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BusinessDallas HOW TO BECOME A BEST-SELLER

When Sandra Brown hit a career snag, she sharpened her pencils and her focus: Writing is a business, and she’s the boss.
By MELINDA RICE |

TO SPEND TWO HOURS WITH SANDRA BROWN IS TO FULLY understand the term “steel magnolia.” Charming, soft-spoken, and modest, she still conveys one unmistakable message: I am in charge. Perhaps it’s the setting-an airy six-room office suite near her Arlington home, staffed by a full-time personal assistant, a part-time office worker, and an accountant-al! devoted to the production and promotion of Sandra Brown books.

Or maybe it’s Brown’s flawless hair and makeup, the creaseless clothing. Even on a drizzly day that heralds the coming of spring in North Texas, there is no frizz to her short, chic ’do. No blotchy makeup. No rumpled, humidity-kissed clothing.

It could be the calm assurance with which she speaks-albeit, somewhat reluctantly-of sales, employees, business deals, and contracts. She would much rather talk about the creative process, but when she is finally prodded into talking about the business of being Sandra Brown, she has no need tor cheat sheets or pie charts.

Some people let their work speak for itself. Sandra Brown’s work sings, roars, shouts from the walls and bookcases of her office: framed posters of her book covers, dozens upon dozens of copies of her books, a poster-sized blow-up of a A^h* fori 77/nf.s best-seller list.

But it’s the numbers that truly tell the story.

Sixty books in print.

More than 50 million copies in circulation.

In 30 languages.

And 41 New York Times bestsellers.

Brown has had a succession of multimillion-dollar contracts with Warner Books. She’s a sure thing in a business thai, in most cases, is one big game of chance. Publisher’s Weekly calls her a “money-in-the-bank author.”

Using a combination of personal charm, writing skill, hard work, and business savvy, Sandra Brown has built a huge fan base, a personal fortune, and ever-increasing sales. That winning combination makes her one of the most financially successful writers in the world and the most successful independent businesswoman in Dallas-Fort Worth.

“It’s a business and you have to treat it like one,” says Brown, settling into a cushy chair behind a black metal desk in the loft room where she writes. “People think you sip coffee and gaze out the window until inspiration strikes, but that’s not the way it works. There is a creative aspect to it, certainly. (Thai is. in fact, the part she professes to like best). But you have to write, even when you don’t feel like it, just like any job. And you have to take care of the business. That part is taking up more and more of my time.”

Aside from the fact that she had always taken a lot of responsibility for her career, nothing in Brown’s past suggested pending literary superstardom or lurking financial success. “It’s been an evolutionary process.” says Brown’s husband. Michael. *’As her success grew, her business sense grew and so did the financial rewards.” There was nothing to indicate that she would receive a Distinguished Circle of Success from the American Business Women’s Association in 1992 or a Lifetime Achievement Award six years later from the Romance Writers of America.

Brown was born in Waco, the oldest of five daughters in a middle-class family, who moved to Fort Worth when she was 5 years old. She grew up there and attended Texas Christian University, where she majored in English-not business or finance or accounting.

Her 1968 marriage to Michael Brown derailed her pursuit of a college degree, though she later continued her studies at Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas at Arlington. Some of her first-hand business experience came from managing a cosmetics store.

She also worked as a model at the Dallas Apparel Mart, then began acting in television commercials. That led to her next nonbusiness job, weathercaster at Dallas’ ABC affiliate, WFAA-TV, the same station where her husband hosted a popular talk show called “People.”

Brown was a part-time on-cam-era reporter for “PM Magazine.” a nationally syndicated television news magazine, when what she calls “a desire for new faces” left her unemployed and uninspired. What was she going to do?

Intrigued by the writers her husband frequently interviewed on his show, she considered a writing career. And so began her steps toward stardom.



STEP 1: Do Your Homework

Brown researched a writing career with a vengeance. She interviewed writers, read about publishing, and attended conferences. She learned everything she could about writing fiction professionally. “I knew if I was going to do it, I was going to do it seriously,” she says. “I was not going to dabble.”

She decided to write romantic fiction because she enjoyed reading it and because she knew from her research there was a market for it. “That was the hot commodity then,” she says.

So she bought a dozen Harlequin romances, read them, and analyzed them. “After that, I knew 1 could do it,” she says.

