Commercial book ideas in search of an author
You all liked the post I did like this last year, so here’s a sequel: ideas for books I could sell the hell out of if only they found the right author.
A year ago, I posted a grab bag of random book ideas—stories I believe are overdue for commercial-book treatment by a talented author. You all liked that post so much that I’m going to do it again!! ::jazz hands::
As far as I know, none of you who read last year’s post ever turned those ideas into book deals.
Several of you sent me exploratory emails about maybe writing one of the books described. As far as I know, however, none of you ended up doing so—or at least you haven’t yet, with me or any other agent. (Tell me if I’m wrong.)
I’m not disappointed by this AT ALL.
No, seriously.
I’m not disappointed about it because it proves a point I’ve been trying to make over and over since this newsletter started—one I am going to make all of you understand if I have to run greased, nude, and screaming through the streets forever to get your attention:1
Book ideas are just not valuable.
Not per se.
All of us who work in publishing, including authors, need much, much more than a good idea to have commercial IP on our hands.
First, the idea needs to be executed in a compelling way—one that in every chapter offers transformational value to a discrete, identifiable, sizable book-buying audience.
In nonfiction, it needs to be thus executed by someone who has demonstrable access to the target audience’s attention and respect.
In fiction, it needs to be fully written and written well.
All of these things—argument, platform, craft, endurance—are much, much harder to pull off with panache than a good idea. They’re therefore what editors and agents examine to determine whether or not an aspiring author has what it takes to publish a book (at least as of now).
For agents and with nonfiction especially, it’s almost impossible to make commercial success by following this recipe: have great idea for book, find other person to write it, submit book proposal OBO that person, receive commercial book deal.
Doing that is like finding a random curb cooler containing human lungs, then using the lungs to perform a lung transplant on whichever stranger comes up to you first and says, “hey, I could use some new lungs.”
In order for that endeavor to be successful, let alone nonfatal, a whole lot of unlikely systemic and internal factors would have to line up. Otherwise, organ not gonna organ. In almost all cases, it’s going to be much, much, much easier for you and that guy who wants new lungs to figure out some way to work on the lungs he already has.
Homegrown is always best if available, even if it sometimes needs external tweaking to reach its full potential. Homegrown results in a lot less complication and immunorejection.
Same goes for books. While it’s possible to graft book ideas onto people, it’s much MUCH much much much easier to find the authors first, then work with their ideas.
Among other things, that’s true because most ideas take a whole lot of development, often years of it, to execute well.
This, by the way, is why I want to tear my hair out when I see authors freaking out so much about locking down a book deal for “their idea” before it’s “too late.”
This is one of the most common forms of ruinous self-sabotage I see in otherwise qualified authors: they’re so worried about someone else “taking their idea” that they convince themselves they don’t have time to develop it properly themselves. Who needs to COOK the spaghetti before throwing it at the wall?
They therefore throw their craft under the bus for the sake of the idea. Or they sidestep ambiguity and balk in the face of uncertainty in the editorial development process because if they really sat in either, someone might beat them to a book about the idea.
This is a ridiculous self-own. It’s putting not just the cart but the entire cart-based supply chain before the horse.
While we’re on the topic of ethically questionable organ harvesting:
No one bought Never Let Me Go because they wanted to read about an organ farm and Remains of the Day guy just happened to get there first. You know? He didn’t get there first, but that’s not the point. People bought Never Let Me Go because it was a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.
The same is true for virtually any work of nonfiction. The public wants to hear from certain people (or kinds of people) much more than they want to hear about anything per se, unless we’re talking about reference guides.
For their part, here’s what publishers care about, pegged in terms of their relative concern to various cosmological objects’ distance from the sun:
THE ACTUAL SOLAR SURFACE: how an author can already and demonstrably connect to the people who constitute the extant market for an idea
MARS: how big is the extant market for that idea
PLUTO: how an author could theoretically connect to that market some day
WHEREVER VOYAGER II IS IN THE FUCKING OORT CLOUD OR WHATEVER: the idea per se
Still, though: book ideas are fun. And useful in their way.
They’re fun to poke around and dream about. Kind of like Zillow listings.
Sometimes, whether or not we’ve come up with them ourselves, they give us a “could I…?” feeling. Sometimes they make us feel more vertiginous things: frantic possessiveness, hyperventilating urgency.
If they do the latter for you, that means they’re valuable whether or not you ultimately use them. They’re telling you that yes, you really do want to write a book.
This is the primary utility of jealousy and possessiveness: they show you what you want in your subconscious. They’re absolute morons in terms of how to get what you want, but they tell you what you want in the first place, and that’s no small gift.
Whether or not you use the ideas below, I hope they loosen something for you.
You and their actually being a match is about as likely as aliens finding the golden record in Voyager II. But not impossible.
*
“Anna,” you might be saying at this point. “can you please get on with it and give me some stupid ideas?”
No. You’ll have to wait for one more minute.
Some quick ground rules before we finally get there
[This is pretty much a copypaste from my last book ideas post.]
As you know, the cardinal boundary of this newsletter is that subscribing to it has no bearing on your chances of securing representation at Neon. We care so much about this boundary that if you do choose to query us, we require that you don’t mention your subscription status in your letter.
However. In order to tell me you’re seriously interested in writing one of the books below—or miraculously already underway writing it—you’re clearly going to have to acknowledge this newsletter. So I’m going to have to chip off a tiiiiiiny little piece of our sacred boundary this week.
The following rules still apply:
Please only email me about this if you’re a qualified author seriously interested in one of the specific ideas I’m about to mention.
If you have another idea—even a sort-of-overlapping-one—please submit it through our standard submissions process.
Do not try to pull some lame “I love that idea from the post, but what about THIS one” in a direct email to me. I will delete.
No one—including me, since I’m making the choice to share these ideas—has the right to call dibs on them. You are welcome to run with them to a different agent if I pass on representing you (or just take them and never query me at all). You are welcome to run with them unagented.
However, this is a two-way street. I myself can choose to work or not work with whoever I want on any of the below ideas at any time. There is literally no circumstance in which you or I or anyone will ever have dibs on an idea. That’s just not how copyright law works.
If you’re successful in selling a book based on one of these ideas without involving me, Mama would still appreciate some credit in the acknowledgements.
If I am able to determine that you for sure got the idea for your book from this post AND did not give me the chance to represent it AND are now trying to play like you never had a muse named me, I am going to razz you so hard on social media. So hard!!!
Now onto my ideas
Without further ado -