Chapter 51: Chapter 51

’Connelly’s return to Paris helped him put his ideas into perspective.

Travelling and moving from one home to another had always proved to be

a creative tool. Stuck in one location produced introspective work and

crimped his style, which always influenced by local media news. Having been a

journalist at the International Herald Tribune, part of The New York Times

Company, in Paris he had been weaned on world events. An experience one step

removed from writing good novel.

As a successful writer people often asked him, how many copies must a book sell

to be considered a success? It was not an easy question. Everything was relative.

O’Connelly remembered when his first book passed the fifty thousand mark.

However, he had grown sceptical when certain authors spoke of their sales; there

was a big difference between the number of books printed and those sold, without

taking into account returns. The sale of hard backs and paperbacks made a

considerable difference to him in terms of royalties, the former selling at three or

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four times the price of the latter.

His books went through three publishing phases: first a hard back followed about

a year later by a quality paperback and finally a trade paperback. So as far as

royalties were concerned, which mattered most to his bank account, it could take

up to two years before he knew whether his book had been a real success or not,

regardless of it being proclaimed a bestseller by the media.

It also determined the relationship with his agent and publisher, which in turn

dictated advance payments. His last two books had sold over one hundred thousand

hard backs, which earned good money for all concerned. A hefty advance payment

was an encouragement to produce quality and commercially successful writing,

which was his goal, although he liked to get his message for posterity in between

the lines.

He had been lucky in having a good agent, and a good publisher, from the very

start, which had been largely due to his own ‘insider’ status, being a known

journalist for an international newspaper helped. Of course the choice of subject

matter was vital.

Many successful first novels were biographically based, selling a few thousand

hardcover copies. His own was a mix of fiction and non-fiction in a high profile

political drama that attracted considerable public interest. The success of his style

and the actuality of his story ensured a handsome book deal with his publisher

together with a high profile marketing campaign for his second novel.