# Is Traditional Publishing an Increasingly Bad Deal?



## Steerpike

Yes, says the Society of Authors in the UK.

Notable from this story, the median _annual_ income for a professional writer in the UK is Â£11,000. That's abysmal.

Publishers are still making money, but they're doing less for authors for the relatively small amount most authors are seeing in return. 

One has to wonder whether for most authors it even makes sense to pursue the traditional route anymore. At the very least, it seems like it would be best to at least try the self-publishing route to begin with, and then go after a hybrid model if you're successful.

Traditional publishing is 'no longer fair or sustainable', says Society of Authors | Books | theguardian.com


----------



## psychotick

Hi,

Interesting. But some important things to note about the stats - they include journalists etc - this isn't just about authors. And I would guess the average journalist in employment earns a lot more than 11,000 ponds and many are only part time.

Also those who aren't considered are those who aren't members of these various professional bodies. They weren't surveyed. And most of them probably earn a lot less.

My 2c, it has always been a rough road trying to make a living as a writer - particularly a novelist - and self publishing has offered an alternative route to financial rewards. But for most of us we were never going to get rich from it. Hopefully we were going to get our work out there, achieve our goals as writers that way, and keep our day jobs.

Cheers, Greg.


----------



## deilaitha

psychotick said:


> And I would guess the average journalist in employment earns a lot more than 11,000 ponds and many are only part time.



Britain is peculiar. In America, we are paid in money, not small bodies of water.


----------



## TWErvin2

The thing is, as I read it, those that are self-publishing are earning even less than those with the publishers.  In another example, it takes the author so long to write because she's working basically two other jobs, so her earnings from writing are not substantial. 

Part of the reason that the publishers are earning more is because the advances are down, except for the celebrity types.

As self-publishing becomes more and more viable, the traditional publishers will have to adjust. If not, the quality of what they have left to publish, and their ability to compete will slip.


----------



## stephenspower

I don't understand when people suddenly decided they could make a real living as an author. 

The number of fiction authors who can support themselves on their books is, as it has always been, a vanishingly small fraction of those who have their books published. I think Vonnegut once said there were 10 that he could think of. Imagining one can do otherwise is no more realistic than buying a Powerball ticket and setting up a trust for your kids before the drawing. 

As Glen Cook put it in an interview:



> Q: When you set out to be a writer, did you ever think you'd be as popular as you have been? Did you see it as something you could make a living at?
> 
> A: Popular? If I am, it's gotten past me. And make a living? No. Even in my best years of the first thirty it was never more than hobby money. The last maybe five I've made enough to support myself in genteel poverty. Certainly not enough to support a family and put three sons through college.



Think of it this way: the median family income in America is around $50,000, as it has been since the '70s (which shows how pathetic and decadent America has become despite all its ipods and streaming video, but that's another discussion). Let's say an author has to pull half the weight in the family because it takes two now to earn what one earned in the '70s (another indication of how pathetic, etc.). To earn $25,000 in sales from a traditional publisher in which 35% of sales are ebooks (a reasonable approximation), the author would have to sell about 5500 $25 hardcovers and 1800 ebooks);  10,500 $15 trade paperbacks and 3500 ebooks; and 17,000 $8 mass markets and nearly 5700 ebooks. That's your year one, which is what most publishers base their numbers on; they might put a token figure in their p&l for year two or paperback.  I sat in a lot of postmortem meetings at Avon in the '90s, and I can tell you, those numbers were tough to hit even back then, even for World Fantasy Award winners. For every Ray Feist, there were 10 books that maybe did 10,000 in mass. Today, with orders cut to the bone to save on inventory (Amazon doesn't order very many copies up front, their entire business being built on reordering from distributors when they need inventory), I have to imagine those modest numbers are harder to hit. 

Let's look at it from the self-pub side. To make that same $25,000 on a $5 ebook for which the author gets a 35% royalty, the author would have to sell around 14,250 copies. How many self-pubd titles do that? How many authors, compiling the sales of all their titles, make that? And if they do after how many years of not making that?

That's the living of publishing. You don't go into it for the money. You go into it because you can't imagine not doing it. I just sold my first story to Daily Science Fiction. It's 109 words including the title. I'm kicking myself because, had I not cut it to the bone as a challenge to get as close to 100 as possible, had I left in just 4 more words, my payment would have enabled me to afford a sofrita bowl at Chipotle. That said, I'm overjoyed. I published poetry for a decade. My total sales: $40 from one sale recently. 

It's not much different on the other side of the desk, either. The starting salary for an editorial asst is around $30,000 now. It was $17,500 when I started 20 years ago, and St Martins paid their assistants even less, $16,500.

As to advances, they're down because orders are down, so the year one projections that advances are based on are also down.


----------



## Steerpike

For a five dollar ebook, you get 70% royalty, at least through Amazon. Still a fair number of books you have to sell, though. Given the breakdown, does traditional make more sense than self-pub?


----------



## stephenspower

I checked that royalty. It's now only 70% in a few countries.



> Digital Books enrolled in KDP Select will be eligible to earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India. The List Price you set for Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India must also meet the 70% List Price requirements for sales to customers in these territories If your Digital Book is not enrolled in KDP Select or you do not meet the 70% List Price requirements, you will earn 35% royalty.



Re trad v. self, that's a business decision: what chores do you want to off-load on another for an advance you might never earn out and royalties you would thus never see v. what chores do you want to contract for yourself so you can make more in the future to offset your upfront costs. Either way, though, on the issue of making a living from books, it's extraordinarily difficult.

Well, there's one way to do it. I was on a panel once with Kai Bird. His book (the Oppenheimer one, I think) was 15 years late. He'd long since burned through his advance. An audience member asked, "How do you support your writing them?" He said he got regular cash infusions from the Laura Fund. The moderator said, "What's that?" He said, "My wife, Laura. She's a doctor."


----------



## Steerpike

No, it is 70% for books that meet the list price requirement ($2.99 or higher, in the U.S., for example). That's the standard royalty rate from Amazon. The countries mentioned above are the _exceptions_, where you also have to be enrolled in KDP Select to get the 70%.


----------



## stephenspower

OK. My bad. So a self-published author has to sell 7000 or so copies, but I forgot the initial outlay for editing, cover design, etc. If that's, say, $1000 (which doesn't include the cost of time) then s/he'd have to sell 7300 copies to make his/her nut and cover that cost. So my question is, how many self-pubd books sell that well at that price? I'd add that if the books were sold for $2.99, then the author would have to sell 12,500 copies year one to make $25,000 and recoup the $1000 outlay. Same question, of course. 

And there's another question: How many authors are willing to give up their careers to make only $25,000?


----------



## psychotick

Hi,

The economics of it is a difficult thing for  an indie. Yes on a five buck book an indie should get 70% on almost all his sales of which the US and the UK are the big markets. So that's $3.50 a book. Simple math tells us that's just over 7,000 copies.

But here's where it gets tricky. The indie needs services. Some do them themselves, most pay. So that comes down to three main expences. Editing which can be anywhere from $500 to $2000, a cover design $100 - $500, and marketing which is anyone's guess. So he's got to sell a few more to cover that.

But, to cover that, the indie is not limited to producing books at a glacial pace. Four books a year is not uncommon. 

So lets assume our indie manages that, produces four books a year and for the sake of easy maths, his costs on each book are $2,500. Now we need for our indie to cover $25,000 profit and $10,000 expences with four books. That's 10,000 total sales or 2,500 sales per book on average.

That's doable. Most of my fantasies and sci fi's sell around 2000 copies within a year of first being published. (If I could stop wasting writing time on Christian fiction, urban fantasy and shorter works, I'd be there. Damned muse - I need to punish her sternly!)

Cheers, Greg.


----------



## PaulineMRoss

stephenspower said:


> Re trad v. self, that's a business decision: what chores do you want to off-load on another for an advance you might never earn out and royalties you would thus never see v. what chores do you want to contract for yourself so you can make more in the future to offset your upfront costs.



It's really not as simple as that. Trad publishing is not something you choose, you only choose to submit your work to agents and/or publishers. Then THEY get to decide whether to take a punt on you. It's less a business decision than a dream you pursue. A matter of the heart, not the head.

Self-publishing, on the other hand, is very much a business decision. You get to make all the decisions: what work you can do yourself, for no cost beyond your time, and which has to be paid for, and if so, exactly how much to pay. Then you can assess the likely return on that investment. It's perfectly possible to put out a self-pubbed book at zero cost, by doing everything yourself, or trading with other authors, or calling in favours from talented friends. Then you're in profit after one sale.


----------



## stephenspower

> It's really not as simple as that. Trad publishing is not something you choose, you only choose to submit your work to agents and/or publishers. Then THEY get to decide whether to take a punt on you. It's less a business decision than a dream you pursue. A matter of the heart, not the head.



I agree with you in the sense that some people don't want to be authors. They want to be chosen. They usually aren't. 

But I disagree that selling a book to a traditional publisher isn't a business decision. It's just one an author's not entirely in control of. It's no different than seeking outside funding for a business. You trade control for other assets. As George RR Martin says in a new interview with Buzzy Mag:



> My concern is with Westeros and the world and the characters and telling the best story I can. And then I turn it over to my agents and my editors and my publishers and they take the ball and carry it from there.


----------



## stephenspower

> So lets assume our indie manages that, produces four books a year and for the sake of easy maths, his costs on each book are $2,500. Now we need for our indie to cover $25,000 profit and $10,000 expences with four books. That's 10,000 total sales or 2,500 sales per book on average.



This is a fair point which inspires the question: How many authors have four books a year in them that are worth publishing and buying? Because if they aren't, those 2000 readers will go away quick.


----------



## deilaitha

Others have said this more eloquently than I, but most writers write for the love of writing.  Neither self nor trad will get you rich quick (unless you are an anomaly).  The chief benefit of self-publishing is that you maintain control of your rights. 

Either way, the money is just a craps shoot.


----------



## Jabrosky

stephenspower said:


> I don't understand when people suddenly decided they could make a real living as an author.
> 
> The number of fiction authors who can support themselves on their books is, as it has always been, a vanishingly small fraction of those who have their books published. I think Vonnegut once said there were 10 that he could think of. Imagining one can do otherwise is no more realistic than buying a Powerball ticket and setting up a trust for your kids before the drawing.


I think it would on what kind of living an author is aiming for. Not everyone wants the stereotypical American Dream[SUP]TM [/SUP]of a big suburban house, a couple of cars, and a nuclear family with a litter of kids. For me a small condo all to myself (and maybe one girlfriend who could also bring in money) would suffice, and I don't even trust myself with a vehicle. Not sure how much that would cost or whether being a full-time author could cover it, but it sounds pretty low-maintenance to me.


----------



## Devor

Traditional Publishing might be an increasingly bad deal, but I'm not sure it's easy to say that self-publishing is faring any better.  It's a tough time for a tough business, and I think the worsening of publishing deals only reflects that it's becoming increasingly difficult for a new author to stand out.  The market is flooded with books, and I think it's going to take some time to adjust to the way the industry has changed.


----------



## Mythopoet

Devor said:


> Traditional Publishing might be an increasingly bad deal, but I'm not sure it's easy to say that self-publishing is faring any better.



Actually it's very easy to say if you've looked at this data collected by author Hugh Howey and an anonymous computer programmer (and author) who goes by "Data Guy":

July 2014 Author Earnings Report Ã¢â‚¬“ Author Earnings

The Tenured vs. Debut Author Report Ã¢â‚¬“ Author Earnings

(And there are several other reports worth reading. Remember, you don't have to take their interpretation for it, you can look at the data yourself for free.)

And also look through this thread on The Passive Voice blog where hundreds of writers come forward to talk about how they've reached "quitting-the-dayjob" success through indie publishing:

Indie Authors Quitting Their Day Jobs | The Passive Voice | A Lawyer's Thoughts on Authors, Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing


The fact that so many writers are willing to accept the idea that authors just don't make enough money to support themselves as a normal and ok thing is very disappointing. Especially because it's only true for most authors because the writers get the smallest cut of the money from the content they create and because publishing companies continue to control the rights to their work preventing authors from making money on it in any other way than through the publisher. This is not normal. Publishers have been exploiting authors for decades and the exploitation gets worse and worse every year. Authors need to fight back against this by refusing to sign with publishing companies who won't give fair and mutually profitable contract terms and maintaining control of their work and their career.


----------



## stephenspower

The problems with Howey's data and scraping process were well documented the last time this report came out. Most importantly, he's just looking at a relatively small sample of books, the bestsellers of slice of a slice of a slice genres. It's like he's measuring the skill of all soccer players in England by just looking at the winners of every league.

I suspect he's nonetheless roughly correct when it comes to his most salient point when it comes to the publishing industry, but that point is entirely misleading when applied to individual authors:



> Self-published authors are now earning nearly 40% of all ebook royalties on the Kindle store.



What he doesn't answer: how many authors?  If 20% of revenue from literary fiction comes from "The Goldfinch"--whose appeal he aggressively underplays as "a single aggressively-promoted title" despite it being the Pulitzer winner, a long-awaited novel from a bestselling author, extensively talked about it in both literary and pop fictions arenas, and arguably the book of the year--then how much of that 40% comes from just a few huge authors? How many authors receive just a pittance of it? And what order of magnitude of authors aren't being counted in his report at all.

I am entirely in agreement on another point: DRM is an insane business strategy. No book should have it.


----------



## Steerpike

If we've concluded that one is unlikely to become rich, either by pursuing the traditional route or the self-publishing route, and that the average traditionally-published author isn't really making that much money (and knowing some mid-list authors, I can tell you that they confirm this), then the question is this:

Why give up the control and go the traditional route, without at least trying the self-publishing route. If you're not liely to be substantially better off, is it worth what you're giving up?

Obviously, if you're Stephanie Meyer and you are offered a $3/4 million dollar advance for your first novel, it would seem crazy to turn it down and hope you can do better self-publishing. But for the average author where the advance, if any, looks small, it doesn't seem to me to be worth going traditional right off the bat, and not at least trying the alternative.


----------



## Devor

Mythopoet said:


> The fact that so many writers are willing to accept the idea that authors just don't make enough money to support themselves as a normal and ok thing is very disappointing. Especially because it's only true for most authors because the writers get the smallest cut of the money from the content they create and because publishing companies continue to control the rights to their work preventing authors from making money on it in any other way than through the publisher. This is not normal.



I'm not clear what point you're trying to make.  Some people do well self-publishing, sure.  But the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of self-published books just don't sell.  Not at all.  And most people have _no idea_ what they're doing when it comes to selling their books and standing out above the published slush pile.

Self-publishing at present remains a deeply flawed industry, with an overwhelming amount of content, few quality controls, and nowhere near the number of marketing venues required to sustain them all.  Negotiating power has shifted towards traditional publishers _because_ of the way that the self-publishing craze has reduced the potential of a single author. And until something changes this is going to remain a difficult time for the industry.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Another thing to remember is that this report talk about "median" income - in other words, the average.  What may be (probably be) having some effect is the fact that the advent of the Kindle Revolution and self-publishing has allowed so many authors into the pot.  So everyone is being counted - the best-sellers on everyone's shelves, as well as the thousands and thousands of books that only sell a couple of copies.


