All language subtitles for Masterclass - David Baldacci Teaches Mystery and Thriller Writing - 15.Navigating the Publishing Business. Part 2

There are a lot of different resources

you can turn to as a writer to

understand the publishing industry

better. Um, one of the things that you

really should focus on too is relations

with book sellers. um early on in your

career, you may be asked to go to do

book signings at Barnes & Noble or a lot

of Independence or some of the other

chains as well. Whenever I go to those

places, even early on in my career, I'd

go into the store. I'd walk around the

store, see how it was set up, and then

I'd go and talk to the people who work

at the store. You know, how how are

sales going? How is it how many events

do you do a year? How do you get people

into the store? Um how many books you

typically order for an event like this?

Uh how many returns do you sometimes

get? you know what's the overall feel

for how do you boost people into the

store and how do you sell books and then

you start building relationship with the

book sellers and the best thing about

book sellers is they hand sell books

when Absolute Power came out I did a

nationwide tour I probably did 50 cities

I was everywhere and all these different

types of book sellers and book sellers

hand sold the living crap out of

Absolute Power there was one bookstore

in one city that sold a little bookstore

that sold 1 1500 copies of Absolute

Power out of that one little book store

is probably not bigger in the room I'm

in right now. When you establish

relationships with with book sellers, it

can only be a good thing for your

career. So, and you also get a lot of

information. They deal with the

publishers on on a daily basis. They

know and you know sometimes you get

complaints from book sellers. You know

what they and they weren't they're not

marketing your books in my area like

they used to or they not uh they're not

keeping um stock in the stores. I'm

having like a twoe delay in getting

books in from you. Sometimes, you know,

I'd go back to the publisher and I said,

you know, I was in I was in Minneapolis.

I was in St. Louis. I was over here. I

don't have any books on the shelf. Um

because the warehouse is not

replenishing. And what happens?

Publisher calls up and said, "Okay,

sorry that happened. We just took care

of that. That's not going to happen

again." So, there's lots of information

sources out there. So, when you travel,

just walk in the store, don't talk to

anybody, do the book signing, and leave.

That's an amazing opportunity for you to

learn about the business because these

book sellers are right in the middle of

it from both. They can they are the

conduit between the readers who buy the

books and the conduit between the

publishers who give them the books to

sell. So they know a lot of stuff. Avail

yourself of the opportunity. Pick their

brains.

You know there are lots of ways to build

a fan base and readers. Um, the best way

to do it is write really great stories

consistently so that people can feel

that if they open one of my books,

they're going to really enjoy it all the

way to the last page. Um, I think what

engages people most with my books is

that I write them all myself. I don't

have co-authors. I write about really

different sub subject matters and I have

lots of different series going with lots

of different characters that people have

come to care about. King and Maxwell,

The Camel Club, Amos Decker, you know,

Will Roby and Jessica Real. I think I'm

one of the few writers out there that

has multiple series going. I publish two

books a year. You never know which

you're going to get. It could be a

standalone or it could be another series

and they're kind of is it Camel Club? Is

it Amos Decker? Is it Will Roby? What is

it going to be? It's almost like waiting

for the ice cream truck to come down the

road and you get to select your flavor.

Uh that's that's brought out. So, and

and also I take the you know, you know,

the marketing side, the business side of

it very seriously. When I first started

out as a writer, and this is important

for all of you,

you got to get out there. You got to go

to places, you know. I I it could be a

fourperson book club in Nebraska. Hey

Dave, would you like to come? And yes,

I'll be right there. What's for dinner?

You know, and there I am. I went

everywhere. I traveled all over the

world. Um building up fan bases, going

to places, getting myself out there

because it's all part of it, too. I

mean, you can be a writer and never go

anywhere and write your books and they

sell and you make a nice living and

that's fine. That's your choice. You can

make that choice. Um, but also don't

expect maybe that your fan base will

build as quickly as you wanted it to

because you're not out there doing it,

not out there promoting and stuff like

that. So, that's that's an important

part of it, too. It's you wear two hats

if you want them. You have to be the

writer obviously and that's not that's a

hat you have to wear. If you want to be

a big promoter and get out there and

market your books and get out there in

the public, uh then you can wear that

hat as well. I like both. You know, I

don't travel as much as I used to. I

don't have to. But I love getting out

there because I love meeting my readers

and, you know, talking to them. What do

they like about the books? What don't

they like about the books? What would

they like to seeing coming down the pike

again? But also, it's it helps the whole

ecosystem. Publishing is an ecosystem.

