*It’s amazing how much of this still applies. I made comments throughout in square brackets for how it’s different/same in Anno Domino 2014. An email conversation with a writer I admire brought this to mind. It’s amazing to me how many people are still in 1999 or maybe in 2010.*
Those of you who haven’t read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Writing Like It’s 1999, do so.
For those of you who read my blog this might seem like I’m harping on a theme, or like I’m getting repetitive. Well I’d think so too, truly. Except… Except…whenever I’m at a con, someone – usually someone much less published than I am – comes back with a variant of “I’m going to keep my eyes shut tight and in the morning, this will all go away.”
Disruptive change is very scary and most people would rather pretend it will all go away, and we’ll be back to the familiar landscape and the familiar certainties. Even if those are horrible. Freed lions will often pace as though in the confines of the cage. Those few of us who are awake and exploring every possibility, looking in every corner, searching for the way things will be are a small minority.
At cons, I still run into authors who look down on self-published authors. I still run into authors who parrot the line about how much the publisher is investing in them: when it is patently obvious they’re lost in mid-list hell; I still run into authors who say “if you want to make a living at this, you have to publish with the big six.” [It’s all just the same now.]
I had the dubious privilege of hearing a mid-press published author telling a self-published author whom I happen to know makes more in a month on one book than the mid-press published author has made for any two or three of his books that “most of what’s self published is crap and no one would buy it. The future is finding a publisher and convincing them to accept you. In two years, all this e-book stuff will be gone.” [I hear fewer publishers say that these days. Now they’re more likely to howl about Amazon.]
It was breathtakingly bizarre. Kind of like, in a fantasy novel, standing next to the hidden prince and watching the false king parade down the street looking down on everyone. Like Saturnalia, with the fools reigning.
And then I catch myself – occasionally – thinking the old thoughts, too: “Well, what does he/she know. He/she is small press published.” Or perhaps thinking that some of my fledgelings will of course, eventually, follow the route I have. And then I stop. Because there are few things I know, but I do have some certainties. [I’m glad to report these thoughts are QUITE gone. In fact I feel guilty if I advise someone to go traditional.]
These are the things I know:
Even if e-books all went away tomorrow, it wouldn’t go back to the way it was
Not the way it was in the early nineties, or even the way it was in the late nineties when I came in. No way, no how, never. Because there’s this thing called Amazon. The publishers no longer control what’s on the shelves and what gets seen. And even if Amazon died tomorrow, there would be other e-tailers. Trying to control shelf space is not a winning strategy. That bell has rung.
E-books aren’t going away
You can’t put the e-book genii back in the bottle. I’m reading on kindle. My kids are reading more on kindle than on paper. So is my husband. So are most of my friends. Barring some planet killing type of event, this is not going to go away. No, the economic crisis won’t kill it. Kindle books published by indies are cheaper. The tighter life gets, the more likely we’ll buy those instead of the agency-modeled-to-death.
The hierarchies of prestige are gone
Because the big six no longer control access to shelf space (except in Barnes and Noble, and it no longer has the influence it once had) the safe hierarchy of self-published, small press, medium press, big press is gone. We used to assume someone who self-published hadn’t even been able to get a small press to accept him/her. We approached their work expecting it to be awful. It often was. That certainty is done. A savvy author with time on his hands can decide he has a better chance going it alone. Be careful how you talk to other authors. That person with a single indie book out might have a larger readership than you could dream of.
Most authors have had a taste of freedom
I’m one of them. Look, I’ve done next to nothing Indie. A Touch of Night and a few short stories through Naked Reader Press. Interesting results but inconclusive. However, just knowing I can write whatever and if it doesn’t sell I can put it up on Amazon and it will sell a minimum of x – plus be in print forever – has given me massive freedom. I no longer feel like I’m blindfolded in the cattle car of a train over whose destination I have no control. Even if indie proves to be less than half of my income, the ability to put out there what I think should be out there is slowly molding me into a different person: a much less fretful and worried one. It’s likely to lengthen my life. It will certainly make me easier to live with. I don’t know how it’s taking other authors, but I don’t think it’s that bad. [From my experience with Witchfinder, it can make me a living. Writing for two masters, though is … argh. But it will get done.]
We’re scared, but we’re not stupid
I know, I know, Dean says we’re stupid. And he’s right in a way, but we’re a very specialized kind of stupid. Also, he’s not seeing the pressures on my generation – those who came in after 2000 when the publishing houses looked at things ONLY through agents, and the publishing houses’ decisions could make or break your career, regardless of how good your book was. We had to learn to shut up, no matter how stupid we felt what was happening was. Not anymore. And we’re losing the habit of silence – slowly. The chances of a mass exodus back to publishers on the old terms because we don’t want to do everything ourselves is about … oh, look, do you see that flying pig? Yeah. Some of us will go back, of course – most of us who have made our name and can dictate terms, or the really small ones who couldn’t make it on their own.
And I’m not saying publishers are going away
Of course they’re not. Though a few of the houses will vanish and almost certainly a few of the imprints will vanish. What I’m saying is that the majority of the writers are NOT going to go back on the old terms. You want us back, you’re going to have to do things for us that we can’t do for ourselves or hire someone to do for us. I’m thinking this is the true “demise of the midlist” and not in the fake way you tried to do it before, where you simply announced the midlist was gone and kept changing midlisters’ names and paying them as beginners and not allowing them to build a following. No. I think the “midlister” the “shelf filler” the “person we print but don’t do anything else for” is gone. You’ll have to treat every author as if he/she matters. You have to make it better for them than they can do by throwing it up on Amazon. I’m thinking good covers, publicity, limited contracts.
