> > And there are some books which are published with no intention of > providing > the author with any kind of remuneration. I call these the publish or > perish where the author practically has to pay the publisher.
Having spent 24 years working in professional publishing, as a full-time employee of book and magazine publishers, as a freelancer, as a journalist, and as a self-publisher, I will add that self-publishing is not an automatic, easy, or even feasible solution for everyone, and probably never will be. Even though it's been around forever (some websites will give you lists of famous self-published authors, including Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, and hosts of others). A book has to be researched (except for some kinds of fiction), written, edited, proofread, designed, often illustrated, and warehoused if a print book. Then there are essential services such as fulfillment (filling orders); bookkeeping, tax accounting, and other financial services; legal services; computer maintenance; and other support services. This is apart from expensive tasks that are only sometimes necessary, such as translation from foreign languages, or audio recording. Before you condemn book publishers as greedy profiteers for having the gall to take a cut of the profits from authors, and increase the price of books for the public, consider that publishers provide the author and the public with most of these services. Readers do not think of things like editing, proofreading, or design when these tasks are well done; but when they are badly done or not done at all, readers complain loudly. Having also written for other publishers, I will say that I often felt that I was not getting paid enough. And yes, publishers are shifting more of the burden of tasks like editing onto authors. Just the same, again, self-publishing is not an easy solution. It requires three things: The right author, the right book, and the right marketing climate. By the right author, I mean an author who has the time, expertise, and inclination to shoulder the burden of editing, proofreading, and ALL the other necessary tasks above in ADDITION to researching and writing the book. OR an author who has the money to pay freelancers to do all those tasks, and the knowledge and skill to choose, coordinate, and supervise those freelancers. Even if the author does them all personally and has the skill to do them all, they don't come free. Time is money, and all the months spent on those tasks if one person does them, are many months not being paid by another employer. The author can put in sweat equity in terms of labor now and wait to get paid till the book sells, and then only get paid gradually--IF the author has enough other income to live on while he/she does all those tasks. But fairly paid the author and/or the freelancers, must be, one way or another, for the book to be commercially viable. Furthermore, there are many people who strongly just want to write the book, and let a publisher take care of everything else. I am not one of them, but I constantly encounter them; and in fact, that seems to be the standpoint of the majority of writers. I had the advantage of 10 years of training and experience working for other publishers before I self-published my first book. Some other authors have professional training in publishing tasks other than writing, but most don't seem to. Then, it has to be the right book, from a marketing standpoint. You cannot just throw a book up onto the net, or onto some website like Amazon, and expect it to sell itself. Believe me, books do not sell themselves. And the more books that are published, the harder you have to work to let potential buyers know about yours. Marketing doesn't have to be gimmicky (though some marketers disagree with me on that); but you absolutely have to take action and tell potential buyers that the book exists, what it contains, and other essential facts. Many people spend a year or two full time marketing their self-published book after writing it. I do the bare minimum--press releases and review copies and mailings. Marketing still takes at least four months of my full-time work for every book, and a lot of work in increments after that. Marketing never stops--it has to continue for the lifetime of the book. Many self-published authors do a great deal more work than I do, especially in terms of personal appearances of one form or another--TV, radio, lectures, book signings, and even national tours--and every penny at their own expense. Getting back to what I said about the right kind of book--some self-published authors _have_ very successfully marketed "wrong" books; that is, books that are very hard for a self-publisher to market. I have always published the "right" kind of book; that is, the easiest kind for a self-publisher to market, because spending four months full time on marketing every book is as much as I can stand. _I'd_ rather be creating more books that doing things like radio shows, which I've always strenuously avoided. The "right," or rather the best, kind of book to self-publish is called a niche book. A niche book is one with an audience (or audiences) that can not only be easily identified, but easily reached, and which is also comparatively small. The problem with almost all fiction and nonfiction on almost all very popular subjects, is that such books might sell to almost anyone. And if they do sell to a large proportion of their markets they can make tons of money; but paradoxically, a huge potential market makes a book much harder and more expensive to sell. Such books are usually sold much more successfully by a large publisher, who can afford to do things like take out huge ads in every major newspaper and magazine in the US, and who has the clout to get the author onto major TV talk shows. If such books are self-published, they tend to quietly sink beneath the waves of the hundreds of other books competing for the same readers. As for the right marketing climate--the increase in the number of books published every year brought on by new computer technology, has made reviewers, wholesalers, and bookstores anxious to save themselves a lot of screening work by simply ignoring all self-published books, and in fact all micropress books, whether self-published or not. Precisely the same book issued by a major publisher has a far better chance of being reviewed in major mainstream publications, carried by chain bookstores, and generally has more credibility and gets more attention. In other words, the right marketing climate actually isn't there, and many authors want a larger publisher for that reason. Again, paradoxically, it is true that larger publishers CAN sell many more copies of a book and make the author much more money; the fact is they WILL put major marketing effort into only a small proportion of their books, and expect the income from those to help carry all the rest. I don't create the kind of books a larger publisher would put major marketing effort into; but the author of a potentially popular novel or nonfiction should give seeking a larger publisher very serious consideration. I have seen any number of new self-publishers say, "Oh goody, the net makes everything so easy, I can just write my book, put it up on Amazon, the public will automatically find it, and it will sell." No way. Self publishing is right for some authors, but it's a long, hard, risky, and expensive road. Major publishers are right for some authors, as I indicated above. Midsize publishers are right for many authors, too. But no matter how a book is published, it usually takes years of work either by one person or the combined time of multiple people, it usually takes a substantial financial investment, and it's usually a whole lot of hard work for someone to market. Fran Lavolta Press http://www.lavoltapress.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
