THE CAREER NOVELIST
regional audio companies also exist, though dealing with them can
be similar to dealing with small presses: little money up front and
lots of headaches later on.
Sena! rights. Once upon a time, novelists could count on selling
excerpts of their work to magazines like the New Yorker, Vanity Fair,
Esquire, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, and the like. While that market still
exists, it is today quite a bit smaller, as is the money. Nonfiction
authors still have a healthy serial rights market, but for fiction writ-
ers this source of revenue is waning.
Chances of a sale are much better for novels that are episodic in
structure, where portions can be lifted out and remain satisfying
when read on their own. A self-contained scene or glued-together
subplot can also sell, but there is fierce competition and not all
novels are suitable for all magazines. As with so many sub-rights,
best-sellers have the best shot.
Translation rights. Here, too, first-time and early-career authors are
disappointed. So many countries! So many languages! So few sales
... how come?
The reason is fairly logical: consumers in foreign countries are
like consumers anywhere. They buy what they want, what is safe,
and what is familiar. Best-sellers are big. That goes as much in Italy
as it does in Iowa. Are you at all surprised?
First novels are especially hard to sell overseas. So are genre nov-
els, except for established authors whose work is at the top of their
field. American settings work in some countries but not others.
Poland and Japan, for example, are mad for American culture, but
the British hate to buy any mystery written by an American, let alone
set in the U.S. And the French... well, who can tell what they will
like? For them, the more intellectual and outre the better.
Another reason beginning novelists may find their work unwel-
come overseas is that much of the selling of translation rights is
done at the Frankfurt Book Fair, a one-week long rights extravagan-
za held in Frankfurt, Germany, every October. This whirlwind event
puts a premium on big books that have universally appealing hooks
(The Hunt for Red October) or prestige value (The Name of the Rose). As
ever, best-selling American authors command a premium;
unknowns go begging. In the crush, it is tempting for a rights direc-