Pub 101: Finding an Agent and Selling Your Book

Hello and welcome to the Story Grid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Grall, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me shortly is Sean Coyne. He has over 25 years experience as an editor. He is the creator of Storygrid, he is the author of the book Storygrid, and he is helping me figure out all of this writing stuff and all of this publishing stuff as I dive into the world of writing fiction. This is the second part in the Publishing 101 series that we are doing helping you navigate the world of publishing. This was a really fascinating show for me to learn from Shawn how it works on the agent and publisher side. He gives stories of how agents work inside of publishing and how editors work inside of publishing as well, and walks you through how a deal is actually made behind the scenes. And it's really fascinating. If you're interested at all in the traditional publishing world, you're going to love it. So let's jump in and get started.

So, Sean, last episode we talked through basically both of our backgrounds in publishing and started diving into, well, the initial question of, you know, indie pub verse, traditionally published. And as kind of a follow up to that, I would love to hear how you've seen the industry change over the last 25 years. I think there's a lot of assumptions made about publishing, what they do for.

You, what they don't do for you.

Marketing, you know, all that kind of stuff. And so I was, as I was preparing for this episode, I was thinking, like, I would just like to hear about what you think are the fundamental shifts that have happened. Because 25 years ago, there was no Kindle, there wasn't much of an Internet. And now a lot has changed on the buyer side, which I'm sure has affected the publisher side. So we'd just love to hear you talk a little bit about the biggest meaningful shifts you've seen over the last 25 years.

Well, I like to look at this stuff in terms of power systems, meaning where was the power centralized before and after? And what does this mean for your average creative person who wants to write a book and how they can go about doing it? So.