----------



## Steerpike

A. E. Lowan said:


> Another thing to remember is that this report talk about "median" income - in other words, the average.  What may be (probably be) having some effect is the fact that the advent of the Kindle Revolution and self-publishing has allowed so many authors into the pot.  So everyone is being counted - the best-sellers on everyone's shelves, as well as the thousands and thousands of books that only sell a couple of copies.



I don't think that's the case. The report is based on a survey of around 2450 writers, of which some were identified as "professional writers," meaning people who spend the majority of their time writing. Those were predominantly, if not entirely, people in the traditional-publishing sphere. Around 1/4 of the respondents did have at least one self-published work, but it isn't clear whether any of those were among the ones considered "professional writers." The median income provided was just for professional writers.


----------



## stephenspower

I'm with Steerpike and Devor. Re Steerpike, you're right, if the money's roughly equal, then the decision's about the control. No reason not to try self-publishing. But to Devor's point, as entrepreneur's have to learn first thing, having a product doesn't make a business.


----------



## psychotick

Hi,

All these income from writing surveys are badly flawed. The last one I saw that even came close to something I would accept as realistic, claimed that indies on average earned somewhere in the 0 to 5k range US dollars, trade published in the 5k to 10k range, and those who do both earned in the 10k to 15k range on average. That is about what I would expect given that there are so many non earners year upon year in each camp.

But in making the decision to go indie vs trade it's important to realise that the money is in your hands at least for the indie. If you produce a poorly edited, badly covered book you can expect to earn nothing or not much more. That's what brings the average income down drastically for the indies. So many produce substandard works and then wonder why they aren't overnight millionaires.

For those who go trade the biggest hurdles they face are first getting an agent and a deal, then the glacial pace at which their books are published. I tend to ignore the issues about royalties because I expect the trade published to earn perhaps a quarter the royalties per sale as the indie, but then sell four times as many books. My thought - and it's purely guesswork - is that the royalties debate balances out.

However the key thing here is to realise that these income figures are medians and averages. If you go indie you do have far more power to control your income. Write more books, make them quality products and it should be easy to match at least the earnings of the trade published. If you go trade the power is in the agent's hands - whether to accept your book and then how to market and publish etc.

The other thing for people to realise is that the chances of anyone striking it rich by taking either route is small. This is not an easy profession to make a lot of money at. Some have and we all know their names. But the fact that we know their names should tell you something - they are unusual.

Cheers, Greg.


----------



## Mythopoet

Devor said:


> I'm not clear what point you're trying to make.  Some people do well self-publishing, sure.  But the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of self-published books just don't sell.  Not at all.  And most people have _no idea_ what they're doing when it comes to selling their books and standing out above the published slush pile.
> 
> Self-publishing at present remains a deeply flawed industry, with an overwhelming amount of content, few quality controls, and nowhere near the number of marketing venues required to sustain them all.  Negotiating power has shifted towards traditional publishers _because_ of the way that the self-publishing craze has reduced the potential of a single author. And until something changes this is going to remain a difficult time for the industry.



I'd like to know where your data is coming from. Or is it just "common knowledge"?You need to pay attention to the actual data being collected at Author Earnings and elsewhere. 

Sure, there are a huge number of indies that don't make it. Perhaps it's because they aren't being professional about their writing business, perhaps it's because they get lost in the flood, perhaps it's because they just aren't very good writers. But at least they had a chance. Those self publishers who fall down the lists into oblivion are not comparable with authors who are traditionally published, but to the thousands of authors who query and query and query and submit and submit and submit but never get accepted. Most authors going the traditional path will never get picked up at all and never sell ANYTHING. Their books never see the outside of their hard drive. Even the unsuccessful self publishers usually sell SOMETHING, and as long as their books remain available for purchase (which can theoretically be forever) there's a chance they'll pick up some sales. 

But you need to stop focusing on the unsuccessful indies and focus on the real story of self publishing: the constantly increasing numbers of authors who are making good money. No, not J.K. Rowling or James Patterson money, but good money nonetheless. The numbers of writers who can make a good living as an author because of self publishing is growing all the time and no one wants to talk about it because the publishing industry has been telling authors for decades that only the very, very lucky get stay-at-home-and-write money. No one worth listening to is claiming that self-publishing will get you rich quick, though obviously that does some times happen. What they are claiming is that if you are professional and treat your writing like a business, keep control of your work and make smart decisions, and most importantly, _write good books that readers want_, over time it's far more likely that you will eventually start earning a living through self publishing than through traditional publishing. 

The data supports this assertion. You can't continue to ignore it. 

Furthermore, are you claiming that self publishing has shifted negotiating power between publishers and authors toward the publishers? That is patently false. Just the fact that the option to self publish exists gives authors much more power than they've ever had before in such negotiations. In the past, the only authors who had negotiating power were big name bestsellers. Now, every single author has the power to walk away from a contract and still get their books out to readers. This is enormous power. Only authors who refuse to exercise this power will continue to be exploited by publishers. 



stephenspower said:


> But to Devor's point, as entrepreneur's have to learn first thing, having a product doesn't make a business.



No, but having a product and being able to put it up for sale in the biggest bookstore on the planet does.



psychotick said:


> Hi,
> 
> All these income from writing surveys are badly flawed.



That's why people need to pay attention to these Author Earnings reports. They aren't surveys. They aren't self selected. They are just straight data collected from the Amazon website (and other reports have looked at Barnes and Noble and Bookscan numbers) that shows exactly how well indies are doing in comparison with traditionally published authors. Look at the numbers. Indies are taking a huge share of the market. And the numbers for indies will only continue to get better over time while things will get worse and worse for any trad pubbed author who doesn't manage to score a big hit. This is the future of publishing.


----------



## stephenspower

Mythopoet, you misunderstand me exactly. When I say having a product doesn't make a business, I mean that putting a book up for sale, however big the store, doesn't mean it will sell and make money anymore than stealing underpants will automatically result in profits. Publishing is not just the putting up for sale part. Publishing is about getting people into that store to your book's page, your store within the store. It's about generating enthusiasm that inspires sales. It's about creating buy moments. It's about cultivating customers so they keep coming back.

Again, how well indies are doing against publishers is great news, and I'm one of the latter, but the data doesn't scale down to the individual just as the Dow hitting 17,000 doesn't mean America's roughly 16% institutional unemployment has gone away.


----------



## acapes

Mythopoet said:


> This is the future of publishing.



I agree - but would add, it's a great future for writers who are either willing or have the capacity to take advantage of the changes. 

Some folks don't have the skills to self publish (and it's a broad skill-set needed) and some don't have the inclination. Some want to be a writer who writes, rather than be a writer who must also be a publisher. I publish in both worlds, and being personally responsible for everything - every single detail - is a lot of work, a serious commitment. But very satisfying too.


----------



## Mythopoet

acapes said:


> Some folks don't have the skills to self publish (and it's a broad skill-set needed)



I would add that not "having" the skills is not really a good excuse. Some of the skills necessary can easily be learned (formatting, uploading to websites, etc.), some are harder to learn and you might have to have a natural inclination for them (cover art, self editing, etc.) but anything than an individual writer can't learn can be obtained from a freelancer for a set fee. And despite what many articles claim, it doesn't have to be wildly expensive. I've seen articles claim that good cover art costs thousands of dollars, but this is not true. You can get very good cover art for something around $100 if you know where to look. Professional proofreading can be more expensive, but this is something you don't necessarily have to pay for. Many indie writers trade services and writers are often very good proofreaders for others' work. 

The fact is, that if you want to self publish, that doesn't mean you need to go it alone. You can hire help, you can trade services, you can get help from others to learn the skills yourself, and in general there's a vibrant and extremely supportive indie community that's willing to offer help and advice to anyone interested. 

Those writers who just want to write and nothing else and want everything to be taken care of for them... well, there's probably nothing that can be done for them. But it's in the nature of being an author that you are a business and anyone not willing to treat it like a business isn't likely to do well in the industry no matter what they do.


----------



## acapes

Mythopoet said:


> I would add that not "having" the skills is not really a good excuse. Some of the skills necessary can easily be learned (formatting, uploading to websites, etc.), some are harder to learn and you might have to have a natural inclination for them (cover art, self editing, etc.) but anything than an individual writer can't learn can be obtained from a freelancer for a set fee.





Mythopoet said:


> The fact is, that if you want to self publish, that doesn't mean you need to go it alone. You can hire help, you can trade services, you can get help from others to learn the skills yourself, and in general there's a vibrant and extremely supportive indie community that's willing to offer help and advice to anyone interested.



Actually, that's the other problem - some folks don't have the capacity to learn some of those skills, or the capital to pay others to do it, which is where the trading comes in handy. (I am deeply indebted to the generosity of my friends.)



Mythopoet said:


> Those writers who just want to write and nothing else and want everything to be taken care of for them... well, there's probably nothing that can be done for them.



I personally don't see any problem with a writer only wanting to be a _writer_, and to have someone else do the rest of the job. That's their choice, no probs. In fact, it's probably a big part of the reason traditional publishing survives. They have skills and capital I will never have access to, for instance.

Unless I win a lottery of some sort, of course.

ETA: And I guess I've gone off on a bit of tangent, but re: the OP - traditional publishing might not be a bad deal if the publisher is flexible and committed to your work, sometimes the case with smaller publishers. 

And I wonder if financial remuneration is the best yardstick to say whether trad publishing is a bad deal now? For instance, what about the importance of creative control? For me, having that taken away can be a big negative against the trad system. (which is not to say I never want to be paid for my work, of course)


----------



## Devor

Mythopoet said:


> I'd like to know where your data is coming from.



What data?

As a rule I try not to use data.  It's unreliable, difficult to engage with in sound bites, and condescending, like "Here's a bunch of data to discredit you." Can't people discuss and even disagree without trying to prove themselves?

Good data tells a story. Most of the time it's usually better to skip to the story, and rely on the rational logic behind that story instead of the highly processed, easy to mischaracterize data.




> Sure, there are a huge number of indies that don't make it. Perhaps it's because they aren't being professional about their writing business, perhaps it's because they get lost in the flood, perhaps it's because they just aren't very good writers. But at least they had a chance.



First, do you really think they have a chance?  I think a lot of people are wasting their time chasing an illusion of a chance when the reality is that they're unprepared and unequipped to handle the challenges of preparing and selling a book. We can help equip someone, a little bit. But we can't expect to change attitudes.

Most of the time failure is determined from the beginning. I don't think it's a service to people to encourage them to fail.

Second, you're implying that there's _no chance_ with traditional publishing?  Why?  Because you have to rely on someone else to approve you? Those kinds of relationships are the nature of business. Self-Publishing doesn't remove that.  It only hides it a little.

I also want to mention control. At least with a traditional publisher you're relying on their reputation and networks. Ever work with an artist, have them give you exactly what you asked for, only to find that it's still hideously wrong? It happens all the time, and they still bill you. Only by building a relationship with someone can you learn what to expect from them, and learn what to ask of them. Traditional publishers have those relationships. They work with you long enough to try and build those relationships. Finding the right editor, cover artist, web designer, and more might be very frustrating for someone who needs "control."




> Those self publishers who fall down the lists into oblivion are not comparable with authors who are traditionally published, but to the thousands of authors who query and query and query and submit and submit and submit but never get accepted.



I can only speak for myself, but I'd rather have a publisher tell me "no" than a book online that never sells.




> Most authors going the traditional path will never get picked up at all and never sell ANYTHING. Their books never see the outside of their hard drive. Even the unsuccessful self publishers usually sell SOMETHING, and as long as their books remain available for purchase (which can theoretically be forever) there's a chance they'll pick up some sales.



I don't understand your comparison. As long as you keep working to revise and submit to a publisher there's still a "chance." But I don't think an abandoned novel has a chance to randomly just make it.  You've got to work to have a chance.  There's no "Hey, I posted it, gave up, and today I'm making sales." Life doesn't work that way. People who figure out what they're doing and work for it have a chance. People who expect it to just happen, don't.




> But you need to stop focusing on the unsuccessful indies and focus on the real story of self publishing: the constantly increasing numbers of authors who are making good money. No, not J.K. Rowling or James Patterson money, but good money nonetheless. The numbers of writers who can make a good living as an author because of self publishing is growing all the time and no one wants to talk about it because the publishing industry has been telling authors for decades that only the very, very lucky get stay-at-home-and-write money. No one worth listening to is claiming that self-publishing will get you rich quick, though obviously that does some times happen. What they are claiming is that if you are professional and treat your writing like a business, keep control of your work and make smart decisions, and most importantly, _write good books that readers want_, over time it's far more likely that you will eventually start earning a living through self publishing than through traditional publishing.
> 
> The data supports this assertion. You can't continue to ignore it.



What are you even arguing with?

I said that self-publishing is a flawed industry:
 - There's no quality controls.
 - There's too many publications available for the consumers to sort through.
 - There aren't enough places for all of these authors to market themselves.

These are real problems with the self-publishing industry. Nobody should pursue self-publishing _unless they are prepared to deal with them._

How can you demonstrate quality? How can you brand your work to your readers? How can you find or build the marketing channels to reach those readers?

These are difficult questions. Can people do well self-publishing?  Absolutely.  But only by finding a way to address these questions.  And it is _not possible_ for everyone who is pursuing self-publishing right now to answer them effectively. That makes the industry deeply flawed.

Traditional publishers tackle that problem through a venture capitalist model, investing in many books so that the handful of successes will fund the rest, while shutting down those that will obviously fail.  That's the right business model for dealing with these types of risks, maybe not for each individual, but for the industry.

Which leads us to:




> Furthermore, are you claiming that self publishing has shifted negotiating power between publishers and authors toward the publishers? That is patently false. Just the fact that the option to self publish exists gives authors much more power than they've ever had before in such negotiations. In the past, the only authors who had negotiating power were big name bestsellers. Now, every single author has the power to walk away from a contract and still get their books out to readers. This is enormous power. Only authors who refuse to exercise this power will continue to be exploited by publishers.



If it's patently false, then why are advances going down?

There are two parts to a negotiation:

BATNA - Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement.

ZOPA - Zone of Possible Agreement, the difference between the BATNAs of both sides.

You're looking at the author's BATNA. Authors can say "I'll go self-publish, I don't need you." But you're not looking at the ZOPA. With publishers, ZOPA has shrunk against the author.

A new author has less power with publishers than ever before. The obvious cause is that a new author has a smaller chance of making sales than ever before. And self-publishing did that.


----------



## acapes

Devor said:


> A new author has less power with publishers than ever before. The obvious cause is that a new author has a smaller chance of making sales than ever before. And self-publishing did that.



In terms of negotiation with traditional publishers one thing has not changed and remains in their favour I suspect - any author walking away from a contract (good or bad contract) will instantly be replaced by another author.

