Editorial by M.J. Rose
Shout it from the rooftops, or better yet, hashtag it on Twitter. It’s time to turn the page on how authors get paid.
Times have changed, and with them, every aspect of the publishing landscape is morphing. And from my vantage point, nowhere is it changing more than in marketing. Authors aren’t waiting and watching to see what publishers aren’t doing for their books — they are jumping in feet first and months ahead of their houses to make sure there’s a serious marketing and publicity effort.
And publishers aren’t gnashing their teeth over the author’s involvement anymore — they are encouraging it. Co-op is more costly than ever and eating up marketing dollars. In almost all cases, publishers are making it clear that they expect authors to supplement their marketing/PR effort in various ways and, in some cases, even soliciting the author’s help with both time and yes, money.
As a result, today the author’s marketing/PR effort is often equal to or even greater than what the house is doing.
The good news is it works. No wonder really — people do buy more of something when they know it exists, and in general, book marketing is so low-key that people don’t know what books are even out there. I have dozens of case histories of authors who have pushed their sales into reprints when none were expected, created enough velocity to generate free co-op when none was anticipated, and achieve bestseller listings when none were dreamed of.
But whenever there’s good news…
We now have a situation where publishers are financially benefiting from the author’s efforts but the author is still getting paid the old way, without regard to how much we personally invest.
There’s just no consideration for the checks we’re writing out of our own pockets for marketing or PR services.
Accordingly, it’s blatantly and patently unfair for us to invest in our own books and then wait for our advances to earn out based on the same royalties rates we’ve always gotten.
Be it $2,000 or $20,000, the money we invest should be discounted from the advances we’re paid, allowing us to earn royalties faster based on an honest up-front expenditure by the publisher.
And, it goes without saying, we should be be getting a higher royalty rate. After all, we’re doing more than writing our books, we’re business partners as well.
Times have changed since 1999 when I went to my first marketing meeting as a debut author. I’d been the creative director of a top NYC ad agency, and was startled by the paucity of the marketing budget the publisher presented. I’d known not to expect the millions I worked with at the agency, but I did expect a real ad budget. When I found out it wasn’t there, I offered to give my publisher back my advance if they would spend it on advertising.
The publishing team not only refused… they were horrified.
So was I.
I wanted to supplement their efforts to give my novel a better shot and they were turning down my money?
How times have changed. And how contracts now need to change.
Over the last ten years I’ve spoken out a lot about authors needing to get involved in more than just the writing of the book, and how we can benefit by investing in our books and becoming marketing partners with our publishers.
At first I was a pariah — publishers were aghast. Education can be a dangerous thing when it causes conflict and requires extra conversations and explanations.
By 2005 when I started AuthorBuzz.com (to offer authors and publishers viable and affordable marketing solutions) authors were still a little nervous about getting involved in marketing and often asked me how best to broach the subject with their publishers.
By 2007 that trepidation was gone. Publishers were welcoming the help.
And now, in 2009, publishers not only expect the author to do a certain amount of marketing, I now hear weekly from authors approached by their house asking if he or she wants to foot an ad bill or share some costs.
This pendulum has swung a bit further than I ever thought it would.
We should be involved in marketing and PR — in every aspect of our careers. And if we want to pay for extra marketing or publicity, as long as we do it right, it’s a smart investment. But it is not now and should never be our obligation. And if we are going to make these investments, publishers need to acknowledge that commitment. And not just with a nod and smile and a thanks.
“Because so many contracts don’t earn out,” publishers will argue, “the author makes far more than the we do — so why shouldn’t we ask them to invest? It’s their career, after all.”
The answer is: because it’s wrong. The system and the contracts were set up at a different time under different circumstances and set up in the publisher’s favor.
It used to be that the author wrote and the publisher published. Publishing meant everything from editing to distribution to marketing. Now, more and more books are not being published, but instead are merely being printed.
No one walks into a bookstore and says to the clerk — “I’d like to buy a book that I never heard of and that you never heard of.” Someone has to do the marketing and get the word out. And if that’s going to be a shared responsibility, so be it. We all have the same goal in the end.
But our contracts and the way we get paid can’t remain the same. It’s time to start a new chapter.
