Meet the self-published author who changed publishing
Posted: 03/11/2013 Huff Post
The Making of a Deal
As someone who writes apocalyptic fiction, it comes quite naturally for me to announce that tomorrow should never happen. Tomorrow is an impossibility. And yet somehow, I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning and find that a story I wrote while working as a bookseller--a story that blossomed into a novel one serialized piece at a time--is now being released into bookstores far and wide.
How this came about has been a story unto itself. The deal I signed with Simon & Schuster is quite unusual and made some noise when it was announced, but even stranger are the events behind the deal. I thought it might be entertaining to describe that series of events. If nothing else, it might give readers an appreciation for what takes place behind the scenes. And the coincidence at the heart of it all is truly stranger than fiction.
Kristin Nelson
When Kristin Nelson first contacted me about representing WOOL, I warned her that I didn't think I'd ever sell the rights to a publisher. My series of stories were doing well enough for me to quit my day job, and I didn't think it would be advantageous to alter course. Other agents had been in touch already, and I'd passed up their offerings of representation by explaining that a deal was unlikely, but Kristin got my attention by saying, "I'm not sure you should sell the rights." She went on to explain that it might not be in my best interest to change what I was doing, but wouldn't it be fun to feel publishers out? To see what they were willing to do?
So began our journey together. In all the ways Kristin warned, it was unfruitful. The first round of submissions included bizarre plans to change the title of a work that had already established itself as a brand and the plan to take the book down from Amazon and wait another six months or so to put it up for sale again. Granted, it is a silly title for a book. I will give them that. But we declined six-figure advances that I would have leapt at just a few months prior.
In the meantime, Kristin delivered on other promises. She had told me that we could tap into markets I would have a difficult time penetrating on my own, and again she proved prescient. With the help of Jenny Meyer, Kristin's fantastic co-agent, we began signing what would eventually amount to twenty-four foreign publishing deals. The film rights were shopped around and went to Ridley Scott and Steve Zaillian due to an ambitious push from Kassie Evashevski, our film co-agent. Everything, in fact, went as well as Kristin had hoped. Except for one thing: WOOL kept selling long after it should've eased up. It kept selling long enough for a second round of offers to crop up
Full piece
Kristin Nelson
So began our journey together. In all the ways Kristin warned, it was unfruitful. The first round of submissions included bizarre plans to change the title of a work that had already established itself as a brand and the plan to take the book down from Amazon and wait another six months or so to put it up for sale again. Granted, it is a silly title for a book. I will give them that. But we declined six-figure advances that I would have leapt at just a few months prior.
In the meantime, Kristin delivered on other promises. She had told me that we could tap into markets I would have a difficult time penetrating on my own, and again she proved prescient. With the help of Jenny Meyer, Kristin's fantastic co-agent, we began signing what would eventually amount to twenty-four foreign publishing deals. The film rights were shopped around and went to Ridley Scott and Steve Zaillian due to an ambitious push from Kassie Evashevski, our film co-agent. Everything, in fact, went as well as Kristin had hoped. Except for one thing: WOOL kept selling long after it should've eased up. It kept selling long enough for a second round of offers to crop up
Full piece
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