A Response to Kensington
A few days ago, we had a visit from Steven Zacharius, President and CEO, Kensington Publishing Corp., who responded to this post about a traditionally-published author who apparently got in trouble with her publisher because she revealed how little she was earning from her romances.
Among other things, Steven spoke about the important services his company provided for its authors/
Steven’s comments generated a lot of reponses, many of which disagreed with him. PG thinks this was the most commented-upon post that has appeared on TPV.
The following is a response to Steven that PG just approved.
Steven, I’m posting this anonymously because Kensington still has the rights to some of my books. I’m afraid that if you knew who was publicly stating this, you would retaliate by refusing the reversion I am owed under my contract.
The only reason I’m posting the information here is that my conversations with other Kensington authors assure me that at least 10 other authors could write this exact same post using this exact same language. I have altered a few items to obscure my identity, but I have not bent the underlying truth.
If you’re serious about everything you’ve said here, you don’t know what is going on inside your own company.
I requested reversion on the titles I have with you a long time ago. Your time to respond to requests under the terms of my contract passed months ago, and I have yet to hear from your legitimate publishing company despite my multiple attempts to get an answer.
I was published under the Kensington debut romance program. Your legitimate publishing company acquired my books without telling us that you were already planning to scrap the program and therefore no matter how my books performed I would not be getting a second contract.
My editor for those two books, John Scognamiglio, did not edit my books. The only response he gave to my second book was “Good.” I admit that I changed the one word I got from him here on the off chance that his single-word edit letter to me would identify me, but the friends I talked to who had him from an editor say that one to five words is the typical response he gave to their books. John is notorious among Kensington authors for not editing books.
You gave my books covers that were made from $10 pieces of stock art. The covers did not match the genre of the books.
The only reason I am not auditing my royalty statements is because it means my rights will revert to me sooner and I can start making real money off your titles.
Are you serious about wanting your company to be a legitimate publishing enterprise?
Go choose 10 random books from your catalog that John Scognamiglio has worked on and ask him to send you the edit letters he sent the authors. See how much deep editing he is really doing to make those books better.
Ask your royalty department to send you the royalty statements for all the books that sold less than 10 digital copies in the last six months, and then perform an in-house audit on those titles. (If you’re not performing in-house audits on your own royalty statements, how do you know they are accurate?)
Go tell your legal department that when a contract says they have X number of days to response to a reversion request, they should respond in no more than X number of days.
I wish you and traditional publishing all the best, but you are either lying on this page or do not understand what is happening inside your company. Neither bodes well for the long-term future of Kensington.
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases. 
Mr. Zacharius’ post is the one that prompted me to do my own Self-Publishing Survey. I’m a former Kensington author, also a part of its debut program. Kensington dropped me after my 2-book contract. Of course, at the time, I didn’t see anything good about that, but it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.
I self-published that book and quit my day job 2 months later and have been self-publishing since. I personally felt the book that I self-published (the one they turned down), was the best of the series. It’s sold more digital copies than either of the two books I have with Kensington and until November of 2013, it sold for $4.99. It’s now $3.99.
But my survey of what I call “822 authors serious about the business of writing and publishing their books for profit”, indicates that 48% of authors made MORE than $10,000 in 2013 self-publishing. The vast majority of the top-earners use editors with publishing backgrounds and professional cover artists and designers. They are not making this kind of money on shoddy work. Yes, there may be just a few at the top (the survey indicated 20 writers who earned over $500,000) but there a significant amount of these authors making a very good living self-publishing.
I can’t say I didn’t have great covers. I did. I really loved my editor because he was always available for me to speak to whenever I had questions or a problem. But I was an author who was dumped in his lap when my editor left the company. I know he must have been absolutely swamped. There were no revisions on my first book and a line or two on the second book. I’d like to think it was because my books were just that good. LOL. One can always hope.
However, my books were released a year apart despite the fact I turned them both in months apart. A year without another book for a debut author is an eternity. I promoed and marketed my butt off for my books because I was told I should expect zero promotion from Kensington besides the basics. In the end, my marketing did pay off but I’ve made 4 times the amount self-publishing than I did with both my Kensington books. And the only reason I’m making as MUCH as I still am for my Kensy books is because of my self-published books.
Self-publishing isn’t the evil form of publishing Mr. Zacharius believes it is. And I truly believe that until publishers can see the benefit in it, more and more authors will begin or continue to see that as their first choice.
