The Least Interesting Part of Any Book Deal

Just a note to celebrate the fact that my third client to put their proposal out into the market has just sold their book at auction in a wonderful deal with the absolute best possible editor thanks to an incredible agent. 

We were really lucky to get multiple major publishers making offers— any of which would have been dream partners. Truly. Although I’m thrilled and happy for the decision he made; it wasn’t an easy one, and was definitely a great problem to have. 

You don’t have to be in publishing as long as I have to know how lucky we were. Yes, he had a great idea. Yes, I did a killer job on this one. But we were also really lucky. Some books that just manifest themselves into the world at the right time, and this was one where it all just came together. 

There is just magic sometimes with books. Just as with startups.

The night before the auction, I messaged him just to set some perspective because you never know how these things are going to go. What offers may come in at what price, how it may match the expectations in your head, and how you should feel about any of it.

I wrote: “No matter what happens tomorrow, unless something very surprising happens, we will have a deal with a major publisher to write a book that means a lot to you, and me, and will mean a lot to so many people in the world. And only 6% of people who write proposals ever get to do that. Even if the deal is for $1, that is a dream that millions of people have and may never get to do. So you have already attained something incredible and you should be proud.” 

And I know this sounds easy to say from the point of view of someone who has already had three book deals, and gotten three for her clients in less than a year— but getting any deal is the hard part. The actual amount of the advance matters much less than just getting any deal.

And before you roll your eyes and say “easy for you to say, your clients are already rich.” 

Yes, most of my clients have income other than books, or they would not be able to hire me. I cost a lot of money because I have spent decades learning how to do this, building relationships in publishing, have a waitlist of clients, and am very good at what I do. (See above!)

But I certainly wasn’t rich at all when I was writing my books. While it’s true my first book deal was gigantic. It allowed me to quit my job at BusinessWeek (and I have never had a full time job since aside from startups I’ve built or helped build.) 

My second book deal was one-fifth the size of that one. And I had to travel all over the world to write that book, so it cost me many times what I got to write it. There were times I couldn’t leave a country, because I was stuck until I could afford to pay my hotel bill and check out. 

But even for me – a writer who couldn't afford to fly home sometimes– money was just a problem to be fixed. And I could always find some way to fix it. I got a grant to help write it, I got freelance gigs. I always figured it out. 

What I could not have figured out on my own was a book deal. And I almost didn’t get one. I was very lucky to have an indefatigable agent who didn’t give up on me or that book. 

Sometimes, people wonder if it’s “worth it” if you don’t get a “good” deal. I remember feeling this way back then. Especially because I was embarrassed. My ego was bruised that my second book deal was one-fifth the size of my first and was with someone people considered a less prestigious publisher. 

It was Paul Bradley Carr— my then best friend and later business partner and now life partner — who convinced me otherwise. He built a boutique publishing company in London that he sold to Harper Collins and has written many non-fiction and now fiction books. (We also co-own our bookstore, so together, we’ve done everything in books except agenting at this point.)

He gave me a perspective I didn’t have in my ego-centric late 20s.

“Sarah, they are still betting a lot on you,” he said. “First of all, for most people, a five figure advance is still a great advance. Second of all, it costs a publisher $50,000 to publish your book before they even pay you a dime of an advance. A deal without any money paid to you is a big investment in you.” 

And that’s before you consider the opportunity cost of them saying yes to you, and not saying yes to someone else as a result.  

It was the attitude adjustment I needed. I crushed that book. And it’s the only one of mine that has actually almost earned out the advance. And the experience reporting it was life changing— I spent forty weeks traveling through emerging markets. 

But professionally it was also lucrative— more lucrative than my first book all in. 

I made half a million dollars in speaking gigs from it. In part because I got such a rare knowledge base from it because it was not a topic any publisher wanted to fund someone to write about. That meant my keynote was really distinct. Anyone could talk about Silicon Valley startups. I was the only reporter who had first hand knowledge of Silicon Valley, and startup ecosystems all over the world.

I was right to lean into something that did not seem obviously commercial. The payoff came later, and was much larger than anything any advance would have paid. Because the value to the market was in keynotes not book sales. I just needed the book to build the keynote and the calling card.

I also made money in a lot of other indirect ways, many other times in my career because of the experience and connections I had, having done so much international business and reporting. 

For instance, the last major thing I did for TechCrunch was planning our China expansion, and planning and hosting Disrupt in Beijing. I brought Valley leaders like Phil Libin, Tony Hsieh, Kevin Systrom, and more over to China — some for the first time— and had Chinese leaders like Pony Ma on stage, interviewed on stage by me, a Western journalist, for the first time. We had a startup competition for Chinese and American companies, and live-streamed the whole thing in two languages from behind the great firewall.

And I did it six weeks after giving birth. It was one of the top career achievements of my life. I will never forget it. 

Never would have happened without that book. And I never could have anticipated that would be one of the places that "lousy" advance would take me.

You just can’t go into a book if you are short term focused. Or I guess you can. But I’m probably not the right partner for you. Because it’s not how I think about life or business or books. 

I’m always going to do everything I can to get my clients the best deal I can. They pay me a lot of money, and I've never in my life had disposable money so I take that really seriously. 

And I am so proud — and amazed— and what we’ve been able to pull off so far. 

But, trust me, the advance is the least interesting part of the whole thing.