^The Authors’ Atrium

I turned the publisher down.

Their terms didn’t favor the work. Ten years of exclusive serial rights, a reversion clause with more exits than a hedge maze, and a royalty split that read like a tip. I’ve been to the combines enough times to know the brass ring is only worth reaching for if it’s actually brass. I’d rather lose it honorably than win one that comes with a leash.

And here’s my theory: if one came along, others will follow. Nobody scouts a quarterback for his arm alone. I’ve got time. I’d rather wait for the one that wants the book than the one that wants to own it.

You’ve just dropped the most expensive “no” I’ve ever known.

I’d have said yes, hated it, and lied to you all about my noble refusal.

You’re a better man than I am. I’d prefer not to be reminded.

It does raise something I’ve been wondering about. If one publisher found Dumas here, how many have found someone else? The Atrium opened nearly twenty years ago. That’s a long time for a site full of writers—particularly of the caliber we see here—to go without producing a single person who ended up on a bestseller list.

Am I the only one who’s curious?

We’d never know. Anonymity doesn’t lend itself to marquee billing.

Somebody could be in this thread right now, with a movie deal, trying not to snicker at our posts.

Better question: who here would be unbearable if it turned out to be true?

I’ll start with Twain.

You asked who would be unbearable if it turned out to be true? Not who is unbearable, either way?

And that’s how I protect my secret identity.

Let’s offer our best guesses.

Don’t name names. Names are fingerprints, and nobody here has agreed to be dusted. Premises, though, are fair game. A premise is just a rumor with no address.

A man posts his survival story about an astronaut stranded alone on another planet, one chapter at a time, correcting the math whenever a reader emails him. Eventually, a big house buys it and a movie follows. If that man spent a winter on a board like ours, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Mine’s a man who sold his post-apocalyptic series straight to readers, then turned down a pile of money for the whole thing and took a print-only deal, so he could keep the rest.

If anybody here has suffered through Dumas’s decision process, it was him.

You’re right, and that’s terrifying.

Mine’s a woman who wrote something sensational in a fan community, filed off the serial numbers, and sold more copies than the original. Everyone has a theory about that one. None of us admits to having read it.

Mine’s the woman who sold a million books by herself, in digital, before anyone with a catalog noticed her. Then they paid her millions for the books she’d already finished. They didn’t discover her. They bought her.

That’s the one I’m counting on.

I’ve done the arithmetic. Every one of those stories begins somewhere that looks a lot like this. A board. A site. A forum. No names.

Like a bowl of keys at a 1973 party.

Except without the angry spouses to contend with.

Alright. You’ve had your fun.

I’ve read every guess, and I’d like you to stop. Not because any of them is wrong, but because any of them could be right.

We enforce anonymity for many reasons. The privacy of our future stars is one of them. If any of them are in this room, they deserve to leave it the way they came in: unnamed and unbothered.

Roger that.

Understood.

Louisa, that’s the first time you’ve sounded like you were guarding something.

I’m always guarding something, dear.