STEP 2: Work Hard

In 1979, Brown sat down at a typewriter perched on a wobbly card table in her Arlington home and started to write. She wrote for six to eight hours a day, every day, while her children were in school. In 1980, through a contact she had made at a conference. Brown sent her first book to an editor in New York City. Four days later, the editor called and bought the book. Brown got a 53,000 advance and a 6 percent royalty.

Two weeks later, the editor bought a second book. Those two books, Love’s Encore and Love Beyond Reason were published in 1981.

After delivering her first four books. Brown was approached by another romance publisher who offered to double what she was being paid. She realized then she was in demand.

Brown kept writing books and pursuing better deals. She negotiated her first six-figure advance just three years after getting her first book contract: S 100,000 for four books. During the next few years, Brown maximized her earning potential. At one point, she was under contract to four different publishers. She juggled completion dates, always finished her books ahead of deadline, and never engaged in industry gossip. She considers that-and hard work-the key to her early success. She is also proud that she is “still on speaking terms with everyone with whom I’ve ever worked.”

But there was a ceiling to how much Brown could earn writing romances. She reached it about six years after her first two books were published.

Like any good CEO, Brown started thinking about how to grow her business. She wanted to expand creatively, too, writing longer books with more character development and more intricate plots. To move on, she needed to break into mainstream fiction.

Until she made that decision, Brown hadn’t seen the sense in paying an agent’s commission. Romance contracts were pretty standard and she felt comfortable negotiating them. (She later realized she should have insisted in a few cases on a “reversion of rights” clause that would have allowed her to regain the rights to her books after they had been out of print for a certain amount of time.)

But if she was going to cross over into mainstream fiction, she needed an agent.

STEP 3: HIRE GOOD PEOPLE

Again thinking like a smart business executive, Brown started lishing world. She and Carvainis set a goal, devised a plan, and carried it out, step by step. Writing longer, more complex books was the first step, but it was just part of the equation.



STEP 4 ! Know Your Options

Brown and Carvainis believed they could retain Brown’s romance fan base, while attracting new readers. Leveraging that existing fan base, Carvainis negotiated a three-book deal with Warner Books in 1987 for what she calls “a very significant figure.”

Warner Books has a reputation as an author-friendly publishing house, which is just what Carvainis and Brown were seeking-publishing executives they could reason with. “The goal was to market her without the romance’ label, and they were willing to accept our input,” Carvainis recalls.

The first two books Brown wrote under the Warner contract did well, but they did not reach Brown’s new target audience. Though lishing world. She and Carvainis set a goal, devised a plan, and carried it out, step by step. Writing longer, more complex books was the first step, but it was just part of the equation.



STEP 4 ! Know Your Options

Brown and Carvainis believed they could retain Brown’s romance fan base, while attracting new readers. Leveraging that existing fan base, Carvainis negotiated a three-book deal with Warner Books in 1987 for what she calls “a very significant figure.”

Warner Books has a reputation as an author-friendly publishing house, which is just what Carvainis and Brown were seeking-publishing executives they could reason with. “The goal was to market her without the romance’ label, and they were willing to accept our input,” Carvainis recalls.

The first two books Brown wrote under the Warner contract did well, but they did not reach Brown’s new target audience. Though both books were longer and more intricate than Brown’s previous work, they had stereotypical romance book covers-what Brown laughingly calls “bosoms and biceps.” For her third Warner book, she argued mightily for an edgier cover. The resulting book. Mirror Image, was published in 1990 with nary a bulge on its cover and became Sandra Brown’s first New York Times best-seller. “I won my argument and I felt validated,” Brown says.

Now all her contracts have a clause giving her approval of the cover design and the blurb on the back of the book. “I have said flat ’No!’ to bosomy things,” Brown says.

The next step in changing Brown’s image was to get “Romance” off the spine and replace it with “Fiction.” And Brown did her part. She wrote more layered plots with more complex characters and fewer sex scenes.

Having conquered the skeptics inside the publishing house, Carvainis and Brown set out to w3 Hers, “The publishers and the bookselling community are the gatekeepers,” Carvainis says. “If you’re not perceived to be a player in general fiction, then booksellers will be reluctant to order in big numbers and aggressively promote in-store.”

First, Brown met with representatives for key book buyers in person-an unusual step for an author at that time. She won them over. “By having those dialogues, and by consistently appearing on the best-seller lists, she convinced them she could deliver over time.” Carvainis says. As a result, they ordered more books.

Then Carvainis and Brown argued for advertisements in non-traditional venues in addition to standard advertising. Brown, in particular, was in favor of transit ads-the ones you see on buses and in subways-but it took awhile to convince Warner Books.