You know, you have publishers, you have

writers, you have readers, you have book

sellers, independents, chains, whatever.

And if we all don't support each other,

then all of a sudden that world goes

away.

Probably the biggest pitfall that I've

seen over the last 20 years or so is

that a hot writer comes out with a book

that's phenomenally popular and sells a

lot of copies and then for the next 5

years, we see nothing from that writer.

there's no book that follows that one up

and then all of a sudden they came out

with another book. It's not that well

written. Um, and it doesn't sell any

copies and they totally disappear.

I'm not saying that you have to publish

every year. You have to publish two

books a year like I do. If you're going

to write a book every five years, um,

and that's great if you're, you know,

you're you're a Tony Morrison or a

literary fiction writer, um, that has a

reputation in that field and and fans

are waiting for that book to come out

and they know that it takes time, you

know, to write the next masterpiece,

then that's great and and that's the

career you want. There's nothing wrong

with that. I'm saying in the commercial

fiction world, there are so many

different choices. So many writers

writing consistently in that genre who

are producing one book a year, two books

a year, three books a year, and fans are

waiting for those books at some point

because it's a free marketplace.

If you come out every five years with a

book, commercial fiction book, people

are going to forget about you. You know,

they've already follow they're already

following another five or six authors

and that's all the books they're going

to be able to buy in the course of a

year. So why would they buy you when

they've enjoyed these people

consistently? and they know they're

writing consistently good books and they

just pick them up automatically and read

them and that's it. And you're kind of

you're sort of left behind because of

that. And I'm not saying that's fair.

I'm not saying that's the way the

publishing should be or the marketplace

should be. But I'm just saying that is

the way the marketplace is. That's

probably the biggest problem I've seen

uh with firsttime novelists who really

done a great job and sold a lot of books

and gotten a lot of publicity. they

don't follow up with another book in

what I would say would be a reasonable

period of time for commercial fiction

anyway. And those that do tend to do a

lot better because that's how you build

a fan base. You write one book and you

wait 5 years, you're not building a fan

base during that period of time. Uh and

once people get you read one of your

books and there's nothing else after

that, trust me, they will tend to forget

about you and move on to something else.

Back when I started out, self-publishing

was kind of a dirty phrase. You nobody

wanted to be self-published. You're

selling Xerox copies of your book out of

your trunk of your car. Who wanted that?

I mean, it's kind of although, you know,

John Gisham is John Gryom's a great

writer and a good friend of mine. Um, he

had um the time to kill printed himself

and was selling it out of the trunk of

his car and then he wrote the firm and

his whole life changed. So, it can

happen. But self-publishing today is

different. You have these media

platforms now. You can go to Amazon and

Barnes & Noble, a bunch of others, and

they give you promotional help. They

give you marketing, they help you with

editing, cover, you know, the cover and

all that other stuff, and you can

publish there, and you know, you sell

copies. There are quite a few writers on

Amazon that have started on Amazon that

have sold a lot of books, and they have

really thriving careers on there. So,

there are opportunities available for

people. Um, you just have to go out

there and now with the internet, it's

easy. you know, you can just Google

stuff and they'll have a whole slew of

places you can go to where you can pitch

ideas, send sample chapters to and these

places are valid. They're, you know,

totally embedded. Um, and you can get

your the word out there. And

publications like ITW as well, they they

have publications where people can

probably print short stories they want,

but it's a it's a platform to them to be

heard that didn't used to exist. And I

would encourage people to avail

themselves of that.

when Absolute Power uh was sold, you

know, I was working full-time as a

lawyer in DC and I got the phone call

from my agent. And uh I still remember

what he said,

"If I sell this book for a lot of money,

will you continue to practice law or

will you stop and start writing

full-time?" I was like,

"Right." I said, "Well, yeah. If you

sell a book for a lot of money, I would

want to write full-time. That's what

I've always wanted. That's been my

dream. So, um, then he told me the book

had sold for how much it sold for. Like,

it was still holds a record for the most

money I ever paid for a first novel in

US publishing history. I thought at that

point I thought that I thought that he

was on drugs. I thought that he was I

finally I'd found an agent and he turned

out to be psychotic. I didn't believe

him. They just it was totally surreal.