Beverley Kendall
Bev,
I appreciate the data you’ve got here. I’d like to comment that your data indicates that the top 2.4% of authors (in your sample set) make more than $500,000. On Wikipedia, it says the top 2.6% of households in the US in 2006 (the data that’s available) were making $200,000 or more. The best I can find in a sixty-second search for 2012 says that $400,000 gets you into the top 1%.
If your data set is anything close to representing “serious” authors (a tricky definition on a good day, but I understand what you mean to communicate), self-published authors are, at the high end, out-performing the American public at large for income.
That’s NOT a small number. That’s HUGE!
It is a big number, Chloe. And these are authors, on the most part, who would NOT be making this kind of money with a traditional publisher. I know I wouldn’t be making what I am with my former publisher.
As for the survey, I put it out in all the places I knew where I knew self-pubbers congregated like Kindleboards, Yahoo loops, Absolute Write (they shut me down though), Romance Divas etc. And I know MANY of those authors shared it with as many self-pubbers as they could.
Bev, all I can about your survey is WOW! I think it shows a more complete picture of who’s doing what and why. Thanks!
Thanks, Suzan, and believe me, I didn’t think it would be that long a document. LOL. I like to think it gives a fair picture of how writers who are doing it seriously and for profit are doing.
Everyone should read this. It has much more valuable data than the other surveys I’ve looked at.
Thanks, Liana! I’ll be chatting about the survey at a couple places in the upcoming month where you can ask questions if you want. I’ll let you know when and where.
Read it! Thanks for saying exactly what you did, Liana. I was thinking: “Oh, I should probably track down the link. So many people are impressed by this survey and its results.” Your rec pushed me out of my foot dragging. Really interesting stuff! Bev, thanks for creating the survey and letting all us TPVers know about it!
You’re welcome, J.M. It’s funny but it was Mr. Zacharius who prompted me to do it. I wanted to do a post and needed to have a well-founded response with data to support it–or not. I’m glad the data I collected did support it.
I hope you do it again next year and we can get more people involved in providing data. I think you’re the first person I’ve seen who really asked the right questions.
I am planning on doing it again next year and also doing a comparison between 2013 and 2014.
I learned alot doing this survey and I think I can make next year’s survey better. To date, I’ve had over 4000 downloads, so I know there’s a lot of authors checking it out.
Please let PG know. You’ll probably get a lot of good info from his followers who would be willing to do your survey (like me).
Here, here! I agree whole-heartedly. As a self-published author, I am making many times what I made with Kensington.
Well, there goes any chance that I’ll ever publish anything with Kensington.
I think it’s pretty obvious that Kensington is merely protecting its interests. The problem for them is that we know better now and Zacharius is wasting his time trying to convert among some people who are not exactly happy customers to begin with. It’s a bad business strategy, but you can’t really blame him. He’s in the hot seat. The time to clean up these problems was years ago and now he’s tasked with trying to clean up the company image when there are already writers talking about experiences that strongly conflict with Zacharius’ PR campaign.
I hope more writers read these personal stories and decide to self-publish as a result. These publishers are not going to change until they’re forced to change.
This is going to sound cold, but by the time a company is actually forced to change, then that change is usually from “in business” to “no longer a going concern.”
To survive, the publishers need to proactively change the terms they offer authors.
If it isn’t already too late for them.
Liz I hate to tell you but I haven’t been on a publicity campaign. I’m proud of the authors we’ve published and I’m proud of the employees who work for us, almost 1/3 of them for over 20 years now.
Why is there no other CEO here in this forum? That’s what you should be asking rather than a few of you just trying to bash Kensington. Of course there are authors we let go. Their sales did not justify keeping them any longer. Contrary to what some people said when we cancel contracts and don’t publish a last book, which is very rare; we do not ask for the advance back.
I am not in any hot seat as you describe it. Our Company is doing better than ever. There have been Kensington authors here who have also complimented their experience with Kensington even though they are no longer being published by us. They included Kate Douglas and Deb Stover. Also I can’t begin to tell you how many people have emailed me privately to thank me for staying in the chat and being brave enough to take the trash that is being hurled.
I didn’t see the survey link that Bev mentioned. But I forgot, how many indie authors are there supposed to be? So we have about 400 authors who made more than $10,000? Is that good? What about the other tens of thousands? What am I missing?
Steve,
The question isn’t about the other tens of thousands because 99% of them would have been making nothing with a traditional publisher for the mere fact, they wouldn’t be able to get a contract.