Before the advent, and believe it or not, I started in publishing before there was even any Internet to speak of. That was around 1991. And the way it worked then was this the only way to publish a book, to get your book into a bookstore was to go through the major publishers in New York City or the smaller presses around the country who had limited access to bookstores. So it was a big model of scarcity. And what scarcity means is that there was a limited number of bookshelves across the country for books to be stocked in. And the people who controlled that space were the publishers for all intents and purposes. So the way the process would work is that a book would be published by a major publisher, they would have a sales force, and the sales force would go to the retailers. And there were only four major retailers at the time. There was Borders Books, there was Barnes and Noble, there was Books, a million in the South. And then there were independent bookstores all across the country who had smaller chains like Crown Books, which is a chain store in the Midwest and South. Now they're all gone, of course, except for Barnes and Noble. But the independent bookstores were all across the country, and these were the local stores owned by local people. And so the publisher would go and they would place sales calls on those stores and they would say, hey, here's our list of books, and we recommend the following. We recommend that you take five copies of this, which is a major bestseller, and maybe order 10 for the back of the store too, when you sell those out. And then here are the other ones, take one or two and see what happens. And so the only way to get into a bookstore was to have your book represented by a major publisher in any real shape or form. So the only way to get it on the New York Times best seller list was to be with a major publisher. Now, were there exceptions? Yeah, of course. Every now and again there was a breakthrough bestseller that came from a smaller press that would sort of come out of nowhere, and that would be completely demand driven, meaning readers would go into bookstores and they would physically ask the guy at the store to order it so that they could actually read the book. And the only way to get a book back then was to go through your local bookstore. There was no Amazon, there was no search engines. So if you heard about a book, you went to your bookstore, and if they didn't have it, you would say, hey, could you order this book for me? And they'd say, sure. And that'll be ready in about two and a half weeks. And then you would come back in two and a half weeks and pick up the book. So you really had to be driven as a consumer to really want a specific title in order to get it. What that meant is all the power was in the hands of the major corporations who owned all of the major publishing houses. So the barriers to entry, meaning even getting your title in front of a consumer, were so large that everybody pretty much just gave up. And they said to themselves, well, I'm not a writer. Nobody would care about whatever it is that I would do. And even if I were a writer, I don't have an independent fortune in order to try and learn my craft and then write a perfect book and then get an agent who would sell it to a major publisher and then maybe the local bookstore would carry it. So the power was really not in the hands of any creative person whatsoever. It was in the hands of the major publishers, meaning the people who chose the books from the literary community. And the literary community I define as the agents in New York City and around the country, but mostly New York City. So primarily, all the power of book publishing was in New York City. Now, the major shift over the past 25 years is that that power center is still vital and still strong and still powerful, but it's lost so much of its claim on creativity. And people today can learn a craft. They can build their own tribes. They. They can become their own publisher, and they can create their own wealth without ever having to give away control to the major publishers. Now, the major publishers, what they do to combat that is they stigmatize self publishing. And they say, ah, those people are a bunch of amateurs. If you really want to be published, you got to go with us because we can put in a phone call and you'll be on, you know, Jimmy Fallon next week, which is a complete fallacy because how many book writers actually go on any of the major shows? And the other thing that has changed beyond the shift to the power base from a complete dilution of power in New York City to all across the country and all around the world. But the other thing that has really shifted is the mass media. There is no mass media anymore. Back in the 90s, if you got your book on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, you were golden. The book would sell another 4,000 copies the day that hit the newsstand. Your book would be on the bestseller list, and all roads were paved with gold. Today, you can be on the COVID of the New York Times best seller list. You can be on, I mean, the New York Times Book Review. I'm sorry, the bestseller list is within the book Review. You could be in Entertainment Weekly. You could get a starred review in all the major trades for book publishing like Publishers Weekly and Library Journal and Kirkus. You can be on USA Today. They could give you a great review. You could get a review in the Wall Street Journal, and you still could sell three copies the next day, because nobody trusts one singular source of media anymore. And book reviews are not really done by the major papers anymore because there isn't a demand for them. The way people learn about books today is through their friends, through their tribe, through their acquaintances who say to them, oh, did you read that book? Because it's really good. And then they go, oh, no, let me check that out on my search engine. Or, oh, there it is. Oh, it's 299 today. Bang. I bought it. It's done. Back in 1991, that conversation would never, ever result in a sale, because what would happen is you would meet somebody at work and they would say, did you read the latest book? And you'd go, no, I haven't. Let me write that down. And you'd write it on a piece of paper, and then you would stuff it in your back pocket, and then it would go through the wash and you would never, ever, ever. So the great power shift. And everybody talks about, whoa, publishing is so difficult. It's so horrible. It's incredible. Today, this is the renaissance of book publishing. This is a time to rejoice. Because when I started, the only way to get into a bookstore to have anybody read your book was you had to go through this gauntlet of really snooty people who would, depending upon the day on their mood, would reject you out offhand without really thinking about the things that we think about today. Now, we just did a podcast a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was last week, about targeting genres, right? About marketplace demand and the publishers. Back then, we didn't think about genres or marketplace demand. We own the market, man. We would jam a book down the consumer's throat and we would say, this is the next book you should be reading, and if you don't read it, you're a loser. And there was. There was a certain sort of New York intelligentsia that would kind of like go along with that, and they would say, oh, Donna Tartt's the new writer we should be following. Let me read that book. And they would go out and they would buy it, and the Secret History became a big bestseller based upon that kind of New York intellectual pressure. Now, thank God the book was actually a page turner. And then it exploded and sold even more because people actually started to read the thing and enjoy it, and then they started talking about it, and then it slowly filtered down to normal people who just Want to read a good book? So today, what's really interesting is that you don't have to have a best seller in the first week. Today, you. You can build and build and build and build and build a career week to week with a slow drip, drip, drip attitude. Now, back in 1991, you had two weeks, baby. If your book worked in the store in two weeks, then they'd buy you another week. And then if that worked another week, then you would get another week. And it was really all about things that you had absolutely no control over. And it was very despairing, and it was sort of like playing Russian roulette or any other strange game. But today, the power and your ability to control your own destiny is so wonderful for the creative person that, as I said, it's the renaissance of book publishing. And I think the more you work on your craft and the better you get, the better opportunities you're going to have today and in the future to reach a very large audience.

So let's just start at the beginning of the process. So we're not really going to spend a ton of time talking about how to independently publish. You know, just Google it and you'll find 100 checklists on how to do it. I want to talk about traditional publishing and how to take advantage of that in today's world. So let's start with kind of the beginning of the process, which is, I got to find an agent. Or I've actually seen more and more editors and publishers just saying, hey, you know, in today's world, you don't need an agent, just come directly to us. So what's your feeling on the agent's role in today's traditional publishing marketplace?

Well, the agent is crucial in a relationship with a big publisher. And I'll tell you why. Because, you know, you do not want to get in a fight with your publisher over certain terms of your contract or anything of that sort. You need somebody to be your advocate. And so you can keep your relationships with the publisher and the editor and the marketing department and the advertising department at the major publisher pure. And so you can say, oh, well, I don't know what to tell you about that. Just talk to my agent. So they.

And behind the scenes, you're telling your agent, you better fight for that exact clause.

