Roly:
Are publishers more willing to take risks on YA books or just certain kinds of YA books that have certain kinds of themes, subject matter, characters etc. I mean if you're not of the mind to write something Twilight-ish or romance/angst-centric it might not bode well for you, since right now the money currently isn't in what you write.
Like
Glenakin said, it's not a coincidence that the majority of YA books coming out now that are getting a lot of promotion (by which I mean the ones on the 3 for 2 table and the flashy publisher-produced book trailers) strongly feature romance elements (Hush Hush, Fallen, Shiver) and that is undoubtedly down to the Twilight effect.
I don't personally know how this is translating in terms of sales. Certainly in the UK, the Sunday Times top 10 for children's/YA remains dominated by the 4 Stephenie Meyer books and I haven't seen anything else break in for months.
Note though that the UK is not as sophisticated a YA market as in the US.
Roly:
But who knows, in the end if a book is good and well-written an agent might pick it up even if it doesn't follow a guaranteed money maker formula.
I know that my agent suggesting bumping up a potential love triangle in my novel, which I have done but not necessarily in a romantic way ...
:shifty eyes:
I kind of see my book as being the anti-Twilight or twisted-Twilight because it has the elements for a big romance but it goes all slanty half-way through. That's because I'm a bitter, twisted woman.
Glenakin:
But it seems most female YA writers today are interested in weird love triangles between a hot, dangerous boy (who is a vampire/fallen angel/human/something I don't know), a hot, safe boy (who is a human/werewolf/soemthing I don't know), and an ordinary girl (who has the power to capture the heart of the dangerous boy, the good boy, and every other boy, even though she's nowhere as hot as least hottest cheerleader in her school). Plot takes a backseat.
Not in my book, love.
I go for action all the way and my manipulative, attractive MC discovers the penalties for his actions.
RainbowDragon:
I don't think we can understand why they spent that kind of money on that trilogy of all unpublished MS's in the same genre without reading the books. And even then it might make no sense.
Well I think the mistake is in assuming that the author in question is getting the money upfront. They won't. That 7 figure sum will be split into at least 6 and most likely 9 payments and I will put my own cold hard cash down on the fact that there is no obligation on the publisher to accept or pay for books 2 and 3 if book 1 drops like a stone.
shaldna:
true. the more i hear of these stories the more i think everyone who works in publishing is mental.
In fairness, from a publisher's point of view it's not that mental a decision.
I went to a lecture where a bunch of uber-agents and uber-publishers ran through what happens in an auction. If the acquiring editor likes the book then they'll discuss it with the marketing and accounting bods who will probably take a look at it if the editor is seriously bigging it up.
The marketing guys will go to their bookbuyer contacts and sound out what their likely interest is going to be and the bookbuyers will hear Percy Jackson (kerching) and Twilight (kerching kerching) and say that they'll get behind it, most likely with supermarket/major store purchase and support.
Meanwhile the accounting bods will be taking a look at sales figures for the paranormal romance market and anything to do with Greek mythology to work out what the sales figures are likely to be. They'll factor in the marketing costs, printing costs etc and tell the acquiring editor what budget they'll give them to put forward to the agent.
I will bet that each of the publishers in that auction did the math, worked their contacts and worked out that if they got the right strategy and the right bookstore support, they'd make that money back easy.
shaldna:
Let me have my 20k and after that we'll see.
Good luck getting that much. I've been told not to get my hopes up above 10k absolute tops. And that's for 2 books.
Glenakin:
You and who? Not me, mate. I won't take it. I'll probably take half or three-quarter and ask the publishers to use the rest to promote the book. That's the thing I don't get about these 1 million dollar plus advances. They pay the author that much money and the biggest promotion they give the book is word of mouth.
Really?
Why not just use most of the money to promote the book if you think the book is that awesome?
Common sense.
I love writing. It's my passion. I will not ruin my career for a million dollars. If they offered me that kind of money and my book didn't make back a million dollars then my career as a writer is over. Every writer who has taken that kind of advance and hasn't been able to pull back profit have fallen into similar problems. Most of them have to come up with pen names just to write again.
Honestly, while I'd like to think that I'd turn down a million, I don't know if I'd have the strength to - particularly if they're giving a v. nice up front payment - and from what I've heard from the agent/publisher side, there really aren't that many writers who do turn down the cash. In fact, I've heard some publishers complain that they've gone into an auction being told by the author that all they want is marketing committment and to be nurtured as a writer and then gone for the largest sum of money on the table.
It's for that reason that so many publishers won't commit a marketing spend in the auction (doing so effectively ties up that sum from their budget until the auction is over) and will instead emphasise the strategy that they'd adopt.
I'll just take solace in the fact that my chances of getting a publishing deal are 50-50 and the most I'll likely get is 10k.
MM