Make it worth my while
Or at least, don’t use aversion therapy on me. You can’t keep me in the dark and feed me on shit anymore. If the book is not selling, sure, I need to know, but don’t tell me it’s because it’s not a good book, when I know you did nothing to market it, not even get it on shelves. And don’t, then, treat me as if it’s all my fault. Because if you make things unpleasant enough and treat me like a serf, I’m going to think “well, I don’t need to work for you anymore” and I’m going to go Indie.
Give me a public
I’m thinking more publishers should look at Baen books, instead of turning up their noses. Baen commands loyalty among its writers and gets dedicated readers who look for the brand. Some of this is (good) marketing gimmicks: buttons saying “I read baened books”, book bags given out at cons, a slide show where upcoming releases are announced, a forum where fans can meet and geek out on their favs. Part of it, though, the most important thing, is what none of the rest in sf/f or mystery has (I don’t know enough of Romance): a brand. A unified taste. For the big houses with multiple editors, this is difficult, of course. But you can no longer be all things to all people. Baen chose and does plot. It does plot really well – whether it’s in sf/f or any of the variations. “Things happen in Baen Books” would be a great tag line. Mind you, if it’s one of my books (or Dave Freer’s, too, or a half dozen others) the books also have characters and feelings – but the “things happen” and “adventure” aspect MUST be there for it to be a Baen book. When I started being published by Baen I immediately “slotted” into a pre-made public. This, as a newby, gave me something to put my back against, as I grow the rest. So, what can the big houses do. I don’t know. I don’t know under what constraints they operate. BUT if I owned one, I’d give each editor an “imprint” and then give them the resources to publicize that imprint. “Okay, Jane likes craft mysteries. She can specialize in that. We’ll call it Golden Brush books, and…” Have them appeal to a segment of public, but appeal to them very powerfully. It’s better to command 50k loyal readers and grow them slowly than to have most of your books bomb, except for a mega ultra blockbuster a year – which these days might not materialize. (No power to push, remember?) And meanwhile tell the editors that the house does… oh, pick one. Beautiful, doomed adolescents. Or perhaps more generally “character” or “angst” or “Beautiful language.” and unify that across your “imprints” which will maximize the chance of people reading the brand, not just the imprint.
Will there be a new equilibrium? Of course there will. And I think it’s about two years out, too. But will things be the way they were?
E-books. E-tailing. Soon, the book printing machines in every bookstore. Writers who’ve taken the bit between their teeth. Will all that vanish?
No way. You can’t put humpty dumpty together again. And you can’t unring a bell. So publishers and writers both will have to stay alert and change to survive.
UPDATE: Ask not for whom that bell won’t unring… I think what you’re hearing today, loud and clear, are funeral bells. Or perhaps the woosh of the meteor falling to Earth. The dinosaurs will never be the same: http://www.thepassivevoice.com/09/2011/amazon-launches-79-kindle-and-99-kindle-touch-ereaders/
According To Hoyt 
cheapish ereaders are revolutionizing the book industry. In a way it’s like when pcs came out. In another way, it’s like pamphlet printing in Colonial days in America. Change is a way of life. You need to keep in mind or you’ll be run over by it.
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Your recipe for the rescue of the big publishing houses works much better as a disruptive business plan to feast on their bones. It’s a moneyball game. Every editor who is good but wasted where they are, every author who could really make a good life out of it but isn’t because they’re in midlist hell, those are the low fruit that will be very profitable. The kicker is to engage with socialites and tastemakers to invite yours but not invite theirs so social cachet attaches to your model and I fine air of has-been settles around them.
This isn’t my field but the pathway to riches is plenty obvious.
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Thanks for this Sarah. One of these day’s I’ll really start trying to push this book.
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Fiction, I’ll easily take a risk, and don’t mind dropping a couple bucks on someone I’ve never read. I know most of it isn’t spectacular, and some of it’s dreck, but, hey, it’s cheaper than going to a movie. And except for Peter Jackson’s Tolkien movies, I haven’t seen a movie worth seeing in the theater in years.
Technical books… yesterday I wanted a book on a technical subject. Most of the e-books were absurdly priced. Any that were priced higher than the paper copy (and there were a couple!) were instantly rejected; those publishers aren’t interested in selling, anyway. I finally found one that had good reviews and a price that didn’t make me want to rip someone’s throat out.
I haven’t bought an O’Reilly book in years — their quality seems to have slipped once they started publishing the “Head First!” series and other books at the level (or lower!) of the “Foo for Dummies” books. But they at least offered a free preview of their book.
Then there’s the technical publisher I’ve been buying from the most the last decade or so — Pragmatic Bookshelf. They’re not cheap, but they have the subjects I need for work, and their e-books are cheaper than the paper versions. Plus, they offer a small discount if you buy both. If you get the electronic version, they’ll push updates to your Kindle. They even have a “beta” program — I bought one book when it was about half done, and as the author handed in chapters, I got an update with the new material.
Oh, and I’ve noticed a handful of self-published technical books. O’Reilly used to be the best because they’d hire the guy who wrote a program to write a reference book; Pragmatic Bookshelf still does that. Now it looks like some of the programmers are going straight to Amazon.
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Four years ago, I rarely bought ebooks. Now, I only buy them. I fly a lot, and I have 200+ books on my iPad, incredibly convenient.
People like to find some way to look down on other people, but Marcel Proust was self published.
Most of the stuff I see coming out of the top publishers is simply garbage IMO. But I’m willing to try any author for 2.99 or .99 or at best free. If I like one, I will buy others from the same author. I will not try an author for $14.99 unless it is an important scientific work, never fiction.
Just some observations.
