Two for the Books: Novice Success Stories

So you want to write a novel. Or you’ve written a novel and now you want to sell it for big bucks. Or you have a commercial idea for a novel and haven’t a clue about how to proceed.

Here are two illuminating--and encouraging--case histories of recent weeks.

Kathleen J. Reichs, a professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of North Carolina and a forensic anthropologist for the province of Quebec, wrote a novel about . . . a forensic anthropologist. The main character, asked to examine old bones, sees a disturbing similarity to other remains she has studied. Which leads her to believe there’s a serial killer on the loose. First, she must convince the authorities; then, she is swept up in the hunt for the bad guy.

In August, Reichs sent her finished manuscript to her daughter’s boyfriend’s friend, Marysue Rucci, an assistant editor at Scribner in New York. Although hopeful authors often tap such distant acquaintances at major publishing houses, Rucci explained that it’s extremely rare for an unsolicited novel to be “so incredible.”

Rucci passed Reichs’ novel up the food chain to Executive Editor Susanne Kirk, who had handled Patricia Cornwell when the best-selling author was being published by Scribner. The imprint’s paperback sibling, Pocket Books, also was brought in on the excitement.

“I came into the picture when there was already a $300,000 offer on the table for two books,” recalled Reichs’ new agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh of the Virginia Barber Literary Agency whom Reichs met through one of those involved in her courtship.

Three weeks after Rucci received the manuscript, Reichs agreed to a $1.2-million deal with Scribner and Pocket for two books.

The finished novel, “Deja Dead,” will come out in a Scribner hardcover next October.

“I’ve spent 10 years telling people that publishing is not a get-rich-quick scheme,” said Walsh, whose agency receives up to 100 queries a week from novelists seeking representation. “But Kathy pulled the slot machine and came up with the exception.”

Gonzalo Lira, a 28-year-old native of Chile now living in Los Angeles, had unwittingly added his thriller to the so-called slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts received by literary agent Theresa Park, of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates in New York. But Park read the novel and saw a “Pulp Fiction” freshness in its twists involving a CIA man and a terrorist who, for an unknown reason at first, is trying to kill a nun.

Lira’s material got a lift from Park’s burgeoning reputation as one of New York’s hot young agents; she had previously discovered amid her slush Nicholas Sparks’ “The Notebook,” a love story recently published by Warner Books after a $1 million advance.

In September, Stacy Creamer, vice president and senior editor at G. P. Putnam’s Sons, heard the buzz from a film scout: There was a promising new novelist in play. She got Lira’s manuscript from Park on a Friday, read it on Saturday and took it to Putnam publisher Neil Nyren on Sunday. By Monday night, Phyllis Grann, the chairman of the Putnam Berkley Group, also had read it and was enthusiastic.

“Usually, the good things sell quickly,” Creamer said.

On Tuesday, seeking to head off all other comers, she made a preemptive offer of $1 million for this novel (“Counterparts”) and a prequel, both to be published in hardcover by Putnam and in paperback by Berkley. Done deal.

“Counterparts” will appear next fall.

* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His column is published Thursdays.