Exactly. Because the agent's job is to find very talented writers that they know the publisher would want to publish. So a lot of people say, oh, well, my book's so good, I just don't know why no agent wants to represent me. And here's the deal. Publishers, they want to do the least amount of marketing and advertising work as possible. And if they can buy a book that is already a bestseller and then just keep the printers running and do the fulfillment and do all those things that they do so well that are very technically driven, they would be much happier to pay far more money for a book like Hugh Howey's series wool or 50 shades of gray. And they'll pay, you know, whatever it takes to get that title on their list now. So what the agent does is they provide to the publisher opportunities for them to publish books that they think will be automatic bestsellers. And the only way an agent can really make that argument is to say something like, oh, well, Tim Grohl graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop. He's a hot young writer. He took classes with Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton, and now his first novel is just about done. But before I show you that first novel, here's a story collection that he created that we think would be really great for you. And that's a way to get an editor or publisher excited about a fresh young writer that they can say, oh, Tim Grohl's the latest thing. And he has the following credentials. He went to Princeton. He was a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, et cetera, et cetera. So if you're Tim Grall who didn't go to the Iowa Writers Workshop and didn't go to Princeton, then you got to bring something else to the table.

So the other thing that I've always seen or I've seen with agents is they also. It's like, when I sold my house, I could have done it myself. Like, you know, I can look up all the forms, and you can buy a book. It shows you how to do it. But, like, I wanted somebody there that would point out to me when I was about to get screwed. And what I've seen with agents is that they can help you, like, with your contract, pinpoint things. Like, so I heard this horror story about this author who, you know, they signed their book contract, wrote the book, book was about to come out. They went to their publisher and was like, hey, I've got this great idea. I'm gonna do this whole video series around and the series of blog posts about the book, and their publisher was like, that's fantastic. Just know that we own all of that when it's done. And when he went back and looked at his contract, he had basically signed away rights that had. If it had anything to do with the book, no Matter what he created, the publisher owned it. And I had another friend of mine who had a really good agent that found similar language in his contract that he might have missed on his own. That basically helped him prevent him from, you know, making mistakes inside of a contract because the agent been doing it so long, they've seen this a million times. That's the other side of it that I've seen with an agent is not just to play a go between, but you get, if you get the right agent, you get a lot of experience that can help you make good decisions and they can help you pick which fights are worth fighting.

That's absolutely true. And here's the other thing about agents and big agencies is that they have in house legal departments. So what happens is that like when I started my literary agency seven years ago, or whenever it was, I wasn't stupid, you know, I got my own in house lawyer. And it doesn't mean that he works at my building. It's just he's a freelance great lawyer who used to work at icm, which is a big agency, great literary agency. And he negotiated all the contracts for ICM's clients for years. So the guy knows publishing contracts like the back of his hand. So when I sold my first project, I said, oh, James will be handling my legal. And I told the legal department at, I think it was Little Brown I sold it to, he'll be handling it. And they were like, oh okay. And the reason why they said oh okay was that, you know, they knew they weren't going to send a contract to me that would have any of that language that you just mentioned in it. Because I would hit the roof and the blood would start squirting out of my eyes because I would be so mad at them. They'd be like, what do you think I'm like, born yesterday. I've been in this business 20 years. You're not going to get that. And the other thing is that in terms of royalties and if you sell world rights to a publisher which has pluses and minuses, there are standard splits for translation rights and things of that sort. So there is a very well traveled legal landscape for book publishing. And what an agent will do is he or she will make sure that you're in that reasonable landscape of legal niceties so that you don't get in trouble or you're not signing over option clauses or ridiculous things that aren't going to, you know, that only benefit the publisher. So yeah, an agent who's an esteemed agent is going to make sure that your contract is fair and that you're getting the best royalty rate, et cetera, et cetera. Now, the royalty rates at the major publishers are pretty much standard, unless you're Stephen King or John Grisham. And even they probably aren't getting crazy royalty rates. What they're getting are just crazy advances with the understanding that their advance will never earn out, but the royalty rate will be the same as Joe Schmo from Kokomo. And the reason why the publisher does that is that they don't want to get in the situation where. Where they're raising royalty rates for authors, because then other authors can come along and say, what, I'm not as good as Stephen King? Give me what he gets. So the way they get around that is they just give a much larger guaranteed advance that they know won't earn back. But Stephen King is getting a large chunk of the net revenue, a much larger chunk than somebody who's on a straight royalty deal who earns back their advance and gets the royalty check every six months. You know, they're basically getting pennies on the dollar as opposed to somebody who gets a very, very large guaranteed advance that never earns out. You know, there's a. There's a big agent named Andrew Wiley, and he was once quoted as saying, if one of my authors earns out, I know I haven't done my job.

Yeah, I've heard that quote before.

