30 things I've learnt from 5 years being published: no 19 – there is hope after bad track
Not sure what ‘bad track’ means? Let me enlighten you. There’s a clue in the adjective: ‘bad’. So, it ain’t good. And ‘track’ is just short for ‘track record’.
Yes. ‘Bad track’ is just short for ‘bad track record’ and refers specifically to an author’s previous publishing career, and how many copies any previously published book has sold.
Obviously, if you have ‘bad track’ it means your previous book or books did not sell as well as their publisher expected, hoped, prayed, wished for… leading to a whole lot of disappointment all round, but most importantly for you, the author.
It’s the most painful part of being a published author - being told that your book has ‘underperformed’ (publishing does so love a euphemism. I prefer the more brutal, yet honest: ‘flopped’).
While we’re on this topic, I am not entirely sure how publishers decide how many copies they’d like a book to sell. It seems to be shrouded in mystery and even the most indiscreet publisher will do anything they can to avoid telling you this magical figure.
I could write a whole other post about how infantilising the experience of being published can feel at times, but I don’t want to be too critical of publishers. I genuinely think they are all kind, caring people who are terrified of hurting our feelings, and they feel as powerless as we do in the face of ‘the market’…so it comes from a good place, even if it is incredibly frustrating at times.
I also know that publishing is so unpredictable. It often feels a bit like gambling - the publishers place their bets on certain books and then we all cross our fingers and hope that our numbers come in.
(But then at the same time there are certain books they place bets on and subsequently pour an enormous amount of promotion into, and those books pretty much always end up doing well, so god knows if what I said above is actually true or if it’s just the story I tell myself to save my ego. The whole thing is EXTREMELY bizarre.)
I’m digressing as always!
The point is that having ‘bad track’ makes it more difficult to get a new publishing contract.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that publishers prefer shiny debut authors with no bad track - with no track at all.
A nice clean slate from which they can launch a shiny, bright-eyed rising star into the world (or, as in my darker moments I have seen it: sling at the wall to see if they stick).
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We all know the story now: publishers prefer debuts. Allegedly, it’s much easier to sell a debut author into retailers. I’m not sure if that’s actually true anymore, but it does mean there’s no sales record for the retail buyers to look up and get twitchy about.
But the truth is that many of the shiny debuts you hear talked about and talked up in The Bookseller are not really debuts at all.
Often the author has published books under a different name before, and the new name is an opportunity to shrug off the bad track and be reborn anew.
I first read about the concept of ‘bad track’ in this article by literary agent Lizzy Kremer →
Before I read this, I had a vague idea of how it worked - that obviously if your sales were disappointing then you’re not going to necessarily get a new contract that easily, but I don’t think I quite appreciated just how brutal it is. Or just how many authors get dropped by their publishers after one or two books.
But there is hope. You can reinvent yourself and change your name. You can write in a different genre.
Or you can just write an absolutely INCREDIBLE book (no pressure there folks!) that makes everyone sit up and ignore your previous books’ sales data.
I know that sounds glib but actually I do believe that your chance of writing a really stonkingly good book goes up with each book you write, because of course you get better each time!
So it’s definitely not unimaginable that your fourth or fifth or even eighteenth book will be ‘the one’ that defies your previous ‘bad track’ and sells bucketloads.
Publishing is the only career where people weirdly expect your first endeavour to be your best. It makes no sense at all that your first book should be the best one you ever write.
I know SO many authors whose breakout books were their fifth or sixth. ‘Bad track’ is a load of crap. An excuse for a publisher who’s lost faith to get out of a partnership.
Your job is to keep going. Your job is ALWAYS to keep going.
There are other publishers.
Play the (stupid) game and change your name if you need to. But don’t lose hope and don’t give up.
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"I am not entirely sure how publishers decide how many copies they’d like a book to sell" About half will be to libraries. That's 20,000. If they can sell this many thru Amazon and bookstores they'll be happy. After that it's all magic.