Interesting Article

[Mad Swede]

I don't really care why agents and publishers are so hard nosed. I do, however, care that they are so slow. I can spend *years* just getting to "no" when working through traditional channels. I don't have as many years to squander as they do. It's a simple calculation that has nothing to do with income.

Well, you should care. Because it has a direct impact on how visible your own self-published books are. Approximately 350 000 books are self-published every year. A sign of liberty? Maybe. But do you know how many books agents and publishers get sent every year? I asked my editor about this, because she also acts as a "lektör" for several publishing companies and so it has an impact on how quickly she can edit my latest book. (A "lektör" is someone who, amongst other things, reads and evaluates books and other text documents.) At this time of year, just as the Swedish summer holidays wrap up, she has a pile of 80 submitted novels to evaluate. That's the 80 that made it through the first reader cut - and the publishers concerned had nearly 650 submissions at the end of July. That's just Swedish language novels. So how many do you think the English language publishers and agents get? How long do you think it takes to go through all them? And when they've done all that, and picked the ones they want, what do you think they do? Easy. They push those books, because they need to earn some money. And that push is often enough to push authors like you out of sight, simply because there are so many self-published authors.

As for what my time is worth, my time is worth so much to me, it cannot be calculated in dollars, so all the trad pub arguments fall to the side, while self-pub offers an opportunity.

You mean you'd rather not work it out. That's fine, especially if you're not in it for the money. But if, like some people, you'd like to make writing a full time career then you need to be honest about what it really costs to self-publish. And as can be seen from some other linked articles here on the forums, that can mean having to push out a new book every 6-8 weeks. And that is a lot of pressure and involves a lot of stress. It all comes back to the question - why are you writing?

But that's not on topic. I agree with the others that gatekeeping is not about how many keepers there are, still less about the pragmatism of their operations. It's simply a recognition that they exist. As in other areas, the closer these approach monopoly, the worse are the implications for the ordinary person. Right now, the publishing industry approaches monopoly. It's not quite there yet (and the term gatekeeper serves as a useful noun for the current state of affairs), but the direction is plain to see. Not only is that the trend over recent decades, there's absolutely nothing in the capitalist legal and political structure to prevent the trend from continuing.

Eventually, the situation is so close to monopoly that legal action is taken, and the proto-monopoly is broken up or dispersed, however temporarily. Corporations find ways around the legal rulings and the trend starts again. Capitalism *always* tends toward monopoly, as some one once observed. Several someones, in truth.

People have been warning about this trend in publishing for some time now. At least since the 90s, when I first became aware of it.

Oh please. Publishing is nowhere close to a monopoly. Not in Sweden, not in the US and not in the rest of the world. There are quite a few independent publishers out there, more than 20 here in Sweden alone. No, they don't all give authors a big advance. Yes, many specialise. But pick the right ones and they'll consider your book. But it still has to be a good book.

It's interesting to compare this art form with others. Consider, for example, how music is produced and distributed, how musicians work and are paid. Then look how the process works with painting. Or dance. Every art has its own dynamic, of course. Some are more group efforts while others are intensely individual. But it can be instructive, if only for context.

I know quite a bit about the music industry. And services like Spotify do give independent artists a chance. But it's all about visibility - and there's a lot of new music gets published every year. Not many musicians and groups make money on their music sales alone. Even the biggest groups make most of their money on tours (tickets sales, merchandise etc), not on music sales.

 

[skip.knox]

>Not many musicians and groups make money on their music sales alone.
'Twas ever thus, no? Even down to the level of a bar band. Live performance pays.

WRT monopoly, when five companies control most of the print production where thirty years ago it was several times more than that, I'd say we're tending toward monopoly. I never said we were there. It appears the U.S. government agrees with me, though, as the Justice Department in 2020 filed an anti-trust suit against Penguin for trying to buy Simon & Schuster from CBSViacom. As indirect evidence, nearly all the big publishers are now owned by megacorps for which the print business is but one portion of their overall media empire, of which pieces are traded like commodities.