A big publisher especially can pick and choose. If one writer turns something down, the publisher will have no trouble finding someone else to sign on the dotted line.


----------



## Mythopoet

Devor said:


> What data?
> 
> As a rule I try not to use data.  It's unreliable, difficult to engage with in sound bites, and condescending, like "Here's a bunch of data to discredit you." Can't people discuss and even disagree without trying to prove themselves?
> 
> Good data tells a story. Most of the time it's usually better to skip to the story, and rely on the rational logic behind that story instead of the highly processed, easy to mischaracterize data.



Wait, what? Are you serious? I... don't even know what to say to that. That's possibly the most illogical thing I've seen anyone say here so far.

Ok. So obviously you're not going to click on those links. 

The simple story is that hundreds of indie writers are achieving enough success to be full time writers and support themselves. Thousands more are earning enough supplemental money to be life changing.  And you seem intent on ignoring this (you and everyone in the industry), instead focusing on the reliable canard about how "most people who self publish don't sell anything" naturally without any sort of evidence to back up this assertion, because data is unreliable! (If you say it often enough, it might just become true.) 

No one ever promised that self publishing would lead everyone to success. But what the people behind Author Earnings are claiming (and backing up with data, but I guess that doesn't matter) is that authors coming into the publishing business are FAR MORE likely to be successful indie publishing than traditionally publishing. 





Devor said:


> First, do you really think they have a chance?  I think a lot of people are wasting their time chasing an illusion of a chance when the reality is that they're unprepared and unequipped to handle the challenges of preparing and selling a book. We can help equip someone, a little bit. But we can't expect to change attitudes.
> 
> Most of the time failure is determined from the beginning. I don't think it's a service to people to encourage them to fail.



Yes, I really think they have a chance. Thousands of indie authors are proving me right. I don't know what to tell you, since you won't pay attention to data, except that your conception is built on a myth sold by traditional publishing and their pundits. The reality in the trenches among professional indie authors is very different.



Devor said:


> Second, you're implying that there's _no chance_ with traditional publishing?  Why?  Because you have to rely on someone else to approve you? Those kinds of relationships are the nature of business. Self-Publishing doesn't remove that.  It only hides it a little.



I implied no such thing. But statistically, your chances of actually selling your book to any readers if you choose to submit to traditional publishers is very, very small. Your chance of selling to readers if you self publish is much, much higher. 

Those types of relationships used to be the nature of the business. Back when it was impossible for writers to achieve large scale distribution of their work by themselves. Now that writers can go direct to readers through a retailer (or more directly through their own websites) middle man publishers and distributors are not necessary. Self publishing didn't hide anything. It made the path between writers and readers much easier. 



Devor said:


> I also want to mention control. At least with a traditional publisher you're relying on their reputation and networks. Ever work with an artist, have them give you exactly what you asked for, only to find that it's still hideously wrong? It happens all the time, and they still bill you. Only by building a relationship with someone can you learn what to expect from them, and learn what to ask of them. Traditional publishers have those relationships. They work with you long enough to try and build those relationships. Finding the right editor, cover artist, web designer, and more might be very frustrating for someone who needs "control."



Are you serious? Do you realize how many authors have been saddled with awful or inappropriate cover art because they didn't have control? How many authors didn't get any editing or got editing that made their book worse and could do nothing about it because they didn't have control? You can't rely on a traditional publisher to treat your book well because they have hundreds of books in the pipeline and they usually only care about the books by big sellers. 

What you're describing that an indie would have to do is not that difficult. Thousands of indie authors do it all the time. Sure, there's a learning curve. But if you're not willing to learn in this business you shouldn't get into it in the first place. You seem, once again, to be buying into a myth propagated by the publishing industry that publishing a book is so, so hard and expensive and only the publishing companies can do it properly. This is a myth, pure and simple. There are so many professionally produced indie books out there and it didn't kill any of the writers in question to do it.



Devor said:


> There's no "Hey, I posted it, gave up, and today I'm making sales."



There is, actually. There are writers who have gotten discouraged by lack of sales, gave up on writing, and then one day their sales started picking up and they started getting checks from Amazon and, encouraged, got back into the business. It happens. As long as your books are out there, available for readers to buy, success can reach you in any number of ways.



Devor said:


> What are you even arguing with?
> 
> I said that self-publishing is a flawed industry:
> - There's no quality controls.



This implies that there should be quality controls. I disagree. I think readers should be the only ones who decides if a book rises or falls based on its content.



Devor said:


> - There's too many publications available for the consumers to sort through.



This implies that readers want less choice. I'm sorry, but that just isn't what readers want. Furthermore, it ignores the many, many tools readers have for sifting through the content. From categories and keywords to samples that allow them to check out a book without having to pay for it first to numerous social media platforms that exist where readers can share their finds with others and more. Readers are not having a hard time finding new books to read and they love the choices. This is another myth put forward by the traditional industry (oh it's so hard to find a book unless we tell people what to read). 



Devor said:


> - There aren't enough places for all of these authors to market themselves.



Well, that depends on what you mean by "market". 



Devor said:


> These are real problems with the self-publishing industry. Nobody should pursue self-publishing _unless they are prepared to deal with them._



Oddly enough thousands of indie writers _are_ dealing with them everyday and are still achieving success. 



Devor said:


> How can you demonstrate quality? How can you brand your work to your readers? How can you find or build the marketing channels to reach those readers?
> 
> These are difficult questions. Can people do well self-publishing?  Absolutely.  But only by finding a way to address these questions.  And it is _not possible_ for everyone who is pursuing self-publishing right now to answer them effectively. That makes the industry deeply flawed.



I'll have to just disagree with you again because, as I've stressed, SO MANY INDIE WRITERS ARE DOING SO WELL. These things that you think are flaws in self publishing are actually not. Discoverability has always been a problem for publishing, long before self publishing came along. There are more answers to these problems now than ever before, and surprisingly, some of those answers ARE self publishing.



Devor said:


> Traditional publishers tackle that problem through a venture capitalist model, investing in many books so that the handful of successes will fund the rest, while shutting down those that will obviously fail.  That's the right business model for dealing with these types of risks, maybe not for each individual, but for the industry.



No, traditional publishers are not actually good at answering these questions, which is why they continue to lose market share to self publishers. (As seen in the data that you think is useless.)



Devor said:


> If it's patently false, then why are advances going down?
> 
> There are two parts to a negotiation:
> 
> BATNA - Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement.
> 
> ZOPA - Zone of Possible Agreement, the difference between the BATNAs of both sides.
> 
> You're looking at the author's BATNA. Authors can say "I'll go self-publish, I don't need you." But you're not looking at the ZOPA. With publishers, ZOPA has shrunk against the author.
> 
> A new author has less power with publishers than ever before. The obvious cause is that a new author has a smaller chance of making sales than ever before. And self-publishing did that.



Reality check, authors NEVER had power. Unless your name is James Patterson or J.K.Rowling you don't have power in the traditional world. That's how it's been for DECADES. Career authors have been attesting to that for years now that they're no longer beholden to the publishers. Writers, especially new writers, take what they can get. Don't blame the authors that have decided to keep control of their work and their careers for the draconian contracts offered to traditionally published authors. It's the publishers that draw up those contracts because they know that there is money in exploiting desperate writers. The writers who reject those terms and self publish are a sign that the industry is losing power, not gaining it.


----------



## stephenspower

@acapes, yes this is correct:



> A big publisher especially can pick and choose. If one writer turns something down, the publisher will have no trouble finding someone else to sign on the dotted line.



It's far harder for publishers, though, to find someone worth having sign on the dotted line. I can go two months without finding anything worth publishing. When I was doing fiction early in my career I would like maybe 1 in  100, 1 in 200 mystery/thriller/lit mss I read, and that doesn't mean anyone else would or that I could then buy the thing.


----------



## Devor

Mythopoet said:


> Wait, what? Are you serious? I... don't even know what to say to that. That's possibly the most illogical thing I've seen anyone say here so far.



I have spent quite a bit of time studying complex marketing data at a top-rate business school in NYC.  Yeah, I'm serious.

For instance, your claim is:



> But what the people behind Author Earnings are claiming (and backing up with data, but I guess that doesn't matter) is that authors coming into the publishing business are FAR MORE likely to be successful indie publishing than traditionally publishing.




That is a very specific claim. I have not once rejected it, which is why I keep asking you what you're arguing with.

And at first look, it _looks_ like the evidence supports it. For instance:



			
				http://authorearnings.com/the-tenured-vs-debut-author-report/ said:
			
		

>



However, "liklihood" is a deceptive and difficult word. Right off the bat the graph above doesn't include base rates:  How many people tried self publishing? How many people were accepted by the publishers? How do you control for traditional publisher rejections to people who self-publish and get nowhere?  Are there national differences?

Then there's other factors. For instance, are the books being sold really comparable?  You only need an audience of 1,000 people if you can sell them a big enough quantity of books. But that kind of quantity isn't a strategy everyone wants to follow.

Then there's the fact that traditional publishing debuts at each earnings level have remained *stable*. That strongly suggests that the market was previously under saturated.  But it also defies the notion that traditional publishing is an inherently weaker option. All of the competition hasn't put a dent into their success.

Finally, there's something wrong here:



			
				same link as graph above said:
			
		

> To combat these trends, we believe that major publishers are going to have to pay higher royalties on e-book sales in the very near future.




Projected behavior is far and away the best test for whether the data and the story tells ring true. If the above is true, _this should happen._ Advances and royalties _should go up_. But they aren't. We see story after story of the opposite happening.  That suggests there is something wrong with the data and the story being told.

And there is.  To everyone without our blinders on, it is obvious.  It's the missing graph.  Debut authors _earning below $10,000_. Conveniently, your link published all of the earning levels except that one.


----------



## Devor

Mythopoet said:


> This implies that there should be quality controls. I disagree. I think readers should be the only ones who decides if a book rises or falls based on its content.



I can just imagine someone saying the same thing about my son's crib or the can of peanut butter on my shelf.  Of course people want quality controls, whether they know it or not.  Right now reviewers, usually the ones on Amazon, are the only quality-control benchmark available for self-publishers.  And the problems with it are numerous.  People would love an alternative, more reliable quality benchmark.  And in some shape or another, sooner or later it's going to happen.

In the meantime, it's a problem.




> This implies that readers want less choice. I'm sorry, but that just isn't what readers want.



Information overload is a real phenomenon. Too many choices is also a real problem for consumers, one that researchers study regularly.

However, we're not looking at this solely from the perspective of consumers. As people selling books, too many choices dilutes your ability to stand out in the market, especially if you're below a certain threshold for quality or differentiation. As authors, too many poor-to-mediocre swimmers in the pool causes problems. And for those poor-to-mediocre swimmers, spending hundreds of hours writing, and many more struggling to sell a bad book (and looking bad while doing it), and not getting paid for it, I think the problems are shared by all.




> I'll have to just disagree with you again because, as I've stressed, SO MANY INDIE WRITERS ARE DOING SO WELL. These things that you think are flaws in self publishing are actually not. Discoverability has always been a problem for publishing, long before self publishing came along. There are more answers to these problems now than ever before, and surprisingly, some of those answers ARE self publishing.



What are you disagreeing with?  I said that people could succeed by answering the questions.  You're saying people _are _answering the questions. How is that a disagreement? Why are you making the conversation more hostile than it needs to be?

Unless what you disagree with is the characterization that _"it is not possible for everyone who is pursuing self-publishing right now to answer them effectively."_  In which case, could you respond to that directly? Nothing you're saying suggests that everyone can do it, or addresses the obviously large number who do not.




> No, traditional publishers are not actually good at answering these questions, which is why they continue to lose market share to self publishers. (As seen in the data that you think is useless.)



Is that what I said?  Traditional Publishers used to duck the challenge by culling the losers before they hit the market.  It's easier to stand out when you're 1 in 10 instead of 1 in a 1,000 (numbers for explanation only).




> Reality check, authors NEVER had power.



Market share isn't a benchmark for power in these cases. Potential profit is. If authors have no power, they wouldn't get an advance at all. Other things equal, the trend in advances should reflect the sales potential of a new author.  If advances are going down for new authors, it's because they expect each author to sell less.




Mythopoet said:


> And you seem intent on ignoring this (you and everyone in the industry), instead focusing on the reliable canard about how "most people who self publish don't sell anything" naturally without any sort of evidence to back up this assertion, because data is unreliable! (If you say it often enough, it might just become true.)





> I don't know what to tell you, since you won't pay attention to data, except that your conception is built on a myth sold by traditional publishing and their pundits. The reality in the trenches among professional indie authors is very different.





> You seem, once again, to be buying into a myth propagated by the publishing industry that publishing a book is so, so hard and expensive and only the publishing companies can do it properly.





> This is another myth put forward by the traditional industry (oh it's so hard to find a book unless we tell people what to read).



In all seriousness, the sarcasm and mockery and mischaracterizations in these statements is really indecent, Mythopoet. It's also undeserved, as my opinion has been nothing like the one you're characterizing here. For all your attacks on how the Traditional Publishers have treated authors unfairly, I think you should really evaluate whether or not you yourself treat people fairly.


----------



## acapes

stephenspower said:


> It's far harder for publishers, though, to find someone worth having sign on the dotted line. I can go two months without finding anything worth publishing. When I was doing fiction early in my career I would like maybe 1 in  100, 1 in 200 mystery/thriller/lit mss I read, and that doesn't mean anyone else would or that I could then buy the thing.



Hey Stephen, agreed - I reckon I've had a similar ratio with each of the journals I've worked with, it's pretty hit and miss but they never stop 
Hardest thing always seemed to be the subs that were so close but just lacked that something extra.


----------



## Jabrosky

Devor said:


> I can just imagine someone saying the same thing about my son's crib or the can of peanut butter on my shelf.  Of course people want quality controls, whether they know it or not.  Right now reviewers, usually the ones on Amazon, are the only quality-control benchmark available for self-publishers.  And the problems with it are numerous.  People would love an alternative, more reliable quality benchmark.  And in some shape or another, sooner or later it's going to happen.
> 
> In the meantime, it's a problem.


In an ideal situation, any writer who has finished a story will edit it and send it to other people for critique. What practically distinguishes the guy who reviews manuscripts at most publishing companies from your ordinary beta reader? Oh yeah, the latter doesn't have nearly as many manuscripts piled up on their desk and so doesn't take nearly as much time to get to yours.

You don't need data to intuit that the current ease of self-publishing has allowed hacks to flood the market with crud like never before. That doesn't mean that writers who do work to improve should be punished for the sins of others.

Maybe one form of quality control would require self-publishers to post an excerpt of their story so readers can gauge the writing quality for themselves? I think Amazon already has this kind of preview option.


----------



## Devor

Jabrosky said:


> In an ideal situation, any writer who has finished a story will edit it and send it to other people for critique. What practically distinguishes the guy who reviews manuscripts at most publishing companies from your ordinary beta reader? Oh yeah, the latter doesn't have nearly as many manuscripts piled up on their desk and so doesn't take nearly as much time to get to yours.