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The longer our unending “summers of recovery” go on, the tighter-fisted I get on luxuries. Less eating out, less going out, less … everything that isn’t a necessity for us. We’re semi-homebound, so streaming video is a necessity and used daily. Book are also a necessity, but **buying** new books isn’t a necessity. So we use our Kindles and look for the overlooked … I’m loving the book promos here and on PJ for finding new authors at a reasonable price. I use Amazon’s lending library to try gambles. I also use the public library, though they are becoming less useful over time. I sometimes find out of print titles on Paperback Swap, where I still have a few credits from when I sold all our home schooling curriculum. When I find a non-blockbuster author I love, I buy ’em all (I figure the blockbuster people don’t need my pittance). It’s a total reversal from our habits in the 1980’s, when we made weekly pilgrimages to the bookstores and bought 3-5 dead-tree books weekly.
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“The longer our unending “summers of recovery” go on, the tighter-fisted I get on luxuries. Less eating out, less going out, less … everything that isn’t a necessity for us.”
I could have written this.
It’s now practically impossible to pry over $10 out of me for a book. I’ve signed up for KULL after finding out a lot of the historical “fishing” I read (when I’m getting a feel for a time period before an idea gels) is on it. 5.99 and less and I’ll buy a new author… once a month or so. Between 5.99 and 10 I have to know the author. Above that? Well… unless it’s a fifteen book medley, no.
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…. KULL?
Is this Kindle Unlimited, or something else?
It could be a pun on the family name, I worked with a guy who was named that… he looked like someone who would be introduced as Kull, too…..
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Kindle Unlimited Lending Library
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Kull, King of Valusia.
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Baen commands loyalty among its writers and gets dedicated readers who look for the brand. Some of this is (good) marketing gimmicks: buttons saying “I read baened books”, book bags given out at cons, a slide show where upcoming releases are announced, a forum where fans can meet and geek out on their favs.
Author pages at Baen that list all the books, with links to buy the books, and a link to the author’s own site if they have one– when I was in the Navy and found out that all the “fun” stuff in our library had been donated by Baen, I went there and ended up sending a quick little note to some email about how I’d adored the Bahzell series and how much I appreciated the books they’d sent to our command.
I got a real person email back saying that I was very welcome, they were glad to help anyway they could and, by the way, you’re going to be pleased to know that there’s a new Bahzell book coming out. (I got it ASAP, in hard back– and IIRC, it’s also where I got introduced to e-books because they had a big CD of them in that book.)
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Baen is, leave us face it, a queer duck amongst publishers. Unlike all others, Baen does not despise its readers.
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Baen has made it a special project to send books over seas to the troops in active combat areas. They routinely have mention of drives to get the books packed up and shipped out. So I expect that they were delighted to hear back from you on that.
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Thing is, while they do take care of the pointy bit first– they also get our folks on bases. I was in the middle of Death Valley when I first ran into some of the books they’d collected for the troops. Other than the used bookstore in town, the nearest book store was several hours. They’ve got some kind of a program where the MWR supervisor can contact them and say “Hey, we don’t have anything for our guys to read when they’re not on duty, can you help us out?”
There’s more than one reason why Baen is the single biggest publisher in most of the BX book sections.
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“You can’t keep me in the dark and feed me on shit anymore.” When I was in the service, we called this “the mushroom treatment”. (Kinda surprised Foxfier didn’t say this.) Re: Birthday girl–This was supposed to be the SIXTH Annual Tour of The Summer Of Recovery. It was a no-show; it came to no venue near anybody.
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Oh, I don’t know. King Putt’s cronies are doing pretty well.
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LOL! King Putt! I haven’t heard that before but it’s GREAT!
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Born way down in Kenya, moved out to Hawaii, King Putt.
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Let’s try again: Beat the guy from Arizona, Failed in Babylonia, King Putt.
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The Mushroom Song
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I’m not an author, so I may have a woefully incomplete picture of your business and all the things that are necessary to turn out your product.
However, what exactly *do* publishers do for you anymore these days? I suppose in the old days you needed someone with a giant printer to actually produce your books.
In terms of e-books, however, everyone on earth in a country that can maintain consistent electricity has the capital to turn out a book. Words, title-images, everything. I could probably bang something together in gimp and Calibre, if I had more than 8 chapters of anything in my virtual drawer. For the past few weeks, I have been reading “books” (serial novels off of people’s blogs) that were never “published” in any traditional sense.
If brick and mortar stores are dead, you don’t need them to interact with brick-and-mortar stores.
If they did such a horrible job of reviewing and editing, then it seems that having firms specializing in reviewing/editing would be a superior solution.
And yet I hear crazy things about authors signing away ownership of their work for small fractions of the net revenue and an advance. Why on Earth would a new author, freshly landed from Mars, ever sign up for what seem like exploitative abusive conditions from a publisher? Is it some sort of status hierarchy thing?
(A lot of harmful things are perpetuated in the name of status pursuit: Academic science publishing for example, is locked into a similar crazy set of circumstances – allowing major academic publishers to monopolize access to their content, because it isn’t prestigious, if you aren’t published in one of the journals they own: You’re just a crank if you don’t publish in one of N big name journals.)
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I think the big reason so many authors keep on believing the big Five is the way to go is ignorance. I don’t believe they are really aware of what the indie route can do for someone willing to work.
Some of the very interesting things I’ve heard about “modern” contracts with the big five make me shake my head.
Try 3k or 4k as an advance. If they publish, and book gets “sent back” “{ie not sold}, then it’s possible they could ask for some of the advance back. Not ask, actually, but demand.
Imagine living paycheck to paycheck and have your publisher decide to send you a bill for $2500.
What does a publisher do for you today? Besides abuse you? Well, they figure you’re going to do much of your own promotion. You have to go through an agent to get to the publisher, and most agents will tell you fairly quickly they expect you to have a facebook page, and a blog. Twitter should be high on your priorities.
Two years is a very common waiting period from the time your agent agrees with the editor, and the book gets published. They’re probably not going to buy another book from you until the first one is selling. Then add two years to that before it’s published. A lot of contracts today stipulate that they don’t want you dealing with their competition.
