Want to get a great book deal?
Easy, just become a Russian spy and get caught.
The New York Post reports that Anna Chapman, recently outed as a 'sleeper' spying for Russia, is asking $250,000 for her memoirs, with the money to go into a friend's Swiss bank account.
In the plea bargain that allowed her to be swapped with some US spies, she agreed not to profit from her crime. But now that' she's back in Russia, good luck going after that money.
It's not a new development that the big money in publishing goes to people in the news and to celebrities (they use the word loosely in publishing). The problem is that in today's tight economy publishers are even more determined to go after the 'sure thing' deals, which means less money for newcomers.
There are two solutions for those of us who haven't gotten into selling state secrets or being the last to be eliminated from "Celebrity Big Loser Island."
One is self-publishing (which also means self-promoting and self-distributing). Lots more work, but also a much bigger chunk of any profits.
The other is to focus on "high concept" books in which the topic or the way you deal with it is novel enough to make publishers take notice. Often the title will reveal this strategy. Twenty years ago a book might have been called, "The Economics of Everyday Life." Now it's called "Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything." Notice the "rogue." A rogue economist is much more exciting than a regular one.
The follow-up to that book has upped the stakes even more. It's called "Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance." My hat's off to Steven J. Dubner--anybody who can get prostitutes, suicide bombers and global warming or cooling into one title has my respect.
I'm not knocking his books--I've read the first one and enjoyed it; I'm just pointing out that to get any attention in today's publishing space you need to make your title and your approach freaky or even superfreaky.
(You'll find a treasure trove of tips in my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online and offline retailers.)