Not everything has to be taken as a contrast between Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing.  That one has problems doesn't mean the other doesn't.  I do feel the criticisms of the traditional editing process are exaggerated. And I'm not sure they're just fixed by self-publishing if one bad review, early on, can do so much to sink a book.

But I'm not suggesting we go backwards - I'm suggesting the problem has surfaced, is pretty significant, and that the industry is flawed until it gets resolved.




> Maybe one form of quality control would require self-publishers to post an excerpt of their story so readers can gauge the writing quality for themselves? I think Amazon already has this kind of preview option.



It's there. It's not a lot. People spend a lot of time polishing their excerpt, and may not spend that kind of time on the rest of the book.


----------



## PaulineMRoss

Devor said:


> I can just imagine someone saying the same thing about my son's crib or the can of peanut butter on my shelf.  Of course people want quality controls, whether they know it or not.  Right now reviewers, usually the ones on Amazon, are the only quality-control benchmark available for self-publishers.  And the problems with it are numerous.  People would love an alternative, more reliable quality benchmark.  And in some shape or another, sooner or later it's going to happen.



That's a somewhat disingenuous argument. A badly made crib or incorrectly packaged peanut butter could kill you. A badly written book is nothing worse than a waste of time. And readers have devised their own ways to assess whether a book will be a satisfying read or not. Some read the reviews. Some read the samples. Some ask friends for recommendations, or read the blogs avidly. Some won't read self-published books at all. I've worked out my own approach, having been burned once or twice with dire self-published efforts.

On the subject of declining advances from trad publishers, many people have commented that it's counter-intuitive when authors can self-publish. Surely if SP authors have more options, advances ought to be higher to attract the best? But that hasn't happened. My theory is that a few SP authors have done spectacularly well and have been picked off by trad publishing. That's where all the telephone number advances have gone, to the few top SP sellers who can guarantee sales. Those who go through the slush pile are deemed to be mid-list authors, with modest advances to match. And as long as authors accept those modest advances, they will never rise.

I don't have any grudge against traditional publishing, but as a business decision it would make no sense for me (even in the unlikely event that they would be interested in me). I'm not prepared to hand over all rights to my work, now and in perpetuity, for a piddling advance, especially with non-compete clauses buried in the contract, as they usually are these days. I can self-publish for a modest outlay, or for free if I were prepared to trade or learn the skills, so the book gets into the hands of readers and maybe, just maybe, there'll be a trickle of money coming in.

Both trad and self-publishing have advantages and potential pitfalls, and it's up to every writer to decide for themselves which way to jump.


----------



## TWErvin2

PaulineMRoss said:


> That's a somewhat disingenuous argument...



If you are going to state that Devor's argument is disingenuous, then certainly yours is equally so...



PaulineMRoss said:


> I don't have any grudge against traditional publishing, but as a business decision it would make no sense for me (even in the unlikely event that they would be interested in me). I'm not prepared to hand over all rights to my work, now and in perpetuity, for a piddling advance, especially with non-compete clauses buried in the contract, as they usually are these days. I can self-publish for a modest outlay, or for free if I were prepared to trade or learn the skills, so the book gets into the hands of readers and maybe, just maybe, there'll be a trickle of money coming in.



An author does not hand over all rights. And they do not hand over all rights for now and in perpetuity, and I guess it depends on what you consider piddling for an advance. It would be wrong to consider an advance is all that an author would earn, especially if it is piddling, as once it is earned out then the author earns royalties. And non-compete clauses can be negotiated, modified or removed, and every clause in a contract is important so buried is of a skewed term to use.

Then the argument is, well, if you attempt and are successful with traditional, you get a piddling advance and crappy restrictive clauses. But I think it is a disservice to self-publishing to say if you pay for editing and layout and cover art (or trade skills/time to learn, etc.) then one might get a trickle of money coming in. Would a trickle ever repay for the debt incurred to get the cover and editing done?  That sets it up as a no win for a writer any direction they might attempt...





PaulineMRoss said:


> Both trad and self-publishing have advantages and potential pitfalls, and it's up to every writer to decide for themselves which way to jump.


 The way you describe it the choices are almost like either jump in the methane-filled bottomless bog or into the thorn-filled gully with sharp rocks at the bottom.

It's not that way if you write a quality story, or actually it usually takes more than one novel to build success, but it has to be quality--either of the level that a traditional publisher thinks it's marketable and will garner a profitable readership, a niche publisher which believes a narrow scope of readers will be interested--one which they cater to, or self-publish a quality work, one that I guess would probably find a home with a traditional publisher if that was their choice. And there is a bit of luck involved.

Yes, there are examples of crappy novels that got picked up by publishers. And there are examples of poorly edited and/or formatted novels that are self-published and obtain a large readership. That's just the way it is. Maybe they have more than a bit of luck?


----------



## Devor

PaulineMRoss said:


> On the subject of declining advances from trad publishers, many people have commented that it's counter-intuitive when authors can self-publish. Surely if SP authors have more options, advances ought to be higher to attract the best? But that hasn't happened. My theory is that a few SP authors have done spectacularly well and have been picked off by trad publishing. That's where all the telephone number advances have gone, to the few top SP sellers who can guarantee sales. Those who go through the slush pile are deemed to be mid-list authors, with modest advances to match. And as long as authors accept those modest advances, they will never rise.



As part of the business model, an advance going to an established sure thing almost doesn't count. If it's not a risk, then it's outside of the VC model. It's almost like a side business. Publishers invest in a lot of books so that the winners can fund the losers. They don't make much if any of a profit on most books. They see most of their books as a package deal, and the sure thing by a celebrity or established self-publisher isn't part of that package.

If you isolate books that are part of the VC model, advances have gone down. The only reason I can see for that is that the sales potential of any given new author has declined. That is, it's harder for a new author to gain traction than it used to be, even after they're traditionally published.  Self-publishing has let a lot of new authors into the market. It's helped a lot of new authors to succeed. But it's also made it harder for a good book to gain traction by drowning them out with slush. It's a flaw in the model that needs to be resolved.


----------



## Mythopoet

Devor said:


> In all seriousness, the sarcasm and mockery and mischaracterizations in these statements is really indecent, Mythopoet. It's also undeserved, as my opinion has been nothing like the one you're characterizing here. For all your attacks on how the Traditional Publishers have treated authors unfairly, I think you should really evaluate whether or not you yourself treat people fairly.



I've decided not to argue with you anymore. (I know what will happen if I keep it up, so I'm going to exercise some restraint.) But I would like to address this. There was no intended sarcasm or mockery in my statements. Just honesty. Reading your post, these are my honest impressions of what you have to say. I am not attacking anyone here and I am not treating anyone unfairly. I view the way the traditional industry treats its authors and the reading public as a serious injustice. So yes, I am passionate about this issue and angry at the industry for what they get away with, as we all should be when we perceive injustice. You can argue with me about whether or not there is truly injustice and exploitation going on. But since I do perceive injustice and exploitation, I don't think my response is unwarranted. 

Also, for the record since you seem confused about it, I disagree with you that the self publishing industry is deeply flawed. Certainly not more than any industry is flawed at any given point in time. Nothing is perfect. But from where I'm sitting the self publishing industry is growing and thriving and is helping thousands of authors to stand on their feet as authors and business people. And it's only going to get better from here on. That's what I see. 

But I won't argue further since I do tend to get a bit heated in these discussions. I can't help it. It's because I care about the issue so much. *shrug*


----------



## PaulineMRoss

TWErvin2 said:


> An author does not hand over all rights. And they do not hand over all rights for now and in perpetuity, and I guess it depends on what you consider piddling for an advance. It would be wrong to consider an advance is all that an author would earn, especially if it is piddling, as once it is earned out then the author earns royalties. And non-compete clauses can be negotiated, modified or removed,



The typical boiler-plate contract covers all rights everywhere, for up to 70 years after the author's death unless the book goes out of print, which with ebooks is never. A typical advance these days is around $5,000. I would call that piddling, considering the amount of work that goes into a book. Most authors don't earn out, so the advance is all they get. Good luck with getting any changes made to the non-compete clause (ask Michael J Sullivan about that).



> But I think it is a disservice to self-publishing to say if you pay for editing and layout and cover art (or trade skills/time to learn, etc.) then one might get a trickle of money coming in. Would a trickle ever repay for the debt incurred to get the cover and editing done?



Well, the trickle comment was applied to me. I don't expect to make more than a trickle of money from self-publishing, at least not for several years. But there will be *some* money, and it's a 70% royalty, and for those who can do the editing, cover art, etc themselves, it's clear profit. I'll be spending around $2,000 to get my first book out there, which I don't expect to earn back in the foreseeable future, but I wanted to do this properly ie professionally.



> That sets it up as a no win for a writer any direction they might attempt... The way you describe it the choices are almost like either jump in the methane-filled bottomless bog or into the thorn-filled gully with sharp rocks at the bottom.



It's not quite as desperate as that, but the vast majority of writers don't earn a living wage from their efforts, however they publish. As I said, there are advantages and disadvantages with both methods.



> It's not that way if you write a quality story,[...] And there is a bit of luck involved.



I'd say it's more luck than quality, but you probably need both.


----------



## Devor

Mythopoet said:


> There was no intended sarcasm or mockery in my statements. Just honesty. Reading your post, these are my honest impressions of what you have to say.



I'm sorry if I overreacted, Mythopoet. Looking outside this conversation, as a whole I've been more than a little positive towards self-publishing as an option for people to pursue. So I found your characterization to be off-putting. But I should have found a better way to address that.




> I view the way the traditional industry treats its authors and the reading public as a serious injustice. So yes, I am passionate about this issue and angry at the industry for what they get away with, as we all should be when we perceive injustice. You can argue with me about whether or not there is truly injustice and exploitation going on. But since I do perceive injustice and exploitation, I don't think my response is unwarranted.
> 
> Also, for the record since you seem confused about it, I disagree with you that the self publishing industry is deeply flawed. Certainly not more than any industry is flawed at any given point in time. Nothing is perfect. But from where I'm sitting the self publishing industry is growing and thriving and is helping thousands of authors to stand on their feet as authors and business people. And it's only going to get better from here on. That's what I see.



We've talked about this in the past. Certainly the traditional publishing industry has its flaws, and it's difficult as outsiders to gauge just how prominent those flaws are. The difference here isn't about the existence of the tumor but its size.

But I think the tumor, to keep the metaphor, is really big with self-publishing as an industry. There's a lot of "little-people" being encouraged to invest a big portion of their time, money and reputation into making and selling a book, only to find out after the investment that there efforts fail, and many times for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of their book. At least with traditional publishing, there's some effort to shut it down before they spend a lot of money on editing, cover art, and web design.

Self-Publishing today is far and away the best option for many people. But I believe you have to keep talking about the challenges - and the hard work involved in solving them - in realistic views in order to help keep things in perspective.




> But I won't argue further since I do tend to get a bit heated in these discussions. I can't help it. It's because I care about the issue so much. *shrug*



Passion is a good thing. And I'm certainly no stranger to getting carried away with it. The last thing I would want is to shove anyone out of the conversation, especially when there are still good points to be made all around. Take a moment if you want to, but please don't be afraid to post - I promise I won't bite again.


----------



## TWErvin2

PaulineMRoss said:


> The typical boiler-plate contract covers all rights everywhere, for up to 70 years after the author's death unless the book goes out of print, which with ebooks is never. A typical advance these days is around $5,000. I would call that piddling, considering the amount of work that goes into a book. Most authors don't earn out, so the advance is all they get. Good luck with getting any changes made to the non-compete clause (ask Michael J Sullivan about that).



Authors I know and communicate with, (via emails and having spoken with them at conventions and conferences and served on panels with them) who earn a living on their writing, don't accept the boilerplate contract terms as handed to them. They tend to have agents. They do not give up all rights for 70 years beyond death, for their works. What defines out of print is negotiated, which takes into account, ebooks. Or they get paid for those rights being granted to the publisher. It depends on what you term or how you define 'no compete' and how it is altered. I guess you could sign a contract that says that any other work you write starting from the time you sign the contract would be considered competing if published elsewhere or self-published, or it could be any fantasy work for two years upon signing the contract or publication, or it could be any works in the same world setting or with the same characters.



PaulineMRoss said:


> Well, the trickle comment was applied to me. I don't expect to make more than a trickle of money from self-publishing, at least not for several years. But there will be *some* money, and it's a 70% royalty, and for those who can do the editing, cover art, etc themselves, it's clear profit. I'll be spending around $2,000 to get my first book out there, which I don't expect to earn back in the foreseeable future, but I wanted to do this properly ie professionally.



Individually, none of my works published have yet earned $5000, but I am with a small publisher. I am a small common guppy in a very large fish tank with many bigger, fancier fish swimming about. With a larger publisher, earning out past the advance (if it isn't large) and then earning royalties is reasonable, so the $5000 isn't necessarily all that would be earned by the author. Yes, if you wrote a novel and gave up all rights for 70 years past your death and that was all you earned, that could be considered piddling.

I say 'could be' because I don't see how you're saying getting a $5000 advance is piddling, if you intend to spend $2000 and don't expect to earn that back. That's far worse than earning $5000. However, how you define foreseeable future could mean eventually you might earn $2000 to break even and then reach $7000 to break even with a traditionally published author's advance (although I hope you earn back the investment and more in short order).

Authors I know do say that negotiating ebooks and clauses that try to encompass possible future electronic versions is difficult and the big publishers are anchored in some areas pretty steadily on ebooks, especially royalty rates. And they say that the past 5 to 7 years have really put a pinch on midlist authors, many who sell steadily and earn out their advances and have a respectable audience (but not on a steep upward trajectory) have had trouble getting equivalent contracts (to previous ones they signed)--and some even struggle getting contracts. Some of those have self-pubbed, or gone hybrid, or tried other publishers once the right of first refusal or whatever the language in the contract read, or began writing under a pen name, or just accepted less attractive contracts, or any combination.

Is that pretty? No. But there are authors that are making it in traditional publishing, just as there are authors who are making it self-publishing, and just as there are those that are taking both routes. Just as there are authors that can't break into traditional publishing and there are authors who self-publish and never sell more than a handful of copies of their novels.


----------



## PaulineMRoss

TWErvin2 said:


> Authors I know and communicate with, (via emails and having spoken with them at conventions and conferences and served on panels with them) who earn a living on their writing, don't accept the boilerplate contract terms as handed to them.



I'm very pleased and relieved to hear it. Most contracted authors don't talk about these things at all, so all that gets out is the small number of total horror stories and a lot of guesswork. It's good to know that some authors are able to propose changes to the standard contracts without the publisher simply saying, 'Next!' But I have heard many well-documented sources say that they had great difficulty getting changes made. Michael J Sullivan has catalogued some of his experiences in detail, and he's a very successful author, but he had to compromise. Hugh Howey got what he wanted, but it took several attempts.