Not very author friendly. Not good for readers that would like to read something else by a good author…..
Impossible for a workaholic to live with….
My thoughts
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They’re still an author’s best bet for getting a paper book into actual bookstores. Not that they don’t fall flat on their faces in a major fail at that, too.
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“Why on Earth would a new author, freshly landed from Mars, ever sign up for what seem like exploitative abusive conditions from a publisher?”
See: Mrs. Ray Rice.
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Those of you familiar with them, especially with more than one model sold now: which kindle would you recommend? I think I am finally going to buy one.
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if they still sell kindle keyboard, it’s my favorite. The paperwhite is better fore reading on but a pain to organize stuff on.
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I think they finally discontinued it, which is a shame. It’s the only electronic ink one that also does sound, so it can read to you.
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No. Paperwhite does sound too.
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Oh, Cool. I wonder if they improved the MP3 handling.
I was a bit disappointed that there was no kind of notepad app for the Kindle Keypad. (I saw one in an Amazon App store, but apparently it’s horrible).
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It looks to me like it’s still being sold…? Unless this isn’t it? http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Keyboard-Free-Wi-Fi-Display/dp/B004HZYA6E
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Buying options are only Used (“16 used”), and they say that the paperwhite is the updated replacement in a banner at the top.
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I’m perfectly happy with the basic cheap model. Who needs color? But then I like devices that do a single thing well, rather than multiple tasks awkwardly.
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Pam The black and white kindles are really nice. I got a 3rd generation kindle (the kindle keyboard) as a birthday present in 2011 and the number of dead tree books I’ve bought since then you can literally count on one hand. I used that thing to the point the letters are wearing off the keyboard buttons. Until Last Spring I’d have been with you 100%+. But then I’d been at a new job for 6 months and felt like celebrating. So I sprung on the then new Kindle Fire HDX (7″). If anything it is easier to read than the old hardware. And much more flexible, good for web browsing, nice note and calendar apps available free. Decent games and can stream video . The fire does few tasks awkwardly (particularly if you add a bluetooth keyboard). About the only environment where the old hardware beats it is somewhere where there’s full sun. The big issue is price the paperwhite is cheap at $79 vs 200+ for the 7″ fire.
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I use my kindle Fire for internet browsing when away from home and the paperwhite for reading.
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I was hoping to use the browser to do Google Maps on the road, but they really don’t work well with the monochrome display.
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I’m starting to think I’ll probably go for the paperwhite then. :)
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I have a paperwhite and love it. I also have the Kindle app on my smartphone.
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Why do (wanna-be) authors want to sign on with big=Publishing? Because writing the book was all they could do; they can’t bring themselves to take it to the public. (Besides, artistes do not engage in commerce.)
A statement made in another context reflects the mental paralysis precluding people from grasping the changed publishing environment (and reflects the Publisher’s view of that environment):
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It’s not the backwardness of (some) authors who want to stay with the old system that’s as astounding to me as that of the publishers. They just seem to scream “La La La, Not listening” with their fingers in their ears. The Music industry and the tv/movie industries have already been here. It was bad for a bit but once they realized what their back catalogs were worth they got over it and started to see dollar signs for things they figured would NEVER sell again (all the seaons of Dobie Gillis? We can do that for you…) were selling. Not like hotcakes mind you but still $5-10 a pop when the internet brings you 10-50K customers isn’t a bad thing. Better than $0 and because marginal costs of the next copy are essentially 0 the money keeps rolling in.
Admittedly the up front costs of an EBOOK are slightly higher, but if the book in question has been typeset in the last 20-30 years there’s GOT to be an electronic version of the text. That and a week or two od the time of the most wet behind the ears copy editor you have will get you a workable ebook.
Lets say that editor makes the lordly sum of 52K/year. 2x that to cover overhead and he/she costs 2k/week. So 2-4K to go from nothing to something you can pop on Amazon for $4 or so. After the first 1000 purchases its all gravy. You cant tell me that Things Like Zelazny’s Amber series wont sell 20-30K copies at least. Even Nesfa’s 2 volume retrospective of all of William Tenn’s work would sell 10k in a year I’d bet. Thats a seriously mid range author from the Silver age.
But you can’t get these things (or when you can its at hardback prices or more) because the publishers don’t want to play ball. Fine let ’em stew. Here’s hoping they all go belly up and the rights revert to the authors (or their estates) so someone publishes the stuff. Not that that always works as sometimes even the people with the rights can’t figure out what to do (e.g. E.E. “Doc” Smiths output).
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Oh I understand Authors who don’t want to go the independent route. It is a lot of extra work. Just publishing it yourself with no idea about covers and editing or anything can go so very wrong. I have read plenty of independently published books that badly needed editing. Both copy and regular editing.
I have also seen plenty of independently published books that where great. But it is a new skill set and that can intimidate people. It can also be something that people just don’t want to mess with.
I expect there will always be people willing to take the advance and publish with the big publishers as long as they survive. But now there are outlets available to those who don’t want to go that route.
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Since I got my Ipad 1 back when they first released I have stopped buying physical books and switched to purely buying ebooks. Both kindle and Baen and other sources I can come across. The problem was I have limited space for books and literally had them trying to fall off of my shelves. Now I admit I had a head start of 700+ Baen books bought since 1999 but I am now up to over 3500 books on my ipad pretty much all of which I have read. Many of the authors I see post here I have read some of you I had already found and some I found by the Oyster posts.
I admit I’m an outlier in that I can read 5+ books on a weekend easily and I devour books like they where candy. Still I am happy for what I can do.
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Well, it depends. The publishers exist for a reason – they aggregate sales, marketing, editing, and distribution. So, if you want to put out mass volumes of paper books, they’ll probably be the way to go for the forseeable future.
