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There will be no more professional writers in the future
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I don't think he's wrong at all.One thing that strikes me about established authors talking about the "new era" is that today, which granted might be different than 10 years ago, you can't get an agent's attention without a completed manuscript. You can't send them a proposal anymore and get an advance so you're going, usually, to be working for free.
So after you slave away at your book for 2 years (since you're working full time to feed the family) you start to float it, what are you going to do? Say "Hey, no one wants it, gosh darn"?
No, you're going to sell it yourself for the highest price you can get, even if that's only pennies on the dollar.
I also think that overall content producers are going to have a bubble burst in the next 10 years across all platforms besides film. I think actors are relatively safe, but for every kind of artist except those that work on a stage or set, there's going to be a pop because there isn't money to pay for the work.
But then again.. I'm tired and cranky.
M.A.John Barber's article spells the death of us all.
Thanks -- I guess -- for sharing.
Now, please pass me another drink. Neat, please. I haven't got teeth enough to bite into the ice.
Russell
The article was nothing more than traditional publishing propaganda. Seems to me that the reporter is another of those he claims is getting pay cuts because of all that nasty free content on Blogs and Twitter. Shame on the world.It's evolution. Survival of the fittest. If you are writing books that are worth turning the pages, then you will be OK. If you're not, then you can only blame yourself.
If you don't have time because you have a family, a real job, are studying full-time, renovating the house, whatever... then don't write. But if you really want it, have to do it (because it is your passion) you will make the time. And because you are clearly a huge talent that the world is waiting for, you will succeed.
It was never meant to be easy, right? That's why it's called living a dream, the writer's dream.
I tend to agree with you Greg. The majority of novel writers don't make a lot of money and most can't live off what they make from writing alone. That is true under traditional publishing and will be even more true with self publishing. Only a small percentage of talented, hard working and lucky writers will earn enough to live on. The big shake up will be how those lucky few get selected. In the past editors and agents made the first cut, sending a large percentage of manuscripts to the reject/slush pile. Those that made the cut were then placed in front of consumers and many more failed. In the evolving model the opposite is true. Most works are now placed in front of a small body of avid readers via self publishing and online promotions. Only those that attract sufficient attention will then be wooed by publishers.
Nor is self-publishing profitable for the majority of authors, according to a recent British survey. It found that half of the writers – many no doubt lured by well-publicized tales of spectacular success achieved by a handful of fellow novices – made less than $500 a year for their efforts.Well, I guess that puts me in the top 50% of self-published authors, earnings-wise.
No, you're going to sell it yourself for the highest price you can get, even if that's only pennies on the dollar.
It's evolution. Survival of the fittest. If you are writing books that are worth turning the pages, then you will be OK. If you're not, then you can only blame yourself.
Most works are now placed in front of a small body of avid readers via self publishing and online promotions. Only those that attract sufficient attention will then be wooed by publishers.
Agree. Agree. Agreed.
But after you have attracted that attention, do you want, (or need) a "traditional" publisher? This particular subject is of great interest to many on the KDP forums, and the general consensus is that after working so hard, for so long, to produce quality work that actually sells, would you WANT the attention of a trad publisher?
So you can trade your 70% royalty for 17%? So you can give up your artistic control over formatting and cover art, even titling of your own work?
All this in exchange for what, some quality "editing" by an outsourced, third-world "freelancer?"
By the time any agent or publisher rings me up, it will be too late for them. They have become the "bankers" of the publishing world. A banker, it is said, is one who loans you their umbrella when the sun is shining, but asks for it back when it rains.
If trad publishers seriously wanted to save their companies and their industry, they would be employing "talent scouts" rather than "agents," and sending them across the digital world in search of talented self-publishers, on the BRINK of breaking big, because AFTER all our hard work has finally paid off, it will be too late.
Talk to me while I have bills to pay, while I am insecure about my financial future, while I still have doubts about my talent, my drive, my motivation.
Once I have "made it" on my own, I guarantee the "traditional publishers" and agents out there that I will not listen to any promises they make.
That ship will have sailed, and I will be on it.
Brilliant, John and Greg. Exactly. It is hard work and an uphill battle, but once there and sales are perking along, why in the devil would one cave to the control, low royalties of traditional publishing?It is not difficult to find, online readers who are 'into' your genre and will give your work a read and then feedback. So a writer can have their work tested, change it, test again and build the following.
It's readers who help us succeed. If they like the work, they tell two friends, who tell two friends, etc.
It's always amazed me that in the past, agents and/or publishing house executives were allowed to deem what the public wants. Lunacy, I say.
Twelve houses turned down Harry Potter. I don't believe there is a famous author who has not been rejected umpteen times.