The real issue is the authors who MAY have been able to get a contract, or who had a contract (like me) and are now making more money self-publishing than they ever did or ever could with a traditional publisher.
This isn’t about bashing traditional publishers because that is a route I’m glad I took and I won’t ever regret. You seem to be bashing self-publishing in your posts and it was your Huffington Post that prompted me to create the survey. Authors who are serious about writing and publishing for profit only care about the stats of authors who are like minded. They want to know what THOSE successful self-published authors are doing.
I would think that you, as a publisher who makes business decisions everyday to let authors go because it’s not financially beneficial to keep them on would cheer those authors who have gone on and done well for themselves no matter whether they are picked up by another publisher or decided to self-publish their work.
I understood when my editor told me they wouldn’t be contracting my option book that it was business and not personal. I would never hold that against him or Kensington. I made the business decision to self-publish and I’m happy I did. I would surely hope that my former publishing company would also respect that decision and not try to denigrate my work and HOW I choose to publish it.
Bev
PG, you have some dynamite posts today. It looks like it’s Slow Sunday, though. I hope people jump in and read them tomorrow.
+1
I’m glad you and Michael like them, Kathlena.
I was amazed when I saw the post leading back to the thread. I thought the “Why TradPub authors don’t reveal…” thread was done with a fork in it and when I wasn’t looking it blew up to 240+ comments.
Amazing thread with a lot of different snapshots on how people are doing and the state of the biz.
Big thanks to PG.
I read the OP, but there were only a handful of comments then, not the 247 there are currently.
Mr Zacharius starts out sounding sensible, but by this comment: 01/2014/why-authors-and-trad-pub-dont-reveal-authors-earnings/#comment-162474
… it’s starting to show that he’s been drinking the trad-pub Kool-aid. And he just keeps on digging. Well done to Marc Cabot, who managed to be polite throughout.
I think because Kensington is the only privately held publishing company in NY, they are much more frugal with their authors, especially the newbies. My advance was $2500 per book.
The way things are now, and because authors now have another choice–a potentially MUCH more lucrative choice–it’s more difficult to get authors to sign these kind of contracts anymore, even newbies.
There was a time when getting ANY contract was better than none at all. That’s simply not the case anymore. Thank God.
My first Kensington novel had a $40K advance and tons of publicity.
Kensington is not the only privately-held traditional publisher in the business.
Everyone’s mileage varies.
It is of the big ones in NY. Curious, were you a brand new author? Okay, you said you’ve been in the business for over 30 years so I’m going to assume when you went to Kensington you had a track record. And it sounds like you had a pretty decent one to get tons of publicity.
I’m not ripping Kensington. My experience with them was pretty good in comparison to some others. I really liked my editor and I got great covers. But I knew what to expect going in. I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking that in the debut program I was going to get any publicity or a 5 figure advance. I knew. They gave me my start and I’ll always be grateful to Hilary Sares for that.
That said, I’m self-publishing now and doing fairly well at it. I’m not sure why there’s so much acrimony coming our way. We are authors just trying to make a living doing what we love. If we can do it our former publishing companies that let many of us go should be saying ‘Kudos to you’!
I hate to correct you again but we get submissions from newbie authors every day of the week. I haven’t seen the slightest decrease in submissions. This is just more wild assumptions without any data to back it up.
Whoa. I managed to miss that. Should have checked back in, but I was busy trying to get some writing done.
Thank you for your compliments. For me, given the level of cluelessness being displayed, that was fairly restrained, but I was still afraid I was doing a disservice to our gracious host with my bluntness. Hopefully I managed to keep it in line.
I’ve been trying to finish a project this week and have skimming TPV, so like Iola, I only saw a handful of comments on the OP. I went back and read them today.
Holy crap on a cracker!
There’s definitely something wrong at Kensington for Steve Z., or any CEO, to send THAT MUCH TIME on any blog. I hoped he would answer some of Marc Cabot’s questions, but wasn’t surprised he didn’t.
I’m just speaking for myself, but there’s a reason I self-publish–I enjoy it! I love learning new things. I’m having fun designing my own covers. That’s a factor that a lot of folks, both indie and trad, leave out of the equation.
That’s what I’m wondering about! Why is he? Because he came across as someone trying to convince us that Kensington is wonderful, not as someone genuinely curious about the indie publishing neck of the woods.
Has one of his bestsellers declined to offer her latest book to Kensington? She’s self-publishing instead?
