Guest Blogger - Robert Swartwood

Today's guest post comes from Robert Swartwood. Rob's a good friend, a great editor and a very gifted writer -- and he's got some very interesting things to say about writing. Take it away, Rob...


First novels.

They're a big deal, aren't they? Basically, a first novel oftentimes makes or breaks a writer's career. So much rides on the first novel that if it doesn't meet expectations — hell, if it doesn't exceed expectations — then, ultimately, the first novel is a bust and that writer's career is over, because sales follow you forever and no publisher will take on a second novel if the first one doesn't do well.

Of course, none of that is really true. Sure, first novels are big deals, but they're mostly a big deal to those individual writers who penned them. And first novel isn't quite fair, either, as oftentimes many first novels are really an author's second novel or third novel or, sometimes, even their tenth novel.

But what's the big deal anyway? Publishers invest a lot of time and money in many first novels because they hope those particular writers will be hugely successful. That's why it seems the advance for your first novel is most likely going to be higher than any other advance, unless you end up being very successful somewhere down the line. Sales follow you everywhere, and sales are the first thing a potential publisher looks at before they even think about considering your next novel.

Of course, this isn't really true either. Some publishers do take chances on writers whose previous novels didn't fare too well. They see potential. They see an investment. And, if that publisher is lucky, that investment will bring in some serious cash.

I'll admit that I always romanticized my first novel. Not that it had to be my actual first novel, but my debut novel published by a major publisher. There would be a sizable advance. The marketing department would love it and do everything they could promote it. Publishers Weekly would give it a starred review. There might even be a small tour. Et cetera, et cetera.

Alas, some things are never meant to be. Having gone through two agents, trying to sell a number of novels, I quickly came to the conclusion you can't romanticize anything in publishing. Well, you can, but you're going to be awfully disappointed. Publishing is, after all, a business. They want to sell books. They want to make money. And oftentimes books are rejected for a variety of reasons other than the book itself isn't good. This is the one thing I think many writers don't understand and why they become extremely frustrated. They take that rejection too personally — whether it be from a publisher or an agent — and so when they decide to self-publish their book and sell a handful of copies and get a few nice reviews on Amazon, they feel validated. (Note: some books really aren't that good in the first place.)

Over the past two years I've self-published a handful of e-books, but they were all novellas and short stories, never a novel. Again, that part of me that romanticized debut novels just didn't want to do it. But recently I thought: Why not? I have maybe a half dozen publishable novels just sitting on my hard drive, collecting dust. It was always understood that when I eventually did have a book deal, I could always come back to these novels (at least that's what my agents always said). But now I've decided to start publishing a few of them myself.

This isn't to say I've given up on major publishers (I still send my agent new work). I'm not one of these writers who annoyingly prophesizes the downfall of publishing. Publishing is always going to be around, though it will change. I foresee mass market paperbacks eventually disappearing. E-books are, after all, the new mass market paperback.

But again, I decided to start self-publishing some of my older novels, and when I decided to do that, I figured why not start with my true first novel? A novel I wrote back in college and which I've taken out every once in awhile and touched up here and there. A novel in which I experimented with different things and which has always held a special place in my heart. Why, it made perfect sense to start out with that one, and so that's what I've done.

Joe has been kind enough to let me start my mini blog tour here, which is great, because Joe's first novel, Chasing the Dead, has always been a favorite of mine ... except, as it turnes out, that book isn't Joe's first novel. In 1994, Putnam published Next of Kin by Joseph Schreiber, a novel about a young man who gets kidnapped by a girl claiming to be his sister. The novel has been long out of print, but I actually managed to find a copy and read it and it's a really fun story. I even tried talking Joe into rereleasing it as an e-book, but he said he's not really interested, at least not now as he's working on new projects ... but if a lot of his fans asked nicely, he might reconsider. Just saying.

Anyway, what's interesting to note is that back in 1994, Putnam published Next of Kin as an adult release even though the main character is a fourteen-year-old boy. Nowadays it most certainly would be marketed as YA. The reason I mention this is because the protagonist in my first novel, The Calling, is eighteen years old. Does that automatically make it a YA book by today's industry standards? Well, this is something I'll be talking more about at Tim Lebbon's blog next week.

So first novels — do they make or break an author's career? It's really impossible to say. But the nice thing about self-publishing, at least right now, is that you don't need to worry completely about numbers. If your first novel does poorly, you don't have to shop your next novel around to a hundred publishers hoping someone takes a chance. You can just do it yourself. (Note: I am not advocating every writer self-publishes; sometimes it's not a good idea, and sometimes it makes perfect sense.) In the next few months I plan to release a few more novels: a nontraditional zombie thriller called The Dishonored Dead, and a straight-up thriller called The Serial Killer's Wife. If either of them were picked up and published by a major publisher in the next few months (which is impossible, as the lead time for most books is a year, two years tops), they would be considered my debut novel. But they're not my true first novel. That would be The Calling. And for better or worse, I'm happy to make it available first.

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Robert Swartwood's work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Daily Beast, Postscripts, ChiZine, Space and Time, and PANK. He is the editor of Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer. Visit him at www.robertswartwood.com.

The Calling: A Supernatural Thriller is available for an introductory price of 99 cents at the following places:

• Kindle (US)


• Kindle (UK)


• Nook


• Smashwords

Robert invites you to follow along with the rest of his tour and to join him on Monday, April 18, at 7 pm EST, where he will be doing a live reading at his website.