or what you should really expect
I haven't posted in a few days because I just got final revisions back on my book, and I'm smothered in making them. Writing this book has been a mammoth project—two years in the making—a true labor of love, my passion. On many occasion, I have felt like a word scultor, taking away words here, adding them there and sometimes starting all over again.
It has been gratifying and rewarding, and I hope that my book will resonate with readers. I say all this because I think aspiring authors look at the potential reward of writing a book—a big advance—as the reason for writing. It is not, and realistic reasons prevail for why this is so.
The typical book advance for a first-time author is a mere $5,000 to $10,000. For that kind of money, if you're into the money, then you might as well write a feature story for Travel & Leisure magazine. You'd earn at least $4,000 for an article that would be less than 1 percent the work of writing a book.
Some books, of course, rake in huge advances. When Hillary Rodham Clinton sold her memoirs to Simon & Schuster, she received an $8 million advance on her book deal.
Her book, like mine, went to auction. That means that several publishers bid on your book. Before mine went to auction, my agent encouraged me to come to New York City and meet with the editors at Penguin, Simon & Schuster, St. Martin's Press and McGraw-Hill. Creating a three-dimensional image (me) out of a two-dimensional project (the book) was a strategy she used to bring excitement to the project.
She then set a date for the publishers to call in with their bid. All of the publishers, except McGraw-Hill, bid on my book. Around noon, the first bid came in, then the second and a third. My agent kept me aprised by telephone. In the end, it was between Simon & Schuster and Penguin.
My agent advised that I sign with Penguin, not only because it offered the highest bid, but because it had other titles (The Out-Of-Sync Child, for example) that sold well in bookstores. That was important because when it came time for Penguin's sales force to pitch my book to book buyers (they only have about two minutes per book to do this), it could rely on the success of its past titles to convince buyers to buy mine.
I hope that will bear out to be true when my book comes out in March—the month before National Autism Awareness month, and a big month for all publishers of special needs books.
Some tips for getting a bigger advance:
- Write a solid book proposal. Don't get ahead of yourself and focus on the prose. You need an "author's platform" (what kind of expert are you in relation to your book?) and marketing/promotion plan in your proposal. This is your marketing tool, to not only get an agent but a publisher.
- Believe in yourself. You need to believe that what you're writing about is either going to help improve the lives of others or offer provocative insight on something. If you get a chance to meet with publishers, let your passion shine through. Try to look at this process from the outside in; how will publishers perceive you.
Being a good writer is a given. You shouldn't be writing a book to perfect your writing. You should already be able to write clear, non-cliche prose.
Okay, my advance. It wasn't six figures; it was $60,000, with incentives to make more if my book sells from 10,000 to 40,000 copies during the first year.
MONDAY: Surprise!
