Moonshots, Micro Wins, and the Magic of Book Potential
Literary agent Margaret Danko explores the importance of celebrating wins in publishing and the magic of book potential.
Publishing loves to talk about money. We talk about how much books are sold for, how much an author is making, how much publishers are spending, and what they are spending on. One of the earliest lessons writers get in publishing is that if they want to publish a book traditionally, they’re going to have to wrap their heads around a major shift in their thinking:
Books are art, but publishing is a business.
So we talk about marketing. We talk about positioning. We talk about how much an author will earn, how much a publisher will risk, how much editors will spend, how many people will read a book, and how much they will pay. And a more troublesome and insidious mindset shift happens, one where we equate the success or potential success of a book to how much a publisher is willing to pay for it.
Readers, authors, agents, editors, publishers. None of us are immune to this pattern of thinking, even though the truth is that these are not automatic signs of success. Infamously, during the 2022 antitrust trial in which the DOJ moved to block Penguin Random House from acquiring Simon & Schuster, PRH CEO Marcus Dohle said that “everything is random” in publishing and no one knows what makes a bestseller.
I don’t think it’s quite that simple—a publisher who pays more is going to have a vested interest in making sure that they get that money back and is therefore going to give that project more resources. But we can also see from the breakout successes of indie published books that have been converted to traditionally published titles in the last three years that it’s just as true that books can be wildly successful with no publisher support at all. If we’re just looking at the money, then this could be mistaken for randomness.
Every agent or editor who considers a manuscript or a proposal is weighing those possibilities: Could this be a big breakout? Could this be a sleeper hit? What is the risk if it’s not? For authors and for agents who work on commission, the risk is immediately tangible. If a book doesn’t sell or doesn’t sell well, then they don’t get paid for the many hours of work put into the project. And to compound that risk, poor performance jeopardizes the relationship between the author and the publisher; will a publisher acquire another book from an author who failed to earn back the publisher’s investment?
This is the cynical picture that we paint for writers, often to guard ourselves against the worst-case scenarios and fears that come up when we enter the query or submission trenches, especially for the first time. But we forget that there are, in fact, much better ways to measure worth and success than whether or not your first book is a blockbuster or whether you got the six-figure advance.
One of the first questions that I ask potential clients when we hop on a call to meet is, “What does a successful publishing journey look like to you?”
And I don’t ask it superficially. There are lots of ways to answer, all of which are valid. How a client answers, though, shapes the way that I relate to them, their goals, and the nature of their submission. Publishing is not a straight line, and agenting is and should be a curated path. For writers who want that single, authoritative book that speaks to their brand, we may discuss why traditional publishing over self-publishing and what they hope a publisher will specifically do for them, from advance numbers to production to publicity. For writers who want a long publishing career, we may speak less about the size of the deal we hope to get and more about the trajectory of their potential books, what it takes to find a publisher who supports and champions them in a way that extends beyond a first project, and what it takes to show a publisher they should invest in a second book.
Every book is potential. Every submission is alchemy—a careful blend of concept and craft and timing. The dollar value that we assign to that potential has much less bearing on the final product than we give it credit for.
Small deals from small presses will yield bestsellers and literary giants. Major deals from Big 5 Publishers will flop. Film deals will go nowhere. Film deals will surprise us. Careers will be built on the slow accumulation of moderate successes until one day a book pops. Careers will be built on the slow accumulation of moderate successes that remain moderate successes in perpetuity. They are no less significant. They are no less valuable. And they are not random—they are the result of that carefully curated vision for the book, the effort of the author and editor, the spark from the reader—sometimes in spite of rather than because of the publisher and the money that was or was not there. Because someone saw the potential in a book and said, “I pick that one.”
When I sign with a client, they will often hear from me (I hope—and they can call me out if I’m failing in this), “Celebrate every win.” Because every milestone in publishing is hard to come by, and life is too short to only celebrate the “big stuff.”
Celebrate big deals. Celebrate small ones. Celebrate that first royalty statement, earned or unearned. Celebrate going on submission. Celebrate signing with an agent. Celebrate finishing that first query letter. Celebrate the first deal. Celebrate the fifth one.
Because not every book is a crazy moonshot breakout. But every book has that potential and the potential to be everything else you want in your publishing journey.
