Tor's Ten Recent Debuts

In Tor's most recent newsletter, they had a list of ten recent debuts. Here they are, arranged in release date order and hyperlinked:

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, January 2007 (original release in 2004)
The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald, April, 2007
Crystal Rain by Tobias S. Buckell, May 2007
KOP by Warren Hammond, June 2007
The Wanderer’s Tale by David Bilsborough, July 2007
The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari, August 2007
The Genesis Code by Christopher Forrest, August 2007
Radio Freefall by Matthew Jarpe, August 2007
Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery, August 2007
God’s Demon by Wayne Barlowe, October 2007

Now, because I'm an analyst by occupation and by nature, I thought I'd apply a bit of analysis to this list. We have ten debuts over the course of a year. This rate of debut publication seems highly typical for major publishing houses.

We have nine men and one woman in the list. Now, I'm no feminist, but this appeared to be a large disparity to me. They probably have perfectly good reasons for such a disparity. Maybe they simply didn't have many good submissions by female authors last year. I could analyze this in-depth, but Tor published over 200 books last year, and I have too many unknown variables, so I'll just note it and move on.

My next question to myself was, were any of these authors already established in the SF field before their debut? To answer that question, I had to look at each author in turn.

John Scalzi
Anyone who keeps a speculative fiction blog knows about John Scalzi. According to his bio, he's not a debut author anymore; Old Man's War was first published in 2004. Reading his bio is fascinating anyway, because he serialized several of his novels online before Tor picked them up. So he became published in a rather unorthodox way. Who knows? It may be the way of the future.

Sandra McDonald
I had not yet heard of Sandra McDonald. Her paperback comes out in February, and I'll be getting myself a copy. It looks to be a hoot. Anyway, she seems to have established a name for herself writing short stories before her publication of The Outback Stars.

Tobias Buckell
Prior to his publication, Tobias Buckell was no unknown. He had won the Writers of the Future contest in the fourth quarter of 2000, and he had published short stories as well.

Warren Hammond
Hammond appears to be a complete newcomer to the scene, thus proving that it is still possible.

David Bilsborough
Bilsborough appears to be another complete newcomer. Unlike Hammond however, he appears to maintain absolutely no web presence whatsoever. This is not the first time I've attempted to find him online without success. I just don't understand why any author would shun such an easy and inexpensive way to promote books. Perhaps he is a recluse.

Mark J. Ferrari
I'm pretty familiar with Mark J. Ferrari because I featured The Book of Joby a few months ago. He illustrated covers for major publishers for years. However, I don't think his connections helped him get published, at least not initially. According to his own guest post here at Fantasy Debut, a midsized publisher first picked it up to be published in 2004, but then that publisher canceled his book. However, he used that almost-publication credit to secure an agent, who secured his book deal with Tor. He also advises that you use the "back door" approach whenever possible.

Christopher Forrest
Unforgivably, I completely missed Christopher Forrest's debut in August. It seemed to have gotten buried in all the other Tor debuts of August. Maybe because it is billed as a thriller, I mis-categorized it as non-speculative. However, upon reading the book blurb, it is undoubtedly science fiction, so I'll have to do a regular announcement for it in the next few days. Anyway, Forrest also appears to be a complete newcomer.

Matthew Jarpe
Matthew Jarpe calls his writer's bio a "pathetic display of single mindedless." He has a trunked novel and a trunked movie script, but nothing else. So, he's another newcomer.

Brian Francis Slattery
Brian Francis Slatterly is an almost-newcomer. His bio includes a prestigious win of the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award and one other short piece in addition to his novel, Spaceman Blues. In addition, he is an editor and an author of nonfiction.

Wayne Barlowe
Wayne Barlowe is another illustrator-turned-writer. However, he's been writing since the 70s, when his book Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, won the Hugo in 1979. He's done covers and illustrations for every major publisher, plus scads of other stuff. Really, you must read his bio for yourself. He cannot be considered an unknown to the field. I've probably seen his paintings at the Orlando Science Center with my own eyes. (Incidently, I have a guest reviewer lined up to review his novel, God's Demon, in the next week or so.)

Of the ten -- going strictly by their own bios -- I count four who had a clean bio upon their debut publication, and six who had bios ranging from a few sales to being a well-known name in the field for reasons other than fiction. If we strike Scalzi off the list because of his Established Author status, then we have 9 debuts this year. (This is making a rather broad assumption that the list includes all Tor's debuts of 2007.)

Tor had a total of 209 books published last year. I obtained this figure by using their search tool, narrowing the search to fantasy (111 books) and then science fiction (98 books). This is a 4.3 percent debut rate.

Over at SFWA, there are 29 "qualifying venues"; i.e. major publishers. Assuming Tor is average, and assuming this was an average year for major publishers, (more broad assumptions to make, I know) then there is an average of 261 debuts per year out of around 6061 novels.

(These figures does not count excellent small press markets like Juno Books, who gets books on shelves from coast to coast but does not qualify for SFWA's "professional" standards.)

And this concludes my analysis of Tor's debut list, for what it's worth.

12:53 - edited for clarity - TN