Success in this industry is between the hard-working, passionate author and their readers. That's it.
I don't believe there is a famous author who has not been rejected umpteen times.I don't believe there is a famous author who did not become a better writer for having been rejected umpteen times.
Very nicely said, John. I don't have to post all those thoughts now.
Thing is there are just as many myths about self publishing as there is propaganda from the traditional publishing world.There are precious few full time professional authors who got there entirely by self publishing. The vast majority of self-pub success stories are of established writers who then take their known fan base and move them away from the publishers. This leaves the publishers trying to figure out what to do.
There are no advances on self publishing. You can't feed your family self-publishing while you prepare your manuscript. You don't have any inroads to major brick and mortar establishments. You don't have access to the "Morning talk show" circuit. You don't have other authors recommending your book ("I loved this"- Steven King, goes a long way to selling that book). You don't have... a lot.
And then you add to that the fact that prices are going down. Sure you can demand 70% royalties through KDP. But 70% of nothing is the exact same amount as 15% of nothing: nothing. I'd happily take 15% royalties if it meant I sold 5 times as many books. Not only would I make the exact same amount of money, but more people would be reading my stuff.
And being totally honest I'm feeling really really demoralized right now. I know I can do more to self promote but I'm starting to feel fatigue at how much I've sent out and what I've gotten back. I can send out more review copies, or eBooks and I will. I thought I'd have seen more return on the investment, at least have broken even. But...well... maybe next year.
If you have a love for writing, and you hope to make money from your talents, then you have to accept that you are in for the long haul. It helps if you write more than one book, so keep writing even if you are feeling down with the publishing industry and the apparent lack of interest from the reading public.
Never give up or give in. Publish as many titles on as many retail outlets as you can. And when they lower your coffin into the ground and there is a few moments silence, that silence should be broken only by the sound of your nails scratching your final words onto the lid...
Never give up or give in. Publish as many titles on as many retail outlets as you can. And when they lower your coffin into the ground and there is a few moments silence, that silence should be broken only by the sound of your nails scratching your final words onto the lid...
I think one thing that the article nails, though, is that the lack of advances is a real shift and could be a portent of things to come. When I first had an idea for a novel, a friend who was published laid out the process for me:Write up a 1 page summary.
Write up a 10 page summary.
Write the first 3 chapters.
Go get a publisher.
Now:
Write up a 1 page summary.
Write up a 10 page summary.
Write the first 3 chapters.
Write ENTIRE novel.
Go get agent.
Wait for agent to get publisher.
The advance is all but gone completely because there are SO many people writing that it's not in the publishing house's benefit to try to pay in advance on a crap shoot. They're much better off letting the teaming masses kill each other off and see what percolates to the top.
I think that the focus of the piece is not so much that writing will vanish. It's that the professional author, one who can make 60K a year doing nothing but sitting and creating books, is going away. Either you have to become a juggernaut of marketing, accounting, promotion, editing, reviewing AND writing, or you simply won't make enough unless you get lucky and strike big.
Greg, with respect,The advice that my friend gave me ~was~ the way of doing business 10 years ago. Or if it was a pipe dream it was pretty cruel of him to present it to be as industry standard. For his part he gets advances on his writing, and he has a solid working relationship with his agents.
And one halmark of a good honest agent is that they can look at you and say "I can market this and this, but that I can't do a good job of. PLease let me help you find someone who can."
I think it's great that you got lucky with your sales. And I'll take a stab at the editors to see what I can make happen. I keep putting off a letter to our local NPR affiliate not just with my self publishing but with my Democratically Plot-lined web novel.
I deleted my previous comments after Rob had read and seen them. Still not happy with how they read. Sorry to anyone that frustrates, but their purpose was served in that I was talking to Rob anyway.
Yeah.. I've done that a few times myself. It's tricky to say what you mean and in a way without context to get it across the way you meant.Your clarification helps and I'm sorry if I came off too harsh, or whiney, myself.
No probs, Rob. It didn't come off harsh at all. I know what you are trying to say.
I posted this question on various forums I belong to and have been moved by the responses to write a blog post. I don't think the article is all right or all wrong. To think the former is to ignore the part of publishers in the mess and to think the latter is to dismiss some very legitimate concerns.
Promote piracy as okay and you lose the moral firewall.Lost. The wall is Lost. Winter is here and the wildlings are streaming into Westeros totally unfettered by anything the Night's Watch tries.
No matter how much we might rail against it, as long as big names like Neil Gaimen say that it's okay to pirate, as long as a single "big" voice says "Dang it all, just tell people how much my stuff rocks so someone buys it", it's devalued.
