Some prose about the cons of publishing
Publishers are not charities. Publishing is a business. Yes, we all here (and by “we” I mean “me”) are artsy-fartsy artist types who don’t like to dirty our hands with commerce. But even anarchist-primitivists like John Zerzan had to print books, or no one would read them.
If an author writes a book in the woods that never gets published, does anyone hear it scream?
Everyone wants a big-name publisher. Here’s why:
1) Prestige
2) Little work beyond the writing
3) Could lead to a career of subsequent books being published
4) Prestige
What about a mid- to small-size publisher? They do take care of design, printing and distribution. Might be less likely to lead to a career, but it can help. Not as much prestige, but again, you can say, “I’m a published author” over cocktail weenies.
Cons of finding a publisher:
1) #2 above is not completely accurate. Believe it or not, publishers do NOT necessarily do a great job, or even a good job, at promoting your book. You will have to do a lot of your own promoting to get the word out.
2) Your book will disappear if it doesn’t do well quickly. (No reprints because you don’t own the rights—the publisher does.)
3) You may not control quite a few aspects of the design, such as the cover.
4) You may wait a year and a half after the book is picked up for it to be available.
5) Chances are, you won’t make much money. $.50 - $1.50 per book.
The pros of self-publishing:
1) You will make significantly more money ($5 - $10 per book and full cover price when you sell directly).
2) If you find a publisher, you will have to do most of your own marketing anyway.
3) You own all rights and control every detail.
4) You can keep it available via Amazon, your own website, and other venues indefinitely.
5) You can get it out in the world quickly.
6) If it does decently, a publisher might pick you up later.
7) You dance indie, DIY, non-corporate style.
Cons of self-publishing:
1) More effective for non-fiction.
2) You are responsible for every detail.
3) You have to invest money upfront on design, printing, distribution and more.
4) You need to work to get bookstores and libraries to carry it.
5) You have to teach yourself the basics of publishing and promoting books.
6) Still does not get a lot of respect.
Next up: Where I am right now.
If an author writes a book in the woods that never gets published, does anyone hear it scream?
Everyone wants a big-name publisher. Here’s why:
1) Prestige
2) Little work beyond the writing
3) Could lead to a career of subsequent books being published
4) Prestige
What about a mid- to small-size publisher? They do take care of design, printing and distribution. Might be less likely to lead to a career, but it can help. Not as much prestige, but again, you can say, “I’m a published author” over cocktail weenies.
Cons of finding a publisher:
1) #2 above is not completely accurate. Believe it or not, publishers do NOT necessarily do a great job, or even a good job, at promoting your book. You will have to do a lot of your own promoting to get the word out.
2) Your book will disappear if it doesn’t do well quickly. (No reprints because you don’t own the rights—the publisher does.)
3) You may not control quite a few aspects of the design, such as the cover.
4) You may wait a year and a half after the book is picked up for it to be available.
5) Chances are, you won’t make much money. $.50 - $1.50 per book.
The pros of self-publishing:
1) You will make significantly more money ($5 - $10 per book and full cover price when you sell directly).
2) If you find a publisher, you will have to do most of your own marketing anyway.
3) You own all rights and control every detail.
4) You can keep it available via Amazon, your own website, and other venues indefinitely.
5) You can get it out in the world quickly.
6) If it does decently, a publisher might pick you up later.
7) You dance indie, DIY, non-corporate style.
Cons of self-publishing:
1) More effective for non-fiction.
2) You are responsible for every detail.
3) You have to invest money upfront on design, printing, distribution and more.
4) You need to work to get bookstores and libraries to carry it.
5) You have to teach yourself the basics of publishing and promoting books.
6) Still does not get a lot of respect.
Next up: Where I am right now.
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If an author writes a book in the woods that never gets published, does anyone hear it scream?
Maybe that depends on what the writer wants. I wrote and wrote and wrote for many years without ever wanting anybody else to see one word of it. So, of course my writing existed.