So if I'm looking for an agent and I get maybe I have like two or three that are interested in representing me, what kind of questions should I be asking them to make sure I'm not getting a lame agent? Like, I'm actually getting one that will not only be able to sell my book, but be able to protect me in those back and forths and the kind of things we've been talking about. Like what, When I get on the phone with them, what should I ask them to make sure that they actually know what they're doing and can help me?

Well, the first thing to do is, even before you get on the phone with them, is to make sure that they're. You got to do a deep, deep Google search on them and find out who are the authors that they've worked with before. You know, you should always be able to ask an agent to give you some references of authors who are on their client list that you could talk to. And that's a great way of making sure that the agent is good. So, obviously, if you're interviewing a couple of agents and one is At a major agency like William Morris Endeavor or International Creative Management or say Trident, which is a big firm, writer's house, you know, you can find all the big sort of central inkwell. These are all agencies that have very strict codes of behavior and honor where the agents who work there are brought up in a culture they all share the same legal departments, etc. And even if you get a younger agent who's just starting out at one of those major agencies, you know, you can be pretty assured that they're getting help from their, you know, their friends in the agency. Jancloud Nesmit is another great agency. They're probably, you know, a friend of mine is an editor at Doubleday named Jerry Howard. He's a, you know, he's a legend in the business. You know, he did some, some figuring and he, he figured out that there's probably about 100 agents in the entire business that he really pays attention to. And what that means is that if one of those hundred emails and then says, hey Jerry, I have a book, do you want to read it? He's going to get back to them immediately. And then, you know, there are tangential agents that he's never really heard of who might see his book in the credits of some, you know, big name author that he's edited and, you know, they would email him cold and he won't get back to them. So there is a level of, there's a hierarchy like in everything else, where the agencies and the agents have certain mojo and juice in the industry. And the best way to see if they have any is to check out their career. How many people have they worked with? How many houses do they know? How many sales have they made? Another great resource is publishersmarketplace.com which you can actually do a search to find out how many deals those agents have made over the past, you know, I think it goes back 10 years. And publishers marketplace.com is also, it's run by a friend of mine named Michael Cater who, you know, he's been in the business as long as I have and that's a really great resource and you can get a lot of stuff there for free. And then he has some kind of subscription thing too that you could, you could probably sign up for a month and do your deep dive into the, into the database and then cancel the subscription. And I don't think he'll come after you or anything. I think that's perfectly reasonable.

Yeah.

So. Oh, the other thing I wanted to mention here is that I thought it was interesting too that there's these agents that are, like, well known for getting huge advances. So I was. I have a good friend that was an editor at Penguin portfolio, McGraw Hill, even Amazon Publishing when they were doing publishing. And an author friend of mine had. They just started shopping the book out. And so I was talking to him about it. He's like, oh, I may be interested in that. You know, asked me a couple questions about it. And he's like, oh, well, who's their agent? And I told him. He's like, oh, no, I won't bid on that book. And I'm like, what do you mean? He said, that book's gonna go for at least six figures. Because as soon as that agent starts putting a book out, everybody just starts going nuts and bidding way too high just because it's that agent. And I was like, that's fascinating. Is that true? Is that how it works?

Yeah, it's true. There are certain agents who have gravitas in the industry such that people believe them. I mean, it's like anybody else who's really good at what they do, I don't think there's any conspiracy about it. And I also know that editors like to say that kind of stuff. But I know every major agent in the business has at least five or six projects probably each year that they don't sell.