The thing is, putting out a paper book costs something like a quarter million. (Based on perusing various blogs). And, most books don’t net anything near that. The business is based on putting out a bunch of unprofitable books and praying for Harry Potter. So, midlisters are basically guaranteed to lose you money. And are probably treated reasonably well, considering that problem.
For top end authors, I don’t think anything has changed yet – the problem being that most of the market is still physical.
For midlisters, which is most everyone, now there’s an option. Even if your book doesn’t get chosen randomly, you can just self-publish and gradually build a following. Of course, you probably won’t sell as much as the midlist, but, hey, better than making a loss putting out a paper book.
Now, short-term, this is great for publishers. Just wait for an ebook to catch fire and then offer to proof-read, distribute, market for a cut of the profits. Guaranteed profit – which is way better than their current situation.
Long-term, there aren’t that many successful books, so, um, this means a lot of layoffs and closings. And, eventually, results in people looking for popular books in the same place they search for midlist books…which puts distribution out of business…which eliminates much of the publisher’s value proposition. Thing is, publisher brand is important for an author’s first few books. After that, not so much. And copy editors are hireable.
That said, if I was a publisher, I’d base my business plans partially on maintaining a brand and physical distribution for successful works. Oh, and persuading every moderately successful former client to go along with ebooking our back catalog. Marketing is cheap – just put the first book of a trio out for 0 USD, next for 2.99, later for 5.99. And partially on simply marketing services to moderately successful ebooks with mentally unstable authors. No lack of respect, just the observation that many authors seem to be sufficiently mentally unstable that they fit better as creative talent than as small business owners – which is what they become if they bypass publishers.
–Erwin
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Doesn’t cost that much anymore. Those numbers are REALLY out of date. even big publishers now are strictly POD.
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While I doubt that a midlist print run would cost that much, POD doesn’t make sense for a large publishing house. The cost per book is far lower with traditional printing still.
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Sigh. Berkley was using POD in the nineties. The machines are now much better for this, and they get it MUCH cheaper than we do.
By POD I mean print runs of about 100 which don’t count as print runs.
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Erwin -which blogs did you get that from? Yes, the expenditure on one of the darlings can be that and more – but that’s not the cost per book for everyone. Most of the darlings lose money, occasionally made up for by the big winners. The work-a-day midlisters actually make the money for the gambles. The only way they look like losing money is because the expenses are divided equally between books. So that means Joe’s Noob’s book carries an equal share of debt and running costs to Sally Bigname. On paper that looks like Joe’s book is a loser. In practice however almost none of the costs and debt are due to Joe.
Let’s run through a few real(ish) figures for you. I’m doing these in my head so I’m rounding.
Joe – Advance $2000
Sally – Advance $100 000
Joe interest costs on advance (for the purpose of this exercise 2% non-compound, PA, and 1 year sale to production -short) $40
Sally interest costs on advance (as above) $2000
Joe – print run 5000
Sally – print run 100 000
Joe – sell through 80%
Sally sell through 55% (yes, because it is distributed everywhere, and restocked, sell though is worse)
Joe Cover art and layout – $500 photoshop $200 for the art +cost of freelance layout)
Sally Cover art and layout – $6000 (5k for art)
Joe-editing – (no structural, only freelance copy editor) $2000 (and that’s quite high)
Sally editing -structural 2 weeks of inhouse $80K a year senior editor $3200. copy , and $3000 for copy.
proofs – figures vary a lot but Sally will probably get a couple of thousand bucks worth of the rolls-royce, and Joe will get, if he’s lucky $500.
Joe Marketing – 0 yes, zero. he goes into the catalog. Call 50 bucks for the time and the spare covers with order details.
Sally Marketing – the big one. Half of the advance. $50 000
Joe cost of printing $1 a copy
Sally cost of printing. $0.75 a copy (used to be the difference was large, but this is probably exaggerating it now. Small print run prices have come down to the point where apparently reprinting as little as 100 copies pays.
Warehousing and distribution – I don’t have a great handle on this, but the actual costs are not high. The distributors do charge like bulls, because the retailers and publishers use them to offset cost apparently. Sally’s costs for warehousing are several orders of magnitude bigger than Joe’s. Le’t call it 50 cents a copy (90% distrib., 10%warehouse), so for Joe that’s $2500 of which $250 is storage.
Sally $50 000 of which $5000 is storage.
Joe’s office costs and time that are actually needed (he gets nothing out of the office being in NY, but still pays for it. Call it a week of one room of the suite.) Remember these are un-necessary costs. It’s a choice of the publisher. Say $500
Sally office costs – well, she gets a lot of time and effort $2000
Ok let’s sum that up. Joe’s actual cost – call it $13500, to make up for the bits we’ve forgotten. His 4000 sales at 55% of 7.99 -about $17500 – royalties (at 6%) not quite earned out which is a profit, but not a big one, if the sell-through gets down to around 60% it would be a loss.
Now Sally. Hmm let’s call it $295 000 to be generous – shuffle the advances around and your quarter million becomes plausible. Her 55000 sales at 55% of 7.99. Erhm $242 000 K – royalties not earned out. Unless this goes black swan, it’s a money loser.
Now let’s do this ‘sharing’ the costs of interest, office, staff (the inhouse editor who works on Sally’s book but doesn’t touch Joe’s) marketing (part of the ‘staff’ bill), and warehousing. Normally this would be spread over a number of books, but just for the example let’s do it for the two. Now Joe or Sally ‘cost’ for interest is $1020, editing $4200, $600 for layout, proof $1250, Marketing $25025, warehouse $2625, office $1250. For Joe this is a huge increase, for which he gets nothing, for Sally a huge saving for which she loses nothing. Call it $36 000 each + the cost of the actual art printing and distribution and advance. Joe adds about another $9500 to that – what a LOSS The book cost us a loss of $28 000 to produce for this loser.. For Sally 225 000 + $36 000, – well, that did lose us money too, but only 19000 dollars, not as bad as other jackass Joe. If we can sell a shade over 5% more of the print we’re in the black.
