The Heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.
Shall we talk, briefly, about some of the horrible things that go wrong in a writer's life? Sure, why not. Many people won't talk about them, but let's be honest: this isn't an easy job.
First off, you can take this as true. It's easier to sell a first book than a third.
With a first book, anything can happen. It could take off and be a wild best seller. It could become a quiet back-list perennial. It could find its niche. It could develop a fan base. Anything.
Another plus for the first-time novelist: the editor doesn't have to offer a big advance. A couple thousand bucks, the book's his.
The book goes out. It sells some number of copies. This is great. Maybe it earns out, maybe it doesn't. That doesn't matter much; publishers can make profits even on books that don't earn out.
Then you turn in your second book. It too hits the stands. Now here's the problem. Your second book must do better than your first book. A rising career is good. A falling career ... isn't.
Lots of readers will give a new author a chance. Fewer readers will give an author a second chance. If someone read your book and didn't like it, the odds are they won't buy your next book, even if it's radically better. (You wanted reasons why you shouldn't publish a book that isn't quite ready? That's reason #1398.) Word of mouth can be negative, too.
So, if you're on a declining curve, that third book is going to be a really tough sell. Especially since, as a third-time author you should expect your advances to be rising.
At that point it'll be time to change publishers, and possibly to go to a pseudonym.
Right, you think that's grim? Try the Death Spiral.
The Death Spiral works like this: The big chains (and if you aren't in the big chains you aren't in the game) have this trick called Ordering To Net. That is, however many copies of a book Author A sold last time, that's how many copies of his next book they're going to order this time.
Say Fred Goodguy writes a novel, a mystery called Up Your Nose With A Rubber Hose. They print 10,000 copies, and he has a sell-through of 80%. (80% sell-through is pretty good.) That is, of those 10,000 copies, 8,000 sold.
Now Fred's new book comes out, Down Your Throat With A Motorboat. The chains saw that 8,000 copies sold last time, so they order 8,000 copies. Again, Fred has an 80% sell-through, and 6,400 sell. Fred's third book, In Your Eye With an Apple Pie gets 6,400 pre-orders, that's how many are printed, and sells 5,120. Now the big chains are only willing to preorder 5,120 copies of Fred's next proposed book, Up Your Ass With Broken Glass, so his publisher declines to exercise their option on it, and Fred's left without a career.
What can Fred do? Go to another publisher and start all over again, under the name Joe Nicefella, with The Broken Glass Affair. Fred 's fans will be wondering why Fred isn't writing any more, while others will think that Joe is just a cheap Fred imitator. And, Fred will get a first-time author's advance at his new publisher. But, on the other hand, he'll get a first printing of 10,000, and the bookstores will preorder them, in hopes that this new author will turn out to be a best seller.
[Note: if your publisher likes you, you may get a name-change and stay where you are: and the name change doesn't have to be big, just big enough to fool the major chain stores' computers. Adding a middle initial to your name has been known to work. Or, printing on the cover By Fred Goodguy Writing as Joe Nicefella.]
These thing may not happen to you. But they can, and there are writers that they have happened to. Just be prepared.
What other bad things can happen?
Your editor bought your book because she believes in it. She's presented it to the other editors and the publisher, she's been shepherding it through production... then she gets hired by another company. What happens to your book?
It's an orphan, that's what. No one to speak for it at the publisher's. No one to boost it to the sales force. It goes to the desk of some other editor who already has a full allotment of books on his desk, and who doesn't love your book as much as the original editor did. He loves his own books better. The editing it gets is more of a lick-and-a-promise than the full deal it needs and deserves.
Bad things happen. Everything is done, but it's at the minimum level. No one, particularly not the author, is happy when the book comes out.
Other bad things? Shall we talk about basket accounting?
That's where you sign a contract for a number of books, but the royalties don't start until they all earn out. If one of them is wildly popular, but another doesn't sell for beans, the popular one doesn't start putting money in your pocket until after it's paid off the dead dog's advance too.
There's more, there's worse -- the bad copyedit. Some copyeditors think that what you really wanted was a co-author.
Then there's the way books have the shelf life of yogurt. They go out, they're on the shelves, and if the readers don't pick up on 'em right away, off the shelves they come to make way for next month's books. There's a sad thing.
The natural state of a book is Out of Print.
But I'll end this story with hope, just like Pandora's box had hope in it.
There's an easy cure to the Off The Shelves in a Month problem. You want your books on the shelves for years, and you don't have what it takes to be a bestseller? (And what that takes is both to write a good book and be lucky.)
Here's how to get your book back on the shelf: Write a second book. When it's published, your publisher will rerelease and resolicit your first book at the same time as your second book. They know that having two different books by the same author shelved side by side will make the public more willing to buy either book than they would one title alone. The bookstores know this too. They're more willing to shelve three copies each of Up Your Nose with a Rubber Hose and In Your Eye with an Apple Pie than they would be to shelve six copies of either one.
That's the secret of bookstore placement, increasing sales, and a happy career: write another book.
Since you started writing another book the minute you finished your last one, there you are.