In which John Scalzi continues to defy common wisdom.

[brooksmoses]

We knew, for some time, that John Scalzi had an uncanny ability to sell fiction by methods that should not work, given his initial history of landing a book deal with Tor for a novel that he had previously self-published on his website.

His latest coup completely surpasses this, however, and reaches to bewildering and amazing levels of implausibility that were not previously even imaginable. In a recent Whatever post, Scalzi revealed that he had received a writing contract from Tor solely on the strength of a query letter that he had posted as a blog comment, and which read, in its entirety,

I'm totally going to write the "Shadow War of the Night Dragon" trilogy. Please have Tor back up the money truck to my front door. kthxbye.

I stand impressed, and astounded.

(Interestingly, Scalzi implies that he has done even more implausible things, but he does not state what they might be.)

Comments

[cobalt-00.livejournal.com]

...I'm passing that along. I am further adding this blog to my list of things to read. :)

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

He doesn't reveal how much he was paid, though. And of course the writing contract wasn't for the trilogy, just the "sample".

[brooksmoses]

I'd assume he was paid at Tor.com's standard $0.25/word rate, which comes to about $500 in this case.