M.J. Rose is the bestselling author of several novels including, most recently, The Memoirist. She is also the founder of Authorbuzz.com and one of the founding board members of International Thriller Writers (ITW). Her next novel, The Hypnotist, will be published in May 2010.
READ: M.J. Rose’s blog about book marketing and other issues, “Buzz, Balls and Hype”
PERUSE: M.J. Rose’s personal web site, which features information about her various books.
32 Comments
Excellent piece; as always, MJ knows book marketing inside out. And she’s so right in suggesting we need a different business model that acknowledges the necessary expanded role of the author. Few — perhaps none — of us have the luxury of simply closing the door and writing the next one anymore.
I agree with everything that you say, and I think probably the whole system needs revamping, which some places are starting to do. TWELVE (twelvebooks.com), run by erstwhile Random House chief Jonathan Karp, publishes twelve and only twelve books a year and makes each one its sole marketing focus for a month. Of 25 books they’ve published, 13 have become New York Times best sellers. He has a really great piece here about ways to make publishing more effective:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6652430.html
(By the way–I’ve met him but I don’t have any professional connection with him or TWELVE. It just seems like a bold and interesting idea.)
I’ve also read about the idea of paying authors no advances and giving them 50% royalties. I can’t remember whether there was a company actually doing that or whether it was just a concept somebody was bruiting about, but that, too, is bold and interesting.
You are absolutely correct. I’m also tired of publishers who won’t do ANYTHING to market a book, saying they’re “far too busy” and it’s ALL on the author — all of the promotional materials, getting reviews, etc. If we have those expenses, then it should reflect in the royalties, or we should get much larger advances that are detailed as X amount of dollars for the writing of the book, and X amount of dollars towards the marketing.
I’m all for being an author actively involved in marketing — but the entire burden should not be on the author.
You’re right — too many books are being printed, not published. And, the more books I pick up, the more I find don’t even have the basic copyediting handled.
That story about the publisher turning down your offer to return the advance in exchange for more marketing effort cracks me up.
I’m reminded of a frustrating aspect of my former career in the nonprofit world. We would often be lectured by our donors and corporate partners that we needed to be more like businesses, and I always thought, “What is more entrepreneurial than a nonprofit?” They create value out of nothing — cobbling together sweat equity from friends, bent wire from the in-law’s garage, left over tube socks from local merchants, rounding errors and table scraps from their corporate neighbors and generally act like little start-ups until they’ve built important institutions that their communities couldn’t do without. Businesses should learn something from the entrepreneurial/start-up spirit that nonprofits maintain.
I think you’re suggesting a similar way of thinking about the marketing power that authors provide to their publishing partners. We get scolded for not being dollars-and-cents enough, but the “in-kind” support that writers bring to the table (not counting the cash outlays they sometimes make) is seriously undervalued.
And could be learned from. That marketing department should have given YOU their marketing budget for the book. You probably could have done more with it.
Publishers are indeed changing their approach – in part because I think it’s finally dawning on them that they need authors more than authors need them. If an author has the get up and go combined with the flair and imagination to make their marketing efforts work, then publishers will want and need to do everything they can to look after those authors. Because the next step is when the authors realise they can do the rest of the job themselves as well, and directly outsource editing, design, printing, and logistics until there’s nothing actually left for the publisher to do.
Sure, there are plenty of authors who still want publishers because they don’t want to do these things themselves, or can’t, but as the number of niche writers’ collectives and small, specialist consultancies in fields like editing and design grows, and develops flexible and easy to understand charging mechanisms, (and as online sales and e-books burgeon, lessening the key role of the logistics and distribution gatekeepers) more and more of us are wondering just what publishers can do for us, and being decidedly unimpressed by the (lack of) answers.
The tipping point we’re almost at is this: publishers now need to sell themselves to athors and not the other way round. Sadly for them, most publishers haven’t realised it. And are in danger of paying the price as a result.
What an awesome article, MJ, and DEAD ON! I have gone into every book deal with the intention of being a partner, whether the publisher wanted to think of me that way or not.
I’ve recognized since day one that I simply have to invest more time and money than what was considered normal 15+ years ago. I don’t begrudge that I’ve invested, for that’s how I view it–an investment in my future. However, things ARE changing. And contracts need to be one of them. OLD standards are just that. This is a new world now.
