Agent Jenny Bent Weighs in on 20 yrs of Changes in Publishing
Really great blog by fiction agent Jenny Bent discussing how things have changed--for better and for worse--since she got into the publishing business in the early 1990s. Read the whole post by clicking here. Her lists start out thusly:
[...]
For the Better:
1. More transparency. It's hard to remember now, when publishers like Simon and Schuster make all sales information available to their authors online, that publishers actually used to be reluctant to give their authors sales information. Now, I call an editor and get first week sales breakdowns by account, including e-books. Before the book ships I get an accounting of orders, again broken down by account. But in the old days, there would be hemming and hawing, and even outright refusal to give numbers outside of the royalty statement that was provided twice a year.
[...]
For the Worse:
1. Payouts. Don't get me started. An author's advance payment almost always used to be half and half--half on signing, half on delivery and acceptance. Now it's thirds or even fourths--1/4 on signing, 1/4 on d &a, 1/4 on hardcover pub and 1/4 on paperback pub. Sigh. Authors have to write a lot faster these days to make money on the same kind of schedule that they used to.
She gives a lot of good, useful "insider" information and simply by reading her list of considerations, an Indie Author can be spurred to think twice about what we already know.
[...]
For the Better:
1. More transparency. It's hard to remember now, when publishers like Simon and Schuster make all sales information available to their authors online, that publishers actually used to be reluctant to give their authors sales information. Now, I call an editor and get first week sales breakdowns by account, including e-books. Before the book ships I get an accounting of orders, again broken down by account. But in the old days, there would be hemming and hawing, and even outright refusal to give numbers outside of the royalty statement that was provided twice a year.
[...]
For the Worse:
1. Payouts. Don't get me started. An author's advance payment almost always used to be half and half--half on signing, half on delivery and acceptance. Now it's thirds or even fourths--1/4 on signing, 1/4 on d &a, 1/4 on hardcover pub and 1/4 on paperback pub. Sigh. Authors have to write a lot faster these days to make money on the same kind of schedule that they used to.
She gives a lot of good, useful "insider" information and simply by reading her list of considerations, an Indie Author can be spurred to think twice about what we already know.
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