THE CAREER NOVELIST
may fall into the work-for-hire trap (see Chapter 15). They may
unwisely change agents. They will certainly feel hurt, abandoned,
disillusioned, or worse.
If I sound like the Ghost of Christmas Future, it is for a reason; I
have seen this happen to too many authors. Avoid their mistakes.
Think carefully about when to make the big move.
My recommendation is this: when royalty earnings—remember, I
mean royalties from actual book sales to actual customers—equal
your annual minimum income requirement for two years running,
then it is safe to think about going full-time. Leave out movie sales,
book-club advances, translation sales, and audiocassette advances.
Consider those one-time, unreliable income. Over time, sub-rights
revenues will grow more regular, but that is not necessarily the case
early in one's career.
Here is another consideration: the five-book threshold. That is, once
you have five books published and on bookstore shelves, all in
print, all reordering, then it is probably safe to assume that you
have found an audience and everything is going well.
I am sure that the common sense of this yardstick is obvious.
Since it can take up to a year for the final performance of one's first
novel to be tabulated, most authors arrive at that point with their
second novels already out (or in the pipeline), with possibly a third
novel under contract. Three books do not make a career. Three
books are the minimum necessary for a publisher to determine if an
author is a success.
Five books, though... that is another matter. If one reaches the
five-book threshold, it is probably because things are going well.
Shipments of new novels are heading up; reorders of old novels are
holding steady. This author is probably in business.
When counting to five, go back to square one when you change
publishers or genres. Why? When switching genres, you are proba-
bly starting over in a new section of the bookstores. Former fans will
not necessarily follow you all that distance.
When you switch publishers, it is likely that your previous novels
will go out of print and vanish from shelves. Not only is your royal-
ty income then damaged, your ability to grow an audience is also
impaired. The problem may not be as acute for authors whose work