Fame & Fortune: Joe "J.A." Konrath

Bankrate: What's your goal as a writer?

J.A. Konrath: You have one goal as an author, once you're published, one goal only. That is: Make money for your publisher. That is your only goal. If you have an advance that's too high, you're not going to make money for your publisher.

It's very important that you earn back money, you earn back your advance. An advance is like a loan from your publisher. They believe that they will sell enough copies of the book, and rates are pretty standard across the industry unless you're an uber-bestseller like a J.K. Rowling or Stephen King. For a paperback, the author is going to make about 60 cents. For a hardcover they're going to make about two or three dollars.

Bankrate: Did you get foreign sales and movie options?

J.A. Konrath: My agent kept the film rights, and she's shopping them around and we've been getting some interest, but nobody's ponied up the money for an option. Hyperion got world rights, and the books so far have sold to Japan, Czechoslovakia, Russia and France.

Bankrate: You're getting lump sums of money. Is that weird? You're getting paid twice a year?

J.A. Konrath: Between two or three times a year, depending on the year. Yeah.

Bankrate: How do you deal with that?

J.A. Konrath: Well, you have to go to an accountant. And become a sole proprietorship and pay quarterly taxes, which is interesting.

Bankrate: It gives you a different perspective on taxes.

J.A. Konrath: It gives you a different perspective on money, too. I mean, getting a weekly paycheck, what's nice about that is you can't go crazy with it. You know a certain percentage has to go toward food, clothing, shelter and bills. And if you have any left over that's what you put into the bank for savings, or that's what you use to play with or for vacation or whatever. But when you're getting a check for $40,000 at once, that's kind of like, "Wow! Let's go to California next week."

Bankrate: You've got your lump sum of money. It's after your agent's taken her 15 percent. How are you splitting that up?

J.A. Konrath: First priority of course is to make sure to portion out, to put aside the money we know we need to live on. And then some savings. I consider that what you need -- you should always have an emergency fund. The killer is the medical insurance. It's obscene. You have to pay $1,500 a month to cover family.

Bankrate: How much goes back into your marketing?

J.A. Konrath: A lot of it. Twenty percent of my time is spent writing. Eighty percent of my time is spent marketing. At least a third of my income goes toward self-promotion.

Bankrate: Are you booking your own tour?

J.A. Konrath: Well, my publisher's touring me this time, this year out, but I visit a dozen conventions every year. I travel all over the place. I travel locally. Web site, of course (www.jakonrath.com). And advertising and simple promotion like flyers or printing up chapbooks, which I give out for free. … I spend a great deal of my income on self-promotion, but that's an investment. I'm investing in myself. I'm hoping my stock will go up and eventually I won't have to do as much, but right now, I finished my contract and I just turned in my outline for the next book in the series, the fourth book. The manuscript for Rusty Nail (the third book) I turned in at the beginning of the year.

Bankrate: And the next is Dirty Martini?

J.A. Konrath: Dirty Martini is the fourth one.

Bankrate: Do you have hopes for another three-book contract?

J.A. Konrath: I would like that. Oh, yeah, I'm going out of my mind right now. I've been without a contract since March and that's terrifying. My publisher is very much behind me, I'm selling well, I'm earning back my advance, I'm getting good reviews, I'm getting nominated for awards, I get along well with my editor and everyone at my publishing house, and I'm still very terrified because things can happen.

Bankrate: What do you want out of this writing life?

J.A. Konrath: I want comfort out of my life. I would like to get to a level where I'm comfortable and don't have to worry about where the money is coming from.

Bankrate: What do you want people to get out of your books?

J.A. Konrath: I want people to be entertained.

Bankrate: Who are your readers?

J.A. Konrath: My demographic is people who enjoy Janet Evanovich and James Patterson. They're funny. They're laugh out loud. They've also got some scares in them and some thrills in them. It's popular fiction. I'm writing for the masses.

Bankrate: There's a violence factor.

J.A. Konrath: It's got some edgier aspects to them, sure. I don't think there's anything worse in my books than you see on "CSI," and you see that. I try to keep the stuff in the reader's imagination rather than to describe it.

Bankrate: What's your plan for the series if you get another contract?

J.A. Konrath: I've got the next three books in the series planned, and by intent they are much more cinematic than the first three. They have higher concepts to them and bigger hooks and the reason for that is to be more commercial. Because more commercial means more people interested and more people interested means more money. Which means bigger print runs, more success, more movie interest, more foreign rights.

Bankrate: It's a business.

J.A. Konrath: That's all this is. It's a business that I happen to enjoy. I love to create fiction, and I would be writing if I never made another cent at it. But while I'm making money at it I ought to try and give publishers and readers what they want. The industry's all about brands and names.