Thread by @UrsulaV

I’ve told you all before that my writing career is based on absurd events that cannot be duplicated, right? Well, as it happens...

https://twitter.com/trhamby1/status/1374418773252268033

Long, long ago, when we were in negotiations for the...fourth Dragonbreath book? Maybe?...things were not going so well. For reasons that likely had nothing to do with us, things had stalled, and the person who made decisions was not answering my agent’s calls.

The books were selling well, but the price point for printing had gone up kinda sharply owing to the big paper shortage around then, and the Big Cheese had only authorized an offer that paid LESS than the first three.

This is a no-no.

(My poor editor, who bears no blame for this, was trying to make the best out of a situation not at all of her making, and I really felt for her. This is why I do not do my own negotiations.)

After a week of being ignored by Bog Cheese, while Poor Editor tried to run interference, my agent delivered a passionate speech about how you do NOT Disrespect My Authors Like This, passed on the offer, and called me up to inform me of the situation.

But since I live in a rural area, it went to voicemail. I first hear of this when I wandered out into the garden and check my messages.

I have just time to panic when I get a frantic call from Editor apologizing for having disrespected me and oh god they’re so sorry and, uh—

—do I know how to get ahold of my agent? Because she’s not answering calls right now.

I, horribly aware that I can totally screw up negotiations at this point, say, in agony, that I don’t think I should take to Editor but I hope we can work together in the future.

Big cheese. Not bog cheese. That’s something else.

Editor says yes, yes, of course, but please please have agent call them, she is playing hardball and they’re scared.

I call agent twice. Goes to voicemail. Oh god. Maybe she’s playing hardball with me, too.

I call my dear friend @SabrinaJeffries in a panic, doing the “IT WAS A NICE CAREER WHILE IT LASTED...” sob. She assures me that this is not a career ending situation, there there.

Agent continued to not return anyone’s calls. There are frantic emails. Oh god, oh god. I call Kevin. He makes soothing noises.

Some hours later, I get a text. It is from my agent.

It says “I’m not playing hardball, I have been stuck in an elevator for three hours and it only just got close enough to a floor for me to get signal.”

And that is how I got more money for book four of the series.

(And this is why I don’t give career advice to young writers.)