My next publisher won’t just get a good book that will sell, they’re going to get a publicity manager, press release writer, copywriter, salesperson, advertising rep, marketing manager, event planner and a business partner. The old standards used to pay others to do this. Why not pay the author? Give the author a small marketing budget as part of the book deal. Or at least up the royalty amounts to a new standard.
We all have the same goal: sell tons of books. Working as a partnership will benefit everyone.
~Cheryl Kaye Tardif
http://www.shamelessbookpromoter.com
http://www.cherylktardif.com
Publisher don’t need to change so much as authors need to demand better deals such as those mentioned above. It is a contract and the author should push for a better deal or find another publisher that will. Authors need information to negotiate. This article helps.
I heard a publisher at a conference actually say that they expect their authors to use their advances for marketing purposes alone. He didn’t comment when I asked how we should feed and clothe our children in the meantime. But I was horrified that the expectation was there at all. By the time you even get an advance you’re investing many months of work without any pay. But now they expect you to use that money for marketing rather than paying those bills that keep coming in…
YES!!!! Truly, do we even need traditional publishers anymore?? What will they do for me that self-publishing can’t?? (Answer: not much)
Bravo for imagining a brave new world of compensation for authors who own their content. I’ll never forget when I was the publisher of a small but excellent business press in San Francisco. We had an author who complained about everything and routinely pushed for a 50% royalty since she claimed she was doing all the work selling her book. One day she actually admitted she could trace $300,000 in consulting assignments based on her book. I said, ‘And where is our 50%?’
I really think now is the time to consider re-evaluating the royalty structure that has been in place for 75 years. As an author myself, I would be happy to forego an advance and do most of the marketing and networking that’s required for a more equitable royalty arrangement. But publishers are still stuck in the 1930s despite the fact that they now tell authors, upfront, ‘What you do to sell your book is more important than what we do.’ Yet they still expect to take 85 cents on the dollar. This has got to change.
You’d have far more authors willing to go on the stump and work their social network connections if the arrangement was more in their interest. But authors are usually so giddy at getting through the agent/publisher minefield to simply be ‘published’ that they don’t demand anything better. That has got to change too. It should be a win-win and it’s not. But with new self-publishing options, traditional publishers don’t own the playing field anymore, and that’s a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! I blogged about this, too. But change takes time and you’re right, with self-publishing options coupled with social networking such as Twitter and Facebook, authors can take back their power.
Okay, but let’s factor in the cost of manufacture, transportation, fullfillment and sales force on the publisher’s side. I agree the bargain needs to be rewritten, but let’s bring all the costs to the table.
WHOA!!!! Read your article again & read the comments. You are ALL lost in money! Perhaps you are all pretty people who get huge advances, but to those of us who write and barely or don’t quite make our daily bread, the dollars we’re supposed to spend is one thing, but you don’t talk about the time we’re asked to spend. There are writers who write constantly. Every week they are off doing the PR job that professional PR people probably do better costs the writer pages, chapters, sometimes even a whole idea that doesn’t get off the ground.
Yes, for pretty women, able speakers, celebrity “authors” the writers (like MJ Rose) may increase their sales by sacrificing writing time. But the intent and intensity of some real authors is better served if they work as authors and get publishers to return to the job of publishing which used to and should again include properly publicizing ALL of their books and ALL of their authors – not just the happy few they’ve overpaid! Publishers should publish. Writers should write.
I absolutely agree with this insightful article. As an author I can see how much the publishing world is adapting to an ever changing marketplace. Both authors and publishers have to move with the flow of the traffic…or run the risk of getting ploughed under by it.
I agree with Jack Siler. The publisher is in a much better position to handle marketing and publicity than I am as an author. It’s much easier for someone else to sell my book than it is for me. I’ve lost two years of writing to promotion that should have been handled by the publisher. Even if I do a good job of it (I have done a better job than I thought I could), this is not where I want to put my energies. I have books to write! That takes time and solitude, and is a completely different psychological position than self-promotion.
If publishers will not do the marketing and promotion job, and I have to do it to have a career, then I may as well self-publish. And where will that leave the publishers?
