Alcatraz News

[CtrlZed]

All this hooplah over a prison.  I didn't even know EUOL owned land in San Francisco, let alone an island.  If Scholastic gets it, I hope they make it into a school.

[EUOL]

Stacer, I've sent you an email with all the juicy details.  (And no, it's not Levine, unfortunately.)

Talked to all three of the editors today, and am still having a tough time deciding.  Will probably choose a deal by Monday.  If anyone has any advice, now would be the time to give it!

[Skar]

I say Little Brown.

-Smaller pond = bigger fish.
-Smaller house = better relationship with editor
-Fewer books keeps you free to pursue other ideas or not, in case you get bored after 4.
-Show me the money!

[Parker]

I still vote for Peanuts.

Oh, wait--wrong thread.

I think Skar made a good point.  How many books do you want to be tied into?  Maybe you only want to do four, but if you for sure want to do more, then it would make sense to me to go with the 6 book deal, because then you're guaranteed it, whereas with the other one, things are more up in the air.  Then again, if they're not doing hot after 4 books, you might not want to do 5 or 6.  Sigh.  Just keep telling yourself that this is one of the BEST problems you could be dealing with.

At the same time, remember that marketing does do a lot.  There are some books I've read that I've been blown away by, but I never heard about them.  I think if enough people read Alcatraz, it'll start to snowball from there.

I don't know if any of this even helps.  I'll shut up now.

[stacer]

Replied via email. To summarize, my top choices would be Little, Brown or Scholastic. Both are great houses, with different strengths, and it sounds like it'll come down to your feelings about how you'd work with the editors.

[Lanternpost]

Little, Brown.

I mean look at the success of The Historian.  Okay, much different kind of book.  They don't necessarily publish a lot of popular books but that occasional title . . . you know . . . becomes VERY popular.  Of course, Stacer would know a lot more about that than I would.

[EUOL]

After much debate, I decided to go with Scholastic (assuming they are willing to work with us on one of their royalty rates.)  

Little, Brown was the second choice.  Everyone I talked to told me not to discount them, but they also tended to admit that Scholastic was their initial, gut choice.  I think I would have done well with either.  In the end, it came down to the letter that the scholastic editor sent me.  It just seemed the most enthusiastic.

[stacer]

Congrats! I think that's a good choice. Good luck with it.

[Skar]

Cool.  Congratulations.

[House of Mustard]

That's awesome.  Best of luck.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Good luck! Has there been any sort of timetable discussion?

(assuming they are willing to work with us on one of their royalty rates.)

This makes me curious...

[Nessa]

Congratulations. That is very cool.

[Shrain]

Coolness. Kudos!

So you'll be writing three more books in the series?

[EUOL]

Yes, I'll be doing at least three more books.  Scholastic indicated they'd probably want to do more, but we'll have to see how they're selling.  

Ookla, they wanted a hardback royalty break at 50k, which was a lot higher than the other two publishers.  If this DOES take off, I want to be to 15% by 20k, not 100k.  

[Eric James Stone]

Congrats on the deal.