And those ones don't mean that there's not a market for those books. It just means that sometimes you get in a place where the tea leaves just don't work out for you. Now, I've. In my agency, I've sold books for a lot of money, and I've sold books for a nice advance. And there are some projects that I haven't sold. And I got to tell you, the ones that I haven't sold aren't any worse than the ones that I sold for a million dollars. And so there are probably. Let me just, you know, name a few off the top of my head. Who I know. Tina Bennett at William Morris Endeavor. She's a really great agent, really great person. She's Malcolm Gladwell's agent. She also represents Laura Hillebrand. Just really works her butt off and does a great job for her clients. And she gets great, great advances for her clients, too. And it's, you know, there's no secret to it. It's a lot of hard work. Let me see, who else at Williams Endeavor, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. She's another terrific agent who has a lot of great clients. Richard Abate at 3 Arts Entertainment. He does a lot of huge Deals. He used to be at icm. He was my old boss when I was at Endeavor. He's my agent for stuff when I sell to the major publishers. Esther Newberg at icm. Sloan Harris at icm. Binky Urban at icm. Oh, boy. There's just. So I'm like, I'm going to feel really terrible by not saying a whole bunch of other people, but I think you get the drift. There are Robert Gottlieb at Trident. There are a lot of really, really good agents who do a really, really good job who handle the clients and handle the publishers. And they're not only great advocates for the writer, but they're also seasoned veterans of the industry. So if the writer's crazy, right, and they're going, I don't understand why I'm not getting in my own private parking space, they'll talk them off the cliff and they'll say, hey, look, dude, now, the publisher doesn't owe you that. Here's what the publisher owes you. They owe you a really great cover. They owe you great distribution. They owe you your money. And you owe them stuff, too, bro. You've got to promote for them. You've got to listen to them. You can't be a prima donna. And so those. Well, that's what the other great agents do, too, is that they tell the writers what's expected of them and they cool them out before they make an ass out of themselves with the major publishers. So that's the other role that they play. They kind of play like psychiatrist, psychologist to both publisher and writer. And it's a very tricky place to be because you really want to be an advocate for your writer, but you also have a relationship with the publisher. And most of these people have been on both sides of the desk. You know, they were editors, too, at the majors. That's why they have such great connections. So getting a great agent is not going to guarantee you a great advance. It's not going to guarantee you anything. What it will guarantee you is professionalism. So, you know, my agent is respected in the industry. People are going to call him or her back, and even more importantly, they're going to get an answer. Yes and no are great answers. No is a great answer. There's nothing worse for a writer than radio silence when the editors just don't even have any respect for the agent, that they put them at the bottom of the reading pile, and then they just never get back to them. And when you're. When you're that agent, you want to kill yourself because all you want to do is get an answer for your writer. Of course you want to sell the book, but it's even better to take them out of their misery. You know, like I always say to my clients, and I really. I don't. I'm not taking on any more clients. I got plenty. But I always say to any new client that I take on, my goal is to get you an answer in two weeks. If I can get you an answer in two weeks, whether I sell it or not, I've done my job. Because what that means is that the editors respect me as the agent enough to at least dip into the book. And they're going to call me and say, hey, dude, it's not for me. Or hey, I like it. I'm going to get more reads and I can get information to the writer as soon as possible. Because there's nothing worse than running into a writer and saying, hey, how's your project going? And they go, well, you know, it's been four months, and I'm just waiting for that final rejection. I'm like, don't worry about it. It's just, consider it rejected.

So. Well, actually, tell me a little bit more about that process. So I don't really want to get into the proposed, like, creating the proposal process, because your agent should help you do that. But once that proposal is ready to go, how does it work on the agent side as far as, like, how do they approach the editors? How are editors kind of going through these pitches from agents? And then, like, I would love for you to talk to a little bit about what I believe. How it works is the editors take them to, like, a weekly meeting, and if they have a book they want to publish, they got to kind of pitch it to the group. And the group's gotta. They gotta convince their group at their publisher that this is something they should go with. You know, talk a little bit about that. You said you can get an answer in two weeks. Like, what does that two weeks look like behind the scenes?

Oh, okay. All right. I'm going to drop. I'm going to drop some bombs here, so get prepared.

Yeah, that's what I want is, like, there seems when I talk to writers, they feel like there's this very sophisticated, unemotional or something kind of process that things are put through. And every time I hear about it, like, you mentioned, like, if somebody had a bad lunch, your book's getting rejected that afternoon. So anyway, I would just love to hear what goes on in that two weeks on the agent side. And the editor side from getting a book rejected or getting a book accepted or an offer on a book.

Okay, well, part of being a great agent means knowing the terrain, right? Knowing the territory, knowing what's going on in the industry. So the way I handle submissions is that, you know, months before, while I'm working on the proposal with the writer, and it can take months. One of my clients is a great writer named Scott Patterson and I sold his first book. He's a writer for the Wall Street Journal. I sold his first book years ago, but it took us nine months to write a 32 page proposal. And he's a great writer. So anyway, so while I'm in that nine month nook of time, I'm watching the industry and what that means is I'm watching all of those editors who concentrate in the arena that I'm going to be pitching. So I'm just going to use Scott as an example. I hope he forgives me. I don't think he would mind. Scott is a great business narrative writer and he concentrates, his expertise is in the high tech Wall street trading world. Right. So his first book was a book called the Quants, which became a big bestseller around the world. And it was, he was the first guy to really sort of look at the culture of quantifiable trading, which is basically robotic trading. And so he wrote this proposal about this whole phenomenon and what it means in the cultural shift on Wall Street. And it was a big idea book about a shift in the paradigm from gut traders to tech traders. Okay, so I'm thinking while we're working on the proposal, what editors in the industry at the big five houses, back then it was big seven, I think. Which one of those editors that I personally know would love this book and who has the clout to be able to get this book through the acquisition board? And even better, can he or she skip the acquisitions board? What do I mean by skip the acquisitions board?

