3 Real Reasons Why My Clients Didn’t Land a Book Deal

Today I want to share three very real stories with you. These three stories represent the 10% of our clients who finish a book proposal with me and DON’T get a book deal.

(By the way, since 2019 . . . this has only happened once, and I’ll tell you why in a sec.)

The first story is pretty simple. I collaborated with the author on a proposal in 2014 . . . and we sent it to his literary agent. But then he completely lost his shit. When the agent said something he disagreed with, he yelled at her and called her names. He apologized, of course, but he couldn’t take back the tantrum and I couldn’t, in good conscience, send the proposal to other agents. So that person . . . never got a book deal. It also inspired my rule of never promising to introduce authors to literary agents. (Because once in a while, people get a little . . . reactionary.)

The second story is about a celebrity who went through the entire proposal process with me. But when her agent was ready to send it out to publishing houses, the celebrity author decided that writing a whole book and having to promote it was too much work. So she didn’t get a book deal, despite being part of the Marvel Universe.

And the third story is something that happened more recently.