The flip side to Publisher’s Lunch

So John Scalzi and some buddies of his were sitting around the bar at Noreascon and devised more realistic terms for book deals as a complement to what Publisher’s Lunch uses:

$0 to $3,000: A Shitty Deal. Because that’s what it is, my friends. Possibly the only thing worse than a shitty deal is no deal at all. Possibly.

$3,000 to $5,000: A Contemptible Deal. The deal you get when your publisher has well and truly got your number, and it is low.

$5,000 to $10,000: A “Meh” Deal. It’s not great, you know. But you can pay some bills. Get a few of these, and a tolerant spouse with a regular income, and you can tell your day job to piss off. This year, anyway.

$10,000 to $20,000: A Not Bad Deal. Note that “not bad” here should be said with a slight appreciative rise of the eyebrows and a small approving nod — this is the level at which the money begins to look not embarrassing both to writers and non-writers. A couple of these, and you’ll definitely be punting the day job (I did, anyway).

$20,000 to $100,000: A “Shut Up!” Deal. This needs to be said in the same enviously admiring vocal tone as a teenage girl might use to her girlfriend who is showing off the delicious new pumps she got at Robinsons-May for 30% off, or the vocal tone (same idea, lower register) Jim Kelly used when one of our number admitted to having at least a couple of deals in this range. With this kind of money, you don’t even need a supportive spouse to avoid the Enforced Top Ramen Diet (although, you know. Having one doesn’t hurt). But it’s not so much that the other writers actively begin to hate you.

$100,000 and above: “I’m Getting the Next Round.” Because if you’re at this level, you can buy and sell all the other writers at the table. Get ’em a friggin’ beer, for God’s sake (ironically, this is the only level not thought up at the bar, but in the cold hard light of the next morning, by Shara Zoll).

I freely admit that this made me laugh, but Jim Winter took a bit of a different tack in his reaction:

According to Scalzi, et al, the scale should begin with shitty, meaning $0-$3000. I don’t consider mine shitty. I consider it dumb luck. To me, shitty is forking over $500 to iUniverse or XLibris to publish your book because you’re too scared to collect rejection slips.

Still, if you’ve sold books in the past, have a track record, and still get under $3000, yeah, that’s shitty.

$3000-10,000 is Contemptible. (For a first time author, it’s very damn lucky.)

I suppose in an ideal world, we wouldn’t even have to talk about how much authors make advance-wise, but in an ideal world, we wouldn’t be deluged with box-office weekend grosses either. But if all deals, large and small, got reported, then perhaps people would be a hell of a lot more realistic about their prospects based on the money they actually got, instead of thinking they can dream big. Except, of course, I’ll be the one getting the major deal someday. Yeah.