What's the acquisitions board?

The acquisitions board is a weekly meeting where all the editors at the publishing house get together and they talked about the projects that they read the previous week that are up for acquisition. Meaning should we acquire this book and publish it or shouldn't we? In that same meeting, they have a pitch meeting where they pitch new projects and then the colleagues will all raise their hand and say, hey, I'll give you a second read on that. And so what the second reads do is support your point of view. So if I want to say I'm the editor who's read Scott Patterson's proposal and I want to buy it. I would have to go into an acquisitions board and say, hey, I have this great proposal by a Wall Street Journal reporter. What he's doing is he's doing a narrative nonfiction project about the shift in the culture on Wall street from gut traders in the Michael Lewis era to high tech traders that are dominating the industry today. What do you guys think? And then the other people in the room will say something like, hey, man, that sounds pretty cool. I don't know of any other books that are like that. And obviously business books targeted to Wall street when you hit them, right? They can be big best sellers. So if you need a second read on that, I'll take a look. And so the editor would write down the name. I'll get this to Jim. He said he would read for a second look. And always the editor in chief or the publisher, if they're interested and they think it has juice, they'll go, yeah, put me down, too. I'll take a look at it. So then you end the discussion. You go back to your desk, and then you email the proposal to the other people in the company who agreed to look at it for you. Meanwhile, I've sent that proposal to seven other editors who are just like that editor, and they're doing it, too. They're going to their acquisitions board, or even better, they have so much juice in the company that they can knock on the publisher's office and say, hey, Mr. Publisher, I got in this really hot proposal from Sean Coyne by this Wall Street Journal reporter. And it's hot, man. I think we should take it off the table. And the publisher would say, let me read it overnight. Get in my inbox. And so that editor will call me and say, hey, man, I read this. I want to do something fast. I'm going to get this to my publisher tonight, and then we're going to talk about it tomorrow. Don't do anything without calling me. So I'm the agent, and I say to myself, okay, I've got some heat on this thing. I'm now going to email or call the other editors who have this proposal and say, hey, dudes, there's some heat on this. I'm getting a lot of great reads from other editors, and I'm always open to preempts. So just a heads up, what that means is.

And what's a preempt?

A preemptive offer is when. All right, let me. Let's just take the story to the next stage. Okay, okay, okay. All right. So the Next day comes, and that editor that I sent the proposal had spoken to his publisher. The publisher read it overnight, walks into the editor's office that morning and says, you're right, man, this is hot. Let's buy it. Let's put together some numbers. So what they're going to do then is they're going to come up with some crazy idea what they think the book will sell in the marketplace. So what they're going to do is they're going to look at complementary titles of books that they have published in the past that they think this new book can sell like. So they'll dig up something like, you know, Michael Lewis's book Liars Poker, which was a monster bestseller, millions of copies sold, and they'll say, well, liars Poker sold 50,000 hardcover copies in its first year on sale. Let's put that number down as a starting point for an offer. And then they'll run what they call a profit and loss report. And at the end of that report, they'll be able to read that report and say, this book is worth a half a million dollars. If we can buy this book for a half a million dollars, we're going to make X amount of dollars and we're going to return at least 10% to the corporate coffers. So let's preempt this thing for a half a million. So then that editor calls me and he goes, hey, Sean, I really want this project. How's a half a million dollars? And I'll go, how's it half a million dollars for what?

And he'll, you know, he'll make a formal offer to me, but he'll also put a time clock on it. He'll say to me, you only have this offer until 3:00 clock this afternoon, and then I'm pulling it. So you can go talk to your client and get me an answer by three o'. Clock. And if you don't give me an answer by three o', clock, the offers off the table. So I have a million dollars for a project that I submitted only 24 hours before, is definitely worth the conversation with my client. So then I'll call the client, I'll go, look, we have an offer for a half a million dollars for the project. Here's my take. And this is where an agent really earns their commission. Because if I said to him, I think we can get 2 million if we just ride this thing out and we let the offer go, and then nobody comes to the table, then he gets zero and I look like an idiot.

Oh, I would stab you.