> I say 'could be' because I don't see how you're saying getting a $5000 advance is piddling, if you intend to spend $2000 and don't expect to earn that back. That's far worse than earning $5000. However, how you define foreseeable future could mean eventually you might earn $2000 to break even and then reach $7000 to break even with a traditionally published author's advance (although I hope you earn back the investment and more in short order).



You're right, compared to an author with a $5,000 advance, I'm $7,000 down. For me, personally, I'm $2,000 dollars out of pocket, but then I'm not trying to make a living out of this. To me, it's a hobby, but one I want to do to the best of my ability. If I were to take up golf, say, I'd be happy to pay out for clubs and lessons and a golf club membership, for the satisfaction of it. Publishing is the same, right now. I do it for fun, but I want the result to look as good as anything else out there.

Besides, nobody makes money out of one book. The results come (if they come at all) after 3 or 4 or 10 books. After I publish the first book in September, I have a second that will be ready to go a few months later, and I'm just finishing the first draft of a third. Once that's out - then I might start looking for a return on expenditure (which will be $6,000 by then).

Or I might take up golf. ;-)



> But there are authors that are making it in traditional publishing, just as there are authors who are making it self-publishing, and just as there are those that are taking both routes. Just as there are authors that can't break into traditional publishing and there are authors who self-publish and never sell more than a handful of copies of their novels.



Absolutely right. But to my mind there is nothing sadder than an author with books languishing in the bottom drawer because they're waiting for their big break with a trad publisher. At least the self-pubbed author has books out there, even if they only sell a handful of copies. Books should be read, not left to gather dust.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

stephenspower said:


> I don't understand when people suddenly decided they could make a real living as an author.



While it is true that most author's don't earn a living wage, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect fair payment for a service that makes publishers and booksellers millions. It is this type of mindset that perpetuates the "starving artist" mindset. Let's look at just my audio sales to date. It has produced $1,200,000 in income and my take was $48,450. Is that fair?  My narrator (who does an exceptional job, got paid even less. The people who got the lions share didn't do more than us two, yet we get relative crumbs.



stephenspower said:


> Let's look at it from the self-pub side. To make that same $25,000 on a $5 ebook for which the author gets a 35% royalty, the author would have to sell around 14,250 copies. How many self-pubd titles do that? How many authors, compiling the sales of all their titles, make that? And if they do after how many years of not making that?



A lot more than you think.  On my highest self-publishing days I was earning $45,000- $55,000 a month and I was on the low side of the "high sellers.  H.P. Mallory, David Dalglish, Will Wright, and many more were selling well more than I was.



stephenspower said:


> That's the living of publishing. You don't go into it for the money. You go into it because you can't imagine not doing it.


You are 100% right. I don't write for the money...but I make a ton of money for others and it's not unreasonable to expect a decent cut.



stephenspower said:


> As to advances, they're down because orders are down, so the year one projections that advances are based on are also down.



They are down, because publisher's are trying to get the most they can for the least amount they can.  I earned out a six-figure advance in less than one year for my first series and when I submitted mys second series the offer that came in was much less, and quite frankly an insult.  The publisher stated, the reason is because advances across the board are about 50% of what they were when we negotiated last time...which may be true, but MY books were selling well so there was no reason to offer me a pittance...they were doing it because they thought they could get away with it.  Needless to say I didn't accept their offer, and they ended up paying more than they had to if they came back with a reasonable offer to begin with.  But this mindset of authors have to keep taking pennies is part of what is holding down author's income...imho.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Steerpike said:


> For a five dollar ebook, you get 70% royalty, at least through Amazon. Still a fair number of books you have to sell, though. Given the breakdown, does traditional make more sense than self-pub?



It's really hard to say...assuming only ebook sales, no foreign translations or heavy audio sales, I think you will do better as a self-published (less copies but higher revenue).  I thought I would lose money when signing with Orbit, it turned out that I made more but a lot of that has to do with really strong foreign language sales and audio income.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

PaulineMRoss said:


> It's really not as simple as that. Trad publishing is not something you choose, you only choose to submit your work to agents and/or publishers. Then THEY get to decide whether to take a punt on you. It's less a business decision than a dream you pursue. A matter of the heart, not the head.



Excellent point!  And one that I think a lot of people forget about...as if any author has the choice of either route. The real question then becomes IF you are writing work that COULD be picked up by a traditional publisher...which way would be best?  In such a situation then you have to consider whether you want more control or a team working for you.  Are you content with a small piece of the pie or do you want more.  Can you put out a book that is every bit as good as the traditional companies.  I'm hybrid so I CAN do both...but when I put out a book on my own I make sure it stands toe-to-toe with the books I release through traditional.  I expect a bigger return...but I also have to do a lot myself, or hire and pay others to do it for me.


----------



## TWErvin2

PaulineMRoss said:


> I'm very pleased and relieved to hear it. Most contracted authors don't talk about these things at all, so all that gets out is the small number of total horror stories and a lot of guesswork. It's good to know that some authors are able to propose changes to the standard contracts without the publisher simply saying, 'Next!' But I have heard many well-documented sources say that they had great difficulty getting changes made. Michael J Sullivan has catalogued some of his experiences in detail, and he's a very successful author, but he had to compromise. Hugh Howey got what he wanted, but it took several attempts.



You are correct. Most contracted authors don’t openly discuss their contracts, advances, earnings, how they did well and how they didn’t do so well with contracts. There are a number of reasons why, and that’s why I didn’t list the names of the several authors I communicate with and what they specifically said. All write fiction but only one writes in the fantasy genre.

Michael Sullivan is far more open, which is beneficial for writers and authors early in their career. From what he has said, his works sell better (he earns more) than the authors I talk to. For example, the last two book contract discussed with me was for an advance in the very low six figures. And the contract negotiations were drawn out, with the author not getting everything desired, and the contract ended up being slightly less advantageous than the previous one. In any case, Mr. Sullivan is definitely someone to pay attention to based on his experiences and candor.

Off topic, I will say that two of the authors I communicate with I met on a now defunct writing forum much like Mythic Scribes—but more general and not genre focused like Mythic Scribes. So some of the folks members cross paths with here may very well be those that are making a living in the publishing business some years down the road.



PaulineMRoss said:


> …But to my mind there is nothing sadder than an author with books languishing in the bottom drawer because they're waiting for their big break with a trad publisher. At least the self-pubbed author has books out there, even if they only sell a handful of copies. Books should be read, not left to gather dust.



While I am not one that views the ‘at least it’s out there’ process as necessarily a good thing, I see your point, and it’s just a matter of individual perspective.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Devor said:


> Traditional Publishing might be an increasingly bad deal, but I'm not sure it's easy to say that self-publishing is faring any better.  It's a tough time for a tough business, and I think the worsening of publishing deals only reflects that it's becoming increasingly difficult for a new author to stand out.  The market is flooded with books, and I think it's going to take some time to adjust to the way the industry has changed.



I do think self is "faring better."  There are many reasons for this, but the fact that they can control price and do promotions is a big part of this.  The market has always been flooded with books, this hasn't changed. And despite it being hard for authors to "stand out" new ones are discovered everyday.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Mythopoet said:


> The fact that so many writers are willing to accept the idea that authors just don't make enough money to support themselves as a normal and ok thing is very disappointing. Especially because it's only true for most authors because the writers get the smallest cut of the money from the content they create and because publishing companies continue to control the rights to their work preventing authors from making money on it in any other way than through the publisher. This is not normal. Publishers have been exploiting authors for decades and the exploitation gets worse and worse every year. Authors need to fight back against this by refusing to sign with publishing companies who won't give fair and mutually profitable contract terms and maintaining control of their work and their career.



Hear, hear!  Excellently stated.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Mythopoet said:


> But you need to stop focusing on the unsuccessful indies and focus on the real story of self publishing: the constantly increasing numbers of authors who are making good money. No, not J.K. Rowling or James Patterson money, but good money nonetheless. The numbers of writers who can make a good living as an author because of self publishing is growing all the time and no one wants to talk about it because the publishing industry has been telling authors for decades that only the very, very lucky get stay-at-home-and-write money. No one worth listening to is claiming that self-publishing will get you rich quick, though obviously that does some times happen. What they are claiming is that if you are professional and treat your writing like a business, keep control of your work and make smart decisions, and most importantly, _write good books that readers want_, over time it's far more likely that you will eventually start earning a living through self publishing than through traditional publishing.



I couldn't agree more.  The most under-reported story in publishing is just how many self-published authors are earning -- and earning well.  The problem is the press, and the surveys are constantly comparing apples to oranges.  For traditional published authors they are counting just those that are signed, whereas for self they are counting both the professional and the hacks who are producing sub-standard work.  If we want to compare apples to apples then the traditional pool should include all the unsuccessful authors who query but are never picked up.  If looked at this way - the two groups are remarkably similar.  Both have a very small % of getting any traction and the largest segment of the group are producing pieces that are not of a quality to get any substantial sales.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Mythopoet said:


> I would add that not "having" the skills is not really a good excuse. Some of the skills necessary can easily be learned (formatting, uploading to websites, etc.), some are harder to learn and you might have to have a natural inclination for them (cover art, self editing, etc.) but anything than an individual writer can't learn can be obtained from a freelancer for a set fee. And despite what many articles claim, it doesn't have to be wildly expensive. I've seen articles claim that good cover art costs thousands of dollars, but this is not true. You can get very good cover art for something around $100 if you know where to look. Professional proofreading can be more expensive, but this is something you don't necessarily have to pay for. Many indie writers trade services and writers are often very good proofreaders for others' work.



On this one, I'm going to have to disagree with you.  Look at it this way.  Some people don't have an entrepreneur spirit. 
 If given the choice they would prefer to "work for the man" than "strike out on their own."  Both are personal decisions and I respect people to make the choice that best fits them.  Now, that being the case...are the ones who stay traditional going to be at a disadvantage...I do think so. They are more vulnerable to the abuses of traditional publishing...but it's the cards they were dealt and for them it's either play or go home.  The ones that CAN do either are in the best position...but that is a very small segment of the market. First you have to be able to be picked up (no easy feat) and secondly, you have to be able to produce a book just as good as New York on your own (with freelancer support obviously) also not an easy thing to do.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

acapes said:


> In terms of negotiation with traditional publishers one thing has not changed and remains in their favour I suspect - any author walking away from a contract (good or bad contract) will instantly be replaced by another author.
> 
> A big publisher especially can pick and choose. If one writer turns something down, the publisher will have no trouble finding someone else to sign on the dotted line.



Very true...which is why the publishers have the upper hand...and why authors are treated so poorly.  In my case I was able to battle back against some of the most egregious contract terms, because I was earning well in self-publishing and could always stay there.  Most don't have this. But even someone like me, with some leverage, doesn't come out on top.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

TWErvin2 said:


> An author does not hand over all rights. And they do not hand over all rights for now and in perpetuity, and I guess it depends on what you consider piddling for an advance. It would be wrong to consider an advance is all that an author would earn, especially if it is piddling, as once it is earned out then the author earns royalties. And non-compete clauses can be negotiated, modified or removed, and every clause in a contract is important so buried is of a skewed term to use.



Well all rights that matter. My agent and I tried to hold back audio rights on both of my contracts and we were not able to.  I've now gone the route of selling the audio rights first...which just might mean that my publisher won't sign the print/ebook rights. It's something I'm willing to risk as I'm just losing too much money on audio under the current model.  And rights with the big-five are for the life of copyright so that's until you die + 70 years at which point the work is in the public domain so yes it is your rights "forever."  Of course you can get your rights back if the book is a huge failure...but the thresholds being used to calculate "out of print" are ridiculously low.  I don't consider $9 and change a living weekly wage, but that's all my books have to earn to prevent rights reversions.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

TWErvin2 said:


> Authors I know and communicate with, (via emails and having spoken with them at conventions and conferences and served on panels with them) who earn a living on their writing, don't accept the boilerplate contract terms as handed to them. They tend to have agents. They do not give up all rights for 70 years beyond death, for their works. What defines out of print is negotiated, which takes into account, ebooks.



You are both right and wrong.  Right in that we don't sign the boilerplate...and we have agents that negotiate...but wrong if you think one the points of negotiation is life-of-copyright or anything but a ridiculously low determination for out-of-print.  My agent was negotiating a seven-figure deal (not mine someone else's) and they were trying to get the out-of-print threshold raised. It went from $500 a year to $750 a year, and anything beyond that the publisher said they would walk.  Whether they would or not who knows but most won't walk from seven figures over that aspect. 



TWErvin2 said:


> Or they get paid for those rights being granted to the publisher. It depends on what you term or how you define 'no compete' and how it is altered. I guess you could sign a contract that says that any other work you write starting from the time you sign the contract would be considered competing if published elsewhere or self-published, or it could be any fantasy work for two years upon signing the contract or publication, or it could be any works in the same world setting or with the same characters.



Noncompete is a different matter. When I saw my non-compete I thought it was a joke.  I immediately told my agent there was no way I would sign.  She said, you have to, they are industry standard and won't change, even Stephen King signs them.  My response was I don't care what King does, this is a career killer an I won't under any circumstances sign it.  She hired an IP attorney that read me dozens of contracts from all the big houses (some whose non-competes were worse than mine...but none of them better).  He concurred they were what they were and you just have to accept them. I then turned to some published acquaintences and asked them about their non-competes.  At firs they said, "I don't have one."   I asked them to read xx paragraph...and they went ...oh wow...look at that. I didn't even know that was there...why didn't my agent tell me.  

Bottom line.  It took me six months and a very real threat (that was made public) that I would walk from my six-figure deal to get my non-compete changed.  It wasn't removed...but it was defanged to the point I could sign.  I had this power due to high self-publishing sales...but I know dozens of authors who signed bad non-competes because they couldn't negotiate them out. 

Now keep in mind I'm speaking about big-five here. There are better contact terms with smaller presses but the chances of earning any "serious" money with small press is VERY unlikely.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

TWErvin2 said:


> With a larger publisher, earning out past the advance (if it isn't large) and then earning royalties is reasonable, so the $5000 isn't necessarily all that would be earned by the author. Yes, if you wrote a novel and gave up all rights for 70 years past your death and that was all you earned, that could be considered piddling.



$5,000 - $10,000 is the average rate for a debut author - lots of data supports this including Tobias Buckell's author survey, agent blogs, and articles form sources like the New York times. But what is also reported is that only 20% of books ever earn out their advances.  So yes the advance is what MOST can expect to earn...although granted, easier than when it is lower.  I have access to Bookscan which gives me pretty reliable sales data (for print books) and I can tell you there are many that sell only a few hundred or a few thousand copies even though they were released from "big houses."  And as I already mentioned all big-five contracts are life-of-copyright.  I know of only one exception to this and it was done by S&S to acquire Wool - which was done on (I think) 7 - year contract but it was also print-only so an EXTREME outlier.