Did an bevy of debut authors just walk away from the poor contracts they were offered during negotiations? Saying they preferred to self-publish?
Probably neither of those. But, boy am I curious! Something’s going on!
That question occurred to me, as well. There is an old proverb that goes something like:
First they ignore you.
Then they call you names and tell you how wrong you are.
Then you win.
We seem to be somewhere in stage 2 now.
I felt a strange sort of pride when he dismissed my blog as misleading, by refuting stuff that I didn’t say and then ignoring what I did say. It represents some kind of progress.
Just for the record, I do appreciate his willingness to engage with this community.
As do I. I thought he was earnest and polite throughout all the exchanges, unless I missed something.
And he’s not anti-SP, just pro-Trad, as we should expect.
“I felt a strange sort of pride when he dismissed my blog as misleading, by refuting stuff that I didn’t say and then ignoring what I did say”
Yeah. I think there was a lot of that mixed in there. Could have been the congestion of the thread. Maybe not.
Regardless, the endless parading of pro-trad/anti-SP memes to support his arguments as trad being the premium choice got very tiresome to read. It was like watching a giant game of wack-a-mole.
As I said elsewhere on this topic; someone who deals in the Romance pub biz and claims to know “both sides” should be able to rattle of the names of the dozen or so indie Rom/E-rom authors who are simply killing it right now and not dismiss their existence as hearsay. Shouldn’t their names should be on his bathroom mirror as “MUST ACQUIRE” anyway?
But recognizing that wouldn’t have supported half of his arguments.
About a year ago, I heard from trad published friends that submissions were down at Harlequin and Ellora’s Cave. And what was being submitted wasn’t of the normal quality. My guess is the same thing’s starting to happen at Kensington. And I do know one person who walked away from writing completely rather than accept her last contract from Kensington.
Of course, this is anecdotal, and I don’t work at Kensington.
I-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g!
I wonder if non-big-5 publishers will experience this decrease in submissions sooner than the really big guys? Or if the really big guys ever will experience it? Interesting times, for sure!
It seems quite likely that the larger PH will experience it more slowly than the smaller ones, since people will likely continue to submit to houses that publish the books that they read, and by the numbers it’s more likely they read books from larger PH.
It’s just that after rejection from the larger PH, instead of buying Writer’s Digest and doing the Long March of Rejections, they’ll say, “Hey, maybe I could just publish this thing myself. All the cool kids are doing it.”
The end is going to come with shocking (to the publisher) suddenness. One day, there will simply be no submissions.
The first public sign is showing up now. Traditional publishers are starting to actively solicit submissions. Expect them to become increasingly desperate in doing so.
Expect 2014 to result in no more than two large legacy publishing houses. The others will disappear through mergers, buyouts and shutdowns. It might happen within the next six months.
I suspect the submissions will still pour in, but the quality won’t be able to compete with what the independents are putting up on KDP.
Well it’s good for writers, at least that submissions are down. It’s great to have a choice. If Harlequin and Ellora’s Cave decide the numbers are too low, then they’ll have to figure out a way to attract writers again. And that’s the way it should be.
I assume that he is engaging with self-publishers for PR, for the same reasons authors try to connect with readers. I actually don’t think this is a bad idea. Mr. Z is quickly becoming quite known.
The problem that I see here, is that Mr. Z was trying to debate about the thing he doesn’t know much about and that he tried to represent his company in best light, not counting on authors to share their experience with his company in public.
It was interesting to me his reaction on Anonymice’s claim and how different he reacted on Sasha White’s, even though they were both basicly saying the same thing.
I think that now when self-publishing is losing its stigma, publishers who can only offer validation, a small advance and a little editing beyond proofreading, no matter how nice their editors and CEO are, are going to face some hard times.
Agreed. I don’t go back to look at posts once they’ve dropped off the first page. I have to manage my time somehow, and that “rule” usually works. I had no idea!
Agreed that Marc did a great job here with Mr. Kensington Books. I’m still catching up.
“There’s definitely something wrong at Kensington for Steve Z., or any CEO, to send THAT MUCH TIME on any blog. I hoped he would answer some of Marc Cabot’s questions, but wasn’t surprised he didn’t.”
There’s a more innocent possible answer to that — which is that once you get involved in a heated online debate with people saying things you disagree with, it’s really tempting to stay on for a really long time, responding to arguments. It’s happened to me many a time. I don’t suppose CEO’s of publishing companies are immune to that effect either.
