Adventures in Publishing
As you all may know… I do a lot of writing projects.
One of them is my own attempt at a science-fiction setting. The first book in that series, The Second Gate, has been sitting largely finished with no real hopes of being published seriously. It had a short e-book run that no one cared about, and for good reason. It was just the barebones manuscript with no bells and whistles… and wasn’t even worth the $.99 it was sold for. But even then, it’s chances of seeing the light of bookshelves is somewhere between slim and none.
“Why is that, Tommy?” you ask.
Okay, you don’t ask that. You really don’t care. But I’m gonna tell you anyway, because this is my blog post, and I’m morose and cranky.
Firstly, getting a major publisher to sign onto it has been an exercise in futility. All these discussions have gone the same way (pretty much to a fault):
Publisher: “Yes, we have your manuscript. We like it. We’d like to publish it.”
Me: “That’s great!”
Publisher: “We’ll contact you shortly with a contract and the sale of copyright forms.”
Me: “Uhh… I have no interest in selling the copyright…” (hears clicking noise) “Hello?”
Basically to sum it up, it’s reached the point where major publishers don’t even want to talk to me. Their line in the sand is the line they try to take with ALL authors. Any refusal to transfer all copyrights to the publisher is a non-starter, and ends any negotiations.
“But Tommy… there’s self-publishing options!” You might say, if you cared enough to entertain my bitter rambling.
Well there are problems with self-publishing options too. First of them is my problem… I can’t sell myself. Mostly because I have next to no worth in my own abilities. It’s something I’ve been getting better at, but I still have a hard time with the idea of saying, “Hey! I wrote this! You should buy it!” I can’t fake enthusiasm in myself very well (can’t you tell?).
Secondly is a problem that frankly all of the publishing world shares… the price they charge prospective readers is just too damn high. If I wanted to produce a short run of my novel (a 500+ page novel) would cost you the reader about $25… for a PAPERBACK. Even if I split it into two parts (which is possible in the manuscript), I’d still be looking at roughly a $15 cover price in order for me to make anything resembling a decent profit margin.
And the e-book option? Yeah, I went down that road. Amazon and Barnes&Noble gouge the living hell out of those (you make a pittance if you attempt to charge less than $10 for an e-book… which to me kinda defeats the purpose of a medium that supposedly costs a fraction of print media.
Anyway… I’m sorry for the rant. But that’s my adventures in publishing. Any of you try to break into that world? Got any secrets, ideas, or commiserating of your own? Misery loves company, they say. Feel free to share your tales.
Discussion ¬
I only have one bit of advice for you: do get your story in good shape. You don’t need a professional editor; just find a few friends who share your interest in writing, or at least are inveterate readers. But get some measure of editing done on your book; a good first impression matters.
Also, since Exiern has a members-only section, doesn’t that mean you can already take e-payments? Use the same infrastructure to sell your book, and your fans can help spread the word.
Alternatively, take a look at http://indieaisle.com/ — it’s a very promising service, which I unfortunately can’t use (because they pay by cheque, and I’m in Europe).
I have been published several times by commercial publishing houses. You can look me up on isfdb.org if you want.
A few things.
First you are absolutely correct that if anyone wants the outright sale of all copyright you should run. That is “work for hire”. This is how the romance writers and porn writers operate.
Second, this sort of outright sale is pretty rare among reputable publishers. The magazines don’t do it. Tor doesn’t do it. Doubleday doesn’t do it. If you’re talking to these people and getting the specific response you’re describing you’re not talking to the right people.
Third, the publisher does buy some copyrights. In magazines it’s usually first North American Serial Rights or other like rights. For book publishers it’s paperback and/or hardback copyright. They buy the rights until the book goes out of print at which point you send them a note and they send you a form and you get them back.
The term “out of print” is a term of art. Long ago and far away before the Thor Power Tool decision (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Power_Tool_Company_v._Commissioner) a publisher could hold the book in print by keeping copies in a warehouse. But since the Thor decision publishers practice a sort of “just in time” inventory and things can go out of print fairly quickly. Both my books went out of print in about 3-5 years and I never got any hassle getting the copyrights back. Nor have any of my author friends had trouble when dealing with a reputable house.
