The Successful Debut Author

It’s amazing how quickly you can go from absolutely sure your career is over to certain that you’re going to make it after all. I can’t speak for authors who have done this many, many times- but I can speak for me, an author debuting in the most hideous market books have seen since the Great Depression.

Because, the first thing people ask you when you tell them you’ve sold a book is, “For how much?”

It’s all about the money. Did you get money? Is it a real job? Did you get enough money that it doesn’t sound like you got scammed? Because you know you didn’t get enough money to go on vacation with Stephenie Meyer, Jo Rowling and Stephen King- though everybody will be disappointed when you tell them that.

Dammit. You just sold your first novel and you’re already a disappointment.

But that’s okay! Because you DID sell the book! Your book is going to be in stores! In two years! And the people want to know what’s taking so long- did you really mess it up? Why do you need two years for editing? Maybe it won’t take so long on the next book!

Dammit. You’re revising your first novel for your REAL EDITOR who paid you REAL MONEY, but everybody thinks it’s a pity book because of the “delay.” By the way, did you know if you went to Vanity Press Amerika, your book could be on Amazon today? Yes dad, I did know that, thanks.

Once you get past why you, you poor, sorry sack, are going to take two years to get into print, the suggestions begin. Some of them are useful- did you send a note to your favorite teacher? Make sure Aunt Agnes knows, she teaches high school English, she can pass it around. Hey, okay, but everybody, everybody, EVERYBODY wants to know:

Did you send it to Oprah?

And if you tell them no, the disappointment is like a tiny death in their eyes. You, writer, have failed. You have failed to contact the Great and Powerful O. Your book is going to be a failure. (Your dad is going to mail a copy to HARPO Productions in Chicago, once you give him one.)

In the meantime, your publisher is busy NOT TELLING YOU THINGS. They don’t tell you their expectations, they don’t tell you your print run, they don’t tell you by what measure your book would be a success. They don’t tell you your buy in; you’re trading crack rocks on the corner with other authors trying to figure out the difference between a galley and an ARC. You, you hack who didn’t get paid enough to get your mom’s respect, who ruined her own chances at ever being a superstar by refusing, refusing, to send her book to Oprah- you’re also a mushroom. Stay in the dark, you!

That way, you’re good and shocked when your book comes out, but it’s not in Borders. And it’s in Barnes & Noble, but not the one near your house. And it’s available online everywhere, but your grandmother is in tears because she didn’t see it at Wal-Mart. Not that she was going to buy it- everybody even remotely, genetically connected to you expects you to give them a copy- you’d think they’d take pity on you because of your non-Twilight advance and buy one. Or two. Come on, people, some pity- I didn’t send my book to Oprah, I’m doomed!

And now that the book is out, the next stage of your failure begins. They asked how much you sold the book for- now they want to know how it’s selling. And you don’t know! You have *no* idea!

So you resort to Amazonmancy (you’ve figured out how to trigger the text “only X left in stock” and about how many you need to sell in a period of time to get down to 25,000 in Amazon ranking, but you’ve also discovered it has absolutely no relation to how well the book is selling overall.) And calling book distributors’ automated lines to find out on order, in stock, and YTD- you’ve figured out about how many have to ship for a book to list! And, of course, Nielsen Bookscan, oh dear god, it’s Wednesday, it’s Bookscan day!- which everyone agrees is totally flawed, because that’s the only hard sales data you have.

So when you have totally incomplete data and total Amazon voodoo to work with, it’s really easy to rate your worth based on nonsense and terror. Four months after debut, your book is out of the chains! Your Amazon ranking is in the hundred thousands! It’s over! It’s all over! Maybe you SHOULD have sent your book to Oprah. All the interviews you’re filling out keep asking about your NEXT book- you haven’t sold one, you are SO DOOMED.

Maybe you SHOULD have spent your entire advance on advertising and marketing, instead of getting that TMJ surgery you’d been putting off. Maybe you SHOULD start registering your pseudonym at Myspace and Facebook and Twitter in anticipation of having to start completely over because you’ve bombed beyond all telling it!

Then you get real numbers, and it’s… confusing.

Because Amazonmancy doesn’t tell you anything, the distributor line has been turned off and it didn’t mean anything either, and Bookscan, the all-powerful Bookscan that everyone writing about bestselling authors drags out to decide whether a book failed or succeeded… has only recorded 25% of your sales. All those blogs you read about how it’s about half or three fourths, or sometimes dead on are dead wrong. So completely wrong that suddenly you realize…

Hey, I wrote a book. And I got an agent. And my agent sold that book. And she’ll probably sell the next one, too. This is kind of awesome! And when you tell your family, they’re probably going to ask, “For how much?”

I can’t wait to see if it’s any different the second time around.