You may be right, Livia. And if so, his reaction concerns me even more.
Before I retired, I did my fair share of p***ing off the other side in order to get them to make a mistake. But I don’t see this as a situation where someon deliberately baited him. If he’s losing it over an indie-centric blog talking about a post from one of his authors after he ordered that post taken down, especially with the anti-indie vitriol he spewed on HuffPo recently, I have to question what’s really going on over at Kensington.
Yes Suzan there’s something wrong with me for trying to give my opinion and answer questions that were posed to me. If I didn’t answer any of Marc’s questions it’s just because I overlooked them. I have nothing to hide about our publishing program or traditional publishing in general. I thought I answered most of his questions. Sorry to disappoint you. Suzan, there is no decrease in submissions and most newbies are indeed turned down because we didn’t like the writing or story. That’s just a fact of life. Suzan what post did I order taken down? You have thrown out so much misinformation that it is shocking. I didn’t order any post taken down. If you’re talking about the blog on the other site that I said I didn’t do; it’s because I was answering from my Huffpo article and replying from there; not directly from her blog. I had never ever been on her blog site.
And this, ridiculous as it seems at first, is one of the reasons attorneys tell their clients to keep their mouths shut. Because no matter how good your intentions, no matter how simple it would first appear to rebut what you think is arrant nonsense… this happens. He couldn’t follow the First Law of Holes, and he dug himself halfway to China.
I can’t tell you how many times I have told a client exactly that: “I don’t care how wrong they are: they haven’t said anything which is legally actionable and they will eventually get bored. But if you respond, you might do yourself a small good or you might – probably will – end up legitimizing their argument and making yourself look bad. These things blow over. Let the wind do its work.” Once or twice I’ve even advised a Duke of Wellington strategy, though that is only for very particular kinds of clients.
(If you’re not familiar with the DoW Gambit: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rear-window-when-wellington-said-publish-and-be-damned-the-field-marshal-and-the-scarlet-woman-1430412.html)
Now obviously if they do say something legally defamatory, or otherwise put the client in the position of needing to respond, that changes things. This wasn’t that kind of case. While Mr. Zacharius is obviously not stupid, in my humble opinion he did not do himself, or his company, any favors in publicly brawling with people who wouldn’t hesitate to call him on his (quite likely innocent) provably false understandings and assertions.
Such an excellent post and the comments are truly enlightening. A big fat thank you for this one as well as the last one.
I think one thing that is clear reading both posts, is that publishing is not an egalitarian business, nor should anyone expect it to be. It makes perfect business sense to invest more money and effort on those projects you expect to be more lucrative. It is also clear that no two authors experience the same journey in publishing, whether traditional or Indie. Some traditionally published authors get lots of help and support, others not so much. The same is true with indies. Some people spend a fortune on covers, editing and promotion, only to end up selling a handful of copies a month, others spend hardly anything, have badly formatted and edited books, yet sell hundred of copies a week. Equality and fairness does not exist in publishing, no matter what route you take.
“I don’t know of any publishing company CEO from a respectable firm that doesn’t think it’s editors are its most valuable resource.”
“Editors are any publishing companies most valuable asset.”
“A CEO who doesn’t respect their editors is not doing their job properly.”
Mr. Zacharius could use an editor.
Snarky but unfair, Barron.
These are fast & furious blog comments, not pro writing. And he’s not here as a writer
The content of the discussion is more valuable than our grammar.
C’mon Barron, pointing out typos in comments is not the most constructive thing to do.
If I were on any public forum in my capacity as CEO of a publishing company, fast and furious or not, I would proof my comments. Your mileage may vary. Point taken.
Yes I could use an editor. But then, I’m not a writer. I was answering questions that were being fired fast and furious and off the top of my head.
I don’t know if the Kensington CEO posts and their responses make me feel justified or just, well, sad.
I had the exact same experience with another publisher, and I had hoped I was alone (along with those other unfortunate authors). But it appears no editing and crap/cheap covers are the cancer of traditional publishing.
“That’s what I’m wondering about! Why is he? Because he came across as someone trying to convince us that Kensington is wonderful…”
Glad I’m not the only one flummoxed by that.
Just for argument, let’s say he’s inflating his company’s stats (and I have no reason to believe he is) that’s still tens of millions in sales which has to come from hundreds of successful releases. And if he’s involved at the level that he describes, he’s one ridiculously busy (and filthy rich) publishing boss.