Of course Sally’s book came out in hardcover too, so that helps, and there isn’t just one Joe to help to carry the costs.
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I have a contrary view, and need to provide background for it to make sense. I’m a reader, not an author nor in publishing. In high school, I read through the school library at about 50 books a month. There was a time when I had no money to spend on books, but at this time my limitation is the ability to find books I want to read. I’d read about 30 a month if I could find them, but instead I buy about 10 a month and spend much time re-reading the >1000 e-books I now have on my phone.
I was repelled by some of the drek I’ve bought on Amazon. I don’t know a good way to separate the pearls from the drek on Amazon, so I buy mostly from Baen and from recommendations from blogs like this.
As I see it there are two big issues with the indie model that will make it very hard for authors unless there is a solution, and soon.
For one thing, the ever-increasing volume of drek on Amazon will turn off many potential buyers, and certainly make it much more difficult to find the pearls. Unless the indie industry finds a reliable way to separate drek from pearls, it ultimately is doomed.
The other problem is that the lack of gatekeepers means there are more authors than can be supported. Even if we readers could go somewhere and be assured of finding pearls that are to our taste, there is only so many books that will be bought, and so much money that will be spent on books. Some readers limited by money, others by time, others by lack of interest .(compared to TV or movies or whatever). The drek just makes it worse, by hiding the pearls and discouraging potential buyers. The economy is weak, but that is not really the reason that so many authors with a wonderful list of books are struggling to make ends meet. The real problem is that there are probably 10 times more authors and 25 times more books on the market now than was on the market (in paper) in 1990. If there is a limited number of books bought and/or a limited number of dollars spent on books, and that is spread over 25 times as many books and 10 times as many authors, the authors go hungry. (Yes, the 10 and 25 are wild guesses.)
To put hard numbers on it:
Amazon has $5.25 billion revenue from books. (Per Forbes.)
Amazon brags it sells “millions” of titles; I couldn’t find a hard number.
For the sake of argument, if I assume 1.3 million titles, that means on average each title earns $4000/year. If that was distributed evenly, no new authors could eat and pay rent. In reality, a large chunk of that goes to superstars that eat well, the very good (but not famous) authors with a good list are struggling, and newer authors are being driven out by the need to earn money to survive.
Ultimately, for authors to eat, there will need to be some sort of reliable rating system, which will end up acting as gatekeepers. To maximize the amount spent on books, there needs to be some reliable way to determine what a book is going to be like, before readers spend time or money on it. And if there are reliable ways of finding the pearls, the best authors will eat well and the rest will be driven out of the market. And there truly is no other solution; it is not possible for all the authors now on Amazon to earn (from writing income) enough to eat. The problem is how to come up with a rating system that is accurate, reliable, and won’t be quickly corrupted.
I know this is not what authors want to hear, especially newer ones. But I think it is inescapable fact.
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There isn’t an ever-increasing volume of drek. Not compared to traditional.
You think traditional was a reliable system?
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To be clear, for a quarter million, I am thinking of the cost of…paying an author, editing the book, making a cover, printing the book, doing marketing (and I guarantee marketing is good at getting paid), and giving bookstores a cut, plus miscellaneous overhead. And guessing that each segment ends up with a similar cut of the gross. A quarter million may be high, but I suspect that 50k would be low.
Regarding the plight of authors, there are two demand curves shaping the market. The first is the normal reader, who is fairly easily saturated and has always had enough to read. The second is the voracious reader, who still doesn’t have enough to read.
The normal reader basically makes 10-12 authors rich.
The voracious reader keeps a lot of authors from starving.
Long-term, I suspect that Amazon’s lending library will result in an ever increasing pool of writers splitting a slowly growing pie. So, no, the midlist probably won’t be rich. Amazon will make money, most of the publishers will disappear, as will/have most bookstores. Authors will continue starving. But, on the bright side, voracious readers are better off. And the authors at least get to publish.
Personally, I just search for free ebooks and end up buying the rest of an author’s stuff if the first book doesn’t suck. Regarding editing, I suspect half the complaints are put up by out of work editors…I mean…honestly….I would trade a couple of dollars to transition between the usual semiprofessional edit of an indie book and the professional edit of a traditional book. Most indie books include that price break. Given the economics, I am fine with that.
Maybe I am not picky, but aside from one or two examples, the ebooks I have downloaded have been pretty representative of their reviews and worth reading.
–Erwin
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Oh…and re traditional publishing…yes yes ten thousand times yes. I have picked up such unmitigated drek at the bookstore… The reality is that amazon reviews are a better filtering mechanism than your average publishing house. Sigh. Not saying they are good.
Snark on. A reality, garnered from corporate employment, is that most corporations are, if anything, less functional than the federal government. This applies to publishers. Or really anything with several layers of management and some sort of competitive advantage. One reason I am cynical about privatization. Snark off. Sigh, I’d like to believe in something better.
–Erwin
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I’d really like to see a breakdown of where all that money goes that you’re talking about. I can’t come up with more than $75k (because the publishers don’t pay the bookstores a cut, the bookstores pay the publishers), and that’s using high numbers for everything, including a ridiculous number for, “miscellaneous costs”. You have a link that has that kind of breakdown?
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Except you’re overestimating the cost. If they charged every author the same, sure, but the copyeditors I got anywhere but Baen were interns and possibly unpaid. Cover… well, if they can use out of copyright they do. If not, I suspect they pay a thousand or a couple of thousands, most of the time. (Again, not Baen.) Cover design is also done by intern.
