JODIE RHODES PUBLISHER
It has, of course, never been easy to sell the books of writers who lack name recognition but in the twelve years since I opened my agency, I’ve been blessed with remarkable writers who had zero name recognition in the publishing world and sold many of their books, several of whom who received advances of $100,000, $200,000, $250,000, $350,000 and, in one case, $600,000, which included rights sales.
But for every author’s book I sold back then, there were ten wonderful books I could not sell. Now, for every book I sell, there are thirty wonderful books I’ve been unable to sell.
I cannot blame those editors and publishers who’ve rejected these books, because the sad truth is that they lost money on every book I ever sold to them, with the exception of a tiny few who only paid very low four figure advances. In the case of those novels I sold for six figures, they lost an enormous amount of money.
The problem is that publishers are totally helpless when it comes to reaching the book buying audience. They have no way of contacting them and must depend on their bestselling writers whose books sell in huge amounts automatically to keep them solvent.
But it suddenly hit me that I have the power to reach the book buying audience, because over a thousand writers contact me every month, because my website that came out in 2008 generated over 450,000,000 hits from all over the world, because almost four years later when I would have thought no one ever even looked at my old website these days and I googled Jodie Rhodes Website just out of curiosity, it brought up 3,510,000 hits. How could I use this for all the writers I care about so much? The answer was obvious. I would become a publisher.
I am now beginning the process of creating NEW TALENT PRESS which will be a not for profit company. Every penny it earns will go to writers, minus only the costs of producing the books and shipping them to Amazon. I plan to give Amazon an exclusive on our books.
However, it’s important that the first books we publish have author name recognition and professional credits, so we start off with a solid reputation. At this moment I offer deep apologies to all of you who’ve received form rejection letters from me in the past couple of years, explaining I’m so overwhelmed just taking care of my current authors that I am unable to take on any new writers at this time
I hate form rejection letters but could not at that time reveal the real reason I was unable to represent them, which is that I was slaving away at producing those first books for our publication. While still handling all the new books by my current authors, I was sitting up until midnight writing my memoir and two novels. As some of you know, I was a successful writer long before I ever became an agent and my second novel made the Los Angeles Times bestseller list its first week in print.
However, I wanted to make sure that I hadn’t lost my touch, so I pitched them to the major New York publishers, written under a pseudonym. Of course the memoir, which was the last book I wrote, had to have my real name on it. With trepidation, I awaited editor response on it because they are so horrendously negative about memoirs. Below are some of the replies I received. You need to know that these editors just received a rough proposal in which I did not offer it for publication but simply asked them to let me know if it had any appeal for them. You will note it even had a different title then.
FROM PENGUIN PUBLISHING (3 editors)
Dear Jodie,
Thanks so much for sending this proposal and pages. What an amazing life story, filled with smarts, moxie, fierce independence, success, hard-won wisdom. I appreciate the look very much.
Dear Jodie,
I like your memoir, which is just as brave and honest as advertised. It’s a rare opportunity to get to know an agent in the way you’re offering!
You’ve found just the right voice in which to reveal the mix of wondrous, difficult, and inspirational moments that have informed your life,
With best wishes as you continue to work on the project,
J: wow, I had no idea you wrote so well. Good for you. My guess is you’ll find a home for this very soon, it’s quite good so best of luck to you Jodie!
FROM RANDOM HOUSE (2 editors)
Dear Jodie,
Thank you for sending your memoir to Nan. We’ve discussed the project and she asked that I reply on her behalf. As a writer, you have a very appealing voice—vivacious and funny, and I think a lot of women will connect to the feminist undercurrent of your story. I might add they’re usually not this candid. Good luck with the project, and I’ll be curious to see where it ends up.
Hi Jodie - Thank you for sharing this with me. It's hilarious and I'm impressed by your story, and your willingness to lay it all out on the page. I did enjoy reading it.
FROM LITTLE BROWN (2 editors)
Dear Jodie,
I love the strong and candid voice (yours) in ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND THE MEN IN MY LIFE. After all the writers you’ve helped, you should get a break, too!
Dear Jodie,
I’m so sorry to have taken so long to respond to you. This is a fascinating story and you tell it well – it certainly makes me feel I’ve led a pretty dull life so far! Thanks so much for thinking of me, and for your patience.
FROM HOUGHTON MIFFLIN/HARCOURT (1 editor)
Dear Jodie,
This is full of your trademark humor and energy and kudos to you for the honesty and chutzpah!
I have attached the opening chapters of all three books in my website to give you an idea of what they’re like. In addition I’ve attached some recent comments from people who’ve written and emailed me, titled REPUTATION, so those of you who don’t know me can see how people regard me.
The memoir will be the strongest seller and so will be the first book published. I’m also considering putting chapters of the books in my blog.
I would love for us to stun the publishing world by creating sales of 100,000 copies for our first book. We are totally unique in the world of small independent publishers who usually publish just 8 to 10 books a year. We can publish over 100 books a year. All it takes is for you writers to unite and support each by by not only buying each other's books but getting your friends and your friends’ friends to buy them.
Our ability to become so successful that we’ll be publishing great numbers of your books rests totally on how many book sales we can generate.
So let’s find out how good our chances are. Everyone reading this and wanting it to succeed needs to send me a postcard with their name and address and not only a confirmation that they will order our first book CONFESSIONS on the day or within the week I give in my blog but includes the number of friends and friends of friends who will do the same thing. Then make sure that all your friends and friends of friends who’ve agreed to also order the book send me a postcard confirming that and giving your name as a reference. The postcards should be addressed to JODIE RHODES AGENCY, 8840-315 VILLA LA JOLLA DRIVE, LA JOLLA, CA 92037. Please, please, please don’t even consider emailing me! That would be a disaster and crash my computer.
As soon as I receive all the postcards, I’ll blog how many sales we can count on for the launch of our publication.
Your next step will be contacting Amazon, stating the following: “I am placing an order for CONFESSIONS: A Memoir by Jodie Rhodes, President Jodie Rhodes Literary Agency with a check (or credit card number) for $18 and will mail you, at the address you give me, a self addressed, self stamped envelope large enough that you can slip a copy of the book in it and mail back to me. Since I know your major expenses are the cost of mailing books to individuals, this will save you all that money. Of course I also know you need to make money but since I’m paying for all your costs, please limit the amount of money you take out of the list price of $18 to $6.00. Thank you very much. This is a new not for profit publisher created for the sole purpose of giving new writers a chance that NY publishers won’t give them to get their books published.”
Then give them my phone number (858-412-3714) and have them call me to order the books, which will be shipped to them by Fed Ex.
Hopefully, we’ll be off to a great start. The next job is to repeat all the above in selling the two novels. If the memoir sells really well, it will pull the novels along with it. Then I will announce how much money we now have in our account and start getting your books on Amazon.
In NEW TALENT’S first year, we will only be publishing adult trade novels and a few special memoirs. I urge you to concentrate marketing in the city or town in which you live. Get local bookstores to give you speaking engagements. Get your local newspaper to review it. Find out all the writers’ groups in your city and meet with them. Get on local radio and TV shows. All books need editing and, with very few exceptions, the only editors I trust are editors who’ve worked for years at the major New York houses and are now freelancing. I will be active in finding these editors for you.
Above all, get your friends and their friends to promise they’ll order the book from Amazon on the specific day or week I’ll have the book published. Without a significant number of people who will order the book, we won’t be able to afford publishing it.