While thousands of independents do exist, they make up only small percentage of books sold. You can make about as big a splash there as you can by going indy. And several that you might think are independent (Tor, Orbit) are in fact owned by one of the giants. Even DAW, while independent, is dependent on Penguin for distribution. It was very different in, say, the 1980s and still more in mid-20thc America. The trend is clear, with no countervailing signs.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Well, you should care. Because it has a direct impact on how visible your own self-published books are. Approximately 350 000 books are self-published every year. A sign of liberty? Maybe. But do you know how many books agents and publishers get sent every year? I asked my editor about this, because she also acts as a "lektör" for several publishing companies and so it has an impact on how quickly she can edit my latest book. (A "lektör" is someone who, amongst other things, reads and evaluates books and other text documents.) At this time of year, just as the Swedish summer holidays wrap up, she has a pile of 80 submitted novels to evaluate. That's the 80 that made it through the first reader cut - and the publishers concerned had nearly 650 submissions at the end of July. That's just Swedish language novels. So how many do you think the English language publishers and agents get? How long do you think it takes to go through all them? And when they've done all that, and picked the ones they want, what do you think they do? Easy. They push those books, because they need to earn some money. And that push is often enough to push authors like you out of sight, simply because there are so many self-published authors.

I'm not sure what we're arguing over anymore.

This example you give is the very definition of gatekeeping. These 80 books your editor is reading only get published if she (and a few more people after her) decide they need to be published. Yes, there might be 20 other publishers. But that just means there are 20 gatekeepers in total, not that there is no gatekeeping at all.

The same with the US market. There are 5 big publishers, who collectively control 70% of the market. Yes, there are other, smaller ones, but they tend to be more niche publishers. Which means that if you want to get your book published, then you will probably go through one of those big 5. They gatekeep, and I haven't seen an argument from you where you say they don't.

The thing with gatekeeping is that almost everyone does it with the best of intentions. They look for great books that will make them lots of money. However, people tend to look for things which are close to themselves, even if they only do so subconsiously. Which means that certain groups get under or over represented. It's like an HR manager who subconsiously favors people with local sounding names, even if everything else is exactly the same.

Oh please. Publishing is nowhere close to a monopoly. Not in Sweden, not in the US and not in the rest of the world. There are quite a few independent publishers out there, more than 20 here in Sweden alone. No, they don't all give authors a big advance. Yes, many specialise. But pick the right ones and they'll consider your book. But it still has to be a good book.

I might have just read Krystin Catherine Rush's blog too much, and hung out with too many indie authors, but in the English language market, if you are not getting an advance from your publisher, then these days you are probably best off self-publishing. There is no reason to give a publisher life+70 year rights to your book if you're not getting an advance. They'll put it out and then forget about it.

And again, this is just another example of gatekeeping. Just look at the sentence "they'll consider your book", which is exactly what gatekeeping is. And a good book isn't enough anymore (it never was really). When your editor gets 80 books to read, and she can pick how many? 1? 2? Which then moves up the chain where another selection is made. Which gives you a 1% chance to get published, give or take. Even less if you factor in all 350 books the publisher received. And I bet not all of those other 79 books are bad. They just might not be the best fit for the publisher, or the editor was simply having a bad day when reading it, or she just read something similar, or she was told to publish something featuring women's rights, or any of a 1000 different reasons. She had to gatekeep, just to make a selection on what to publish.

You mean you'd rather not work it out. That's fine, especially if you're not in it for the money. But if, like some people, you'd like to make writing a full time career then you need to be honest about what it really costs to self-publish. And as can be seen from some other linked articles here on the forums, that can mean having to push out a new book every 6-8 weeks. And that is a lot of pressure and involves a lot of stress. It all comes back to the question - why are you writing?

That is just one self-publishing model though. There are plenty of self-published authors who make a full-time living writing only 1-4 books per year. And there is no difference in quality between the top of the self-published novels and trad-published ones. And there are more authors making a full time living because of self publishing than because of trad-publishing.

Besides, I don't really see what the issue is with publishing a novel every 2 months if you're a full-time author. 2,000 words a day is 120.000 words in 2 months, which is 2 60k word novels. It's what Stephen King does each day, and it's hard to claim he's a bad writer. It's also something like only 3 hours work. What do you do with the rest of your time then?