----------



## Steerpike

I've only negotiated contracts with small publishers, and they're much easier to work with than what it sounds like you've experienced, Michael (of course, they're not offering anything remotely like the money your publishers offer). I've been able to get non-competes taken out entirely (non-compete clauses are presumptively invalid in California, though that doesn't do you much good in publishing since there are other jurisdictions that would likely enforce them). 

I wonder whether the negotiating power of the big publishing houses is going to decrease over time, if indie publishing continues to rise, or whether traditional publishing will end up being even harder to crack, where you're only going to have authors who have proven they can sell a lot of books being pursued by the largest publishers.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

PaulineMRoss said:


> I'm very pleased and relieved to hear it. Most contracted authors don't talk about these things at all, so all that gets out is the small number of total horror stories and a lot of guesswork. It's good to know that some authors are able to propose changes to the standard contracts without the publisher simply saying, 'Next!' But I have heard many well-documented sources say that they had great difficulty getting changes made. Michael J Sullivan has catalogued some of his experiences in detail, and he's a very successful author, but he had to compromise. Hugh Howey got what he wanted, but it took several attempts.



Don't get too relieved. I suspect the authors he is referring to might be from small presses.  I can assure you the big-five ALL require life-of-copyright.  Yes I've gotten "some things" negotiated but no one (except Hugh and those at the .0001% of the sales) are getting changes to the big-ticket items like ebook-royalty rate, life-of-copyright terms, and low threshold for in-print determination.



You're right, compared to an author with a $5,000 advance, I'm $7,000 down. For me, personally, I'm $2,000 dollars out of pocket, but then I'm not trying to make a living out of this. To me, it's a hobby, but one I want to do to the best of my ability. If I were to take up golf, say, I'd be happy to pay out for clubs and lessons and a golf club membership, for the satisfaction of it. Publishing is the same, right now. I do it for fun, but I want the result to look as good as anything else out there.

Besides, nobody makes money out of one book. The results come (if they come at all) after 3 or 4 or 10 books. After I publish the first book in September, I have a second that will be ready to go a few months later, and I'm just finishing the first draft of a third. Once that's out - then I might start looking for a return on expenditure (which will be $6,000 by then).

Or I might take up golf. ;-)



Absolutely right. But to my mind there is nothing sadder than an author with books languishing in the bottom drawer because they're waiting for their big break with a trad publisher. At least the self-pubbed author has books out there, even if they only sell a handful of copies. Books should be read, not left to gather dust.[/QUOTE]


----------



## Mythopoet

TWErvin2 said:


> An author does not hand over all rights. And they do not hand over all rights for now and in perpetuity, and I guess it depends on what you consider piddling for an advance. It would be wrong to consider an advance is all that an author would earn, especially if it is piddling, as once it is earned out then the author earns royalties. And non-compete clauses can be negotiated, modified or removed, and every clause in a contract is important so buried is of a skewed term to use.



If you think these kinds of contracts don't exist and aren't becoming much more common all the time then you are kidding yourself. And many authors are talking about them. Kristie Kathryn Rusch was one of the main authors bringing these issues out into the open on her blog. If you read through her Business Rusch blog posts you'll see her talking about her experiences and the experiences of authors she knows and communicates with in many posts. A couple are here and here. Also in her Deal Breakers series of posts and others. I've seen a lot of writers with experience in traditional publishing discussing their experiences of bad contracts in the comments at The Passive Voice many times as well. (If you read the blog regularly, writers share their experiences with various aspects of the industry quite often. The comments are an education by themselves.) 

I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that if you go with traditional publishing you are absolutely guaranteed to have a terrible contract that will ruin your career. But it is undeniable that the Big 5 particularly have been moving towards more and more draconian boilerplate contracts and have also been extremely resistant to negotiating things like ebook royalty rates, non-compete clauses and rights grabs for new or midlist authors who aren't proven to be profitable. And having an agent doesn't help. Most agents don't feel comfortable negotiating anything other than the advance and aren't really qualified to negotiate IP contracts anyway. If you know authors who were able to negotiate for legitimately good contracts, those authors should be thanking their lucky stars, because that is becoming less and less common these days.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Steerpike said:


> I've only negotiated contracts with small publishers, and they're much easier to work with than what it sounds like you've experienced, Michael (of course, they're not offering anything remotely like the money your publishers offer). I've been able to get non-competes taken out entirely (non-compete clauses are presumptively invalid in California, though that doesn't do you much good in publishing since there are other jurisdictions that would likely enforce them).



Yes you are correct small publishers are much more willing to write a good contract. I have a contract with Tachyon Publications that is AMAZING and I didn't have to twist their arm at all...it was already a fair contract...just one of the reasons I signed so readily with them.

As for non-competes...you are correct they are illegal in CA...but here's a dirty secret.  The ones in the New York contracts are just as illegal (both states have similar right-to-work legislation) - but that doesn't stop them from being put into the contracts. So yes, you can go to court and fight (after the fact) and you would win...but they are put in nonetheless.  They are betting on the author (a) not knowing they are illegal and (b) not going to court to fight them.  



Steerpike said:


> I wonder whether the negotiating power of the big publishing houses is going to decrease over time, if indie publishing continues to rise, or whether traditional publishing will end up being even harder to crack, where you're only going to have authors who have proven they can sell a lot of books being pursued by the largest publishers.



For a long time I felt as you did...that publishers WOULD have to change as they are now competing against self-publishing. I've changed my stance. As someone else said, there are plenty willing to sign any contract (even bad ones) that by "walking" we aren't really impacting the business model.  They can loose an author here or there, but there will still be plenty to take their places.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Mythopoet said:


> If you think these kinds of contracts don't exist and aren't becoming much more common all the time then you are kidding yourself. And many authors are talking about them. Kristie Kathryn Rusch was one of the main authors bringing these issues out into the open on her blog. If you read through her Business Rusch blog posts you'll see her talking about her experiences and the experiences of authors she knows and communicates with in many posts. A couple are here and here. Also in her Deal Breakers series of posts and others. I've seen a lot of writers with experience in traditional publishing discussing their experiences of bad contracts in the comments at The Passive Voice many times as well. (If you read the blog regularly, writers share their experiences with various aspects of the industry quite often. The comments are an education by themselves.)



Yes, you do have the correct picture...it may be that it's a matter of "press size" for big-five you are absolutely correct in your assessment...the "other authors" are likely from small presses.



Mythopoet said:


> I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that if you go with traditional publishing you are absolutely guaranteed to have a terrible contract that will ruin your career. But it is undeniable that the Big 5 particularly have been moving towards more and more draconian boilerplate contracts and have also been extremely resistant to negotiating things like ebook royalty rates, non-compete clauses and rights grabs for new or midlist authors who aren't proven to be profitable. And having an agent doesn't help. Most agents don't feel comfortable negotiating anything other than the advance and aren't really qualified to negotiate IP contracts anyway. If you know authors who were able to negotiate for legitimately good contracts, those authors should be thanking their lucky stars, because that is becoming less and less common these days.



When it comes to big-five contracts I don't think there is any "good terms" just terms you can "live with." And I agree that having the agent (or an IP lawyer for that matter) doesn't help.  While in theory "everything is negotiable" the big-five walk lock-step on certain key points and they know there power is in NEVER backing down on those.  If anything the agent hurts...as they expect certain things to be off the table...I had to put my agent's feet to the fire on non-compete that to me was an absolute deal breaker.  But life-of-copyright and out-of-print thresholds there just isn't any wiggle room.


----------



## Jabrosky

Mythopoet said:


> If you think these kinds of contracts don't exist and aren't becoming much more common all the time then *you are kidding yourself*.


Sorry for veering the thread off-course and sounding like a moderator, but what's with snide comments like this? Like other posters, I've observed a tendency for you to attribute unfavorable motivations or foolishness to anyone who disagrees with you. I get that you're really passionate about topics like this, but must you always assume the worst about anyone who doesn't see things your way? This is bordering on uncivil.


----------



## Steerpike

Jabrosky said:


> Sorry for veering the thread off-course and sounding like a moderator, but what's with snide comments like this? Like other posters, I've observed a tendency for you to attribute unfavorable motivations or foolishness to anyone who disagrees with you. I get that you're really passionate about topics like this, but must you always assume the worst about anyone who doesn't see things your way? This is bordering on uncivil.



The people involved have already moved past that. Lets not escalate things by making a post about a person. Comments should be directed to the discussion and the arguments people are making and not focused on personalities. It looks like this thread has already leveled off, so lets keep it that way.


----------



## Mythopoet

Jabrosky said:


> Sorry for veering the thread off-course and sounding like a moderator, but what's with snide comments like this? Like other posters, I've observed a tendency for you to attribute unfavorable motivations or foolishness to anyone who disagrees with you. I get that you're really passionate about topics like this, but must you always assume the worst about anyone who doesn't see things your way? This is bordering on uncivil.



I have a tendency to be very direct and honest in my opinions which other people frequently get offended by. I am not sorry for being honest and direct in the way I say things. I do not think it is uncivil. I've always viewed honesty as one of the highest forms of respect you can pay to another person. 

The tendency of people on this forum to view any time I tell something I think they are wrong in any way or for any reason as being malicious is much more uncivil, where I'm sitting.


----------



## acapes

MichaelSullivan said:


> Very true...which is why the publishers have the upper hand...and why authors are treated so poorly.  In my case I was able to battle back against some of the most egregious contract terms, because I was earning well in self-publishing and could always stay there.  Most don't have this. But even someone like me, with some leverage, doesn't come out on top.



I saw that mentioned in another thread, Michael - very interesting. Especially re: the audio rights. And like you say, it's about the clout an individual author has, huh?

And as you've also mentioned in this thread, the amount of authors willing to sign that will help keep big publishers offering the unfavorable (to authors) contracts. My contracts are all with small presses and I've been able to negotiate on aspects like length of contract etc for which I am grateful indeed.

I'm curious, are you still reasonably happy working with the big guys at the moment? For instance, do the positives outweigh the negatives for you?


----------



## psychotick

Hi,

My view is that you can suffer even these terrible contracts for one book, provided none of the restrictions apply to any others you write. My point is that you can view the book as a loss leader, hoping that the trade published book will generate sufficent publicity for you that it will sell your other books. And lets be honest here, the advantage that a trade published book hopefully has is that it will be put on shelves an indie book will not be put on, and placed in front of more eyes.

Maybe this is a cynical view, and I doubt publishers would like hearing it - that their authors would only consider them as one off vehicles to sales - but really is this that much different to discounting a book or even making it free so that your other books sell more? And we do know that those authors who seem to do best in the earnings sweepstakes are the hybrids.

So my advice, if you get a contract from an agent / publisher which looks like it might be rough but which could still potentially help make you a higher profile author - don't reject it out of hand. Sit back and mull everything over carefully. You have to think of your sales from all your books as well as the one you feel you might be ripped off on.

Cheers, Greg.


----------



## acapes

psychotick said:


> Sit back and mull everything over carefully.



Exactly, it's worth taking your time - writing is a long term game, huh?


----------



## PaulineMRoss

psychotick said:


> My view is that you can suffer even these terrible contracts for one book, provided none of the restrictions apply to any others you write.



This is exactly right. But what with non-compete clauses and first refusal clauses and out-of-print clauses, a contract could effectively stop an author from ever publishing anything in the future except through that publisher. It can be a career ending affair (at worst). And anyone who thinks a publisher wouldn't enforce the more egregious clauses is putting a lot of faith in them. Authors need to be very careful signing anything these days, especially with a big publisher.

But you can see the publishers' point. They don't want to spend money and time and effort promoting an author to success, only to have her turn round and go self-published on the back of that.


----------



## Steerpike

I don't see a contract that stops an author ever publishing again except through the one publisher being enforceable, honestly. At least, not in the U.S.


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> I don't see a contract that stops an author ever publishing again except through the one publisher being enforceable, honestly. At least, not in the U.S.



What kind of window would you see as enforceable?

My expectation is that a contract might say you can't publish elsewhere until X time after your contracted book runs through its print run. If so a reasonably successful author could get tied up for quite a while.


----------



## Steerpike

That's tough to say as a general proposition, because various jurisdictions likely have their own case law as to what is reasonable. In California, a non-compete is presumptively invalid. In states where they are valid they generally have to be reasonable in terms of time and geographic area. I've written them for three year terms. The longest that came across my desk in MO was seven years. Of course, the contract can be used as a weapon even if the clause is unenforceable because people either don't know it is unenforceable or aren't able to/don't want to fight it. But the idea that you can sign your entire career away and never have the future option of going with another publisher, or even self-publishing, is not correct in my view.


----------



## Mythopoet

Steerpike said:


> That's tough to say as a general proposition, because various jurisdictions likely have their own case law as to what is reasonable. In California, a non-compete is presumptively invalid. In states where they are valid they generally have to be reasonable in terms of time and geographic area. I've written them for three year terms. The longest that came across my desk in MO was seven years. Of course, the contract can be used as a weapon even if the clause is unenforceable because people either don't know it is unenforceable or aren't able to/don't want to fight it. But the idea that you can sign your entire career away and never have the future option of going with another publisher, or even self-publishing, is not correct in my view.



I agree that it almost certainly isn't legal or enforceable. But how many debut and midlist writers do you know who have the resources to take it to court to find out? Big publishers with their millions in revenue and teams of lawyers can still hold these clauses over the individual writer's head. 

Or they can use such clauses as an excuse to cancel a contract. I remember the story of Kiana Davenport, traditionally published award winning writer, who signed a contract in 2010 for a book with a Big 5 imprint. It wasn't going to be published until 2012 and she needed some income, so she self published a collection of short stories that had already been rejected by publishers many times (including by the publisher she was contracted with). However, when the publisher found out they went "ballistic" and demanded that she take the volume down and attempt to delete all record of it from the internet. (heh) She refused (the short stories had nothing to do with the civil war era love story she was contracted with them for) and so they cancelled the contract and demanded she repay the advance. 

Now, this exact sort of thing isn't likely to happen anymore, since publishers are much more accepting of authors self publishing these days. But it's an example of the kinds of lengths that publishers can go to thanks to the language they put in their contracts. And you can't believe them when they say things like "oh, well, that's just standard boilerplate, but we would never exercise it, trust us". Whenever you sign a contract you need to read it in light of what's the worst case scenario that can come from it. And if that worst case is something you don't want to have to deal with, then you need to get it changed.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

acapes said:


> I'm curious, are you still reasonably happy working with the big guys at the moment? For instance, do the positives outweigh the negatives for you?



Yes, but I'm a pretty successful traditionally published author...most wouldn't be in my position.  I'm not in the 1% like someone like Hugh Howey or Stephen King but I'm certainly more comfortable than probably 90% of authors both self and traditional.