I, for one, would not give a RATS ASS what anyone said about me or my company on some indie biz blog, no matter how popular, no matter if good or bad. Honestly, I don’t give a sh!t because I’m too busy finding my next hundred titles and making my next ten million.
Perplexing indeed.
I don’t know that that’s true. If you run a business and you’re smart, you’re always looking out for things that could disrupt that business or harm that business. You also care how your business is perceived by the public. In this case, indies are the public. The blogs have been criticizing traditional publishing for quite a while now. It’s totally normal that publishers are starting to come out and defend their business. It’s just astonishing how bad they are at it. They simply don’t make good arguments for the value in what they do and that may be because most of them don’t offer very much value to regular writers. For their rock stars, they certainly do, but for the average mid-list writer? Not so much. Publishers are being forced to be more transparent these days because their writers are talking. The more writers talk, the more things will have to change.
Actually, you would be surprised. I have seen C-suite people from companies as large or larger than Kensington work themselves into a froth over some random comment on a web site somewhere and scramble whole teams of damage control for the most ludicrous things. Sometimes people overreact.
Fortunately it is rare: people with that level of responsibility usually take it seriously. But everybody has their off days.
DL apparently you don’t understand that I take pride in a family owned business of 40 years that is the only large remaining independent publishing company left in the country. I didn’t inflate stats. We share our info with AAP on sales on a monthly basis.
Joe Konrath posted his answers to Steve.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/01/questions-from-steve-zacharius-ceo-and.html
Yup. Curious to see if Steve shows up.
He has, but says his responses are too long for a comment. Joe said he’d post Steve’s answers.
He did show up. You have to respect him for that. I do.
As CEO of a traditional publisher, he’s doing the smart thing by engaging with the self-publishing community and having two-way discussions like this.
Even if his primary motivation is industry “reconnaissance” (and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just smart), then the conversation still benefits everyone involved.
It would be far easier to hide behind a desk while the traditional publishing industry melts down around him.
I suspect that’s what the Big-5 will do, but let’s see.
In Kensington’s case, they don’t have a corporate parent to lean on. I hope Steve really listens. He’s got the perfect opportunity to change now before it’s too late.
It may already be too late.
Traditional publishers died the day Amazon opened KDP up to self publishing. They just haven’t fallen over yet.
It’s logical that smaller houses like Kensington will feel the impact first, because quality submissions will dry up at smaller houses first.
Think about what we’re seeing here as the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
Trad publishers completely discounting indies is no different from indies completely discounting trad publishers. Both extremes are incorrect.
I’m not discounting anyone.
Just sharing my observations based on what I saw happen in a very similar space (mobile gaming) once self-publishing platforms opened up.
Go check the best-seller lists on the iPhone App Store – a market that dwarfs Kindle – today.
How many of the Top-100 games (some earning $100,000+ a day) are by the “traditional publishers” (EA, Activision/Blizzard, Disney, Warner, Sega) of the game industry?
*waits*
That’s what I thought.
To be fair, most of the big traditional game publishers wouldn’t even get out of bed for $100,000 a day.
And… I wrote this before my coffee.
I meant $100,000 per hour, which is what indie developer Supercell earns with Clash of Clans. At least, that was what they were earning when Softbank bought 51% of the two-year-old company for a valuation of 3 billion.
Which is why EA, Warner, Disney, etc. folded or reorganized their mobile game publishing divisions and turned their attention to greener pastures when indies like Rovio, Supercell, etc. pushed them off the mobile game best seller charts.
What had been a profitable-but-small side business for them had suddenly become unprofitable.
But the reason it became unprofitable for “big game publishing houses” was that indie developers were no longer willing to hand over their games to be published by EA or Activision for a 50/50 split, because the indies were making more money on their own.
Think Angry Birds, Clash of Clans, Temple Run, etc.
Paul we are still getting plenty of quality submissions. It’s a shame that we can’t publish them all. We have limited time and resources. We try and select the books that will be the most profitable for our Company.
“Is your long-term business plan centered around hoping for writers to remain naive?”
And to keep subscribing to Writer’s Digest, so they *know* the only options are to get an agent or vanity publish. (There are some good writing articles in WD. But there are a lot of misleading ads.)
“But in a day and age where the average author advance is still $5k, is paying $6k for cover art really a wise business move?”
Ouch.
“I did read one author on PG’s blog who got a $2500 advance from Kensington. I made that much last Saturday.”