 

[Mad Swede]

I'm not sure what we're arguing over anymore.

Well this started out as a discussion about the supposed new gatekeepers in the form of sensitivity readers, to which you argued that self-publishing gave you freedom from all gatekeeping. To which I pointed out that in reality the gatekeeping just moved someplace else.

This example you give is the very definition of gatekeeping. These 80 books your editor is reading only get published if she (and a few more people after her) decide they need to be published. Yes, there might be 20 other publishers. But that just means there are 20 gatekeepers in total, not that there is no gatekeeping at all.

As ever, you and Skip are arguing from a US point of view. Bear in mind that there are no agents over here in Sweden. Here, a book gets selected for publication if

1. The lektör decides the book has sufficient literary merit - which means assessing how you use the Swedish language, how you structure your story, how good your characterisation is, quality of any dialogue, how well you have painted in the setting for the story, etc. Basically, it's a professional assessment of your book in terms of all those things we are told make a good story. You as the author receive a copy of this assessment (the so-called lektörsutlåtande), and it is a very good way of finding out just how good you are and what you need to improve.

2. The publisher feels the book has commercial potential - in short, that they'll at least break even on the deal. If they don't think they'll make money on the deal then the chances of you doing so by self-publishing in the Swedish and/or Nordic market (when you factor in how much time you'll spend doing all the stuff the publisher would normally do) is zero.

If you get picked up for publication the lektörsutlåtande will be the basis for the developmental edit of your book. I learnt more about my writing from that process with my first book than I'd ever learnt anywhere else. Make no mistake, it was hard work. Editing my later books wasn't and still isn't any easier. But even I can see how much better my writing is as a result.

You can call that whole process gatekeeping if you want. But as someone who has come through the process I'd say that it ensures that you write good books which will sell and earn you money. Yes, I do make money from my writing. Not much, because the Nordic market isn't that big. But enough to make it worth my while, even if I can't live on that income alone.

I might have just read Krystin Catherine Rush's blog too much, and hung out with too many indie authors, but in the English language market, if you are not getting an advance from your publisher, then these days you are probably best off self-publishing. There is no reason to give a publisher life+70 year rights to your book if you're not getting an advance. They'll put it out and then forget about it.

If an English language publisher won't give you an advance then what they're really telling you is that either they don't believe in the commercial potential of your book (in short, it's not going to sell), or that they don't have the financial muscle to fully support your book (a problem if their finances are so shaky that they go bust), or that they expect you to cough up a load of cash and/or time to get your book published. If so, you should probably be looking for another publisher. I've never come across a Swedish publisher who doesn't offer an advance.

That is just one self-publishing model though. There are plenty of self-published authors who make a full-time living writing only 1-4 books per year. And there is no difference in quality between the top of the self-published novels and trad-published ones. And there are more authors making a full time living because of self publishing than because of trad-publishing.

Right, now back that up with a few examples. In particular, I'd like to see some independent proof that there are more self-published writers able to make a living from their writing than there are trad published authors.

Besides, I don't really see what the issue is with publishing a novel every 2 months if you're a full-time author. 2,000 words a day is 120.000 words in 2 months, which is 2 60k word novels. It's what Stephen King does each day, and it's hard to claim he's a bad writer. It's also something like only 3 hours work. What do you do with the rest of your time then?

Well, apart from the fact that books of that length are considered to be short novels, can you really maintain a pace like that and keep up the quality? Day in, day out? No writers block, ever? No illnesses? No holidays? That is a very high production rate, and it adds a lot of pressure. Sure, some old pulp authors used to write that fast, but it can't ever be said that they didn't produce some real garbage. After all, we only read their best stuff in the anthologies. Even Stephen King is uneven in his quality, and he doesn't push books out at that rate any more. The late Sir Terry Pratchett started out writing two books a year, then went down to one. Dick Francis wrote two books per year at most. And George RR Martin has shown just how hard it can be to keep up the pace when writing a complex series of high quality stories.

As to what you do with the rest of the time, how about editing, blurb writing, cover design, formatting, advertising? How about your web pages, Instagram and/or Facebook, maybe TikTok? Attending all those conventions, where you meet your readers. Or maybe replying to all those e-mails and messages you get from readers. Even I get a few of those, and replying takes time. No, you don't have that much spare time, not really.

