Million dollar navels
There’s a thin line between creating and cashing in. One author’s inspiration could be another’s desperation–desperation to earn big bucks and instant fame. And aren’t we all weary of watching an endless parade of new unknowns flash like shooting stars and preen and glow ever so brightly, mouthing inane cliches about art. Art? Mart, you mean! Why not just admit that you only wrote the book to kill your overdraft, or as one author put it so eloquently and honestly, “I did it to get laid more.”
Yet it’s the question every aspiring writer asks himself at some point or other: ‘How the eff did so-and-so get that megabucks advance? He/She can’t write for nuts!’ The implication usually being that Aspiring Writer could write a book ten times better than that one, if someone would pay him even one-tenth as much.
Well…I honestly don’t know how one writes a novel to earn big bucks. I know how one can sell a novel that’s written, by hiring a good agent, negotiating hard, splitting individual rights to gain more from each individual sale, etc, but all those things are after writing the novel. Before you write it, trust me, there’s no way on earth to get rich.
As the apocryphal story goes of a famous writer who wired her publisher: “New novel 100,000 words, send the usual advance.” The publisher wired her back: “That depends on which words and in what order.”
On the other hand, if you do write the novel, and do a great job of it, then yes, there are chances you can get some money. Not assuredly. Because you have approximately 1 in 120,000 chances of selling your novel in the USA alone (that’s how many unsolicited novel manuscripts the major US publishers recieve each year) and not much better than 1 in 10,000 chances in India (ditto for Indian publishers). So it’s still a gamble. But at least you have the chips in your hand, and hopefully, if they’re worth something, you’ll get your break eventually.
Back when I first had my glimmer of inspiration for my Ramayana retelling, not only did I not have anyone interested in reading it, the first responses I got were “Sorry, we don’t publish this kind of book.” (That came from a New Delhi-based editor of a major publishing house; she was responding to my enquiry whether she would be interested in reading my new novel-in-progress. Since I hadn’t mentioned a word about the novel itself, not even the title, it beats me how she could say they didn’t publish “this” kind of book. Later, when the book was completed, published, and was a huge success, she tried frantically to get me to come to several different parties and launches. I replied politely but firmly, “I don’t attend those kind of events.” At least I knew what I was referring to.)
Even the publishing house that eventually bought Indian rights to the book (bless their souls) as well as its several sequels, didn’t even reply to my query letter when the book was in progress. It’s not that the editor in question–since moved on to a bigger phoren posting–didn’t like my work, he was actually a friend and a self-professed admirer of my work. But he simply didn’t see any sales potential in the book, and put it aside. On the other hand, he was more than willing to give me a fairly decent advance for a novel on Bombay’s Page 3 life, which, mercifully, I dragged-and-dropped straight into the Trashcan on my Desktop in the nick of time.
For that matter, back when the book was just a glimmer in mine eyes, even my own agent wasn’t sure whether the book was salable or not–until it actually sold. So far from writing a book to cash in the big bucks, there were major questions asked about my future plans as an author. When I got desperate for food-and-stamps cash, the agent even suggested that if I was willing to write a non-fiction book on a topical Indian-culture theme she could secure me an advance at least four times as much as what she could get me for a novel, and all she’d need for the non-fiction book was just a sample chapter and a two-page outline. (She thought Vaastu was a ‘cool subject’ and Bollywood was eminently salable too.) That was one of the inside track hard truths I learned: that non-fiction is where the big bucks really are these days.
So not only was there was no question of tailoring the book to make more money: the question was whether it would sell at all! I was stubborn and stupid enough to stick to my guns and keep at the Ramayana novel, while visions of becoming ‘the next Deepak Chopra’ flashed past like a train in a sarson-ka-khet at night in a Yash Chopra movie.
So I ask again: What money? Forget millions, I didn’t have a rupee in hand when I began writing the Ramayana series. I was deeply in debt, with a wife and two growing kids to support, spotty health, weight problems, creditors literally banging on the door everyday, relationship problems…It was about as bad as it can get. And as usually happens, it got worse.
But I began writing, and I went on. And I finished the book. And I met a visiting writer who introducted me to her agent, who went on to read the book, managed to get me a pretty decent first-sale. And things rolled from there. Eventually, and I’ll repeat that word, eventually I did make some money. Not as much as some people believe, but a hell of a lot more than most authors make. I was pushing 40, had been doing nothing but writing all my life, had over a dozen published books under my (straining) belt, and if you took the so-called ‘big advance’ I’d got, deducted my debt from it, deducted agents’ commissions, foreign tax deductions at source, then divided the result by the time I’d spent writing the book (and accumulating said debt) it would probably come to less than what a real ‘banker’ makes…
Still, I’m not complaining. Hey, I’m doing pretty okay for myself and I’m writing what I wanted to write. And even after all those deductions and taxes, it still works out to a pretty good figure on my IT Form 16.
But I didn’t get paid to write the book/s. I got paid for giving publishers the right to publish the book, in specified markets in specified editions. Remember, nobody even wanted to read it when it was in-progress. Most people I knew well (let’s not even call them friends) looked at me like I was a maniac for thinking I could make a living writing novels. (I was actually. Still am. And happy to be.) Still, I wrote it. And that’s why I earned some money.
And that’s what it’s all about. Writing it. Sending it out. Hoping and praying. Piling up your debt, or writing journalism, anything to keep the food warm, and waiting.
So tell me again: How do you make a million bucks writing a novel? Please. Tell me. Because I haven’t a clue. Then again, don’t tell me. Because I love what I do. I don’t do it for money. Yes, that’s right, I don’t. Maybe you do, and power to your arm, friend. But I do it because it’s what I do, and I dig it. Sure, I’ll sell it for money, once it’s written. But before it’s written? Nope. Not a clue. Far as I know, nobody else does either, apart from a few dozen brand-name biggies way up there, and their gig is a lot more about luck and miracles than writing.
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 19th, 2005 at 7:01 am. It is filed under Ashok.
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