Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: guessingo on February 02, 2010, 09:24:21 PM
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I am listening to Writing Excuses on how to deal with external influences. Brandon said there was some author who had a huge fantasy failure because he only read Tolkein.
Who was it and what was the book? He didn't say.
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I was wondering the same thing after listening to that cast. A fair number of books came out in that timeframe, though...
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Hmm. I know of a failure around 2005, but not 2000. The failure in 2005 was for similar reasons.
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what was the failure in 2005?
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I was listening to Writing Excuses and was wondering the same thing. I can't think of any authors who decided to write just because they read Tolkien. Actually I take that back there was this one author (whose name escapes me) who wrote the Mithgar series( which I've heard is like himself writing his own adventures with his own cast of characters in Middle Earth). I'm not sure when the first book came out and I'm not sure if that was the failure. Hope that helps some.
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I remember hearing about this (the 2000 one) but I can't remember the guy's name. I believe it was a Random House author said to have been given one of the largest advances ever. I think the series was trying to capitalize on the popularity of Terry Goodkind. However, it was about righteous men trying to protect the world from vindictive evil women, and it did not go over well.
I think the name was something common like John, with a two-syllable last name perhaps starting with S. (Not Scalzi!)
(It's not the Mithgar series by Dennis L. McKiernan.)
Wait! I found it. Robert Newcomb, first book in 2002.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Newcomb
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ah yes. you know though, i think this was more of a failure due to how much they advanced him--the novels weren't horrid as I recall, just not awesome. this is the same case as the 2005 failure Eldon Thompson, whose first novel was released the same day as Brandon's, and WAS horrid. As I recall, Thompson got a huge advance based on Terry Brooks' word alone.
Are we seeing the correlation here? Two books trying to cash in on the Terrys? Man. talk about bad juju.
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I have started mistrusting any book with a quote from Terry Brooks on it.
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I was wondering about Eldon Thompson while trying to come up with Newcomb...I have not read Eldon's book, however I think Brandon said that he liked it. But I could be remembering incorrectly.
Newcomb's rapidly diminishing numbers of book reviews on Amazon demonstrate that people just plain didn't read the later books.
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I was wondering about Eldon Thompson while trying to come up with Newcomb...I have not read Eldon's book, however I think Brandon said that he liked it. But I could be remembering incorrectly.
Newcomb's rapidly diminishing numbers of book reviews on Amazon demonstrate that people just plain didn't read the later books.
No. Brandon didn't like it. He felt bad for Eldon. We had many a conversation about how derivative it was. It is seriously awful. You see, there are these two brothers walking through the woods, and one is good with a bow while the other is good with a sword. They end up being recruited by a mysterious wise-type person to go searching for a magic sword...<vomit> Seriously, what do you expect when Brooks says you are awesome and is your mentor. You know a book is bad when dozens of people actually took the time to return it to the bookstore because the opening 3rd was like reading a Tolkien rip-off/Brooks clone. If the average reader sees this, you are screwed.
Yeah, with Newcomb's stuff, people just stopped reading it. He may have to reinvent himself the way Jack Campbell did. His new books after the initial trilogy didn't sell for crap.
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Bookstore Guy thank you for the warning. You never know I've never heard of the guy so I might have wasted money on his book. Thank you for the fair warning (note to self don't read Eldon Thompson or Newcomb).
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Ah, I see that Eldon wrote a screenplay for Terry. Eeenteresting.
His first book has mediocre Amazon reviews—more 3-star reviews than other star counts. Newcomb's first has worse, but more of them (so more people read it)—and 48% of them are 1-star reviews.
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did he get a 6 book deal? It looks like he published 6 books in the series then it got cancelled. How big of an advance could he have gotten as a first time author? I heard terry goodkind got one of the biggest for a first time fantasy author due to a bidding war. However, I doubt it was more than $100,000. I can't see a publisher throwing 6 figures at first time authors. Even if a book is good it does not mean it will sell.
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Seems like Eldon's was above $100,000...per book. I think Newcomb's was as well. You have to understand, those were different times. A lot has changed over the past 5-10 years. And really it is due to examples like this that current new authors (economic factors aside) are treated with much more caution.
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so authors used to get more money up fron then they do now? Why did they get more up front? I would think that only a small % of releases are big hits, many do ok, and then a significant number bomb out or have low sales. A book can be good quality and still not sell well.