Right. So I would say to him, look, a half a million dollars for a first book is a terrific advance. Basically what they're doing is they're seeing this book as, you know, Liars Poker in the first year. So I, because I was an editor, I'm able to run the same P and L that all the editors are running at home. And so I can figure out how much money the publishing house would make based upon a half million dollar deal and how much the writer is going to earn. And I will say to the writer, look, they're basically giving you a piece of the net profit without earning out. This is a really good deal. But before we accept it, let me just shoot a couple of emails out and let people know I'm close to accepting a preempt because then that will let the other people know, oh, my God, I got to move on this immediately or this book's going to go. And so before I make that call, I'll shoot an email to all the other people and say, look, I've got a preemptive offer in hand. My client and I are considering it. No pressure, but I thought you should know. And if somebody else in the industry loves it, they're going to call me immediately and go, hey, I want this too. Don't take the preempt. And I'll go, what, are you making an offer or are you just telling me not to take an offer that's already on the table? And then they'll go, just hold on a minute. And then, you know, they'll go and rush and try and get the money at the same level. And now are you allowed to tell.

Them, like, what the current offer table is?

No, I can't tell them what the offer is. But this is the other great thing about an agent. When it's me calling and I say I have a preempt, they know I'm not calling about a $10,000 preempt. Okay? You know, they know my reputation. They know I'm not bullshitting. So that's the other thing. They, the editors have to trust the agents or none of this works. And the agents have to trust the editors, too. So this is why it's really important to get an agent who has some standing in the industry and has some experience because it's still a gentleman's game. All of this stuff has no paper attached to it. It's all verbal. And we'll run down the royalties, we'll run down. So they, you need to speak the language of the industry as an agent in order to negotiate properly. Because nobody's going to send you an official, you know, four page document that says here's our offer for Tim Grawl's book. You know, you have three. It's not like that. It's a very, very fluid, gentlemanly transaction. So if those people who have alerted, if one of them calls back and says, you know what, I don't know what kind of preempt you have, but we're definitely in there at mid six figures if you decide not to take that preemption. So then I'll call the writer and I'll go, look, there's another house that didn't make an offer, but they did say they were in there for mid six figures, which is code for a half a million. So if we decide not to take this preempt, the chances are is we're not going to lose the 500 because this other house will step in and guess what happens that first preemptive people, they're not going to pull the offer. I'm going to call them back and say, look, we really appreciate the offer, but we're going to, instead of taking your offer, I'm setting a closing date for Thursday at noon. So we'd love it if you came and made another offer, a Thursday at noon. And usually what they'll say is, I don't want to go to Thursday at noon. What, what will you take? What do you want?

And then you say, oh, let me get back to you. And this can go on and on and on, but the point I'm making telling this story is that there's a lot of inside baseball in book publishing and the more of it your agent knows and all the agents that I were talking about earlier, the Binky Urbans, the Esther Newburgh's, the Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, the Richard Abate's, you know, the Sterling Lords, the Stuart Kruzchevsky's. All of these people know this language in a way that is really, really in depth. And they know the best houses, the best editors. They know whether or not an editor is really has the juice or if they're like kind of faking it a little bit. There's so much institutional knowledge that can be to your benefit as a writer if you find the right agent and you trust them and they've got a great track record. I highly recommend you trust them because they know what they're doing.

Okay, so tell me. So you told kind of a best case scenario, which is a bunch of publishers start Bidding on your book, Right? Tell me the bad case. So you said even the best agents have four or five projects a year that don't sell. Tell me a story about a book not selling and what that looks like on the agent editor side as well.