You bet the next contract (if we can agree on one), is going to guarantee my book a certain amount of publicity and marketing support, or I will go it alone. Writers, it is time to demand better terms, and no one will negotiate these for us but ourselves. Let’s use the leverage self-publishing is giving us to change the terms.
Authors are at the bottom of the food chain, as far as who gets paid when, and yet without our content, the publisher does not have a business.
I am glad to see this post. As a publisher, we have been looking at ways to be more co-operative with our authors. We have worked out an arrangement where we sell stock to one author at a very reduced rate to give him some more margin than he would ever see in a traditional agreement.
We create some competition with our own distribution operations but we have an abundance mentality.
It really works. He is motivated like no author I have worked with (not that I have worked with that many).
I think you’re right. As both an author AND a small-press publisher, I sit on both sides of the desk…So I understand the dilemma. There’s clearly a revolution going on in the book world, but both writers and publishers who expect to do things the “traditional way” may be too slow to recognize it.
Dear M.J.,
I couldn’t agree with you more. The only think you left out is what is the responsibility of the literary agent in all of this?
I remember the first time I had a meeting with the publisher of William Morrow (a Hearst Corp.), the editor was Hillel Black. It was in the early 1980′s. I called Hillel up as a young agent after selling him a novel and asked him if we could meet to discuss the marketing plans for the book. Hillel said “no agent has ever asked me that question before. Normally agents just sell me a book and I publish it.” Hillel suggested I come down town to meet him over a lunch and present my marketing ideas to him.
Agents too frequently leave the publishing process entirely up to the publishing house and only like to get involved if there is some problem that needs fixing.
I have, and always felt, an agent must be deeply involved with the publisher in helping to design and execute marketing plans. This also includes fighting for the author and helping to get the best budget possible for the author’s coop, ad campaign and promotion. Including jacket design.
Just yesterday I was able to arrange for an author to have a west coast publicist on his book campaign and join the team at the publisher’s expenses. Publishers are not that good west of the Mississippi. Their strength is generally with eastern media.
I strongly feel that an absent agent in the discussions concerning marketing and promotion lowers the odds of an author’s success in the market place significantly.
Robert Gottlieb
Chairman
The Trident Media Group, LLC.
Hooray for honesty. And it’s about time. Publishers are stealing (you read that right: STEALING!) from authors. You’d be surprised by how much is allocated towards “overhead” at publishing houses. And so much of that overhead is actually smoozing and boozing. All at the expense of the authors’ wallets and careers. There isn’t a believable reason to deny authors royalty payments on a monthly, quarterly or some other rational basis. With today’s technology and the extreme efforts demanded of authors – by both publishers and the public – reasonableness must enter into this conversation.
I wear two hats. I am a successful author and I started my own publishing company.
Publishing companies can do several things for authors that authors shouldn’t be doing themselves:
1. Authors should write books and, if so inclined, blog and speak about their book or topic.
2. Publishers should do things that authors cannot.
What can a publishing company do that you, my dear author, cannot or should not do?
1. Get you into important retail accounts. When I did it myself, I had a very popular product that sold quite well, but later when I had a publishing company behind me, I got my product into bookstores, book clubs, specialty accounts, TV and radio programs, and other places I couldn’t before…and I could keep them buying. This quadrupled my sales (and my income).
2. Accounts receivable, crediting checking, and collections. It’s a tough economy and even during the good times retailers need to be “reminded” to pay. Some of the biggest and most reputable even go bankrupt. A publishing company has a credit department to handle this.
3. Customer service. Do you really want to sit by the phone 8 hours a day and solve UPS and FedEx shipping problems, file claims, send out catalogs, fix problems, and deal with fraud. I’ve seen authors with inconsistent customer service who ruin their reputation. Customers expect immediate contact. They are not happy to leave a message.
4. Trade shows. A lot has been written about the success (or lack thereof) in book industry trade shows. My publishing company nearly always makes a profit at these, despite what you hear from other publishers. It’s a matter of pre-selling, controlling expectations, and projecting expenses correctly.
5. Warehousing and distribution. I used to let others distribute my product, but I kept hearing complaints about the condition it arrived in and the speed.
6. Capital. Publishers have the money to keep books in print…a lot of books in print and print them much cheaper than you can.
