THE CAREER NOVELISTlevels on subsequent books will not be subject to inflation. The
terms are locked in. The publisher has room to breathe, and a peri-
od in which to enjoy a profit margin.
Should you take a multiple-book deal if it is offered? That
depends. For authors in certain categories it can make sense. For
instance, if you have written or are planning a fantasy trilogy there
is little reason to be cagey. You will almost certainly want all three
volumes to be published by one house.
The same reasoning probably holds true for mystery writers
beginning a series. There is every reason to keep the books together;
indeed, it is nice to get a long-range commitment on so speculative
a venture. The worry is that if the first book proves highly popular the
author will then be unable to take advantage of it. With the terms
locked in there will be little possibility of demanding a better deal.
For that reason it is probably a good idea not to commit too
many books at once. Three is a good limit. With three you get all the
advantages of a multiple deal without delaying too long the plea-
sure of obtaining better terms if your books are a hit.
One sneaky contract point to watch out for in multiple-book deals
is something called joint accounting. This allows your publisher to
lump the advances for all the books into one sum, which must be
completely earned out—that is, royalty earnings due to you must add
up to that figure—before additional royalties will be paid. It can be
highly frustrating to wait for royalties that are due to you simply
because all of the books in the contract have not yet been published.
1 rarely agree to joint accounting, particularly at low advance lev-
els. The rationale for this hold-back feature is that it mitigates the
risk the publisher is taking with a new author. But at what financial
level does risk begin? If you ask me, it does not begin at the level
where most first-novel advances typically start. Four-figure
advances, even tripled, are not much of a risk.
One situation in which a multiple-book deal is probably a bad
idea is when the novel in question is a hot, stand-alone, commer-
cial novel. If there is a real possibility of gigantic success, it can be
far better to swing the next deal once the results on the first book
are in. I follow this principle even when the success I anticipate is at
a lower level.
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