Whatever Number It Is For the Money

Opening caveat: I begrudge no one as sweet a living from their honest efforts as they can manage. Not Ever. Having said that, though, we're all pals here, right? We can chat and kvetch about other writers' mammoth deals? I thought so. Let me refill my coffee.

Janet Evanovich, as you may have read in Julie Bosman's NYT blog, is jumping ship from St. Martin's publishing house after sixteen Stephanie Plum novels. She's heading over to Random House for four new novels: 2 Plums and 2 in her 'Unmentionable' series. The rumblings have been covered for the past couple of weeks at Deadline.com and reported that Evanovich was asking $50 million for that bundle of work. St. Martin's bowed out and Random House came to the table.

Concurrently, the first movie based on the Trenton bounty hunter's adventures, One For the Money, is being filmed in Pittsburgh (not New Jersey?-- outrage!) with Katherine Heigl playing the lead. Above and left is her in character as Plum. Info and image via Flynet via Jezebel.

Easiest topic first: What do you think of the casting and location?

Deeper Dish: If you're St. Martins, and this movie drives new readers to the Plum series, how great is it that you already own the whole dang backlist starting with the novel titled to match the movie? Letting the production company $pend for marketing and OFTM name recognition, in the best case, your backlist is suddenly en fuego and you didn't spend an extra dime. (Okay, WoM Laura suggested St. Martin's might opt to run off some movie tie-in jackets, but only if sales were really cooking.)

Crystal Ball Time: Plums sell very well, despite a swelling tide of disgruntlement in the reviews, mostly to do with the author's choice not to let the character change much. Evanovich prioritizes her audience that wants more, more, more of the same thing they love. After 16 novels already, some readers craving character transformation and conflict resolution have dropped the series. But Evanovich has promised in appearances that the hamster will never die of old age, and Stephanie will never finally choose between Morelli and Ranger. Do you think this puts Random House in a good position having her next 2 Plums, or will they feel interchangeable with the previous 16? How do you drum up fresh excitement when the only difference is the publisher's name on the spine?

If you're paying $12.5 million in advance per title-- 2 for a series unknown to me--how many unit sales do you need to recoup that? A LOT, I'd think. And given Evanovich's lengthy time on bestseller lists already, how many brand new eyeballs can you expect to reach as prospective new sales when so many readers already know what Plum's about? Especially if readers have already dropped her or made a decision of NO, and there's no subsequent change in the series arc, how do you lure them into re-sampling?

My Personal Prognostication: The only way this can be financially worthwhile for Random House is if Janet Evanovich launches a new, hugely successful, entirely different brand with this Unmentionable series. RH can own that from scratch, but it'll have to be HUGE!

Next or First, she has to revise her philosophy, and terminate the Plum series with something long-time readers, and even series droppers, will be categorically UNABLE TO RESIST. I'm talking a Plum elopement/shotgun wedding/Mazur funeral with return as zombie/sex threesome-type thing over the last 2 books. Big events with juicy payoffs and no take backs. The Unmentionable series then becomes the only way to get Evanovich's inimitable voice, you can at least make some Plum series hay out of the movie cross-promotion, and you cannibalize everyone who's every read Plum for a blowout sales finale. Everything Must Go!

Sure, the resolution of long-standing, essential series tensions might squelch movie arcs, but knowing the ending hasn't hurt in Twilight's case. (Of course, blockbusters are black swans, usually sell to kids and adults, and lawyers may already have walled off that avenue.) However, with 50 million budgeted in red, if I were Random House, I'd let the film people worry about their own foolish investments.

I don't know if this is RH's plan, because gi-normous advances that can never earn out seem, from my lowly perspective, to be part of their operational raison d'etre. Even my proposal would be audacious, requiring luck, timing, and fantastic, new series content to succeed. But if manufacturing some dramatic new opportunity isn't what RH envisioned when negotiating, and they plan to let the sales play out while trending as they are, St. Martin's can pat their own backs all the way to the royalty bank. They will benefit most, and RH will have vastly overpaid for Rocky 7. Again.