While the royalty rates and escalators got handled by the accounting department and would happen once the book went on sale, the marketing plan, the vision, and actual support of the book itself often got tossed out the window if the editorial team that bought the book left the company. Some new editorial directors, concerned more with their own careers than the books they inherited, would actively kill a line designed by their predecessor. (This has happened to me personally three different times—fortunately, in two instances, I was able to buy the book back from the publisher before publication.)
These things still happen on both large and small scales. A large-scale case hit the news just last week. Kaplan Publishing, which those of you who have taken the SAT test recognize for its ubiquitous test prep books, tried to add a trade line. The problem is that they did so right at the beginning of the economic collapse.
Kaplan reassessed, as good businesses do, and dropped the trade line this year, firing staff, and disbanding everything from editorial to publicity to sales. The problem was that no one told the authors. One author, Dr. Yvonne Thorton, with a major bestseller to her name (The Ditchdigger’s Daughter) had sold a book at auction to Kaplan, foregoing other companies that offered more money for Kaplan’s better promotion model.
By the time her new book came out, Kaplan had decided to abandon the trade line. By the time she noticed that her book had been published “dead” as the phrase goes, there was only one guy left in the trade arm’s office, and he couldn’t do anything. I suggest you read about this case if you ever think of going with a traditional publisher, because these things happen all the time.
Traditional publishing companies have a lot of inventory—books written by writers—and these publishing companies are dealing with the inventory as they would any other product. The problem is, that for the writer, the inventory, the product, might be the only thing they worked on for the past five years.
Folks, when any business has a term for something, that means the something is common. I’ve had at least a dozen books published “dead” either here or overseas. What happens is that the publishing company has decided to move away from that genre, or the editor left and no one picked up the slack, or the publisher has decided to quickly get rid of “excess inventory,” which your book is part of. The first time that happened to me, it happened at the end of the horror boom, and my publisher cut their horror line. They published my novel, co-written with Kevin J. Anderson, anyway, with a terrible cover and no support. They dropped the second book on the contract, returning it to us like bad fish.
The next time I had a book published dead, the editor had left, and the publisher loathed the replacement editor. The publisher decided to destroy the replacement editor’s career, and actively ruined the book line that the new editor was overseeing, so that the new editor could be fired. I managed to buy one book back from that debacle, but another got published dead right into the mess.
The most recent time I had a book published dead was with my novel Fantasy Life, part of Pocket’s aborted modern fantasy line. My novel was supposed to be a hardcover lead. By the time the book came out, the editor had been gone for nearly a year, the publisher had left, and the novel had no editor at all. No one in the house even knew the book existed. Some poor managing editor shepherded the book into print, slapped a bad cover on it, and didn’t even know that my contract and letters back and forth with the team stipulated hardcover first, with tons of promotion.
Once upon a time, back in the land of no choice, a writer had to do what she could to save her career when such things happened. She had to change her name or be savvy enough to see the handwriting on the wall and rescue the book before publication (usually by buying it back and canceling the contract) or find some other publisher to buy a bunch of books before the “dead” book came out, so that the other publisher would throw a lot of money in the mix to save the other books.
A lot of careers ended because writers didn’t know how to handle the situation above.
. . . .
I went over all of the royalty statements that I received from all of my traditional publishers. These statements covered the first half of 2011. Then, I chose to examine a statement closely from a publishing company whose royalty statements are accurate. This company is working hard to be transparent, which I appreciate.
The numbers I got from the company for my e-books are in the same ballpark as the numbers I have from WMG on the e-books under the same byline. I’ve seen other numbers which confirm that the numbers I’m getting from this company are accurate.
Using this royalty statement, I did a comparison of the amount of money I would have made if I had self-published the book compared with the amount of money I made because the traditional publisher published it. I did this for the e-book only.
Here was how I figured it: The traditional publisher put a $6.99 price on the e-book, but sold it at $5.49, which I would not have done. I would have used the $6.99 price, since the book was new. (I put backlist at $4.99; front list at $6.99.) The contract I signed with this publisher pays 15% of net on e-books, and I had an agent on the deal.
The time period was also short, a little over one month from the time the book came out to the end of the royalty period. That made the comparison very easy.
The sales of this e-book that month were no different from backlist titles by this byline. So the traditional publisher added no value on this e-book (for the front half of 2011).
It seemed like a good opportunity for a comparison. So I did the math. I was startled by the number that I came up with.
When all of the factors were taken into account, the traditional publisher paid me 10% of what I would have earned on my own had I published the e-book myself. At 70% of the cover price (from Amazon, etc), I would have earned about $800 on that e-book. From the traditional publisher, I got about $80 on the same e-book.
This frontlist book came out in the middle of the darkest part of the publishing downturn, as Borders disappeared (and wasn’t ordering), and Barnes & Noble hadn’t yet determined what they were doing with books. So the paper book only sold 5,000 copies.
Compare that with the first novel published under that byline, which came out more than 10 years ago. At that point, the first novel under that new pen name sold 30,000 paper books in its first month of publication. Different time period, different market, different company, and a completely different world.
Right now, we all—the traditional publisher and me as well—consider that shipment of paper books at that point in time, on an unusual book, a complete success, given the book’s advance and the expectations we all had. I should also note that I am happy with this company’s marketing efforts, its covers, and the penetration the company got into stores.
Still, that 10% e-book number bothered me, and made me ask the question: What could the traditional publisher do for me that I couldn’t do for myself?
I have some answers to that question, and I’ll be getting to those later on. But looked at from cold financial point of view—and with the expectation of an exponential growth in the e-book market—the traditional publishing route looks like a bad deal.
. . . .
In this new world, writers shouldn’t blindly choose between traditional publishing and indie publishing. Writers need to learn how to assess all the offers that come to them and then see what will benefit the writer the most.
Then the writer is going to have to do something most writers haven’t done in the past: the writer will have to negotiate.
Let me repeat that: The writer will have to negotiate.
That doesn’t mean that the writer must handle the actual back-and-forth herself. She can hire an intermediary, be that an agent or an attorney. But the writer has to control the negotiation herself, and make all the decisionsherself.
Why am I stressing that? Because the changes in the industry mean that agents at the moment have a different agenda than the writers they represent. The agent might not want a writer to say no to a $50,000 deal from a traditional company because the agent wants the commission. But if the writer does the book herself, the agent won’t get a commission (or shouldn’t—never give an agent a commission on a book you publish yourself. Ever.)
If the writer hires an attorney to do the negotiation for her, then she has to know what she wants from the negotiation. Because an attorney will only do what the client wants. The attorney makes recommendations, but never takes action on his own. (Unlike agents, who often make decisions without asking the writer at all.)
. . . .
And here’s the important thing: In this day and age, never ever ever sign a multi-book contract. The multi-book contract forces you and the publisher to stay together even if the relationship doesn’t work.
Writers have a lot of clout now because we can say no to a bad deal. We no longer have to take or leave what we get offered. We can not only walk away, we can walk somewhere else—and often, somewhere better.
The more of us who stay in traditional publishing and negotiate better contract terms, the more that will help the writers who decide to only publish traditionally.
Whether you want to go indie part time or not, you as a writer must now take a position of power. You need to negotiate from the position of power, not from the position of someone who is grateful for attention. Even if you never indie publish anything, this new world can benefit you—if you let it.