7. Sales staff. A publishing company has many sales people who work all day long to promote your topics, take orders, and make sure the stores restock. You have groceries to buy, errands to run, friends to see, books to write, children to feed, and pets to walk.
8. Publishing companies are consistent. Day in and day out they sell and ship. You get sick, unmotivated, tired, lazy, distracted, and go on vacation, but publishing companies keep grinding. If a bookstore gets their order quickly they are likely to reorder sooner.
9. Authors rely on luck to get noticed. Publishers are experts in this area and get noticed every day. Buyers take publisher’s phone calls. You may not be so fortunate.
10. Authors have no idea how much money it takes to sell a book. A nice full-color catalog now costs about $0.60 to get in the hands of a prospective buyer for a bookstore, institution, book club, distributor, online retailer, etc. There are thousands of potential accounts. Do you really want to pay this yourself? What about a publicist? Do you want to pay $3,000 a year for 4 weeks of promotion to the top TV and radio programs? Do you want to pay $2500 for a 2 x 3 inch spot in a specialty catalog, and do that eight times a year?
11. Don’t be so confident about the power of social media. Marketing people know that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace don’t bring in a lot of track-able dollars. There is a lot of hype, but not much money. The return on investment for catalogs, search engine optimization, email marketing, and other methods are 100 times better. I’m not exaggerating.
Good luck, my fellow authors. Your sales will increase dramatically if you go with a well run publishing company.
To Jack-
I think the best of all worlds would be authors writing and not doing anything else. That’s why i became a writer. It’s simply we’ve learned we can’t do that. In too many cases if we don’t do it – no one will.
Wow ! What an article with impact. It’s just what I needed to read, as a self published author. The process was simple, but not reassuring. I’d like to know that I am working with a company, that is giving all of their authors great support, not just putting their stamp on every book opportunity that comes through the door. I have many other ideas that I’d like to nurture, but being tugged at mentally about promotion and marketing, takes away from my desire to forge forward. I can do marketing, but really would like to nurture the product that I am creating.
Thanks A “million” : )
Alethea J. Brown, author
I Don’t Want To Be A “Mom” Today !!!
MJ Rose clearly has hit a nerve. And a good thing, too. I’m an author
(CALIFORNIA THE BEAUTIFUL, October, 2009), a Publishing Consultant, Literary Agent and former Publisher. I’ve seen the problems and the promise of author marketing from all sides. The most precious resource the Publisher has in abundance and can easily put in the author’s hands, are books. With the proviso that they will be used for promotion and tracked by the author, gratis books should be made available, without limitation, to every author who has a credible promotional use for them.
M.J. has brilliantly stirred the pot for as long as I’m in the authoring/publishing business (just a bit longer than she has). There’s no doubt the business/art has and will continue to go through all sorts of changes, and author compensation is a piece of that iceberg.
GWG’s points echo many I’d make. Jack Siler also makes key points as well.
Authors are being encouraged/forced to be more entrepreneurial than they’ve been for at least a century, if ever. The self-publishing “option” now resembles a 500,000 title-per-year slush pile, where most titles will sell fewer than 100 copies and few have any chance of being “discovered” unless the author is at least as good a publicist as he/she is a writer. In most cases, the only review possible is an Amazon reader review, and the only way to get that is to sell the book to the reviewer. As “wrong” as the traditional publisher/author compensation scheme may be in today’s environment, there’s also something very, very wrong with today’s self-publishing.
M.J. managed to turn a lot of heads about a decade back by outlining the POD self-publishing path, but we also have to recognize that she brought an advertising executive’s sensibilities to her book career and that POD self-published titles were a novelty way back then. Not every self-published author could have done what she did 10 years ago, and by the percentages, it’s far harder to make the same splash today.
By all means, let’s revise financial expectations. As non-returnable e-book and POD special-order sales become bigger pieces of the pie, it’s possible to funnel more income to authors much sooner, and when cost of manufacture and distribution drops, the author is entitled to a bigger share. That’s what my press does right now.
I doubt we’ll ever see the end of seven-figure advances, any more than a movie star will ever settle for Screen Actors Guild scale. Big-time entertainment (and those seven-figure titles are certainly part of Entertainment, rather than Fine Arts or Scholarship) is a realm entirely divorced from the average book, and the mantra, “Feed more authors by cutting big advances” is a red herring. Nearly every major publishing house is part of an entertainment conglomerate, and that’s the way entertainment conglomerates allocate their capital – really big shows with the potential for really big returns.
