As I reckon up, I am in just my fifth year of ‘interaction’ with the publishing industry; little more than a baby really. However, because that industry has
changed so much in those few years, (which seem more like a lifetime), and because I have been such a keen observer of
those changes, I have decided to post my own thoughts and experiences of the industry thus far.
To begin, I shall declare my position: I have two titles (traditionally) published with a small press; Thames River Press of London, (a
sister imprint of Anthem Press) and I am due to submit a third shortly. I will
also declare my dislike of pejoratives; I will use neither the term ‘vanity
publishing’ nor ‘legacy publishing’ in this post since I believe that both are
used all too often with the hint of a sneer.
For me, going back in time to a first ‘finished’ manuscript lying
on my desk, the decision as to which publishing model to adopt was easy. At that time, I perceived a definite stigma
towards self-published books. My own lack of confidence in my writing abilities
was such that I needed the reassurance of a third-party who was prepared to put
their own time and money into believing in it. I needed to be traditionally published.
I quickly acquired a literary agent who set about submitting
my work to the big London publishing houses. Rejection after rejection resulted
and he quickly terminated our agreement suggesting that I self-publish to prove
the work, and then go back to the traditional channel on the back of solid
evidence of sales. This reinforced my view at the time that those who could not
get with a ‘proper publisher’, self-published and I chose to reject that advice.
Instead, I started to query the bigger of the small presses with a second
manuscript I had written, The Eighth
Circle of Hell. That one was accepted almost immediately by Thames River
Press and so off I went.
A little
over three years down the line from that point, what are my thoughts now?
Well, firstly I am still convinced that there are very few authors who would not jump at a deal with one of the very big publishing houses. There has
been much mention in blogs and commentaries about negotiating print-only deals
and the like with those houses but that is for the phenomenally successful few.
Most of the rest of us would rather like a bog-standard deal, thank you very
much, with its attendant marketing budgets and its SKU access to bookstores and
its top-level reviewers. That dream is becoming less and less likely each year however
as the market at that end consolidates and the big houses, (and the literary
agents who serve them) become increasingly dependent on sure-fire-winner
material and second-guessing the chains.
So that really leaves the small presses and self-publishing, even
though some of the small presses are really quite large these days. You are
much more likely to be offered a traditional publishing contract by the editor
of a small press than a large one, quite obviously. Many will accept direct
queries; many will work hard with a manuscript they feel shows promise and many
are looking for literary, rather than commercial merit. Importantly to an
aspiring author, they will often give an objective and expert opinion as to
whether a manuscript is commercially viable (and therefore publishable) at all.
Freelance editors will work hard to make an individual manuscript as good as it
can be, but they will/can rarely tell a writer to shred it altogether.
The actual experience of publishing with a smaller press can
be good too, with a close working and creative relationship with each function
in turn. That was certainly my experience. It is the time beyond the publication
day where things begin to get a little more difficult.
Most small presses leave the promotion and marketing of a
title almost entirely to the author. They may well have a small internal publicity
department but after the focus of publication day, and despite their best efforts, that resource inevitably begins to spread very
thinly over a large number of titles. My own experience is that within the whole promotional picture, you’re on
your own. That was fine by me; I understood perfectly well that was going to be
the case before signing on the dotted line and it is still easier to reach the print/broadcast
media and many reviewers if you are traditionally published with any publicity department.
But it is still a
hard slog.
The time spent promoting your first title impacts massively on the
time and effort you can spend writing your second and so on. This is a big problem
for small press authors. Their overall sales follow the same model as
for self-published authors; perpetual mid-list, building over time with
incremental engagements. One of the major drivers of sales is therefore a regular
release of titles, which as I noted above, is difficult to do without the big royalty
percentages of self-publishing to make it financially worthwhile.
The small press business model is all front-loaded it seems
to me. The publisher bears the costs of submission-editing, copy-editing and production,
but after that, the costs are extraordinarily light, especially if print runs
are short, or on-demand. And if print runs are short, or (even worse from the
author’s perspective) on-demand, the author is left struggling to push a
printed title with a high-end retail price. At the other end, e-book prices
tend to be significantly higher than those of self-published authors since
there is simply less margin available to play with. The big houses have begun
to respond in this area too and have started to intelligently discount. This, I
believe, is also beginning to impact on the e-book sales of many self-published
authors.
I’m quite sure that many traditionally-published authors cast
envious glances in the direction of their self-published colleagues these days,
eyeing their huge royalty percentages, their regular monthly payments and their
ability to turn-on-a-sixpence. This sector, of course, is where I, along with
everyone else, have seen the biggest changes. Self publishing has becoming the
first preference of many. Because of the almost religious fervour of the
self-published community of authors, it has largely shed the stigma of a few years ago, although to a greater extent in the more meritocratic United States I
would say, than in the more establishment-driven United Kingdom.
Many, even most, self-published authors are quite happy, proud
even, to declare their ‘indie’ status and with the direct cause-effect
relationship between promotion, marketing and royalties, it is little wonder that
social media is constantly buzzing with their tweets and sales messages.
As with most rapidly-developing new markets, we are
beginning to see some stratification in the self-published sector. There is a
much more general acceptance of the need for professional copy-editing,
cover-design and proof-reading inputs and this does lead to better quality
products. Having said that, there are still too many poorly-written and un-edited,
self-published books out there, which in truth should have stayed in the
writer’s imagination. I see no solution to that. It may damage the credibility
and discoverability of other self-published authors with more professionalism and/or
merit but that’s life. Those books will stutter for a time and die, and others
will come along and do exactly the same.
So we have three sectors of the business, all with their own
advantages and disadvantages, all watching the others out of the corner of
their eyes with some mix of envy and disdain. The continued rise in both tablet
use and print-on-demand technology will benefit both the small presses and the
self-published but with competitive pricing and the new willingness to cede
margin by the big London and New York publishers, whether that will result in
such huge gains in market share as is often bandied about, I am doubtful. I
personally see the market beginning to settle now with each sector continuing
to watch the other with that same mix of envy and disdain, occasionally lobbing
pejoratives at each other but nonetheless co-existing. The biggest ‘churn’ will
be at the small presses where authors, increasingly competent in production
processes will opt for the richer returns of self-publishing, and the commercially
successful who will be snapped up by the bigger houses. Nevertheless, I’m
certain that there will be plenty of aspiring writers to take their places.
So – after all this contemplation, what am I going to do
with my own future work?
Goodness knows!