No, I don’t buy the quarter million. Rent of Manhattan office is NOT a necessary expense.
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There isn’t an ever-increasing volume of drek. Not compared to traditional. You think traditional was a reliable system?
The next evolution is going to be the “gatekeeper” Trusted reviewers etc.
Book of the Month Club was fulfilling its mission circa 1950.
I think its decline is as much a matter of lost focus as tech and social changes.
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Ah. My estimates are pretty approximate and based off of old posts on Charles Stross’s website + a plentiful helping of extrapolation and guessing.. I would be surprised to find they’re accurate. I’ve never found a good breakdown of costs for a ‘typical’ book. I’m guessing 50k in advance for the author, 50k in copyediting + overhead (based on 6 month estimates on Stross’s blog), 50k profit for bookstores (really floor space rental, a few dollars per book),, 50k printing and distribution cost,, and that somehow 50k goes out for marketing and bribing retail chains for decent placement. I’m assuming something like 10-25k hardcover sales for breakeven. This seems vaguely in-line with hardcover sales for successful books being in the 100k unit range and for most books not being terribly profitable. If anyone had better estimates, it’d be lovely. I occasionally try to figure out tipping points for print/ebook stuff when I’m bored, and decent numbers would be fun. There should be a pretty clear transition at some point where very successful authors can do better with indie than traditional publishing – not that they will – but the bargaining power will be immense – at that point – publishing stops being a hit-based business because the authors with hits just go indie.
What I’m hearing is that advances are smaller than that; that copyediting can be done by unpaid interns;(I’m a little skeptical, as I’ve heard that a good (presumably paid) editor can significantly improve a book…(and it is hard to hire anyone in Manhattan for much less than 40k a year, 80k with overhead…) and that printing and distribution costs are ‘less’ [but really, less than a few dollars per book?]. I’d be somehow surprised to find that marketing was low cost – but perhaps many books are just completely ignored. Does anyone know of a good place to find more accurate numbers? Still, with those assumptions, it is hard to come in much less that 100k.
–Erwin
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I simply can’t imagine $50k for copyediting. Think about what that means: If the copyeditor is making $100k per year, then one book would require his full time attention (the same book, 40 hours per week), for SIX FULL MONTHS. How could a book possibly take that much time? How could a publisher possibly function, requiring one editor for every two books per year?
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Not even close. Copyediting runs around 500 freelance. A good EDITOR might make 50 to 100k a year, but most mid-list books in houses other than Baen never get this.
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I’ve seen as low as … I think it was $350. And there’s someone out there who does cover art for a single price too. I don’t have that kind of money though so I make my own. ^^; and have the multiple hats of editor and all.
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yes. And remember, we stand ready to trade services.
We the broke, the lucky broke, we band of brothers (and let’s not forget sisters.)
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Oh yes, definitely that too.
Really need to get more covermaking skills under my belt, including photoediting and manipulating…
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Giggle. ROFL.
The midlister gets 10k IF HE’S LUCKY.
Yes, but the editors at the house don’t even READ midlisters. And I could tell you copyeditor tales.
Sorry. Your assumptions are wrong.
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Erwin your estimates are way off, the average advance these days for the midlist is between $5k and $10k. Copyediting most books don’t get. Actual editing, if you get it anywhere but Baen, runs $50k-ish a year for the editor.
For the midlist, and Stross is not midlist, there is no marketing the author does not do himself. There’s no copyediting the author does not do, and there’s very little developmental editing the Beta Readers don’t do for him.
Printing $50k? Unlikely for any book not a pre-determined best seller. Most print runs are in the 2k range copies in MMPB, maybe 1k in hardback.
I’d say the average book really costs more like $80k all up. MAYBE.
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I dunno about gatekeepers. See, I see publishers moaning about the lack of gatekeeping – but that’s really them moaning about losing control. Now sure, it is a useful function, but, really, the business has functioned without competent gatekeeping for the the last century. [Tell me you haven’t read some dreadful, dreadful stuff that sneaked past the editor. Heck, tell me that half the stuff at the bookstore isn’t bad.] Just Amazon’s rating system works ‘better’, in that I’ve had fewer instances were I needed to scrub my brain with bleach to eliminate a dreadful, dreadful story.
Now, sorters, that’d be lovely. There’s so much stuff on Amazon somewhere that I will probably never find. I can judge for myself. But it is hard to search for stuff I don’t know exists.
–Erwin
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Heh. For editing, I was assuming a 40k salary, with about 100% overhead – which is usually a reasonable guess. Experienced editors can make 100k. And authors talking about 6 months for editing…but maybe those editors work on 10/books at once. At 500 USD, I am guessing that amounts to a careful once through? Is 250k USD a wild overestimate for gross sales? Cause that is 10k or so hardcovers.
Oh, and other question – are midlisters profitable? – eg, stross seems to be making high 5, low 6 figures off of maybe 1-2 books a year. I was guessing he was high midlist? At <10k for a book, um, kinda brings the phrase starving artist into focus.
Still, traditional printing and distribution and bookstores do have appreciable fixed costs – so I'd expect that low volume titles lose money. Is there a known volume at which a book becomes profitable? If that is true, I'd expect that outlier books would pay publisher salaries and that the midlist would mostly be treated poorly, unless something sold well.
–Erwin
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Stross is not a midlister. Stross is what we call “one of the darlings.”
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Erwin,
Basically all your figures are out of whack and out of date, as is much of your understanding of the publishing industry. Here are a few items you might want to consider.
First, advances are not nearly what most people think they are. As Sarah said above, a mid-lister is lucky to get $10k right now and I guarantee you most will never see another dime. That isn’t necessarily due to actual sales but to publisher friendly contracts and the archaic and handwavium method of tracking sales through BookScan. If publishers were to open their books and let us see actual returns on sales vs. investment, you would probably see that they make more on their mid-list authors than on the best sellers. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that there are the exorbitant advances they pay some of their best sellers, although those are getting fewer and fewer. All too often those advances are never earned out.