Where the stick usually hits the mud is in the electronic rights which never really go out of print.
Third, and most importantly, all contracts are negotiable right up to the moment you sign them. You might want to walk away from the table. They might want to walk away from the table. But until a contract is offered there is no table to walk away from.
Further, verbal agreements are worth the paper they’re printed on. Someone says to you “purchase the copyright.” Who knows what they mean? It’s likely they are not a lawyer. Until you see the written contract you don’t know what they are talking about.
We are all very protective of our work. Me no less than anybody else. I have walked away from contracts. I have negotiated them. I have signed my name against my own better judgement and regretted it. I have done the same and have it turn out well. But nothing happens until that piece of electrons gets in front of you to decide yay or nay.
You can always say nay.
Well.. that was an interesting update. You paint a bleak picture in a world so full of opportunity.
First off, if you’re writing a novel, are you actually writing on your own intellectual property? Who are you submitting the novel to? Work-for-hire is standard in some instances, completely bogus in others.
I’m not too sure where the complaint against Amazon e-book royalties comes from. They have several outstanding programs, almost all of them better for the author than a deal with any major publisher. And under $10 is the norm. The idea is to make up in volume with lower prices.
Your goal when you self-publish to to build a backlist, so you eventual get into a situation like this: Book 1 is now free. Book 2 is 99 cents. Book 3 is 2.99 Book 4 (current book) is either free via KDP Select (and you get royalties anyway!) or 3.99 or even 4.99.
There are people out there who have quit their day job with this business model. You don’t need to be Amanda Hawking or Lee Child to make it as a writer. You have to have the will to stick with it, the will to be in it for the long haul to build a reader base and get over the discovery bubble, and the fortitude to jump in a spend a little money on freelance editors and cover artists.
It’s totally obvious you have the storytelling chops. Right now, its all about the execution. You can totally make it as a self-pub indie.
Have you spoken with an agent? If you are getting offers, even dodgy ones, then your next port of call is an agent. To whom you say “I’ve got a work that people are offering to publish, I need help getting a deal”. Agents rarely turn down an author who has offers of publication (people offering around books with no offers on them, they get turned down, but rarely someone with an offer) and will get to work doing the negotiations for you, because if you get a good deal, then they get a good deal.
My best friend published an enovel through Amazon, and has had a fair amount of success. True, he is publishing in a niche market (superhero novels), which almost certainly gave him a leg up, but he also did some hustling to get some attention – primarily by offering free copies of his book to people that like to review books in their blogs.
And Anthony has it mostly right on the preferred goal, though as I understand it you have to be working through a publishing house to offer ebooks for free on Amazon. Yes, you can set one up yourself, but I suspect Amazon is using the need to jump through those legal hoops as a filter, to keep from being inundated by free garbage. And the 35% royalties for books below $2.99 (I think) and the 70% for books $2.99 and higher makes the royalties paid by most publishing houses for on-the-shelf books look like a pittance. I think my friend, with three self-published ebooks at this point (and print copies, but those only sell a few handfuls a month), is making more per book per month than most professional mid-level authors. Though I suppose at this point he could be considered a professional himself, since that’s where most of his money is coming from.
You might want to check out the “experiment” by Barbara Hambly on her site.
http://www.barbarahambly.com/
I just bought a short story from there via PayPal, and it was seamless.
Best regards,
Doch
I’m going to start this by saying I don’t have any experience with publishing or as an author. My views are from a consumer standpoint so take what I say with a grain of salt and do whatever research you need to before following any of my advice.
Now, that said, I tend to agree with Felix, you already have a potential audience for your book in the readers of Exiern.
Setting up an easy way for them to purchase your book through the Exiern site could be a good starting point for you.
Something else I thought I might mention in regards to getting the word out about your book is the “Humble Indie Bundle” http://www.humblebundle.com/.
