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CHAPTERStrategy Session II:
Midcareer Damage Control
PUBLISH AND PERISH
YOU MIGHT IMAGINE THAT, AS AN AGENT WITH A SOLID
reputation, I am most often contacted by first novelists, newcomers
who hope that I will pluck them from obscurity and somehow wave
a magic wand and make them best-sellers. That is so, yet a surpris-
ing number of calls come from authors who have been published
two or three times, but who suddenly have hit a brick wall.
Often their publishers have turned down an option book. Their
current agents are not returning their calls, or have become oddly
ineffective. They are confused: what has gone wrong? Readers adore
their work, they swear, and their latest manuscripts are their best
yet. However, they cannot seem to get things moving. Will I take
them on? (Translation: Can I rescue their careers?)
Maybe, maybe not. These writers have fallen victim to a well-
known phenomenon that publishing insiders call "publish and per-
ish." Having been given membership in the club, so to speak, they
are suddenly being pushed to resign. It is a desperate situation.
So, welcome to Strategy Session II. This chapter is all about what
sends authors' careers off the rails and what can (or cannot) be
done about it. If your career is going well you probably feel invinci-
ble. I urge you to read this chapter anyway. Just as senior executives
at companies like IBM can feel the sudden sting of unemployment,
so too can hot authors find their careers cooling off. It is a good idea
to imagine the worst case. ]39