So, I'm sitting at my desk. Another

phone call comes through and he said,

'You know, can you hold for Larry

Kersbomb, the CEO of Time Warner

Publishing? I was like, this is the most

elaborate prank I've ever been

experienced. And and then I did find out

it was true. And and the rest of the

day, nobody at my law firm knew I was

writing all those years. So nobody I

couldn't share this news with anyone. I

called my wife and bless her heart, I

said, "Oh, honey, the the book sold."

She was like, "Oh my god, that's great.

How much do we have to pay?" You know,

like I had to pay them to publish the

book. I was like, "No, it's crazy.

They're actually going to pay us. It's

totally weird."

I remember going to a lunchon that I was

scheduled to go to that day with like 40

other lawyers and the speaker was

talking about new insurance regulations.

And I'm sitting there at the table and

all I wanted to do was jump on the table

and do the electric slide all the way

down that conference table, but I

couldn't. You know, I was like bursting

the seam to tell somebody that this had

happened. So, that was the euphoric

moment. And then it was kind of like,

"Oh my god, my life is going to totally

change. What do we do?" And at least

from a financial point of view, we did

nothing then. You know, we bought a

video camera. I remember was our first

and only purchase for like a year. And

that was so we could videape our

daughter who was like one year old at

that time. So I knew we knew that our

lives were going to change. So we made

as much of our life not change as

possible. You know, I still kept

practicing for a year. Even after that,

I started writing the second book. I

knew that I was going to have to go on a

publicity tour. We got, you know,

somebody we trusted to, you know, manage

the money that was going to be coming

in. I tried to balance, you know, all

these foreign contracts, the film rights

sold, you know, all this stuff. People

were like chucking checks at me. People

I didn't even know were like throwing

checks at me, which is a great feeling,

don't get me wrong, but it was also

overwhelming. It's like, my god, you

know, what is going on with my life? So,

you have to take a sort of a deep breath

and you have to set up professional

structures to deal with this. I had a

great agent. I had a great film agent

who was handling all that stuff. Great

financial people was helping us there

and my background as a lawyer was really

helpful as well to navigate through all

of this stuff. Then I realized I kind of

tried to map out the next year or two of

my life and at least in my head I knew I

wanted to write I was already writing

the next book total control because I

had no idea if Absolute Power is going

to be successful or not but I wanted to

keep it going because this is a story I

wanted to write. I knew I was going to

go out on tour. where I knew I had all

these decisions to make about, you know,

promotional tours and marketing and the

film rights and all this other stuff.

But I tried to put everything

compartmentalized stuff. It wasn't like

I tried to deal with everything every

day all at once. I would deal with one

part of it one day and the next day

another part of it, the next day another

part of it so I could make it

manageable. Um, and that all

compartmentalization always works really

well for me. Otherwise, you get

overwhelmed. I think for the new writer

being thrown into something like this,

it can be very overwhelming. So I tried

to make discreet parts and then I would

attack those discreet parts, solve the

issue, get it fixed and structured where

I wanted and I would move on to the next

thing. Um, and I took the marketing and

promotion when the book came out in

January 1996. I was on the road the very

same day. I was on the Today Show. I was

on Good Morning America. Then I went out

on this nationwide tour and I was gone

for God only knows how long. And not

only that big promotional tour, I kept

going out, you know, during the course

of month after month. In June, I went

overseas and did like 15 countries over

the course of a month. And but one

important thing that I did during all

that time, I kept writing. I had my

laptop with me. I don't care where I

was, I was writing the whole time. And

by the time that that year was over,

Total Control was done and in the bag

and ready to go and be published. And

the publisher read it, loved it, and

bought it. And so I tried to make sure

that I was doing all the things I should

be doing. being a good partner to my

publisher, being a good partner to

myself as a writer, continuing to write.

I think that's what happens to a lot of

first-time novelists. They get swept up

in all the cool exotic stuff of being

published for the first time and they

forget about what got them there, which

is this, this, and thinking about what

you want to write. Don't forget about

that piece.