How do you view other writers in your
genre: competitors? colleagues? supporters?
Would you view them the same way if
your own publication and sales depended on their success?
Steve had been writing for a dozen
years while holding down a full-time job. After one unpublished legal
thriller, he moved to a genre he loved: an international thriller
that blended action, history, secrets, and
conspiracy.
But since the end
of the Cold War, publishers considered the genre dead. “If you were
John Le Carre, Ken Follett, Robert Ludlum, or Clive Cussler, you were
fine,” Steve says. “But if you were ... trying to break into that
genre, you could forget it.”
Then another
writer, a few years ahead of Steve, got lucky. Dan had been published
three times, but without spectacular results. But for book number
four, he proposed something usual. Doubleday bought it—and thought
it had the potential to go far.
Steve says,
“Everyone looked at it and said, ‘You know, this is a little
different. It’s action, history, secrets, conspiracy, international
settings.’ Guess what I was writing? That’s exactly what
I’d been writing all those years.”
With the hope that Dan’s book might
open a new niche, Ballantine took a chance and offered Steve Berry a
contract for The Amber Room—after his previous novels had
received more than eighty rejections.
Dan’s book didn’t disappoint. “When
The Da Vinci Code was published,” Berry says, “it
just went through the roof. ... It brought the
international suspense thriller genre back to life. And I got a
break. I was in the right place at the right time at the right moment
on the 86th time—when Mark Tavanti, senior editor of Ballantine
Books, was looking for something to go with The
Da Vinci Code.”
The Da Vinci
Code “brought a genre back to
life,” Berry says, “and introduced readers to a lot of writers
they would otherwise never have seen or gotten a chance to read.”
What about you?
If you keep hearing that nobody is interested in your genre, consider
praying for another writer’s success.
2 comments:
Such a very good point Andy and a great challenge- pray for another's success. On a close note: I have known authors who have written a book but do not trust agents to read it because they are certain someone will steal their story. Others are afraid to join a critique group, for fear others will do the same.
Needless to say- the story never gets read. So sad.
Stealing stories and ideas: an urban myth of publishing that refuses to die.
Have you noticed how many successful authors are the ones most active in writers groups?
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