They generally do indie games but not too long ago, they put together a bundle of ebooks from indie authors.
I suspect if they get enough new books together they may well do it again.
I don’t know what all the procedures or requirements are for participating but it might be something worth your looking into.
The humble bundle has a pretty huge following and that translates into a large audience of people that might be willing to give even a non-indie game related bundle a shot.
I’m not sure what your primary priority is between making a large profit vs making a smaller profit + exposure.
It sounds to me from your blog post like exposure with some cash on the side is more what your looking for though, at the moment anyway.
If that is the case, I would tend to recommend putting your book in the “pay what you want” area of the bundle rather than the “beat the average” section (if there’s a choice).
You will get exposure either way but you will get more exposure in the “pay what you want” section as more people will be willing to pick that up on a whim.
It’s up to you obviously, that’s just my thought on the matter.
There is one other bundle you might look at as a similar option and that is the Groupees bundle http://groupees.com/.
They are also an indie game focused bundle but have had a couple of indie ebook bundles in the past, one recently and another before I became aware of them.
Groupees is a fine option but they are a smaller bundle compared to the humble bundle so there will be somewhat less exposure by comparison.
If for whatever reason the humble bundle doesn’t work out for you if you just want another bundle to promote your book through, they are perfectly good choice though.
I hope some of this will be helpful to you.
Good luck going forward with your book. ^^
I can totally sympathize. I’d been writing for decades and because I refused to write what did not interest me (romances that end up being soft porn anyway) and write purely fanstasy fiction with occasional drifting into sci-fi, it has felt impossible. I enjoy my worlds, those who have read it think I’m really good and can flesh out a world well, but publishers do not seem inclined to agree.
I finally published on Amazon and B&N, two in a series called The Sunderedlands Saga, but my biggest problem is even worse than yours… I can’t market myself. Not artfully, and not without deeper pockets for some ad campaign blitz. You have Exiern and maybe other avenues where you have a following. While I would love to have hard copies in people’s hands, I’d be happy to find a way to reach out to the ebook fantasy market. I can check out the ebook you have out there and give some feedback if you would like. But I can’t offer any success stories, since I’m still struggling myself. I wish you good luck, though. One of us indie writers in the scifi/fantasy genre should be able to make it without a publishing house behind us.
OK being a published author of about 20 books, let me start by straightening you out on a few terms. Copyright is something that you own and should never sell. It is NOT the same as publishing rights, which is what most legitimate publishing houses should be negotiating for. It means they have the exclusive right to publish your book in a particular medium. It’s like how, in film, a given company will get the rights to make a film of a comic or a book. They have the right to make a film of that particular comic and no other production company can do it. Same concept in publishing.
If you are turning them down, thinking they are asking you to sell your copyright, then they are probably looking at you like you’re nuts – but it is a semantics problem. They are negotiating publication rights – you maintain the copyright. They will usually have a clause in there stating that they have exclusive rights to publish in print, ebook (all formats existing and to be developed), any other format yet to be developed, a certain percentage of any film or television rights should it be optioned as same, etc. for a period of x years, which can be extended by an agreement blah blah. This is perfectly normal and you are not selling your birthright for a mess of pottage. The inside of the book will say “(c) Your Name” and the back and probably a few pages in the front and back will have the publishing company’s logo. Every contract I have signed has been like that. My principal publisher in fact does NOT have the audio book publishing rights, and I’ve been looking into how to get some audiobooks created because profits from that go straight to me. A short story I put in an anthology 2 years ago has already reverted back to me, and I plan on having it published as a standalone ebook.
It isn’t quite what you seem to think, and I’d recommend, as has been said, making sure it’s edited well, and then submitting to a reputable small press – there are several I could suggest – and when you get a contract offered, ping me or another writer and say, “It says this – is that ok?” This is what I did for my first book, and now I pretty much know what to look for.
Hope this helps.
I’m interested in who you would suggest. There are more than a handful of small presses, and I have little knowledge as to which ones are reputable or not. I am EXTREMELY new to the creative writing world.