Big Fiction Takeaways

If you are serious about your long-term career as an author, you need to read this book.

Before we dive in: I am thinking of sharing more behind-the-scenes work here on my personal Art & Biz Substack. But would you mind commenting on this post and letting me know what you’d benefit from hearing about the most?

Some ideas:

• Self-Publishing

• Book Writing

• Digital Writing

• Ghostwriting

• AI Writing

• Digital Business Models

• My Daily Writing Habits/Processes

• What I’m Reading

• Etc.

Let me know!

~

Dear Writer,

Over Christmas, I binged this little-known book about the publishing industry:

Big Fiction by Dan Sinykin (assistant professor of English at Emory University).

This is a must-read for any writer serious about their career.

But since I know most won’t, here are my biggest takeaways:

1. There are 3 paths of success in the world of publishing books.

• Creative Writing Program (MFA) → Literary Fiction → Book Deal (usually by a small press or non-profit publisher with the goal of winning a literary award)

• New York Publishing Scene → Genre Fiction → Book Deal (the goal being a Big 5 publisher for maximum distribution)

• Start Writing Online → Self-Publish (with the goal of maximizing creative freedom & likelihood of financial upside)

So before you say, “I want to write a book” or “I want to be an author,” make sure you understand which game you’re playing, which path you’re taking, and what your expectations are for success.

2. When you receive a book deal, here’s what happens:

• The bigger the advance, the more invested the publisher will be in your book’s success. (Inverse is also true: the smaller the advance, the less work they’re going to do to promote your book.)

• Your publisher sends a package of forthcoming books out to retailers/bookstores. Books with bigger advances come with more materials, the publisher pushing them harder. Books with smaller advances might get a mention or a nod.

• Bookstores promote the books the publisher has the strongest conviction will sell. And they do not take every book the publisher gives them.

• For leverage, publishers also strike deals with retailers forcing them to take a certain number of copies—again, increasing distribution for a select few books.

• Bookstores then cross-reference sales data for books in real time, re-stocking proven sellers and cutting titles that don’t.

So when people say, “Publishers help you get distribution,” there are a lot of assumptions being made in that statement.

At the end of the day, the bookstore has to agree to carry your book. The publisher can only do so much.

3. Literary Awards are a rigged game.

The same parent companies that own big & small publishing companies also own horizontally relevant magazines & publications. (Which is why “certain authors” are prioritized over outsiders.)

But more than that, executives at the big publishing companies also sit on the boards of various Literary Awards. (And those publishers “push” certain chosen authors each year to be cough *cough “*strongly considered.”)

A wild statistic in the book is: “Graduates of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop” (the most prestigious MFA program in the US) “…are 49x more likely to win a major prize than graduates of any other program; other programs are further scaled by status.”

Translation: winning the most prestigious awards in the world of book publishing is almost exclusively a game of where you went to school & who you know.

4. Authors well-positioned in large, emerging categories are “chosen” by publishers.

A publisher only gives you a large advance AND throws significant resources behind you IF they believe you have the potential to become a genre star.

Meaning you show all the signals of someone who can dominate a category (or sub-niche), and produce a volume of work, for an extended period of time.

The case study in the book is Danielle Steel, best known for writing romance novels—making her one of the best-selling authors and richest authors in the world. Her estimated net worth is >$600 million.

And while Steel is certainly a talented and prolific writer, it’s a mistake to think she became this successful on “merit alone.” In reality, her publisher threw the kitchen sink behind her in 1970 for a novel called “Love Story,” at the time when “romance” as a category was just beginning to show mainstream promise. “Love Story” set the record for the largest ever initial mass-market printing, producing 4,350,000 units. (A publisher only prints this many copies when they are sure they can make it a best-seller.)

5. Authors that achieve genre fame became genre-specific brands—for better or worse.

Danielle Steel, Stephen King, these are great examples of authors who found massive commercial success in their respective genres.

But if you are signed to a publisher, this can also be a bit of a creative death sentence.

Stephen King, for example, after becoming a household name with his best-seller “Carrie” was curious (and worried) that his future as a writer was becoming more and more dependent upon his name—and less dependent upon the quality of his work. So he wrote multiple novels under a pseudonym (Richard Bachman) only for them to fall flat. (J.K. Rowling did, and experienced, the same.) Only in 1985, when King’s pseudonym became well-known, did those books suddenly skyrocket in popularity—confirming his question as to the role his “brand name” played in the success of his writing.

This is every writer’s dream (Stephen King, after all, is one of the richest & most-famous writers in the world), but few consider the creative restrictions this ends up placing on their works.

The writers who embrace their genre success become quite successful financially.

But the ones who can’t, or don’t, usually end up leaving their publishers (or their publishers abandon them) trying to chase “art.”

~

Sincerely,

Nicolas “Always Studying The Game” Cole