 

[pmmg]

Always a gatekeeper.

I will accept market forces, but not sensitivity readers. If the market wont bear me in spite of sensitivities I dont share with others, that's okay. I'll still be there when sensitivities change again.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Well this started out as a discussion about the supposed new gatekeepers in the form of sensitivity readers, to which you argued that self-publishing gave you freedom from all gatekeeping. To which I pointed out that in reality the gatekeeping just moved someplace else.

There is a very real difference between a select group of editors, many of them with the same education and background deciding what gets published, and everyone being able to put out there book with the only limitation being you need a physical address for tax purposes. Amazon isn't a gatekeeper in the same sense as a publisher. In the first case your book dies on the desk of the publisher. No one is ever getting to see it. In the second case the book is published and people can buy it. Tell me how that isn't very different.

Yes, Amazon may not push it or give it visibility. They don't owe a writer that just because the writer published a book. But it's out there, and with the right marketing you can find readers and sell your book. You can't do that if you're not published because your book died on an editor's desk.

As ever, you and Skip are arguing from a US point of view. Bear in mind that there are no agents over here in Sweden.

Well, the US is the biggest publishing market in the world, and we're reacting to an article about the US publishing market, so that shouldn't really be a surprise.

You can call that whole process gatekeeping if you want. But as someone who has come through the process I'd say that it ensures that you write good books which will sell and earn you money.

I do indeed call that process gatekeeping. Of course the publisher is in it to make money. And he'll do everything in his power to make sure the books he selects make more money than they cost. If he didn't he'd be out of a job very, very quickly. And the way to do that is to select good books. But that doesn't change the fact that there still are only 20 or so people in Sweden who decide what does and does not get published. That's a very small number.

And gatekeeping is a very real phenomenon. There's a reason minorities have been shouting for years that they are underrepresented in fiction. It's because of the unconsious biases of those 20 people. It's the argument: "no LGTBQ books have been succesful last year so we're not going to publish one this year" when there exact same reason not to publish one was used last year.

Those publishers only publish a limited number of books each year. It's a small percentage of all manuscripts they receive. Not all of the books they reject are bad books. They can simply be rejected because they just bought something very similar, or the protagonist was the wrong gender, or they think a genre is dead, or they got rained on on their way to work and they're in a bad mood when they started reading, or anything else. There are plenty of examples of bestsellers which got rejected multiple times by editors, proving that "just write a great book" isn't a guarantee you'll get published. And that means many good books don't get published, because of gatekeeping.

Right, now back that up with a few examples. In particular, I'd like to see some independent proof that there are more self-published writers able to make a living from their writing than there are trad published authors.

Well, there is fifty shades of grey, which is originally self published. The Harry Potter e-books are actually also self published. Joanna Penn is another self published author I know who releases frequently, but not each month or every other month, and she makes 6 figures a year. Joseph R. Lallo is another one I think. If you want more succes stories, check the 20books to 50k facebook group.

Well, apart from the fact that books of that length are considered to be short novels, can you really maintain a pace like that and keep up the quality? Day in, day out? No writers block, ever? No illnesses? No holidays? That is a very high production rate, and it adds a lot of pressure. Sure, some old pulp authors used to write that fast, but it can't ever be said that they didn't produce some real garbage. After all, we only read their best stuff in the anthologies. Even Stephen King is uneven in his quality, and he doesn't push books out at that rate any more. The late Sir Terry Pratchett started out writing two books a year, then went down to one. Dick Francis wrote two books per year at most. And George RR Martin has shown just how hard it can be to keep up the pace when writing a complex series of high quality stories.

Speed and quality are two very different things. Just because something is written fast doesn't mean it's bad and vice-versa. As for short novels, that depends on your genre. For fantasy, sure. For Romance that seems to be the average length. Also 2000 words per day is also not a lot. Plenty of great writers write much more per day. And fast writers can push out 2000 words in an hour.