But there is something else you are missing when it comes to mid-listers. These are the authors with a guaranteed audience. The publisher pretty much knows that they will sell X-number of books without having to invest much, if anything, into promotion, etc. The mid-listers are the backbone of the publishing house and the fact that the publishers don’t realize it speaks volumes.
The costs a publisher puts into producing a book aren’t nearly what you estimate either. As Sarah pointed out, after the initial print run, which is based on pre-orders (which is also how best sellers are determined), it pretty much goes to POD. This is of necessity since there aren’t as many brick and mortar stores and those stores aren’t ordering as many copies of books and they certainly aren’t keeping them on the shelves for as long as they used to. The shelf life for most books is now counted in weeks, usually less than four, before it is pulled and returned to the publisher or put on the deep discount rack. That’s just a way of life.
As for the publishers crying about the lack of gatekeepers, that is a two-edged sword for them. Actually, a three or four-edged sword. Some years ago, publishers gave up much of the gatekeeping responsibility to agents. That’s when the publishing houses started paring down the size of their editorial staff. It is also when almost every publishing house started requiring an author to have an agent before they would consider a book. Since then, agents have basically become the de facto acquisition editors for the publishers and then the editor, copy editor and proofreader. The problem with that is that agents aren’t editors. They might be all right as proofreaders and even copy editors but they are not editors.
And, yes, the publishers are scared of the new world of publishing and wish it would return to a time when they held all the power. But they missed their chance to remain at the forefront when they were so slow to adapt to new technologies. They missed it when they decided it was more important to promote the cause du jour than to sell books that people want to read. They missed it when they were so slow to adapt to the ebook revolution. And they miss it now when they continue to look at ebooks as nothing but a license they sell. Worse, they treat their customers like criminals and prove it every time they apply DRM to an ebook or when, like HarperCollins, they add digital watermarks to their ebooks.
But, as an author I have to say they missed the boat when they continued to tell us that they have additional, major additional expenditures in converting our books to ebooks. Not only no, but hell no. They don’t have to re-edit the book. They don’t have to have a new cover designed and made. They don’t have to re-proof the book. All they have to do is convert the base document to ePub and, if they feel like it, Mobi.
As for the promotion you seem to think the publishers do, well, they don’t. Gone are the days when they sent authors out on extended book tours. Yes, there are a few exceptions. But the reality is that they ask authors to do book tours and hand out promotional material and run contests, etc., but they want the author to do it on her own dime. When we are getting only pennies on the dollar for every sales made, that isn’t financially feasible.
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Amanda, while I have no experience in this, but I think I would disagree with you here:
The mid-listers are the backbone of the publishing house and the fact that the publishers don’t realize it speaks volumes.
From what you, Sarah, and Kate have said, I would say that they know this very well, but, like an abusive, yet worthless spouse, they keep telling you that you’re not worth anything, don’t do enough to be worth their time, and they are only keeping you out of the goodness of their heart, in order to keep you from leaving, by attacking your self esteem.
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Wayne, actually we’re both right. They do tell those they have kept just what you said. But they also don’t realize just how important those mid-listers are. If they did, they wouldn’t have done as much wholesale cutting of them as they have the last five years. That was their first line of defense against the shrinking profits, along with getting rid of much of their editorial staff.
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Ah. Good point.
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You know, this has occurred to me, for reasons I don’t wish to discuss in a public forum. I THINK personally that you’re absolutely right just like the “change your name” thing is a way to LIMIT your accumulation of fans (which otherwise happens anyway, through time) and keep you employed to milk you at a certain level.
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To analyse how Publishers view mid-listers, think in terms of how Wal-Mart views suppliers.
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The mid-listers may well be the backbone of the industry; from the Publishers’ perspective they are only so as a class. Individual mid-listers are fundamentally interchangeable components (and the Pubs will dang well strive to keep them so.) They are a commodity and it serves not the Pubs’ interests to build them into a brand.
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I will observe that the biz is run by the numbers nowadays. Which is, actually, an improvement. Before they could get the numbers, people got their advances and all based on their hype and connections, and boy did that produce grumbling.
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Mary — except the numbers are “bookscan numbers” which means they’re between 1/3 and 1/10th of real numbers, run through a tiltawhirl formula they won’t divulge (look, EXACT same numbers for sales, across different genres and publishers? Really? Calculate the statistical likelihood of that) and then “interpreted.” It’s still hype and connections and the “right” (left) politics.
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So, run by the numbers with added secret sauce?
Literature is part craft, part art, which means when you run it by the numbers you get the sort of results found in the sort of franchised boutiques you find vending “art” in shopping malls.
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Ah. much is explained. Firstly Stross is very much a pampered dahling – not a midlister. He works very hard at that, doing little visits with loot and ample effort and his best charm to publishers at least a couple of times a year on both sides of the Atlantic. His marketing/publicity spend will be about half his advances, which pushes the bill WAY up.
Secondly it’s very much – therefore – in his interest to plump the trad model.
Thirdly 10k hardcovers – depending on the week/time of year will put you on the NYT bestseller list. I gather its dropping steadily.
Fourthly 6 month to edit – well, um, no, that’s a get around to it figure. You can calculate the actual by taking the number of editors (and senior editors count for half, because they do a lot of other ‘stuff’ and number of books produced. And then subtracting ‘meetings’ – which according to a few ex-editors is about 2/3 of the time. Seriously 2 weeks solid editing would amazing. Finally art – I know a far number of artists from my time at Baen’s universe – 5K is top dollar for cover art – and some of them will 2-3 covers a month at that.
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