Authors need to recognize the difference between a publishing house’s trade marketing machinery, which is generally invisible to the author, and the house’s consumer promotion and advertising outlays, which are generally all an author sees (see GWG’s posting). As a former mid-list computer book author, I know all about the zero dollar promotional budget (and wished, of course, that big daddy would think my project worthy of a more substantial investment). Still, despite the miniscule promotion budget, my publishers managed to sell lots and lots of books. After wearing the Publisher hat for about 10 years, I understand how that works (again, see GWG). Not many authors have had the same education.
Publishers need to recognize that authors are far less willing to be silent, passive suppliers of manuscripts, but that, in the continuing lack of full understanding of the publishers’ role in this business, authors will continue to come to the table with unreasonable expectations. How many presses have gone so far as to write a primer on what the house does on behalf of its titles?
Writers ought to write, and publishers ought to publish, but we also have to recognize that we remember and reward relatively few authors who were not also first-rate self-promoters. The notion that any author can sit home, spin masterpieces, and wait for the checks to roll in is pure myth. When the initial rewards roll over the transom posthumously, it’s often because the biggest obstacle to success has passed on, and the heirs and assigns are able to do what the creator was incapable of accomplishing. We all would like to be magically rewarded for whatever talent and skill we possess, but it just dosen’t happen that way. Dealing with distasteful matters of survival is part of the human condition, not a special burden reserved for artists and scholars. Everybody poops. Those who succeed best at the game of survival embrace the distasteful with all the gusto they confer on their favored activities.
Authors have to know that a contract with a publishing house means they have a partner in the publishing process, and that partnership works best when all parties help to sell the book. Any efforts a self-published author would make to promote his/her book will be amplified when those efforts are combined with the marketing efforts of a full-time publishing company. A competent publisher will make sure there’s widespread availability of the title on store shelves so that, if the author appears on national TV consumers can immediately satisfy their impulse. “If a dead tree falls in Oprah’s lap, will anyone be able to buy it?” If they can, that is effective marketing, and something precious few self-publishers ever accomplish on their own. Can a patron ask a store clerk to place a special order? Sure, but the resulting sales pale compared to off-the-shelf impulse buying.
A partnership with a competent publisher can (or ought to be) a more efficient use of the author’s time than the typical self-publishing effort. While it seems overly simplistic (and self-serving on the publisher’s side) to say that an author is already compensated for his/her promotional efforts by superior sales, it is a fundamental truth. That’s why royalties are paid on a percentage basis. Does the author want nothing to do with promotion? Hand him/her a flat-fee contract. Does the author want a piece of the upside potential? Hand him/her a royalty contract, and make it clear that the upside isn’t just a matter of hitting the “great book” lottery, but something earned through promotional efforts, too.
Authors covet traditional (trade) publishers because those publishers are experts in taking a book from manuscript to retail stores with perfection. No matter how many articles you might have read about the enticement of self-publishing or “vanity” publishers, trade publishers know what must be done, how to accomplish the tasks and they can do it in a timely manner. They have the artists, printers, distribution channels and retail connections that you require. That’s why you should be willing to share some of the profit with trade publishers.
Without a publisher, you would need to be an expert at cover art, graphic design, editing, printing, acquiring distribution channels, web site design, marketing to retail booksellers and all facets of sales. Very few excellent writers are also experts in all of those areas. And, even if you were an expert in all of those fields, would you have the time to accomplish all of those tasks, as well as restock retail stores? In today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing retail book market, even trade publishers cannot do everything. So, unless your last name is King or Clancy, you will need to chip in with some time and effort to make your book a smashing retail success.
However, in today’s ever-changing book sales market, a great deal of additional work remains to be done by the author. Much of this is electronic and viral marketing. Because of the changing nature of the publishing world and the revolution in electronic book purchasing and downloads, someone needs to market your book throughout the Internet world. Because this work is extremely labor-intensive and detail-oriented, few publishers have the time, workers and enthusiasm to make it happen. This is where the author must step in, with the motivation to work hard on behalf of his or her book. The bad news is that there is a lot of work for the author to do. The good news is that almost no expertise or money is required to accomplish these vital tasks.