Okay, here's the worst thing that happens to an agent and the writer is that you do all the work. You help them edit the book, you think it's great, you do a great pitch. And your pitch is basically giving them complimentary titles, right? So when I pitched Scott's book, I said, this is the new Liars Poker, right? Because I knew all the editors were like, if they agreed with me, they were going to go check Liars Poker's numbers and compare my project to Liars Poker. So if I'm selling a novel, I'm going to compare it to Stephen King. Not to some unknown self published guy who nobody knows about, who may have written a great book, but if he doesn't have a sales track record that the editor can use to make a, an argument to acquire the book, it does you no good. And this has happened to me. I've worked on a great thriller and I'll say not since Michael Crichton has somebody really brought technology to bear in a hyperactive thriller that you know will leave you breathless. I don't know, I just made that up. Then I would send it out and the first thing I would do is I would email all of the people who I think would love this kind of book. And I know all the editors in the business who focus on this kind of book. Right? Because it's not the same editor who's going to buy the Scott Patterson book is going to buy my thriller. That's Michael Crichton esque. I need to know the editors who concentrate on thrillers. And you know, all editors say, oh, I love everything, but yeah, they might love everything, but they don't have gravitas in every genre. Like when I was in publishing, if I tried to buy a love story, people would look at me like I had five heads. Because I wasn't known as a love story guy. I was a thriller guy. I was a military war novel guy. I was a guy who could do really great crime stories. If I brought in a piece of romantic fiction or love story because I loved it, people would look at me like I was crazy. Because you know what, we had much better editors who knew love stories. So they're going to listen to them about love stories and they're going to listen to me about thrillers. And that's the way it works. People have a specialty. So the agent needs to know the specialties of each of the editors. So for example, say this Crichtonesque thriller. I find my seven really great top notch editors in the business that I know love Michael Kreitness thrillers. So all I have to do is email them and say in the subject line I'd write new Crichton esque project. And then the only line I'll put is, dear Bob, do you want to see it? All the best, Sean. Right, okay. Because I'm not going to give him the pitch in my email to see if he has time to read it, right? And chances are the guy wants a Crichton Hess thriller. So I email him and he gets back to me in 10 seconds from his iPhone. Yes, send it, idiot. You know, like, of course I want to read it now. I know he's going to take me seriously. It's on his radar. When I send him the book, he's going to send it directly to his phone so he can read it that night. He might not read the whole book, but he's going to read at least a page. Because I've published a lot of best selling thrillers, right? So this is what happens when, when I know the shit has hit the fan. So I send it out to my eight peeps, right? The guys that I and women that I know. There's a. There are far more women editors in the industry and women editors are fantastic and just as good as men. Better in my opinion. But anyway, so the women and the men that I send it to all say yes, send it to me immediately. So by the end of that day, they all have it. The next morning is really excruciating for me because I know if they love it, if they started reading page one and they went to page two and they ended up reading a quarter of it that night, they're going to email me the next morning and say, that's a shit hot book. I'm loving it. Don't do anything without me. But if they don't email me, I'm like, oh no, what am I going to do now?

Okay.

And then if days go by where I'm not hearing anything, the silence is deafening, then I'll call the writer and I'll go, look, it's still early, but I need to prepare you for the worst. It doesn't mean that your book isn't great. It just means that we may have hit it at the wrong time. I'm not getting back what I usually get back, and I'm concerned now. Even books that I haven't sold. I have to say to you, Tim, at least one or two people did email me the next day, and they did love the book, and they did take it to the acquisitions board, and they did push. But when push came to shove, somebody said no. And that's what really hurt, because I was. And then meanwhile, what happens is that I also have relationships in Hollywood. And so I do the kind of book that Hollywood is interested in, and oftentimes the project that I'm really excited about, Hollywood will get interested. And then I can use that to get people to read the book in New York. But then if New York doesn't buy it, Hollywood won't buy it. So I've been in a position where I've had major studios want to buy the movie rights to a project, and they're just waiting for a major publisher to buy it. And my auction day comes and nobody shows up, and then all of that Hollywood interest goes away. And that is devastating. But it doesn't mean that the book didn't work. It doesn't mean that the book was bad. It just means, oh, okay, the big five didn't. It didn't work there. Let's. Let's move on.

Is it true that you basically get one shot at a book?

Absolutely. There's no second chances. None. Don't ever ask your agent to resubmit a novel that he's already broken his heart on.

Because he'll want to kill you. He'll say to you, I don't care that you revised it. Did you write a whole nother book? Because that's the only thing I can go out with. I can't go out with your revised thing that everybody in town knows I couldn't sell, because guess what? There's going to be a whole bunch of editors. I didn't send the book. Who are going to be happy the book didn't sell, because then they're not looking like an idiot to their publisher when their publisher said, hey, did you get in that thing from Coin? And they'll go, no, I didn't. Well, it sold for a million dollars, idiot. Why didn't you get it in?

Well, and all the, like, horror stories of, like, how many times was Harry Potter turned down? Yeah, you didn't want to be that editor. But.

Right.

Yeah. Okay, that's. Yeah, it's. It's so fascinating. So after. So basically, if you get turned down or your book doesn't get picked up, I mean, in today's world, you're kind of like, okay, I can self publish it. But really, if you're still going after traditional publishing, it's like, put that proposal in the drawer.

Yes.

Start working on a new book. If that book really does well, somebody will buy. I mean, then you can go back and resell an older novel if you have one that hits. Right.

Right. Look at A Time to Kill by John Krishen. You know.

Right. Okay.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. This was part two of the publishing 101 series. The final part three part is coming next week, so stay tuned for that. For everything Story Grid related, you can see that@storygrid.com if you've missed any past episodes or want to reference any of our show notes. All of that is@storygrid.com podcast thanks as always for continuing to share this show with your friends. This is a great time to do it as we're doing this special series around publishing. If you have any writer friends that have been struggling with how traditional publishing works, make sure you share this series with them. I know they'll love it. So thanks as always for listening and we will see you next week.