Everyone is uneven in their quality. But research has repeatedly shown that high quantity helps you achieve quality. You simply practice more, which leads to better books. With a few unusual exceptions, the most famous composers and painters are also the most productive ones. Not everything they put out is amazing, but most of it is, and they get better as they practice. As for Stephen King specifically, he's also 75 years old by now. He's allowed to slow down...

Many famous authors write that much or more and do so each day of the week, day in day out. James Patterson, probably the worlds best selling author at the moment, writes each and every day, no holidays, and he has had years where he publishes more than 1 book a month. Think of him what you like, but it's hard to call someone who's sold more than 300 million book a bad writer or a pulp writer. As for others, check The Daily Word Counts Of 39 Famous Authors. Saying that Ann Rice, Micheal Crighton, Isaac Asimov (not on the list, but he wrote 5000+ words per day during his carreer) and so on where all pulp writers producing some real garbage is just wrong.

Some more examples, "the boy in the striped pyama" was written in 2,5 days, "a clockwork orange" in 3 weeks, and "a Christmas carrol" in 6. So to answer the question: yes, I believe great writer can write that fast, day in, day out. It's not just pulp writers who do so, and it's not unusual. It's not a high productivity rate. It's simply writers taking their craft serious and treating it like a job.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Right, now back that up with a few examples. In particular, I'd like to see some independent proof that there are more self-published writers able to make a living from their writing than there are trad published authors.

I recently came across the following image (it was in a presentation on publishing). From what I gather, figures are from 2020

There are about twice as many indie authors making serious money as there are trad-authors. Comes with the caveat that indie authors might be spending more, though trad publishing isn't free either.

 

[Devor]

I recently came across the following image (it was in a presentation on publishing). From what I gather, figures are from 2020

There are about twice as many indie authors making serious money as there are trad-authors. Comes with the caveat that indie authors might be spending more, though trad publishing isn't free either.

^While interesting, that chart only looks at Kindle eBooks, and doesn't show revenue from bookstores, or even other eBook outlets. I'd bet a lot of indie authors don't even list their book elsewhere.

It's also curious to note that the percent difference goes down as revenue goes up, and even favors traditional publishers over 500K in sales. That isn't most people, certainly, but I find it curious nonetheless.

 

[pmmg]

I've a suspicion there are just a lot more indi authors than traditional ones, so they would necessarily have a large representation. If I was to do analytics, I would suggest this is not showing the true story. But..it is showing a lot of people can make money on the non-traditional path.

 

[Prince of Spires]

^While interesting, that chart only looks at Kindle eBooks, and doesn't show revenue from bookstores, or even other eBook outlets. I'd bet a lot of indie authors don't even list their book elsewhere.

It's also curious to note that the percent difference goes down as revenue goes up, and even favors traditional publishers over 500K in sales. That isn't most people, certainly, but I find it curious nonetheless.

Well, at least in the US, Ebooks = Amazon. I think 80% of all ebooks are sold via Amazon, and physical copies are not that far behind. There's basically 1 bookstore, and the rest fight over scraps. Which makes Amazon figures very representative of the overal market. And while there are a lot of Indie authors who are Amazon exclusive there are also a lot of indie authors who are not.

The reason for the declining difference as revenue goes up is two-fold I think. First, big name authors are still a thing, and they tend to be traditionally published. Part of that is simply time. It takes multiple years to grow your fanbase to get to those kinds of numbers. Don't forget that self-publishing as we know it today has only been around for a decade or so, while some of those traditional big name authors have been around for 50 or more years. The other part is that publishers know how to sell books by big name authors.

The other reason is that I believe you need a team to reach (or rather, sustain) that level of income. As you grow, demands on your time change. The type of advertising you are doing, contact with your readers, etc, all change at each level. And having a team makes it possible to grow to the next level. If you traditionally publish and you are successful enough you don't have to build the team all by yourself, you get help (partly from an agent, partly from a publisher). As indie author, you've got to do this all on your own. Which is why I think more of them plateau at lower levels. Also, with higher sales, it might become more tempting to go traditional. You've got some leverage in negotiations if you're selling $1 million+ per year. You don't if you're selling $10k per year.