Double ouch.
“What I said was that in MY perfect world that self-published books would be separated from books that were done by traditional publishing on websites so that the reader can make an informed choice as to what they’d like to buy.”
Actually, we can already do that. Amazon tells us the publisher. Anyone who cares can work out whether that’s a self-publisher, small press, Big 5 or whatever.
“Large print? Wasn’t that a format that used to exist before you could adjust the font on your Kindle? ;)”
Yep.
Ouch indeed, especially about the $2500. I cringed when I read that. But…after reading it, it kind of makes you think that publishers may end up only having value to the rock stars in their industry. The smaller writers would be better off self-publishing since they’d probably be able to keep more of their money. Of course traditional publishing couldn’t survive in its current form if they only had the rock stars to publish. Bookstores would only have one shelf. They’d have to experiment with carrying mostly self-published titles (if the readers even want print books).
It’s g
I received $2500/book from Kensington when I contracted with them. Yeah, it isn’t a lot of money but, oh boy, back then I was just happy to have been contracted. Delirious.
Now things have changed–Thank God–and authors don’t HAVE to entertain those kinds of offers anymore. We now have another choice. THANK GOD!
Our average advance is not $2500 or $5000. We have authors that are paid way way more than that. Many in the hundreds of thousands of dollar range as an advance. We have contracts that in total are well in excess of six figures as well. Remember we’re taking the risk that the book will earn out.
They only know their writing grossed $100m annually, and they only earned $8m. If they sold $100m worth of ebooks, they could have earned between $35m and $70m.
Oh, ow. That’s going to leave a mark. That is really, really hard to answer.
I’m sorry but I’m missing where “their writing grossed $100,000 annually and only earned $8000 is coming from”.
As a former Kensington author, also still waiting to get my rights back, I will chime in here with my experience.
When my agent sold my first two books to Kensington in 2007, I was thrilled. This was it! I was so excited to be taken on by a publishing house that had publicly stated that it worked to grow every one of their authors’ careers (as they proudly proclaimed at their RWA National “Spotlight on Kensington” showcase).
Okay, the advances were low (my agent earned her keep by bumping up a little bit from the standard 2500 per book Kensington was paying). But that was all right, as some other authors assured me that the royalties would quickly outstrip the advances.
Unfortunately, I sold into a dying line – the Zebra Debut program, which was in its last throes. But nobody bothered to tell the authors or the agents that. Instead, a very small percentage of the authors who were acquired were offered continuing contracts – the ones that sold the best. And not the ones that sold the best TO READERS, either. The authors who were renewed were the ones that got the biggest print run orders from the chain buyers. Not the one who sold out her print run, or the ones that picked up RITA nominations and critical acclaim (of which there were several).
It was a surprise to find out that the “nurturing” promised by the publishing company was NOT, in fact, for all their authors. Just the ones who had “good numbers.” Basically, the Debut program was a way to test the waters with a small commitment, and pick only those few authors who hit certain target numbers. Nothing personal. Purely business. I was not one of those authors, despite the fact that orders increased for my second book and my print run went UP (thanks in part to an actual historical-looking cover). My career was moving in the right direction, but not fast enough. At the time I was disappointed and bewildered, especially because I’d *bought* the line that the publishing house was truly behind the careers of all their authors.
Editing. ZERO content editing on both my books, which was true of the vast number of Zebra Debut authors acquired at that time. I did get light copy edits, and the standard page proofs. My acquiring editor left Kensington during the publication process of my second book. She sent an e-mail on a Friday afternoon to all her authors, informing everyone it was her last day on the job, and telling them which editor they had been assigned to. Yes, she was one of the senior editors…
Cover. At one point, the Debut program had good success with a certain type of cover treatment (mostly-naked people). However, the market moved on, and the covers did not keep up. My debut Victorian-set historical has a cover that would look well enough on a contemporary romance, with a modern-looking guy – but people are always *very* surprised when I tell them it’s a historical. (http://www.amazon.com/Passionate-Zebra-Debut-Anthea-Lawson-ebook/dp/B0041OT994)
In 2012, I was informed that both my books were being remaindered – the leftover stock sold to discounters or slated to be pulped. So, my books are no longer available in mass-market paperback, except for a few stashed in the back of Amazon’s warehouse, and on the used market.
My most recent royalty statement for that first title, sales from Jan-June 2013, was … $10. Yep, in six months, ten bucks to me – which means Kensington managed to make about $100 in that period on that book.