*The Good*

It was absolutely the right decision to make - on all kinds of levels.  My audience grew. I made more money than I would have in self-publishing. It opened doors I couldn't open on my own
I've been treated very well...better than most...with a marketing budget and good marketing programs
The books were well produced and professional (although not the covers I would have preferred)

*The Bad*

The more successful my books become, the greater the disparity between the money in their pockets and the money in mine
I've had to sign contracts that I don't agree with on principal...yes no one put a gun to my head, and I could have walked but it's still not something I'm happy about.
When me and my publisher disagree...they win.  It's what I knew I signed up. But it is still frustrating to see things that would help my career that I'm powerless to implement.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

psychotick said:


> My view is that you can suffer even these terrible contracts for one book, provided none of the restrictions apply to any others you write. My point is that you can view the book as a loss leader, hoping that the trade published book will generate sufficent publicity for you that it will sell your other books. And lets be honest here, the advantage that a trade published book hopefully has is that it will be put on shelves an indie book will not be put on, and placed in front of more eyes.
> 
> Maybe this is a cynical view, and I doubt publishers would like hearing it - that their authors would only consider them as one off vehicles to sales - but really is this that much different to discounting a book or even making it free so that your other books sell more? And we do know that those authors who seem to do best in the earnings sweepstakes are the hybrids.
> 
> So my advice, if you get a contract from an agent / publisher which looks like it might be rough but which could still potentially help make you a higher profile author - don't reject it out of hand. Sit back and mull everything over carefully. You have to think of your sales from all your books as well as the one you feel you might be ripped off on.
> 
> Cheers, Greg.



I totally agree with this.  Hybrid is the way to go...so if you have to sacrifice one book to traditional then it probably makes good sense to.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

PaulineMRoss said:


> This is exactly right. But what with non-compete clauses and first refusal clauses and out-of-print clauses, a contract could effectively stop an author from ever publishing anything in the future except through that publisher. It can be a career ending affair (at worst). And anyone who thinks a publisher wouldn't enforce the more egregious clauses is putting a lot of faith in them. Authors need to be very careful signing anything these days, especially with a big publisher.



Non-competes must be negotiated to something that you can reasonably live with. I was fully prepared to walk from my six-figure contract with the non-compete that I had originally.  What is reasonable?  A few month window around their release when you won't release another book.  You need to ensure you can "take your property with you" which means you can write prequels, sequels, spin-off, or other books with the characters or world without any other restriction - other than that few months to either side of their title's release.

Right of first refusal is equally easy.  No reason not to give them a "first" look at your "next" book - but if you can't agree on terms in a reasonable amount of time  30 - 60 days then it's yours to do with as you wish.  Things to watch out for is things like "we reserve the right to match any other offer - and if we do it is ours" or things like "if we option the next book it is under the same terms of this contract."  If you are thinking of leaving your publisher there is probably a reason (bad blood) and you don't want them to "quick claim" back a book when you want a divorce from them.  And you always want a new contract for a new book - especially if your star is on the rise. 

Out of print -- well you just have to live with the fact that there is a real chance that the book you are signing is gone forever.  If you can live with that then walk away.  There should be "some" provision for out-of-print - but trust me it will be very low such that it will probably never trigger.



PaulineMRoss said:


> But you can see the publishers' point. They don't want to spend money and time and effort promoting an author to success, only to have her turn round and go self-published on the back of that.



Actually I don't think that is a valid point.  If my new book increases my audience then their books sell more and we both benefit.  They aren't promising to publish you for your whole career...so why should they expect you to have a different standard?  The publisher needs to make the publish/not publish on the book they are signing...and if they treat you will they will get more from you.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Steerpike said:


> I don't see a contract that stops an author ever publishing again except through the one publisher being enforceable, honestly. At least, not in the U.S.



It's not...but that doesn't mean it's not written in the contract.  The issue is you have to go to court...and if you do you will win...but you will also be out lawyer fees and time/inconvenience.  They are put in because most won't challenge them and they'll sometimes "make like" they have a case.  It's all smoke, mirrors, and intimindation.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Devor said:


> What kind of window would you see as enforceable?


I've gotten my non-competes to be a window 3 months before and 3 months after the publication date of their book(s).



Devor said:


> My expectation is that a contract might say you can't publish elsewhere until X time after your contracted book runs through its print run. If so a reasonably successful author could get tied up for quite a while.



That would be a TERRIBLE clause and I would never sign it.  When you examine a clause...consider the "negative possibilities."  In what you just wrote what you are saying is "If I never sell through my print run, I'm never able to publish with someone else!!"


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Steerpike said:


> That's tough to say as a general proposition, because various jurisdictions likely have their own case law as to what is reasonable. In California, a non-compete is presumptively invalid. In states where they are valid they generally have to be reasonable in terms of time and geographic area. I've written them for three year terms. The longest that came across my desk in MO was seven years. Of course, the contract can be used as a weapon even if the clause is unenforceable because people either don't know it is unenforceable or aren't able to/don't want to fight it. But the idea that you can sign your entire career away and never have the future option of going with another publisher, or even self-publishing, is not correct in my view.



Yes non-competes need to be bound by time and location. Non-competes in "jobs" may be several years in length...but I would never consent to a non-compete that restricts me for more than 6 months.  I can "sit" on a book for 1/2 a year and not worry too much...but I wouldn't go beyond that.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Mythopoet said:


> I agree that it almost certainly isn't legal or enforceable. But how many debut and midlist writers do you know who have the resources to take it to court to find out? Big publishers with their millions in revenue and teams of lawyers can still hold these clauses over the individual writer's head.



Agree 100%



Mythopoet said:


> Or they can use such clauses as an excuse to cancel a contract. I remember the story of Kiana Davenport, traditionally published award winning writer, who signed a contract in 2010 for a book with a Big 5 imprint. It wasn't going to be published until 2012 and she needed some income, so she self published a collection of short stories that had already been rejected by publishers many times (including by the publisher she was contracted with). However, when the publisher found out they went "ballistic" and demanded that she take the volume down and attempt to delete all record of it from the internet. (heh) She refused (the short stories had nothing to do with the civil war era love story she was contracted with them for) and so they cancelled the contract and demanded she repay the advance.



So let me give you what I think was the takeaway on that Davenport case...Although I should note that the contract was never made public so we are all "guessing" on what it said.  But here goes.

I don't think she violated non-compete...what she probably violated was a nasty little clause that is added to the indemnity section. Usually that section say things like I attest that I wrote this book and no one else can claim they did, blah, blah, blah...but recently they've been inserting.... "I attest that this work will be my next published work."   For my first contract, I didn't fight that clause because I had no other book that was coming out before my trad books were.  But for my second contract...I had another book waiting in the wings (that I planned to self-publish) so I got that struck.  

My guess is she didn't read her contract carefully and that clause snuck in.  Given that she signed it...the publisher had every right (although it was a crappy thing to do) to make her abide by the contract.  If she wasn't willing to abide by what she signed...they had every right to cancel the contract...and if the contract said the advance is refundable if the book isn't published (and many do say that) then again the publisher followed what the contract said. I felt bad for Kiana, but I still am 99.9% sure that it's her own fault for signing something that she didn't realize the repercussions of.



Mythopoet said:


> Now, this exact sort of thing isn't likely to happen anymore, since publishers are much more accepting of authors self publishing these days. But it's an example of the kinds of lengths that publishers can go to thanks to the language they put in their contracts. And you can't believe them when they say things like "oh, well, that's just standard boilerplate, but we would never exercise it, trust us". Whenever you sign a contract you need to read it in light of what's the worst case scenario that can come from it. And if that worst case is something you don't want to have to deal with, then you need to get it changed.



I do think such clauses still are being put in...and yes I think the publisher hopes you don't notice...but the point you make is 100% correct - you have to look at "worst case scenaios" and make sure that you aren't boxing yourself in because you didn't pay attention to what you signed.  If you sign a "bad" contract - you have only yourself to blame...and if you sign a contract...you should expect them to enforce it.


----------



## stephenspower

> it will be very low such that it will probably never trigger.



This isn't true, especially if you include a sales floor of some sort in the contract, that is, if the book doesn't sell a certain number of copies or make a certain amount of revenue in a fiscal year, then the author can request the rights be reverted. I should add that publishers are incentivized to put books out of print in order to destroy stock, so it happens all the time, usually long before a book's sales fall to any contractual floor.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

stephenspower said:


> This isn't true, especially if you include a sales floor of some sort in the contract, that is, if the book doesn't sell a certain number of copies or make a certain amount of revenue in a fiscal year, then the author can request the rights be reverted. I should add that publishers are incentivized to put books out of print in order to destroy stock, so it happens all the time, usually long before a book's sales fall to any contractual floor.



The "floor" I have (which is more generous than most I've seen) is $500 worth of royalties (from print, ebook, audio, bookclub, graphic novels, and any other subsidiary sale) over the course of a year. That's $9.16 a week. Which is NOTHING! I don't know about you but how many bills can you pay with $9.16 a week of income? 

The publishers can pulp all the stock they want...it's the ebooks and audio that continue to produce income with no warehouse space. The reason publishers hang onto rights...is if the writer is still producing new books then they will get sales on the backlist (in most cases the backlist earns far more for the publisher than the front list).  But let's say for the sake of argument the author's books aren't earning well. It is a cheap investment to buy some copies themselves to keep the right...on the hopes that the next year will be better.

I know some "floors" that are $200 or less a year...and others that are 100 books or less in a year.  I'm sorry all those floors are REALLY REALLY low and very easy to keep in print.


----------



## acapes

MichaelSullivan said:


> Yes, but I'm a pretty successful traditionally published author...most wouldn't be in my position.  I'm not in the 1% like someone like Hugh Howey or Stephen King but I'm certainly more comfortable than probably 90% of authors both self and traditional.
> 
> *The Good*
> 
> It was absolutely the right decision to make - on all kinds of levels.  My audience grew. I made more money than I would have in self-publishing. It opened doors I couldn't open on my own
> I've been treated very well...better than most...with a marketing budget and good marketing programs
> The books were well produced and professional (although not the covers I would have preferred)
> 
> *The Bad*
> 
> The more successful my books become, the greater the disparity between the money in their pockets and the money in mine
> I've had to sign contracts that I don't agree with on principal...yes no one put a gun to my head, and I could have walked but it's still not something I'm happy about.
> When me and my publisher disagree...they win.  It's what I knew I signed up. But it is still frustrating to see things that would help my career that I'm powerless to implement.



Thanks, Michael, appreciate you taking time to answer.

Having the audience grow must be a reasonable trade-off for the lack of control over the cover art (?) but the gap on low royalties is always frustrating, huh? But you'd be self-publishing other works at the same time? 

I'm curious too about the steps the publisher won't take - if you don't mind chatting more?


----------



## MichaelSullivan

acapes said:


> Thanks, Michael, appreciate you taking time to answer.
> 
> Having the audience grow must be a reasonable trade-off for the lack of control over the cover art (?) but the gap on low royalties is always frustrating, huh? But you'd be self-publishing other works at the same time?
> 
> I'm curious too about the steps the publisher won't take - if you don't mind chatting more?



You are very welcome...Yes growing the audience is very important...but it's not just cover art that you lose control over...it's everything. I would have preferred my books to come out in hardcover followed by mass market paperback but they were done in trade paperbacks. There are a million little decisions I have no say in.

I do plan on staying hybrid...some titles self (or a joint self and traditional) my most recent novel Hollow World had 4 publishers: 2 foreign language, 1 for print, 1 for audio) but I retain the ebook rights. In the future I might put out some titles that are full self-published where I have the print, ebook, and audio rights. 

As to what publishers are holding firm on.  There are many things but the ones that bother me the most are:


25% of net for ebooks
Reduced royalties for exports and high-volume sales
Life-of-copyright contract length
Really low thresholds for "in print" determination which means rights don't revert when they stop performing well.

There are other issues like non-competes - that they will negotiate and to me it is the most important clause in the contract to get "right" as it could affect not only the book(s) being signed...but future works as well.


----------



## Devor

There has to be a lawsuit there somewhere against people who make contracts knowing they aren't legal . . . something about good faith and an intent to extort. I wonder if someone's pursued that?

There are jurisdictions where non-competes are unenforceable as a matter of law, like California. Someone should start a publishing house there, if just for people locked in non-competes to self-publish legally.


----------



## Steerpike

Devor said:


> There has to be a lawsuit there somewhere against people who make contracts knowing they aren't legal . . . something about good faith and an intent to extort. I wonder if someone's pursued that?
> 
> There are jurisdictions where non-competes are unenforceable as a matter of law, like California. Someone should start a publishing house there, if just for people locked in non-competes to self-publish legally.



Yeah. Problem is, unless you're only selling in California, I imagine you're going to run into an issue when someone buys the book in a jurisdiction where the non-compete clause can be enforced. If I have an online store and someone buys a book in Missouri, and then the former publisher sues me and the author in Missouri over the non-compete clause, that would be an issue.

Also, the original publishing agreement may have a choice of law provision, which means no matter where the suit is filed the parties are agreeing that the law of a chosen jurisdiction will apply to the agreement. If the original publisher is smart, it'll be one where the non-compete is enforceable (or at least arguably so). I'm not convinced California would enforce it even with a choice of law provision, but that would be another consideration.


----------



## acapes

MichaelSullivan said:


> You are very welcome...Yes growing the audience is very important...but it's not just cover art that you lose control over...it's everything. I would have preferred my books to come out in hardcover followed by mass market paperback but they were done in trade paperbacks. There are a million little decisions I have no say in.
> 
> I do plan on staying hybrid...some titles self (or a joint self and traditional) my most recent novel Hollow World had 4 publishers: 2 foreign language, 1 for print, 1 for audio) but I retain the ebook rights. In the future I might put out some titles that are full self-published where I have the print, ebook, and audio rights.
> 
> As to what publishers are holding firm on.  There are many things but the ones that bother me the most are:
> 
> 
> 25% of net for ebooks
> Reduced royalties for exports and high-volume sales
> Life-of-copyright contract length
> Really low thresholds for "in print" determination which means rights don't revert when they stop performing well.
> 
> There are other issues like non-competes - that they will negotiate and to me it is the most important clause in the contract to get "right" as it could affect not only the book(s) being signed...but future works as well.



That would bug me too - & I really don't like the trade format as a reader, it's just not comfortable to hold I find.

And I agree, 25% is not much at all - especially if a title is on special for say 99c (I think that nabbed me 17c per copy on my first book when it was on sale) and the life of copyright and the low thresholds are rough on the author too - being able to negotiate on those aspects is what I like about having a small publisher. (Of course, what I then don't have is the powerful network of a major publisher to help grow the audience.)

In terms of your staying hybrid (which is the approach I'm going for) for instance, do you have the option to self-publish a work in the Riyria universe in the future?


----------



## Addison

Traditional Publishing isn't a bad idea, just a dying way. Thanks to technology. Instead of buying books, real books of paper and ink with a choice between hard cover or paper back, there's download. Either the kindle, nook or even google books. These types of publishers are taking off so fast in this day and age with more than just novels that soon even magazines and newspapers will be a thing of the past. Times like this you have to wonder if all these technological advances are really for the better. Computer programs, robots and other things are growing so fast that they'll either replace or destroy opportunity for jobs. 

