Got a totally mad idea? Your creativity may land you in big-bucks country.

Zombie Mash-up Lands Author Six-Figure Deal - 4/9/2009 8:24:00 AM - Publishers Weekly reports:

“Seth Grahame-Smith’s surprise hit from Quirk Books, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, may have been launched as something of a lark, but that hasn’t stopped its author from landing a major deal. Grand Central Press editor Ben Greenberg has just inked a two-book deal with Grahame-Smith for a rumored $575,000; Grahame-Smith’s first book for GCP, which currently has no pub date, will be Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. (A rep from GCP would not comment on the size of the advance.)”

Now, lemme see…

Pride and Prejudice and Guppies

Pride and Prejudice and One Million Dalmations

Pride and Prejudice Lands on the Moon

Pride and Prejudice Rules for Marriage and Life…

(Feel free to steal any of the above. :-))

A subscription to Publisher’s Marketplace is a great way to stay up to date on what’s happening in the world of publishing, including the latest news of book deals - what publishers are paying as advances for specific books.

I love the way Publisher’s Marketplace classifies their deal information. Here’s the key they use:

“nice deal” $1 - $49,000

“very nice deal” $50,000 - $99,000

“good deal” $100,000 - $250,000

“significant deal” $251,000 - $499,000

“major deal” $500,000 and up

In this week’s Fab Freelance Writing Ezine, which has just gone out to subscribers, I included the article “Writing Books As A Dream Home Business”. You can see why that’s so by the key above if you’re lucky enough to get a “significant deal” or a “major deal”.

(If you missed this week’s issue I’ll be putting it online at the ezine’s archives site in the next day or two.) The article’s also online for members of my book writer’s site.

Many book publishing agreements are structured as multi-book deals, as you can see from this deal mentioned in Publisher’s Lunch:

Screenwriter Andrew Klavan’s HOMELANDERS, pitched as Twenty Four meets The Bourne Identity; homeless, broke, and unable to find his parents, a teenager has to outrun both terrorists and the law with only a few days to stop the murder of the Secretary of State in a race against time that brings him face-to-face with a master assassin, to Amanda Bostic at Thomas Nelson, in a four-book deal, by Alyssa Eisner Henkin and Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA).

This means not only that you should be thinking of your novel as potentially the start of a series, but also that you need to get writing and keep writing. You may find that when your first book sells, the publisher is interested in giving you a multi-book deal; so it’s essential that you have at least an outline or a couple of chapters of your next book to offer.

Publisher’s Lunch reports on a major novel deal for The Lace Reader:

Brunonia Barry’s originally self-published debut supernatural thriller THE LACE READER, about a woman who can see the future by reading patterns in lace who returns home to Salem, Massachusetts after her great-aunt goes missing, to Laurie Chittenden at William Morrow, in a major deal, reportedly for $2 million (NY Mag), at auction, by Rebecca Oliver at Endeavor (world English).