Are there just more books published now?
so this guy eidon got a 6 book deal having NEVER published before with $100,000/book up front or $600,000? I can see that kind of money or more if you are famous and writing a first book (see Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton), but what fan base does this guy have?
I would also think that alot of selling a new author is the author's willingness and ability to market themselves on top of the publisher.
I get the impression now that first time authors generally get 1 book deals with maybe a $10k advance. This way the publisher can find out if the guy can sell books. Then once they prove themselves they more. I am sure Robert Jordan got big advances for his books after they became hits. I would bet that Stephen King probably gets upward of $1 million advance/book.
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being an author is a rough business
1. you are self employed
2. no real support structure. you wither produce or sell or you don't
3. people see your name on the book so if they don't like it you get mocked.
4. you put your heart and soul into your work. you can't possibly be a fiction writer unless you love it.
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so authors used to get more money up fron then they do now? Why did they get more up front? I would think that only a small % of releases are big hits, many do ok, and then a significant number bomb out or have low sales. A book can be good quality and still not sell well.
Are there just more books published now?
so this guy eidon got a 6 book deal having NEVER published before with $100,000/book up front or $600,000? I can see that kind of money or more if you are famous and writing a first book (see Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton), but what fan base does this guy have?
I would also think that alot of selling a new author is the author's willingness and ability to market themselves on top of the publisher.
I get the impression now that first time authors generally get 1 book deals with maybe a $10k advance. This way the publisher can find out if the guy can sell books. Then once they prove themselves they more. I am sure Robert Jordan got big advances for his books after they became hits. I would bet that Stephen King probably gets upward of $1 million advance/book.
Id say yes, the average advance was higher before. Think about Eldon. Terry Brooks essentially handed Eldon's manuscript to the publisher saying "this is awesome like I am." The Newcomb was similar to piggyback on Goodkind's success. When, as a publisher, you have huge failures like that, you start changing your advances. Mix this with the economy, and yeah, advances for new authors, I imagine, are significantly lower. In both these cases, the novels were marketed to take advantage of existing fan bases, and erroneously based on existing sales for established similar authors.
Jordan got more than a million. Stephen King gets far more than a million a book. And his very first advance was huge as well.
Yeah, being published is tough, especially in this current industry. But those are the risks. I'll accept them gladly.
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Sarah Palin's advance is rumored to have been several million dollars, perhaps 5 to 7 million.
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Sarah Palin's advance is rumored to have been several million dollars, perhaps 5 to 7 million.
That makes me want to vomit. THAT gets a multi-million dollar deal, and books that actually make sense (both fiction and non-fiction) struggle along. If I go show myself to be an uneducated American on TV and get embarrassed due to my stupidity, can I have a huge book deal?
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If I go show myself to be an uneducated American on TV and get embarrassed due to my stupidity, can I have a huge book deal?
Yes. Yes you can. And then, a few years later, when your star is fading, you can let it slip that it was all an act, that you never were as stupid as you seemed, and get another book deal to explain "the truth". This is also the part where you betray all the "friends" you made along the way.
Then you'll do Hollywood Squares for a few years before fading into obscurity.
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If I go show myself to be an uneducated American on TV and get embarrassed due to my stupidity, can I have a huge book deal?
Yes. Yes you can. And then, a few years later, when your star is fading, you can let it slip that it was all an act, that you never were as stupid as you seemed, and get another book deal to explain "the truth". This is also the part where you betray all the "friends" you made along the way.
Then you'll do Hollywood Squares for a few years before fading into obscurity.
Done and done. Though we may want to include Dancing with the Failures--err Stars in that mix somewhere. I'll be awesome!
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If I go show myself to be an uneducated American on TV and get embarrassed due to my stupidity, can I have a huge book deal?
Yes. Yes you can. And then, a few years later, when your star is fading, you can let it slip that it was all an act, that you never were as stupid as you seemed, and get another book deal to explain "the truth". This is also the part where you betray all the "friends" you made along the way.
Then you'll do Hollywood Squares for a few years before fading into obscurity.
Done and done. Though we may want to include Dancing with the Failures--err Stars in that mix somewhere. I'll be awesome!
In that case we should all go on TV shows announce the "truth" a few years later and become millionares and then get tons of book deals and advances(my evil plan)! Muwhahah(opps did I just say that out loud).
P.s-I have nothing against Sarah Palin.