But if I'd wanted people to read it, then I guess it wouldn't have existed.
Well, NGE, as always, there are exceptions to all rules. Henry Darger drew thousands of crazy murals that no one saw until after his death. And there are probably a few charitable publishing shops out there like your family's...but i'm speaking in vague generalizations. Don't kill my buzz. :-PAs far as writing for yourself goes...of course, if the writer isn't looking to get published, that's different. I'm really only addressing writers who wrote a book in the hopes of publishing it. And i was making an obscure little Thoreau reference as well--Thoreau actually self-published one of his books! Imagine if that book stayed in the woods and was never read by anyone else. What a tragedy that would have been.
Seriously, i think there probably are quite a few small presses that don't make any profit at all. (Errh, majority?). But even so, that doesn't make it any easier for me to land at one of them since I'm still competing with thousands of other writers for that opportunity. And also, small presses tend to be more narrow in their interests, so I have a have quite a short list of small presses that might even be interested. Most of them, unlike your family's company, want to make back enough money to pay their employees and/or themselves! So even though some of them may pick less commercial books, they probably still hope for decent sales. After all, if you believe in the book, wouldn't you want it to be widely read? Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.
David David wrote:So even though some of them may pick less commercial books, they probably still hope for decent sales. After all, if you believe in the book, wouldn't you want it to be widely read?Yes, I guess that's true. It really is difficult, isn't it? The fact is that a book may be important and yet nobody is ever going to read it.
I wonder if my best book isn't the one that I imagine scarcely anybody has read. It's on an obscure topic (a nineteenth century writer) and the mere fact that it might be a good book and has useful things to say doesn't mean anybody is going to read it!
When I'm writing I only think about pleasing myself, rather than a hypothetical audience. I've always thought that was really important as you may be your only reader. On the other hand, perhaps that does mean you are deliberately discouraging a wider audience?
I don't know the answer to that. A couple of my books have sold quite well and a couple haven't. On balance I'd say it was the subject matter that was the only relevant consideration to sales.
One way or another I think it is easy for the author to live with that. He wrote, he should be removed now from what he has done. But the small publisher, what a difficult, heart-breaking time they can have. In a way although it sounds completely insane to have run a publishing business that isn't going to make ends meet, at least because this arm of the business was financed by the sensible side, it meant that we didn't care so much. Survival did not depend on it, only ego.
No, i completely agree with you that an author should not "think of their audience"--unless they are planning to be a purely commercial writer. if you are trying to create a work of art, then you should think only of the work itself, and your own thoughts and ideas.I never thought of an audience, myself, i created something purely that i enjoyed and would enjoy reading. i had to read the damn thing hundreds of times, and if i didn't like it then i would have died of boredom and never finished it. if other's like it then all the better, but i didn't write it for them--that would have poisoned the ideas. But now that it's almost done, i will try as best as i can to promote it and get it out into the world. I do hope that people will like it, but i didn't write it with them in mind.
Once the art is done, i will have to treat the process of publishing rather like a business. if i don't, the book will just sit in a drawer for the rest of my life. Artists can't live off their art if no one buys their work.
Of Doom
Author David David Katzman blogs about the process of completing and publishing his second novel.
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My family business has two arms. Selling antiquarian/secondhand books and publishing books. The former pays for the latter. I wonder if we are the only publisher who operated on a 'charitable' - ie totally non-commercial basis - publishing because something deserved to be, rather than if it was going to make money....
Not that this was even necessarily appreciated. When I was at uni I became good friends with David, who wrote poetry. He wrote poetry, but he was very male and sexy as. I talked my parents into publishing a little book of his poems.
We had a party-launch and during the course of the evening I realised that some of his friends thought he was being ripped off - why wasn't he getting more money?! When, as I'm sure you realised we'd put a lot of effort into this book and were never even going to break even. Sigh.