It would be nice, perhaps even appropriate, for publishers to pay authors for viral and electronic marketing. Yet, publishers today are in a difficult situation. Profits are down, publishers have become lean and there is less in the pot to share with hard-working authors. If there were a way to measure sales as a derivative of author marketing effort, it would be easier to make an empirical case for paying authors for their successful marketing work. Perhaps someone is working on just such a scenario now.
Meanwhile, authors should be reminded that it is still in their interest to market effectively. If they receive extra publisher compensation for success – great. But, since we still obtain a royalty for each book sold, it would be inadvisable to stop marketing because we deserve a bigger piece of the pie.
Charles S. Weinblatt
Author, Jacob’s Courage
http://jacobscourage.wordpress.com/
Good post. I have a small publishing company (XML Press, http://xmlpress.net), which caters to technical communicators and others who use XML technology.
We use a revenue sharing model with our authors and closely collaborate on all questions of marketing, PR, and sales. I don’t think of the process as one where the publisher “compensates” the writer for participation in marketing. Instead, the process is a collaboration where each party brings a set of skills and assets to the table. We work together to make each book as successful as possible, then share in the rewards.
Our objective is to work with authors as partners, so we discuss pricing, discounting, design, and other issues as a team and make joint decisions.
Since we’re just starting out, it’s hard to say how this will work in the long run, but so far I’m happy with the process.
I am just about ready to start pitching my first book to agents. I have had several agents tell me in seminars that I a leg up on other writers because my day job in social media, marketing and public relations. I market all kinds of products all of the time.
Frankly, if I am fortunate enough to sell my book, I am going to ask the publisher to pay me to market it. Or at the very least, let me collaborate with whoever they use to market it. I found many publishers do not yet understand the power of social media. I do. And, I will have a greater stake than in-house marketer on the success of my efforts.
However, I would caution against someone who has never done marketing to jump into it. It’s not easy. It is easy to make mistakes and not realize it until it too late. The key is push vs. pull marketing. You have to understand what each term means and which one to apply. Simply put, you have give readers solid reasons – stated by people other than the author – to read the book.
I’m a relatively successful author who would rather remain anonymous since I’m talking about my contract, but I can tell you that publishers are rethinking how they pay authors. I get an average advance, but I am a partner in my books. I share the revenue AND the expenses, and in return for sharing the risk, I get a bigger cut than I would if I were just getting a standard royalty. It seems fair to me (and keeps me from asking for ego promotions like an ad in the New York Times). Since we’re partners, it feels as if my goals and my publishers goals are usually aligned.
Also, although self-publishing is becoming much more viable, my publisher has gotten my book into stores I don’t think I ever could have penetrated on my own. I know some *very* aggressive self-publishing authors who weren’t even able to get their books into Borders or B&N. Forget about Costco, Target, Walmart, etc. The sales people GWG mentions are important.
The capital that publishers provide is important too. There’s no way I could pay for (and warehouse, distribute, and ship) the number of books my publisher prints at launch to make sure they’re in every store. Nor would I want to pay upfront for my book tour and PR expenses.
Maybe I could have made the same amount of money self-publishing and selling fewer books with higher margins, but I doubt it, and selling a lot of books also provides a nice platform for other profitable activities like speaking.
Great editorial, once again so very on the nose. This comment may seem a bit off point, but your story of the publishing team horrified at your idea to give back money for marketing reminds me of something Andy Richter said on Howard Stern’s show about TV execs and trying to get shows off the ground. He said the execs behavior sometimes seems like people going to the track, laying down a lot of money on a horse, then going up into the stands to shoot at the horse as it fights to win the race.
See my response to Robert Miller’s blog about the Author/Publisher Relationship Must Change… I echo your horrified response to the lack of promotional funding on the part of publishers. But since about 2/3 of a book’s list price is in printing and distribution (and the markup of a book’s list price will lower its sales potential), I expect that there is little left over for the author’s royalties and marketing. I also have learned to promote my books with little or no money at all, so there is really no excuse. It may be necessary to shed the book advance in favor of a “you get paid when we get paid” program, like most self-publishers and presses like Lulu do.