Maureen Egen, president of Time Warner Trade Publishing and Sandra Brown’s editor, credits much of the author’s success to her relationship-building skills. “She has great Texas charm,” Egen says.



STEP 5: Know Your Worth

Now you can see advertisements for Sandra Brown books everywhere from national television (unusual for any author) to bus shelters. Egen won’t cite figures but says the company spends “hundreds of thousands of dollars” advertising Brown’s books. “Sandra has built up an incredible level of credibility in the industry,” says Carvainis. “Now, when a new Sandra Brown book is out, it’s not a matter of if the book is going to be successful; it’s how successful is it going to be?”

For 1999, Brown’s hardcover release of The Alibi has sold 421. 297 copies and counting. Her 1999 paperback release, Unspeakable, has sold more than 1.8 million copies. Not too shabby in an industry as tough as publishing. Of the thousands of books published every year, many never even earn back the advances paid the author.

According to Publisher’s Weekly, of all the novels released in hardcover in 1999. only 92 sold more than 100.000 copies.

Egen confirms that Brown is one of her company’s best-selling authors. So far, every Sandra Brown book published by Warner Books has outsold its predecessors. That bodes well for this year’s new releases: the hardcover novella Standoff’, published in May; a paperback re-issue of Bittersweet Rain, which was released in January by Warner; the paperback version of The Alibi-last year’s hardcover- scheduled for release by Warner in August; and her hardcover full-length novel, The Switch, coming from Warner in September. Bittersweet Rain has already hit the New York Times best-seller list, making a total of 41 Sandra Brown titles that have appeared on that list-41 and counting.

“Standoff will be number 42,” says Carvainis. “There’s just no way that’s not going to happen.”

Brown produces one full-length novel per year that is first released in hardcover, then one year later in a paperback edition. Under her current deal with Warner Books, announced last July. Brown got a $16 million advance for North American rights on three books after Carvainis shopped around and conducted a best-bid auction among Warner. Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and St. Martins. It is Brown’s fifth three-book contract with Warner Books. An additional deal for a novella brings her current contracts for four books to almost $20 million.

Carvainis sells the foreign rights to Brown’s books separately, to foreign publishers who arrange for translations where necessary. Brown is particularly popular in Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan. Carvainis also handles the sale of screen rights. So far, two of Brown’s books have been optioned by Hollywood and one, French Silk, was made into a movie for ABC in 1992.

Sandra Brown has yet another revenue stream from her books.

One of the first things Carvainis did after accepting Brown as a client was review the contracts for books the prolific author had already written. She found many of them had reversion clauses that could be acted upon-so she did.

Carvainis has reclaimed-and resold-the rights to 18 prior Sandra Brown books so far, and many have become best-sellers in their second releases. In fact, many of Brown’s Hew York Times bestsellers have been re-issues of books she wrote 15 to 20 years ago.



STEP 6: Manage Your Time Intelligently

Negotiation times are among the busiest for Brown, who is always working on a new book and juggling business duties with writing. “The higher the stakes, the harder the negotiations,” says the author, who admits that sometimes she talks with her New York City agent five or more rimes a dav during negotiations.

Carvainis does the bargaining, but Brown makes the decisions. The author also reviews scripts for the audio book versions of her novels, and she personally approves much of the material used to advertise her work. She reviews and updates her official web site, www.sandrabrown.net, answers fan mail, and talks to reporters.

“When I first started doing this, I ’ d work seven or eight hours a day, and that was seven or eight hours a day of writing,” says Brown. “Now I spend 10 or 12 hours a day at work, and I’m lucky if I get in five hours of writing.”

The author hay two books to go on her current contract with Warner Books.

When asked about the future, she mentions scriptwriting, a science fiction novel, and a mysterious “other” project at which she will only hint.



STEP 7: Love Your Work

Sandra Brown doesn’t have to work. Though she declines to quote exact figures, she will confirm she is a millionaire “many times over.”

Brown has earned enough for her family to live comfortably-even extravagantly-without her ever touching a keyboard again. But she is not ready to retire. “The money is a great by-product, but that’s not what this is about for me,” she says. “I think if I was motivated by money, the books wouldn’t be very good. I could turn in anything.”

That’s the real secret of Sandra Brown’s success. She loves the work. She is constantly refining her skills and working on technique, applying what she has learned to the next book.

You could say she is reinvesting-like any good businessperson.

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