Me, I prefer a solid material book. Currently I'm taking an online English class and, for the first time in ever, I am getting lower than an A in English. I have a C-. MINUS!! All because the reading material is pdf files. My grade is going up now that I fixed my printer to hold the stories in my hands. Not to mention, reading a story on a lit screen really hurts my eyes. 

So the advances in technology are great for marketing and promoting, but I'll stick with the old school books. 
Oh, and I think that creating a contract knowing it can be broken or such is more of a con. I'm not sure, I'm glimpsing Timothy Hutton and Christian Kane in "Leverage" right now.


----------



## Mythopoet

I think one of the main things that new authors need to think about, when choosing what path to pursue, is that traditional publishing does not allow writers to grow a career like they used to in past decades. They still claim to "nurture" authors and their careers, but the fact is that if you're not a success right away with a Big Publisher (or most of their imprints), you're going to be dropped. 

This observation has been made by established traditional authors like Val McDermid (a best-selling crime writer) who admitted in an article for The Telegraph that if she were to start out publishing today she "wouldn't have a career". She admits that no one in publishing today is going to publish multiple books that don't perform well in order to allow you to grow as a writer and develop an audience. 

It's also something that self publishing author Michael Stephen Fuchs learned the hard way. In a recent Open Letter to Jeff Bezos posted on his website, Michael discusses how he published 2 books with MacMillan, but the second book didn't do well (he also describes how this was at least partly a result of MacMillan's mistakes in handling the book) so MacMillan dropped him. He tried to point out to the CEO of MacMillan that "Graham Greene wouldn't have made it if he were a Macmillan author today. Both his second and third books were monumental commercial flops." But that didn't matter to MacMillan, only his sales numbers did. (Note, you have to click on the asterisk in this post to read some of this stuff.) He describes how grateful he is that publishing now via KDP allows him to be a full time author. 

Starting out as a debut writer with a traditional publisher seems to me, in light of stories like this, a monumentally bad idea. Trad publishers no longer allow mistakes. And when the mistakes are theirs, they end up getting blamed on the writer, who pays the price by having their publishing career unceremoniously ended. They no longer allow slow growth of meaningful careers. They want immediate success. They want to throw the authors at the public, see what sticks, get rid of anything that doesn't and rake in the profits on anything that does. 

So, if you really want to be published by a traditional publisher, the smart thing to do seems to me to use self publishing to build up your career. Write lots of books, experiment, try lots of different techniques, build a loyal fan base, find success the slow but much more likely way. Once you have reached a certain level of success, especially if you have a dedicated fan base that is guaranteed to buy your books, you can seek a traditional publishing deal. Traditional publishers are trying to snap up successful self publishers left and right because they're guaranteed profit without any risk. If you're already successful you'll have more clout and influence to obtain a fair and profitable contract. So you can gain the benefits that traditional publishing offers, without having to give up control of your career and future as an author.


----------



## PaulineMRoss

Mythopoet said:


> Once you have reached a certain level of success, especially if you have a dedicated fan base that is guaranteed to buy your books, you can seek a traditional publishing deal.



And the question then would be: why would you? Why hand that success over to a publisher to cream off the profits on the back of all your hard work?


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

There could be a number of reasons. Some authors who strike hybrid deals, retain the E-sales and contract print sales. That model would get you into brick & mortar locations (like airports) that you couldn't get into on your own. Maybe you want to expand internationally with print. Need foreign translation & distribution if you do. Audiobooks is another....

It could simply come down to a business decision. Maybe you just want to write, leaving all the other aspects to others.


----------



## psychotick

Hi,

I think Pauline makes a very good point. I'm not saying don't look to a trade deal at some point in your career. It may be a good thing in many respects. But I am saying that before you consider signing on the dotted line you ask one very important question - what can they do for me? And the reality is that if you are a successful indie there is less that a publisher can offer you.

Cheers, Greg.


----------



## Mythopoet

PaulineMRoss said:


> And the question then would be: why would you? Why hand that success over to a publisher to cream off the profits on the back of all your hard work?



Personally, I agree with you. I have no intention of seeking traditional publishing at any time. But there are people who really, really want a traditional deal for their own reasons.

The thing is, if you self pub first there's nothing to stop you from traditionally publishing at a later date. (Again, trad publishers are constantly trying to pick up successful self pubbers. They no longer care if you've self published first.)

But if you publish traditionally first, there's a good chance your career may be seriously crippled by a non-compete clause or a contract that makes rights reversion almost impossible. 

The safe and smart thing to do is to start with self publishing.


----------



## Trick

This may have been said before, as I have not read the whole thread, but I wanted to point something out. 

A good agent can make traditional publishing much more profitable and worthwhile. A media lawyer can do even better. The difficulty lies in getting a big trad pub house to accept a deal that is actually fair. It's beginning to seem that respectable success as a self-published author is one of the only ways to make that happen. They see your name and want to say yes to a deal, you hand them a contract that they don't love but might actually consider. But if you show up out of the blue with a contract that's ironclad and say you'll sell your work to them on those terms, they'll laugh you out of the building. 

I honestly can't think of another way to get a good contract other than being the best damn writer they have seen in a while. 

Since self publishing can both get your name out there and help you improve, it seems like a nearly necessary first step regardless of your future plans.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

acapes said:


> In terms of your staying hybrid (which is the approach I'm going for) for instance, do you have the option to self-publish a work in the Riyria universe in the future?



I would never sign a contract that would limit my future works...except in the respect of having a small exclusive window for the publisher when their book comes out.  So yes...I can publish any work any way I wish.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Mythopoet said:


> Starting out as a debut writer with a traditional publisher seems to me, in light of stories like this, a monumentally bad idea. Trad publishers no longer allow mistakes. And when the mistakes are theirs, they end up getting blamed on the writer, who pays the price by having their publishing career unceremoniously ended. They no longer allow slow growth of meaningful careers. They want immediate success. They want to throw the authors at the public, see what sticks, get rid of anything that doesn't and rake in the profits on anything that does.



While in general I agree with your statements here, I will say that as upset as I get with Orbit (Hachette) from time to time, I've seen them really "hang in there" with authors that aren't (according to what I see in bookscan) selling really well. 



Mythopoet said:


> So, if you really want to be published by a traditional publisher, the smart thing to do seems to me to use self publishing to build up your career. Write lots of books, experiment, try lots of different techniques, build a loyal fan base, find success the slow but much more likely way. Once you have reached a certain level of success, especially if you have a dedicated fan base that is guaranteed to buy your books, you can seek a traditional publishing deal. Traditional publishers are trying to snap up successful self publishers left and right because they're guaranteed profit without any risk. If you're already successful you'll have more clout and influence to obtain a fair and profitable contract. So you can gain the benefits that traditional publishing offers, without having to give up control of your career and future as an author.



Again, in general I agree with these statements. But there is NEVER any guarantees.  Again, I've looked at bookscan numbers of some self-published authors that moved to traditional (some of which had really high advances and some were even in a bidding situation between multiple publishers) that came nowhere need what they needed to be to become a "success."


----------



## MichaelSullivan

PaulineMRoss said:


> And the question then would be: why would you? Why hand that success over to a publisher to cream off the profits on the back of all your hard work?



Well as someone who did exactly this I can tell you why....


Bookstore presence - that helps to grow the audience
Library presence - again that opens up a reader type that self can't easily penetrate
More and higher advanced foreign sales
Audio books produced without cost to author
Validation which still means a lot to a large percentage of readers
Having a team of people producing the books rather than having to do it all yourself

Bottom line, I made more money by going traditional then staying self-published. My readership grew faster, and it opened doors I couldn't open on my own.  Should EVERY project go this route? Nope. You have to evaluate each one on a case by case basis.

When I wrote Riyria Chronicles, the first offer I got wasn't at a level that was worth it for me to sign.  The publisher came back with a larger advance...I thought I wouldn't earn that much with self...so I signed.  For Hollow World, I had a good offer for print/ebook/audio...but I thought I could earn more by keeping my ebook rights so I turned that down and sold print to one company and audio to another.  In the first few months of that book going live, I had earned back more than double of the original offer made.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Mythopoet said:


> But if you publish traditionally first, there's a good chance your career may be seriously crippled by a non-compete clause or a contract that makes rights reversion almost impossible.



If the non-compete is bad (and most are) it has to be re-negotiated to de-fang it...or walk...period. It's too big an issue to cross your fingers on that they won't enforce it.

As for rights reversion - you have to walk into any deal pretty much figuring those rights are gone forever.  But it's just one book or one series so it's not the end of the world long term.

The safe and smart thing to do is to start with self publishing.[/QUOTE]


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Trick said:


> A good agent can make traditional publishing much more profitable and worthwhile. A media lawyer can do even better. The difficulty lies in getting a big trad pub house to accept a deal that is actually fair. It's beginning to seem that respectable success as a self-published author is one of the only ways to make that happen. They see your name and want to say yes to a deal, you hand them a contract that they don't love but might actually consider. But if you show up out of the blue with a contract that's ironclad and say you'll sell your work to them on those terms, they'll laugh you out of the building.



I don't agree.  Don't get me wrong I think agents are great and so are IP lawyers, and they make their money and then some...but there are some industry standards that they won't be able to make a dent in.  Yes I was able to get some concessions on my contracts...but some things just weren't going to budge ... period.  The only ones that have gotten truly good deals are people like Hugh Howey, Bella Andre, and Coleen Hoover - but they were million copy sellers when they got those deals (well okay Hugh was a million yet, but he was earning six-figures each month and had a deal brokered for Ridley Scott)...so yeah unless you are in some superstar status no - you won't get a "fair deal" but you could get "a deal you could live with.



Mythopoet said:


> Since self publishing can both get your name out there and help you improve, it seems like a nearly necessary first step regardless of your future plans.



There are a lot of people who belief this...and for good reasons.  I still think there are reasons for going either way.


----------



## psychotick

Hi Myth,

_"The safe and smart thing to do is to start with self publishing."_

I was thinking about this for a while, trying to work out whether I agree with it or not - and I think I don't. I do think self publishing is the better course for newbie authors in general. And it's probably smarter for those who are smarter and willing to do the hard yards. But it's not safer.

My advice would generally still be to try and go through agents initially as a newbie. And that's not because I don't think that they and publishers aren't going to try and screw you - they likely will. I just think that if you can get a deal it is the best first leg up in the business. (And I say that as an indie.) But my thought is also that you need to set a limit on this. Pick a number - maybe 20, maybe 50, agents and publishers to submit to, and then be hard nosed about what comes back. Set a time period instead if that's easier. Now if you get good feedback from them or even a contract, you're on cloud nine. Then you can worry about contracts and the rest. 

If you don't it's time to go indie. This isn't a statement that indie is second class much as others would like you to believe. It's just a statement that you haven't won the lottery in essence.

Now going indie, suddenly you have an enormous amount of new stuff to worry about. And this is why I think trade is better if you can get it initially. And to start with, you do need a cover designer. You do need an editor. You can try to get away without them, but the likelihood is that your book will just sink to the bottom of the pile of newly released books and drag you down with it. That's where the "safe" part goes horribly wrong. 

Can a good indie book rescue you, earn you a great trade contract in due course? Yes. But can a poor one kill you? Yes as well. And too many are poor. Especially first attempts. A lot of writers simply do not understand the steep learning curve involved in self publishing. A lot are not willing to put the time and effort into it. Or the cash.

So my thought is that indie publishing is not necessarily safer or smarter. But for most of us it will be the necessary first step. The only real chance we have. The steps you take after it should all be better. But no matter which road you take, you have to be willing to invest everything in them.

Cheers, Greg.


----------



## acapes

MichaelSullivan said:


> I would never sign a contract that would limit my future works...except in the respect of having a small exclusive window for the publisher when their book comes out.  So yes...I can publish any work any way I wish.



Ace, that's what I was thinking you'd have fought for. The non-compete clauses are truly insidious.


----------



## acapes

MichaelSullivan said:


> Bottom line, I made more money by going traditional then staying self-published. My readership grew faster, and it opened doors I couldn't open on my own.  Should EVERY project go this route? Nope. You have to evaluate each one on a case by case basis.



Which is pretty much the statement that ought to be enough for everyone, even the hardline folks who think trad is the ONLY way or that self pub is the ONLY way.

The only way is the way that suits a particular author at a particular time for a particular project.

(3 uses of 'particular' excellent)


----------



## brokethepoint

I think the first thing that needs to be done is to sit down and look at what your goals are for you writing career/hobby.

We need to realize that big 5, small press and self pub are tools that we use to attain our goal.  Each of them have good and bad points, use them to your advantage.

I am not going to let the tool that I choose identify or define who I am or what my works are.  To me it is not about who is publishing or how I publish but what I publish.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

psychotick said:


> My advice would generally still be to try and go through agents initially as a newbie. And that's not because I don't think that they and publishers aren't going to try and screw you - they likely will. I just think that if you can get a deal it is the best first leg up in the business. (And I say that as an indie.) But my thought is also that you need to set a limit on this. Pick a number - maybe 20, maybe 50, agents and publishers to submit to, and then be hard nosed about what comes back. Set a time period instead if that's easier. Now if you get good feedback from them or even a contract, you're on cloud nine. Then you can worry about contracts and the rest.



I don't know, I can make the case either way...it's REALLY hard to generalize the "starting path."  For myself, I received a MUCH bigger advance and MORE favorable contract clauses because I had more power coming in due to the fact that I didn't HAVE to sign...I was earning well as self-published so I had leverage I wouldn't have had if I had no publishing history.

Now to argue the "other side" - if you don't know about what it takes to make a professional product - editing, cover design, layout, marketing copy...well then leaving that with a publisher who does that for a living might mean a higher quality work released, and if you come out with something sub-standard it can really tarnish your name.



psychotick said:


> So my thought is that indie publishing is not necessarily safer or smarter. But for most of us it will be the necessary first step. The only real chance we have. The steps you take after it should all be better. But no matter which road you take, you have to be willing to invest everything in them.
> Cheers, Greg.



I agree with the fact that no matter which way you go "initially" the  "steps you take after" will certainly be easier and you'll probably have more options available. Personally, I look at each project as it concludes to determine which is the "right path." Sometimes that is going to be self, others traditional, and in many cases hybrid will be the way to go.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

acapes said:


> Ace, that's what I was thinking you'd have fought for. The non-compete clauses are truly insidious.



They certainly can be...and it should be noted that the clause I was initially presented with (which essentially made my "non-compete" period to be the life of copyright) are totally illegal and would be struck down if you took the publisher to court...of course who wants to sign something that they know they'd have to seek litigation to get their rights enforced?  I think it is unconscionable to write something into the contract that you know is total bulls***, but do so because most people will never take you to court over it.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

brokethepoint said:


> I think the first thing that needs to be done is to sit down and look at what your goals are for you writing career/hobby.
> 
> We need to realize that big 5, small press and self pub are tools that we use to attain our goal.  Each of them have good and bad points, use them to your advantage.
> 
> I am not going to let the tool that I choose identify or define who I am or what my works are.  To me it is not about who is publishing or how I publish but what I publish.



Very well said.


----------

