Nat Sobel advice/interview on PW. |
Author: stevenlabri (---.dsl.mindspring.com)
Date: 05-17-08 02:08
Nat Sobel
Nat Sobel advice/interview on PW.
Why do you think it's more difficult to get published as a fiction writer?
I think you have to really look at the market today. If you look at the Deals page of Publishers Weekly, nine out of the ten deals described are nonfiction books. There certainly is a very strong feeling in the publishing world that fiction is chancier—absolutely chancier—than nonfiction. Today, you have to have all sorts of other reasons to publish a first novel—other than that it happens to be very good.
What do you mean by that?
We keep hearing this phrase, "What's the platform?" What's the ****ing platform? The first time I heard the word platform was at a writers conference. I was on the dais with another agent and she was talking about "the platform." I thought, "What the @!#$ is a platform? What is she talking about?" Well, what it is is this: What does the author bring to the table? Talent is not enough. The number of slots open to fiction on a publisher's list is being reduced all the time.
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Re: Nat Sobel advice/interview on PW. |
Author: Karen Dionne (76.226.176.---)
Date: 05-17-08 07:54
There's a lot of truth to this. Three years ago, when then-editor Marcela Landres visited the Backspace discussion forums for an online Q&A, she emphasized the fiction author's platform as being absolutely imperative. At the time, a number of our published authors objected, saying they didn't have one, and they still got published. Their thinking is understandable - an author wants to believe their novel sold because it was good.
But then we started looking more closely and realized one of them was a midwife who'd written a book that featured a midwife; another was an animal lover who'd written a novel about horses; another was a stay-at-home soccer mom who'd written a novel about - you guessed it.
Marcela put it honestly if somewhat bluntly: If she has to make a decision between two equally good novels, and one author has a platform and the other does not, she'll choose the author with the platform every time.
Why? Because an author's having a platform means the likelihood of the publisher selling many copies of that novel increases.
After a novel is written, it's all about sales. The agent has to convince potential editors that THIS book is different from all the rest. The acquiring editor has to convince the marketing committee and the editorial board that this book is the one on which they should take a chance. The publisher in turn has to convince the booksellers in order to get them to stock it; the booksellers have to convince their readers that THIS is the novel they should buy.
Before any of that can happen, the author has to sell themselves. It’s not as hard as it sounds - all it means is that you find out what makes you and your novel unique, and then work with it so that you too, “bring something to the table.”
Just as a real platform elevates a speaker above his audience, if fiction authors find a way to make themselves stand out from the crowd, the odds of their fiction being picked up by a major publisher increase.
The fiction author's platform could be a unique subject matter that has mass appeal. They could be well-connected. They could show potential publishers early on that they're marketing savvy by including a marketing plan along with their novel. (Or you could do like I did, and do all three!)
I know aspiring authors don't like to think about the business side of things, and the idea of positioning themselves to look attractive to potential publishers turns them off. But if someone aspired to become an astronaut, they wouldn't think twice about doing everything required to get the job. If an author wants to get published, they need to understand and accept how the publishing business works, and turn it to their advantage.
Writing is art, but publishing is a business. Publishers need to make money on the books they buy, and doing that depends on choosing books with the potential to sell well. Particularly for a debut novelist who's just breaking in, the publisher need something to make that book stand out from the thousands of others - something that'll make the novel get noticed, and purchased - a platform. You might think you don't have one, and that might be immediately true, but that doesn't mean you can't build one!
Best of luck to all -
Karen
FREEZING POINT, coming October 2008 from Berkley
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Re: Nat Sobel advice/interview on PW. |
Author: Karen Dionne (76.226.176.---)
Date: 05-17-08 07:57
Drat - the link to my shiny new website doesn't work. It's karendionne.net, if anyone would like to check it out.
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Re: Nat Sobel advice/interview on PW. |
Author: Ann Crispin (---.proxy.aol.com)
Date: 05-17-08 10:13
Karen, how wonderful to see you have sold that novel!
My heartfelt congratulations!
-Ann C. Crispin
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Re: Nat Sobel advice/interview on PW. |
Author: Karen Dionne (76.226.176.---)
Date: 05-17-08 10:44
Thank you, Ann! I'm tremendously excited, as I'm sure you can imagine. It's been a long road, but I certainly learned a lot along the way. The novel is coming out in mass market paperback next October, and (no doubt because of my platform), my publisher has chosen it as one of three lead titles! (!!!)
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Re: Nat Sobel advice/interview on PW. |
Author: Cathy C (---.direcpc.com)
Date: 05-17-08 18:33
Nifty! Congrats, Karen. And I totally agree with what you said in your post. I've discovered that an acquisition editor's life is a series of "path of least resistence" decisions. One of those daily decisions is "Which book can I convince marketing to approve in the shortest time?"
It's a shame, really, but an editor's life is a tough one.
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Re: Nat Sobel advice/interview on PW. |
Author: Johnny Ray (---.35-65.tampabay.res.rr.com)
Date: 05-17-08 20:33
I'm learning this very quickly. This has been a very interesting lesson. In the business world before making the switch to full time writing, I was very well known world wide and thought in the writing world that the writing should stand on its own. Big mistake! Over the next several months, I plan on working more on image than writing.
Only time will tell.
Johnny Ray
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