As a long-time ghostwriter, I can often anticipate the reasons publishers may turn down a client’s book, or offer a low advance for it. One of the reasons that often surprise clients is overexposure.
Here’s the thing: When a story goes viral online, or a person appears all over talk shows and the news, you may assume that means a book deal is going to be easy. In fact, it may be a handicap. What publishers see from that is, “The story is already over.”
Let’s say it’s a story about an unlikely hero—an elderly man who jumped overboard on a cruise ship and saved a baby who’d fallen into the water. Everybody loves him! He’s a media darling. Once he has a minute to breathe after a month or two, he wants to hire a ghostwriter to tell his story. Should you bite? Well, that depends…
Is There More to the Story?
You have to do an honest assessment and determine if there’s more of interest to the story beyond those ten minutes of his life. Otherwise, his time in the spotlight is over and it’s unlikely to attract an audience. There are lots of interesting stories that don’t warrant a whole book—people will gladly read an article about this guy, but they’re unlikely to spend $15-20 and a couple of days of their life on a book about him unless there’s something remarkable about him that the media hasn’t already covered.
Can You Stop Appearances?
One of the better ways to handle this is to track every single request for appearances and put as many on hold as possible. One of my clients, Gaby Rodriguez, was literally being stalked by the media after her story of faking a pregnancy as her senior project went viral. She did a couple of news appearances, but then had a representative tell everyone else that she would be happy to appear on their shows . . . after her book was published. It’s much more powerful to show a publisher that you CAN do well on appearances by being able to point to just a small number of them, but that you have a ton of interest from others lined up.
Will They Really Do Follow-Ups?
Without fail, all of my clients who have had stories in major media outlets believed that those same outlets would do follow-up stories on them. It has rarely panned out, and publishers know this. Work together to find angles that will make the person newsworthy again and ask producers for commitment ahead of time to feature the client again. You can sometimes work that into an appearance agreement if the story is big enough: “Yes, I will agree to appear on your morning talk show if you will put in writing that you will have me back on after my book is released.” You need as much proof as possible, so it’s smart to reach out to media contacts ahead of a proposal to ask if you can state that they have agreed to feature your client.
What are the Publication Goals?
Of course, if you’re writing for a client who isn’t all that concerned about getting a big book deal and is able to pay your rate independently, he or she may be happy self-publishing or going for a smaller publisher. There can be lots of reasons for clients to want a published book beyond just the money they’ll get directly from it: they may be looking to build name recognition and branding, start or improve a speaking career, leave a legacy for family and friends, or just get their story told.
In short, follow the rule of sampling: Give the media a taste up front. Ask your client to save the rest for publication week.