Canaan, A Gracious Plenty) was so taken with Waterwoman that she offered introductions to her editors at Putnam and Crown.
First Hart drafted a one-page query letter. She sent this not only to the editors Reynolds named, but to others she’d culled from the usual references. She mailed complete manuscripts to those who responded positively. She quickly got offers back from Susan Allison at Putnam and Shaye Ayreheart at Crown.
Suddenly she had a problem - the kind we should all have, but a problem nonetheless. She didn’t feel confident as a horse-trader, but she was looking at a dickering situation with two of the biggest houses in New York. Who could she get to negotiate for her? She’d already been turned down by three agents, on this book and on previous manuscripts, and didn’t feel like going back to any of them now that she’d sold the book herself.
At this point in the process, it would have taken too long to contact a new agent, get him/her smart on the property, and orient him on the playing field to start gaining yardage. She could have gotten “an” agent, but she wanted the right agent – one with personal contacts with publishers, one with a national reputation, one with good film industry contacts, and one who treated her with respect – or none at all. So she asked me to step in as a “business manager” and handle the bidding.
The process was stressful for us both. The opening bid had been from Signature/Putnam. Then Crown said they’d see it and raise it. Over the next week, while I tried to elicit a better offer from one party, while stalling the other, Lenore spoke at length on the phone to both Ayreheart and Allison. Midway through the week Houghton Mifflin expressed interest too, making the chili even spicier. Lenore was impressed by both editors, and both represent solid publishers, but Allison’s plan was to feature Waterwoman as the first hardcover in a new line. This augured a more solid commitment, since everyone at a house works extra hard to launch a new line successfully. Based on this, Lenore decided Putnam had the edge.
By now we were discussing considerably larger figures than they’d first offered, but I knew we had to nail down other terms than just the advance. In some ways, the amount of the advance can be less important than other aspects of the contract. I worked with Susan Allison to define the publisher’s offer in terms of world rights, on hardcover, trade, and mass market royalty rates, payout schedule, and all subsidiary rights splits. Once we had their offer well defined, I made counteroffers for an increased advance and better terms on trade paper royalties. I also asked for for cover consultation, more author’s copies, and better subsidiary rights splits. Since Hart didn’t have a regular agent, we signed over foreign language rights and audio book rights to Putnam for their exploitation, but reserved lyric, dramatic, film, radio, TV and commercial rights. When I was sure we had gotten the best deal possible, only then did we close.
Hart wrote a good book, but she did more: she used the people she knew to get it to market and get the best possible deal. And we were all glad to help.
Habit number 5: Once you have a breakthrough, push quickly on other fronts
With the book end settled, we immediately turned to Hollywood. Lenore had been corresponding with a well-known producer for some years. Their original project hadn’t panned out, but the producer wanted to see her new book when it was done. Based on that and the Putnam sale, we persuaded Amy Asbury at ICM Los Angeles to represent Hart’s work for films. The manuscript is now with two well-known screenwriters and packaging is starting to roll.
Habit number 6: Be open to informed advice
I’m one of the judges for the annual Novel Contest at the First Coast Writers’ Festival, held each spring in Jacksonville, Florida. (<www.fccj.org/wf>) Winners get cash, but the real prize is our recommendation to agents and editors we know, many of whom have attended the Festival in years past.
The ‘98 winner was Private Heat, a detective novel told with humor and insider knowledge - because Bob Bailey had been a private investigator for twenty-five years. But, it needed work.
Bailey himself puts it this way: “In 1998 I won the Bancroft Award at the First Coast Festival which came with a plaque and a small cash prize. The real award was a five page (single spaced, oh my God--why did I win?) critique from two professional novelists, David Poyer and Lenore Hart. The critique motivated the most extensive rewrite of the novel to date–but for the first time I had a compass, a heading, and a map.
“I sent the resulting draft to Poyer and Hart and they sent it to an acquaintance of theirs they felt would be a good match – Andy Zack, of the Zack Company, Inc. (<www.zackcompany.com>). Andy felt the novel had merit and signed me as a client. Then he beat me senseless with a Chicago Style Manual, pointed out redundant metaphors and passages that would prove cryptic to readers who had not spent twenty-five years as a street detective–and gave me yet another five page critique.
“The next draft was one hundred pages shorter and a lot more accessible. He used it to land me a two book hard cover contract with M. Evans and Company to launch my Art Hardin detective series.
“It takes a monumental ego to sit down, waste a ream of paper, and think anyone will care . . . Creating a well-crafted novel requires not only native skill but input from readers, critics, and occasional browbeating from benevolent mentors.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Habit number 7: Be willing to work hard . . . and not just at writing.
The message is clear. No longer can a writer wall himself off and simply write. To place your fiction in the coming years, you’ll have to work harder and know more than writers did in years past. You’ll need to study the market, the selling process, contract law, the impact of technology on publishing. What I call the “downhill flow” continues. Agents do what editors used to; things agents once did are now your responsibility. Contacts, knowledge, negotiating skills are increasingly necessary as the market changes ever more rapidly.
That said, the essential element remains. You’ve still got
to produce good writing, the kind that brings something new and exciting to
the reader. Do that, climb into the ring, and success will be yours.
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David Poyer is possibly the best known writer of American sea fiction
alive today. His most recent book is THAT ANVIL OF OUR SOULS (Simon
& Schuster, July 2005). Check out his work and career advice at
the Home Page location below.
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Poyer Home Page.