 

[Mad Swede]

I recently came across the following image (it was in a presentation on publishing). From what I gather, figures are from 2020

There are about twice as many indie authors making serious money as there are trad-authors. Comes with the caveat that indie authors might be spending more, though trad publishing isn't free either.

Writing this as someone who has done scientific research and had it published in academic journals, I have to say that the image you've just presented is one of the most misleading graphs I have ever seen (the x-scale is reversed!). Leaving aside the fact that the graph only shows sales for one sales channel, what you can also see is that fewer than 1100 self-published authors make enough money to support themselves from sales on Kindle (I draw the line at $25k per year, allowing for taxes, food, housing, health insurance and a car).

Note that in the 2018 Authors Guild survey the average annual income for those describing themselves as full time authors (no matter how they published) was a little over $20k per year, and that included things like speaking fees, teaching, book reviewing, and other supplemental activities. The average income for all authors from their books alone was just over $3k per year and 25% of authors earned $0 (yes, zero) from their books during the year. On average self-published authors earned about 58% less than traditonally published authors. (The survey doesn't include people like Stephen King or James Patterson, although 70% of Pattersons books are "co-authored" with other people.)

Given the number of books which get self-published every year, that doesn't say much for the chances of success as a self-published author. I remain to be convinced that indie publishing is the future. Yes, you may not have to go through the supposed gatekeeping process if you self-publish. And you may be able to push out books faster. But you probably won't make a living from it. Which brings me back to my question: why are you writing?

 

[Prince of Spires]

I'm no here to convince you of one or the other. I simply came across a data-point I thought was relevant to the discussion and shared it. I didn't make the graph or even personally know the person who did.

Whichever way you go, writing is a hard profession to make a living from. The Authors Guild survey shows as much (as do pretty much all other sources). It doesn't matter if you self-publish or indie publish. I don't think anyone has the complete numbers. Amazon has most, and they aren't sharing. But even they can't factor in all the writers who submit to trad-publishers and never get published. Yes, the odds of making a fulltime living indie publishing are small, but they are not smaller than the odds of actually even getting published at all by a publisher.

As for the graph, yes, there are only 1.100 indie authors on there making a living. Contrary to that, there are also only 600 traditional authors on there.

As for indie publishing being a threat to traditional publishing, that's not me saying it. It's the CEO of Simon & Schuster, one of the big 5 publishers in the US, saying it. Brandon Sanderson actually had an interesting discussion on it in his podcast, which is worth listening to:

.

 

[skip.knox]

I am not writing to make a living. Writing (any art) for money is a good way to drain the soul while trying to fill the bank account. I've said it before, but old people never tire of repeating themselves: one of the great benefits and blessings of self-publishing is that it gives to many thousands of people the pleasure and pain of not only writing a story but seeing it into publication. Even if it's read by mere dozens, it's something that traditional publishing doesn't let in through the ... er ... gate.

 

[Devor]

I'm no here to convince you of one or the other.

Yes, the odds of making a fulltime living indie publishing are small, but they are not smaller than the odds of actually even getting published at all by a publisher.

As you mentioned, we don't have the relevant numbers to make that statement. We don't know how many people are rejected from publishing houses. The graph posted doesn't include the number of people who make under $10k. Then, how many people first got rejected and then self-published, and how did they do? And as we already said, many of the people in traditional publishing would be higher than their listings in the graph if it included other sources of book sales, so it's heavily skewed.

I've been seeing these conversations for a decade now, and three things have become incredibly clear:

1: If you're a natural DIYer, indie might be the way to go. They're out there for sure and can do pretty well.

2: If you just have a great story, you might go with traditional publishing. At least maybe you'll get some of the support you need.

3: Most people - from a purely $$$ perspective - are wasting their time, and indie publishing drags it out with offers of false hope for an upfront price (you pay for cover art, editing, etc.), not to mention the scammers that help push this kind of narrative in the hope of drawing suckers for their indie publishing packages.

Gatekeepers are flawed, and they take a huge cut of the profit. If you're smart and diligent and know how to figure things out, you can work around them, absolutely. But that gatekeeper role protects the potential writer just as much as they do the reader, the publisher, and the industry at large.

And whatever someone chooses to do, it's important to go into publishing with a level head.