The thing I dislike most about publishing is the business that surrounds it. I mean really, how many other manufacturers allow a purchaser to destroy an item BEFORE returning it? Even worse, the manufacturer withholds money from the creator of said item until that destroyed merchandise appears in their warehouse. This whole strip and ship thing in the publishing industry blows my mind. So does publishing’s accounting process. Do these guys ever get audited? If so, by whom? If a royalty statement lists your sales at 50,000, less the reserve of course, how do you know for sure that that was the actual number sold? For all I know the actually sales could have been 50, 292, and some creative accountant decided to round down.
To me, business is business, which means both parties should have a clear picture of any and all transactions. This is not so in publishing most of the time. I’ve seen quite a few royalty statements from different authors from various houses, and those statements register some of the most convoluted accounting I have ever seen. Why is that? With all the technology available today, especially in bar coding, you would think it would be easy to track and account for books sold.
And since we’re talking about sales . . . I’m starting to learn that if you don’t keep your name in front of the publishing house’s sales group, the chances that your sales will increase from year to year is nothing short of a crap shoot. I’ve been on sales calls with these guys when they’ve approached all the major buyers. In short, it ain’t pretty. First of all, you may have a 2 P.M. appointment with four buyers, but so do four other sellers. You’re corralled into a waiting room, where most sellers don’t speak to one another. They’re either on cell phones or on laptops. When you’re finally called into the ‘buyer’s room,’ there may be three to five exhausted looking people sitting around a conference table. You’ve got ten minutes to pitch to them….every damn title you’re responsible for. So unless that bookseller knows your name and what you’re about, you will simply be a cover flat spread out over the table along with thirty others. The prettiest covers win. I’ll tell you, as frustrating as this process is, I have to tip my hat to these booksellers. It’s a tough way to make a living these days.
With all the challenges facing writers today, it’s critical to understand the keys to survival in this business . . .
–Write the best story possible.
–Get creative with promotions, and if you’re not comfortable with that end of the business, find someone who is.
–Ask questions if you don’t understand something and keep asking until you find someone who can give you a clear explanation. (And be prepared for that ‘clear’ explanation to make no business sense whatsoever.)
–Network with other published authors to find out what other houses are doing in the way of promotions, sales, and returns.
–Get as high as you can in the food chain. Meet the distributors, buyers, the damn president of the company if possible.
–Be appreciative, kind, helpful, and truthful in all of your dealings.
For the majority of us, it’s not enough to simply write a good book. We’ve got to put feet to the street and make things happen. If you’re shy, get over it. I used to be the biggest wallflower on the planet until I figured out the world would pass me by if I didn’t jump on its merry-go-round. And if I can do it, a-n-y-o-n-e can!
You know, in hindsight, maybe the publishing industry is really onto something…I think the next time I order a Big Mac, I’ll just keep the meat patty, return the bun, and demand my money back. Whadda ya think?
8 Comments, Comment or Ping
David Niall Wilson
Someone’s got Deborah’s buns? (rad)
There are some options on the auditing thing. I believe it was SFWA a while back that would go in, if an author was concerned, and convince the publisher to allow an audit. I suspect not all publishers would be equally forthcoming.
In my experience, you have to delve fairly deeply into a publishing company to find someone THERE who really understands what all the numbers on your statement mean…
It is an odd duck of a business model, to be sure.
D
Aug 18th, 2006
Janet Berliner
Tell you what I think. I think Deborah is terrific.
Janet
Aug 18th, 2006
Frank Wydra
Good piece Deborah—and you’re the one who doesn’t like math?
You’re on to something. The publishing model is all screwed up. And, in my opinion, it’s because nobody wants to take a risk.
As writers we don’t sell our stuff outright because we are not sure of our value in the marketplace. So, we take an advance and then accept royalties to pay us if we’ve underpriced. No risk.
The publisher, not sure of the price of the book in the market, pre-prints a price to establish a value. The price, of course, gets discounted, but everything is based on that fictitious price. No risk.
The bookseller, not sure of how the book will sell, buys some amount, knowing they can return the product for credit if it doesn’t sell. No incentive to sell. No risk.
But since nobody takes risk, the market gets convoluted and nobody gains. Trouble is, the system is so ingrained no one will take the risk to change it.
Thanks for surfacing the issue. I’m particularly impressed with your forays into the field with the sales force. “We’ve got to put feet to the street and make things happen.” Seems like something worth doing.
Frank
Aug 18th, 2006
David Niall Wilson
Frank has a very valid point, and it goes one notch further.
Authors and agents, who depend on selling MORE product to the system, are more often than not loathe to involve themselves in any sort of serious investigation into the system because it makes them look like troublemakers … or they fear that it will…and we all know the royalty on the next book they don’t take…
D
Aug 18th, 2006
John B. Rosenman
Great piece, Deborah. Especially like where you say that if you can energized and hit the investigative bricks, anyone can.
Yeah, it can be a nasty business, and writers are usually reluctant to rock the boat and ask persistent questions for fear of reprisals from the publisher.
And there are sharks out there! Just recently, I found that one of my novels was being pirated on Amazon. I got them to take it off, but I’m gonna keep watching that site. There’s no end of folks who are more than willing to take the bread out of our mouths and not even tell us about it.
Aug 18th, 2006
Teresa
It sounds like the system needs one or two new, brave publishers to step up and say we ain’t gonna rip off our authors any more. Or a cadre of writers to stand up and say, “We won’t let you rip us off anymore.”
Aug 18th, 2006
David Niall Wilson
Careful…that way lies the madness they are trying to create with POD. In theory, with POD you only sell as many as are ordered…there are no returns…and (according to some publishers modeling this) it means that the advance is either much smaller or not necessary at all…
But in reality they are (again) taking no risk…all risk then on the author.
I’m not sure what the better model would be…I wish I could find one.
D
Aug 18th, 2006
Deborah LeBlanc
LOL, David….shoulda kept the buns I guess.
Aw, thank you for your kind words, Janet!
Good point, Frank. You’re right about no one wanting to take a risk. As a business owner, whenever I make an investment,new equipment, buildings, new employees, etc, I always try to maximize that investment. I never could, and still don’t, understand a business model that doesn’t do this. An an author, I have to bust my butt on the street, trying to circumvent as many strip and ship situations as possible. Hell, if I just used that same energy, the same effort to sell my books out of the trunk of my car, I might actually be able to make a decent living out of this gig.
Thanks, John…and argg, don’t get me started on Amazon! That whole used book thing they’ve got in their system makes me crazy. Just another way to rip off authors.
Aug 19th, 2006
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