I have asked for the rights back on that title, but Kensington (under the terms of my contract) has them until October 2015. My request for early reversion was denied. I will keep asking.
I recently self-published the option book Kensington turned down (Sonata for a Scoundrel – http://www.amazon.com/Sonata-Scoundrel-Anthea-Lawson-ebook/dp/B00FJNPJMW). In the first two months of release, I made over $3k in royalties from that title. Probably the amount of the advance I would have gotten from Kensington! I hired Kim Killion to design a fabulous cover, hired a terrific editor who works for some top-notch small presses, an excellent copy-editor, and a final “Oops Detection” service, not to mention great beta readers who caught various typos and provided good feedback along the way.
In my experience, my self-published books get better covers and editing than I received from Kensington. And NOBODY cares as much as I do about the success of my title. Yes, going indie is not for everyone – it’s a lot of work. But the rewards are tremendous. And I’m not talking financially here. I don’t have to smile gamely and suck it up when presented with a cover/title/back-cover blurb that don’t fit my book at all. I get to pick and publicize various promotions that fit my title. I get real-time data on my sales, and monthly paychecks!
I do have to thank Kensington’s foreign rights department. Without the sale of my first book to Japan, I would not even have earned out the advance on my first book. And sometime next year I’ll get the second half of the payment for German rights on my second book. So, woohoo! Foreign rights sales to a couple countries did manage to make my authorial earnings on those books go up to about 5k a book.
And I’m grateful for the peek behind the curtain of traditional publishing. I get to be an experienced author, and REALLY know how I benefit from my choice to go indie.
I also take my hat off to Steve Z. for venturing over here and responding to comments. And I echo Debra Holland’s earlier comments that Steve actually talk to some AUTHORS about their experience publishing with Kensington. Not just the “stars” either, but some of the newly acquired authors – and the ones whose contracts are *not* going to be renewed. Their input might surprise you.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Anthea.
Thanks to the brave Steven Zacharius, President and CEO, Kensington Publishing Corp., for having gone rogue- re his speaking his truths re how he sees the scene at present. I can think of as many CEO’s who certainly have the time, but who consider dialogue with indie authors ‘beneath’ their station. Thanks SZ for a window unpainted over.
I wish there were many more windows from/into the various personalities in trad pubs. From this very preliminary dialogue by Joe K. and SZ [that I'd love to hear the dialogue in audio, rather than have it edited in a post, so can hear the actual back and forth in raw] I see there is some Venn overlap in the hopes for reaching readers, the ways and means differeing. But that Venn overlap may make for opportunity for indie authors with trad pubs from time to time, for trad pubs to develop new division to take on part or all of mortar distrib and promo with no need for edits or covers etc [as those for ebooks, epub and often POD are already done by indie authors]–
Just my .02, I think it bodes well if all concerned will continue to teach each other about their own evolving points of view. With civility. That last being the basis for thoughtful exchange ongoing. And evolution of thought not belonging by fiat to only one side. But to all concerned, and… the time for evolution of sight and thought to occur ought be granted to others, just as it is granted to oneself.
Pax.
I have a long-ass comment in moderation, detailing (perhaps unwisely, since I don’t have my rights back yet) my experience with Kensington.
Stay tuned…
Which thread? This one or the other? (Just to make sure I won’t miss it!)
Anthea I think you should also share that your rights from Kensington are not even due back yet.
Mr. Zacharius, Anthea did actually specify that the rights reversion isn’t due until 2015, and that she had asked for early reversion.
My question is, what is the point of hanging onto the publication rights for a book that is part of a dead line, that has been pulled out of the market and most of the existing physical copies pulped? If Kensington isn’t going to do anything with Anthea’s book (a not-unreasonable expectation), why not revert the rights to her?
Every time I asked for a reversion of rights, Kensington reissued the books with new covers. Hardcover, trade, mass market, and no e-book formats.
I have plenty of gripes about publishers–I’ve been in the business over 30 years, so of COURSE I do–but my treatment by Kensington has been good from the beginning. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I have to be truthful.
FWIW, Steve Z has always made use of social media to discuss publishing, beginning with the GEnie bulletin board well before Zuckerberg even attended college, let alone stole the Facebook concept. There is nothing whatsoever significant about his posting here. He’s into social media, just as many of us are.
Just in case folks haven’t noticed, Zacharius has responded directly to the comment quoted in this post on the original thread.