How is that I managed to find two of the most intellectually taxing jobs that no one recognizes as such? (Education and writing). I swear I'm not a masochist. I don't think...
Rob wrote: "Promote piracy as okay and you lose the moral firewall.Lost. The wall is Lost. Winter is here and the wildlings are streaming into Westeros totally unfettered by anything the Night's Watch trie..."
Which is why it will be a blend of paid support and advertising. There's always a way when you produce the content.
Andrew wrote: "I don't believe there is a famous author who has not been rejected umpteen times.I don't believe there is a famous author who did not become a better writer for having been rejected umpteen times."
Quite right, Andrew. Rejection letters are part of the game like pop quizzes in a college course. It's amazing what we can learn once we know what we don't know.
To the article in general...Saying "There will be no professional writers in the future" is much more like saying "Professional sports* are hereby cancelled" than "No, we'll never need another big bank bailout."
*An interesting statistic (repeated at many writers conferences) is "There are about the same number of highly successful fiction writers as there are players in the NFL."
I think there are several problems with this article but I don't think it can be dismissed outright. I ended up writing a blog post about it: http://mademers.com/globalindieauthor....
Talent always shines through, usually regardless of circumstances. Doom mongering articles fail to understand this. If a person exhibits tremendous talent and/or skill, then no matter the medium or method of delivery, that person will eventually be able to reach the masses and become successful, one way or another.
I have seen this type of talk in other industries I have worked in, especially when it came to online learning. Because of the growing popularity and easy access, many felt that the fall of brick and mortar schools was going to occur, when in fact, all it did was increase opportunities for people who believed that all their options had run out. Same goes for self-publishing. Of course, I could be wrong. It happens sometimes : )
But what the Publishers did provide, and I do think they over state it it sometimes, is a gate keeping service to the consuming public. A lot of web content sites are figuring that out.Anyone can produce a video and post it on YouTube. Other sites, (Hulu is one I think) can also tap into that "user generated" but they are becoming more and more selective about who gets listed so that the site doesn't become just another pile of crud.
While publishers have behaved badly, they did help screen out the truly awful (most of the time) and they helped authors find appropriate venues for interaction. They helped control the publishing narrative and kept everyone on an even keel.
Now, we've got a wild west of reviews and a lot of not so great stuff being passed around like crazy. We have authors who really want to interact and get a name even in a small group, finding out just how hard it is to make friends and not enemies on the internet.
If anything I think that within the next 10 years either the standard of writing will drop so that except for huge names that get lucky, writing will become a hobbyst's game, or we'll see publishers rise back up with seals of approval and other marks.
Maybe they won't pay well, but having someone with some experience put a stamp on your book might be enough to get it sold more than someone unable or unwilling to go that far.
I tend to disagree, Rob.When I look at some of the utter crap that comes out of publishing houses, it leaves me wondering how on earth they sell anything and what sort of people they have making these decisions.
So far as a stamp if approval and the market getting flooded with rubbish and people not being able to find the good bits, I firmly believe the social side of the industry will continue to take care of this.
As it is now, I much prefer to take the advice (reading between the lines and weighing the good and bad comments) that I find on a site like Amazon than to rely on the opinion of one book-seller or publisher.
The same goes for the reviews on my own work. It matters much more to me what 20 readers think than what one publishing executive thinks.
Why? Because my readers and my customers. And because as a reader, I care what readers think, not some guy/gal sitting in a New York office with her own individual concept of what the next big thing will be.
Do you know what I mean?
How often do you read a film review that trashes a film that all your friends are saying is great. Then you go and watch it and love it too. So you look it up on a social critiquing site like IMDB and discover that the greater public agrees with you?
I am a firm believer in the wisdom of crowds. I say, like my friend over on Twitter (@hashltrd) Let the Reader Decide!
But Greg, how do you find that book to consider the reviews on it in the first place? There could be thousands of hidden gems out there that just go unknown until either a publisher spends the money to promote it, the author gets lucky, or the author does something horrendous and gets noticed for the wrong reasons. But at least they get noticed.I had never heard of the book Revealing Eden before this week. But a blogger I follow reviewed it and apparently it's causing quite a stir with it's racist over tones. Actually more than the book, the author's own blog posts are causing the drama.
And I nearly bought it to read and see if it was that bad. I nearly rewarded the author calling legions of negative reviewers racists with another royalty payment.
And I know what you mean, Greg. Maybe I just need to redouble my efforts. Just gotta give it time, I suppose. :)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/b...
M. A. Demers
Author, Baby Jane,
The Global Indie Author: How anyone can self-publish in the U.S. and worldwide markets, and
To Kindle in Ten Steps: The Easy Way to Format, Create and Self-Publish an eBook on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing