Tough time for newcomers to break into publishing

This was part of the message from Bob Randisi, the executive director and founder of Private Eye Writers of America, in the latest Reflections in a Private Eye newsletter:

This might be a tough time for newcomers to break into the business, and some big contracts may be getting cut - on both sides of publishing - but I believe mid-listers who have a track record, who already have "a slot," will be able to continue on. In fact, this may be a very good time to be a mid-list author.

Randisi is one of that rare breed who knows everyone at the top publishers and all the leading agents. He's always got an angle to work and the contacts to make it happen.


Then separately came a notice that dues were due. Did you ever get one quite like this one on a slick-paper bookmark with the silhouette of a shady-looking private eye at the top:

She walked into my office. I felt like a
cad askin' for the dough, but what
could I do? She owed me.
"I hear ya been lookin' for me?"
"Yeah, it's time to pay up, sister."
"Ya mean it's been a whole year, ya
big lug?"
"Time flies when yer havin' fun, doll."
What's she expect? She'd had twelve
months of info, fun, the whole
shebang. Now it was time to re-up.
"Okay, okay, ya got me. Will ya take a
check?"
"Sure, just make it out to PWA and mail
it to the address below."

It makes sense, Dick. With everyone cutitng back why would publishers want to take risk?

They have never been risk prone--the current economy will make them even less so.

What's funny is, they give advances on royalties... idiotic and non-neccesary risk. They guarantee returns of merchandise at 100%--insanely risky. They give enormous advances to famous non-writers, hoping that people will still care about Mona Lewinsky in six months, etc.

The first two are things the industry could just suddenly stop doing like, tomorrow. What's going to happen? The stores will stop buying books from the big houses? Writers will go elsewhere?


If I were in their expensive recliner seats I would be going with a model where everything is on straight commission, stores have to figure out what to carry based on their customers, not what houses are expensively trying to force-feed them--and share the risk of stocking, POD is used on initital releases to lessen investments, enabling the float of huge numbers of new writers and new work with the ones that prove out getting moved onto ink presses as they hit sales-point numbers.

I'd have free eBooks all OVER the place, in the way the record industry once used ep's as loss-leaders for albums and many are now doing with mp3's.

And ADVERTISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have talked with about 6 big city daily people recently, all of whom lost their book section. Reason: the book chains aren't advertising.
The movie theaters here give away glossy magazines pimping coming attractions and paid for by slick ads for local restaurtants and luxuries. Random House couldn't do that?

I just had somebody at an urban mag tell me they would have start up their book column again, and have a tab for it on their website if they had ONE ad program in place. Borders or B&N could just walk in there and BUY book media.. cheap.


Well, another scenario would be they keep hacking away with established stuff until the Grisham and Plain readers die off, but by then smaller POD presses like Whiskey Creek have gotten to the point where they can make their better-sellers available as cheap webpress paper editions and start chewing them up, ending up like the model I described above, but new players in place.

Good analysis as usual, Lin.

Abe F. March wrote:

Good analysis as usual, Lin.

I agree.

When an insider like Randisi says "some big contracts may be cut - on both sides of publishing - . . ." I think Lin's first two proposals are well on their way.

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What's funny is, they give advances on royalties... idiotic and non-neccesary risk.

What is a funnny and idiotic risk? Advances? Don't you, as a writer want to get paid for your work? That's what an advance is. Payment, upfront, for your hard work in writing your novel. It's not only good business to pay the people upfront who help provide you with something to sell, it also goes back to the fact by investing in the writer the publisher has an interest in marketing and promoting the book to their best of their abilities so they make their money back.

Plus if any publisher stopped giving advances, writers would simply move to one that pays advances. If they all stopped, someone would start a publisher that pays advances and all the writers would go there.

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They guarantee returns of merchandise at 100%--insanely risky.

Not as risky as you think. That's why publishers have marketing departments to figure out the market and the amount of books to print. They always calculate their best guess on the amount of returns they'll get and figure that into their budgets. It's a fairly advanced science.

Secondly, while the current system is hardly perfect and fairly unique, no one has found a better way to get a newly published book in front of the potential reader. This system enable people like J.K. Rowling to make money off their books and for unknowns just like you and I to get on book store shelves.

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They give enormous advances to famous non-writers, hoping that people will still care about Mona Lewinsky in six months, etc.

Actually, the bet is usually a year to eighteen months and usually the bet pays off. How do I know this? Because they keep doing it and keep making money on it.

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The first two are things the industry could just suddenly stop doing like, tomorrow. What's going to happen? The stores will stop buying books from the big houses? Writers will go elsewhere?

They won't stop doing it because it works, it's not perfect but it works. And to answer your questions: Yes and Yes. Bookstores will buy from whoever gives them the discount and returns they expect.

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If I were in their expensive recliner seats I would be going with a model where everything is on straight commission, stores have to figure out what to carry based on their customers, not what houses are expensively trying to force-feed them--and share the risk of stocking, POD is used on initital releases to lessen investments, enabling the float of huge numbers of new writers and new work with the ones that prove out getting moved onto ink presses as they hit sales-point numbers

Straight comission. No bookstore would ever go for that. Can you imagine a bookstore turning into a kind of used car lot? That'd what it become. Houses don't force feed bookstores anything. They send out salesmen with catalogs to sell them books for their shelves. Bookstores are not force fed anything. A recent example: O.J. Simpson's "confession" was not stocked at Barnes and Noble. They refused to.

POD can't scale to the volume required to even put one copy in every Barnes and Noble in a cost effective manner (Thousands of books). Offset is cheaper, fast and better once you get past one hundred and fifty so books. Publishers publish new writers every day. Every day but it's a buyer's market and they can afford to only take the best of the best. More incentive for a writer to keep writing and polishing their craft. If it's good, someone will buy it.

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I'd have free eBooks all OVER the place, in the way the record industry once used ep's as loss-leaders for albums and many are now doing with mp3's.

This is finally starting to happen, not all houses do it yet, but they should. Tor and Del Rey are doing this en masse now.

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And ADVERTISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have talked with about 6 big city daily people recently, all of whom lost their book section. Reason: the book chains aren't advertising.

Daily newspapers aren't an effective means of advertising, not anymore. The big ones have tons of book ads. The industry advertises where they can get the most bang for their bucK; Sci-fi publishers advertise in Locus, etc.

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The movie theaters here give away glossy magazines pimping coming attractions and paid for by slick ads for local restaurtants and luxuries. Random House couldn't do that?

They do, but you don't see them. They are printed and aimed at bookstores. If you don't see them it's because Random House wants Barnes and Noble to buy three thousand of X author's books.

Direct advertising to readers has proven to be ineffective, it just doesn't work. That's why you don't see ads for books on TV or hear them on the radio. It's all about bang for the buck.

Now if you are talking about local bookstores, well around here (and I live in the rurals) bookstores here advertise in local rags about signings, special events, etc. Don't forgot those discount cards. I get mailed discount couples and flyers all the time.

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I just had somebody at an urban mag tell me they would have start up their book column again, and have a tab for it on their website if they had ONE ad program in place. Borders or B&N could just walk in there and BUY book media.. cheap.

Sounds like an opportunity to send an rep out to sell some ad space.

Chris ,

Get a grip--if everyone heads to the same publisher there will be more competition to be published and more writers thrown on the slush pile.

Face it the world is changing and publishing is changing also.

POD is envionmentally more correct also. If someone wants it, print it.

Why waste all of that paper printing a bunch of books ?

Not every publishing house will survive this downturn.

It almost appears you have been brain-washed.

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Don't you, as a writer want to get paid for your work?

Of course I do. That's just a really stupid way of doing it. I don't mind goind straight commission, I have faith.

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Sounds like an opportunity to send an rep out to sell some ad space.

Gee whiz... ya think???? But they didn't, did they? Which was sort of my point. Which you sort of missed, like all your nonsense comments here.

I'm not going to bother dealing with answering--or even reading--the rest of your post.

I've read you are posing to know things you really don't from the beginning and since then you're revealed yourself to be a lying game player.

Your ideas and comments here are meaningless.

Good thread, Dick, Sorry I will bow out now. lin, you had a good comment and I agree with it as did everyone else on this thread.

Chris did not seem to appreciate it--his is clearly the minority opinion.

Let him him enjoy his solitude.

Chris,

Next time you cut up and paste a post, I will delete it. Respond to a part of the post and allow the poster to reply before you respond to any other part of the post. Do not double or treble post to get round this. I will delete these.

Good show, Shelagh!

I like that dues request, Dick. Now, if only there were a voice over here on the forum, possibly Bogart or Mitchum reading those words, rather like those wonderful film noir detective stories we don't see much of any more.

Malcolm

Shelagh wrote:

Chris,

Next time you cut up and paste a post, I will delete it. Respond to a part of the post and allow the poster to reply before you respond to any other part of the post. Do not double or treble post to get round this. I will delete these.

You want me to quote one part, then wait for response? That's profoundly stupid and a waste of time.

cturkel wrote:

Shelagh wrote:

Chris,

Next time you cut up and paste a post, I will delete it. Respond to a part of the post and allow the poster to reply before you respond to any other part of the post. Do not double or treble post to get round this. I will delete these.

You want me to quote one part, then wait for response? That's profoundly stupid and a waste of time.

Chris ,

She is the moderator and it sounds profoundly wise and polite to me and a very good use of your time.

Oops-- I forgot I left!

I waste a great deal of my time, Chris. I spent thirty-three weeks adding a featured author to the Published Authors Network for very little reward and only a few thanks. You can see all the archives here:

http://publishedauthors.ning.com/profile/AuthorOfWeekArchives

Two days ago, I followed around a spammer on the network deleting every post she made -- soliciting members to email here for a cosy chat. She was on over an hour spamming, with me trailing her. I have endless patience. I will delete your posts. That is not an idle threat. I am never idle.

Hmmmm, how cosy were these chats? Did she leave a number? Picture?

Shelagh, thank you for your tireless efforts. Chris has bitten off more than he can chew!!

Shelagh I have a similar problem with my website. It is very annoying but there is little to be done but to keep deleting the post. Back to the topic though, I really don't know if Lin's vision is correct or if something different will arise just that in the end it will be the customer that will decide if a book is good or bad. It will be they who make or break an author.

It's heading that way, I'd say. And I LIKE it. The less in-between the better.

Compare the models of movies being shown in theaters with people renting or downloading DVDs.

But one thing's for sure, when the going gets tough, things get streamlined or tossed out of the prairie schooner.
The two things I mentioned, in addition to being risk factors in a follow-up to a mention of the riskiness of signing new writers (risky NOT too, really, but that's aside) are unneccesary drags on the money engine.

There is no real reason to pay advances on royalties: it just got done, back in the days when authors were wined and dined and sent of limosine tours. No advantage to anybody, really: except authors whose sales don't pay our the advance.

As far as the return policy--again, what are stores going to do, quit buying books? Other industries get buy without it.

And the pressure towards a storeless, publisherless future that Billy mentions is a strong pressure in that direction.

A future publishing house might be little more than a PR/promotion agency.

There are some new philosophies being put forth since the serious problems with our economy, and there are several I really like. For one, transparency. Lin is a transparent guy. I don't always agree, but I know what he is saying.

Chris, I have no definite picture of who you are, why you are here, or exactly what your message is. I have some ideas, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure out whether they are true ornot.

A second philosophy I see that is being emphasized these days, is there are no easy answers to problems. that what is required is lots of listening, putting forth ideas, and discussion. It seems that is what is needed to influence the future of the book publishing industry, and those discussions are very appropriate on a messageboard but have no easy exact answers.

We know lots more than you give us credit for, Chris. We know getting published is not easy and big advances are not out there waiting to be given away to any talented writer that comes along. You might try reading some of the books by authors here to get to know who we are.

Carol