Now I know what will be expected of me when I do get a book published. I think it’s important for authors to study the marketplace before they release a book, and find out what are the best avenues for sales techniques.
I just wanted to say I liked your views on the matter. I was simply looking up how authors get paid, and doing my research so I would know how the whole thing worked befor actually looking into publishing a book that I have been working on for some time. I’m new at this, I’v never published a book in my life. And my books not even that far into its main story. I still have a bit to go. But as I was saying, I was doing my research for future refrances(sp). And ran into your blog about the way Authors get paid, and according to what i’ev seen from how authors get paid, and what you’ev had to say on the matter. I would agree, in the end Authors and publishers are buisness partners. Nice blog.
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[...] Times have changed, and with them, every aspect of the publishing landscape is morphing. And from my vantage point, nowhere is it changing more than in marketing. Authors aren’t waiting and watching to see what publishers aren’t doing for their books — they are jumping in feet first and months ahead of their houses to make sure there’s a serious marketing and publicity effort. — READ MORE [...]
[...] Courtesy of Publishing Perspectives. [...]
[...] Rose argues that publishers have to pay authors differently now that more of the publicity expenses are being born by the author. I’m not sure if Rose is [...]
[...] editorial by M.J. Rose about author pay and who takes responsibility for marketing sparked some of the most hotly [...]
[...] of the anger is caused by the fact that, as M.J. Rose of Authorbuzz observes, publishers aren’t paying authors for all the direct and indirect costs they’re [...]
[...] YORK: I’ve just read M.J. Rose’s editorial from last Friday, “Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid,” and I couldn’t agree more that it’s time to re-think the publisher/author relationship. M.J. [...]
[...] Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid Shout it from the rooftops, or better yet, hashtag it on Twitter. It’s time to turn the page on how authors get paid. Times have changed, and with them, every aspect of the publishing landscape is morphing. And from my vantage point, nowhere is it changing more than in marketing. Authors aren’t waiting and watching to see what publishers aren’t doing for their books — they are jumping in feet first and months ahead of their houses to make sure there’s a serious marketing and publicity effort. And publishers aren’t gnashing their teeth over the author’s involvement anymore — they are encouraging it. Co-op is more costly than ever and eating up marketing dollars. In almost all cases, publishers are making it clear that they expect authors to supplement their marketing/PR effort in various ways and, in some cases, even soliciting the author’s help with both time and yes, money. As a result, today the author’s marketing/PR effort is often equal to or even greater than what the house is doing… [...]
[...] deserve a much bigger cut of royalties, argues U.S. novelist M.J. Rose; not so fast, HarperStudio’s Robert Miller [...]
[...] Publishers must change the way authors get paid [...]
[...] exec-turned-novelist M.J. Rose remembers a time when a publisher flatly refused to allow her use her own money to hire a publicist and fund [...]
[...] get a better sense of the discussion, I suggest reading the recent article by author M. J. Rose, Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid. Being an experienced and successful author, she is able to speak with knowledge and skill about [...]
[...] read this article “Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid,” on PublishingPerspective.com with great interest. In it, the author argues that traditional [...]
[...] Should publishers change the way authors get paid? : Neither publishers or authors are making much money, but now that book manufacturing is no longer an esoteric process the relationship between authors and publishers cannot continue blindly following old patterns [...]
[...] The type of model might sit very well with the discussion from Publishing Perspective last week (MJ Rose & Robert [...]
[...] MJ Rose talks about authors getting involved in marketing and publicity, and why publishers should pay us differently when we [...]
[...] A similar question is whether authors should get paid more now that we are doing more of the work. M.J. Rose thinks Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid. [...]
[...] An interesting article on why publishers must change the way writers are paid [...]
[...] YORK: I’ve just read M.J. Rose’s editorial from last Friday, “Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid,” and I couldn’t agree more that it’s time to re-think the publisher/author [...]
[...] read this article “Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid,” on PublishingPerspective.com with great interest. In it, the author argues that traditional [...]
[...] Authors are subsidizing marketing and PR and but that’s not enough, says Rose, a well known and savvy publicist for authors (as well as for herself). She wants to change the way publishers compensate authors. Read about it in Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid [...]