A guessing game

While public opinion on the quality of my fiction tends to vary widely, no one considers me to be much of a success in that line, including me. That’s fine, I continue to write for pleasure nevertheless and if I’m not getting rich off my book contracts, well, there are other opportunities out there.

But having recently been apprised by my publisher of precisely how many books of mine remained in stock, (and thus how many had been sold) as part of the amicable severing of our relations, I found it interesting to consider the facts of the Viswanathan scandal. Remember, the young “authoress”, (or rather, the firm marketing her “writing”), received a $500,000 advance and had a film deal going with Dreamworks.

Some writers spend decades trying to break into the biz, and even then, they often can’t make ends meet. For legitimate writers, an unproven teenager landing a $500,000 deal to write two books adds insult to the obvious injury of plagiarism. (Latest reports counted 40 close parallels between Viswanathan’s novel and books by Megan McCafferty.)

Compare that to the princely $2,500 advance Stephen King received in 1974 for his first novel, Carrie. (Even adjusted for inflation, that’s still only about $10,000.) King ultimately made much more from paperback and movie rights, and he’s now known for the blockbuster salaries his books command. Still, I think his first earnings highlight the logical disconnect of a teenaged writer with no experience — or product, for that matter, when the deal was made — getting a contract worth half a million.

All 55,000 unsold copies of Viswanathan’s How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life is being pulled by Little, Brown. Apparently, 9,600 copies had been sold by April 23, before the plagiarism controversy came to light. The movie deal Viswanathan had secured with DreamWorks SKG is off, too.

Given how unknown they remain, and what a small fraction of that advance they were worth, how many copies of The War in Heaven and The World in Shadow would you guess were sold? 1,000? Maybe as many as 2,500? Note that according to Amazon, World is only 466,504 spots behind Viswanathan’s now-infamous tome.

Whoever comes closest wins the right to claim or name a participant in the VPFL this fall.