Alternatives to Mainstream Publishers
Many writers are frustrated in their attempts to reach an audience because it is so difficult to place their works with a major trade book publisher. Unfortunately, these publishers concentrate on books that are likely to generate substantial sales, and therefore decline to accept many books that are well written, but are not perceived as sufficiently commercial. To appeal to a major trade book house, the writer’s work must be seen as commanding a large enough market to garner enough sales, which will realize a good return on the publisher’s investment. Furthermore, since the margin of profit in the publishing industry is small, trade book publishers cannot afford to take too many risks.
Writers whose work may not appeal to a large commercial market still have opportunities to be published. Some works may not be particularly commercial, but cover subjects that are sufficiently interesting to garner attention from university presses and small presses. Examples are books about specialized subject matter, such as The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan (University of Washington Press) and the Guide to FSU and Tallahassee (Pineapple Press). These kinds of presses generally follow the same submission process as large publishers.
There are also options that avoid the possibility of rejections altogether by having work published through a vanity, print-on-demand, or subsidy publisher. This approach can be a good choice for writers who only want a small number of books and do not expect a large market. Examples include family histories and books about local and regional areas. However, a writer who is working toward establishing a serious literary career should be aware that a stigma is sometimes attached to this kind of publishing, and these kinds of publishing credits may not be taken seriously by literary agents or traditional publishers.
The growth of the Internet and electronic technologies has expanded the opportunities for writers to be published without having to go through conventional trade publishers or even the nontraditional routes of printed media. With the availability of handheld devices and digital content, ebook sales increased rapidly throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s. Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo developed direct-to-consumer ebook channels that spanned the globe. This new market opened retail channels to independent authors and publishers that were previously closed to them. Authors who wished to circumvent traditional publishing or who were unable to land a publishing deal suddenly found themselves on equal footing with behemoth publishing houses like Penguin Random House and HarperCollins. By 2011, the New York Times began featuring a bestseller list for ebooks.1 The list now regularly features unaffiliated authors.2 In August 2012, Smashwords, an independent ebook distributor, had four of its authors featured on the list in one week.3 Independent authors with decent sales can now find themselves with offers from publishers and agents who wish to capitalize on a proven title and bring a retail-tested work to print channels. Successful authors like Hugh Howey, author of Wool, find themselves in a strong bargaining position when it is time to sign a contract. In Howey’s case, he was able to negotiate for the print rights of the book while retaining full ebook rights and 100% of the digital royalties. The Martian (Andy Weir), Fifty Shades of Grey (E.L. James), and Still Alice (Lisa Genova) all began as self-published ebooks and are now bestsellers and the basis for major motion pictures. After a wild increase in revenue through 2014, the ebook market began to stabilize. Print sales increased 3.3% in both 2015 and 2016. As of this publication, ebooks make up 49% of adult fiction sales, 24% of adult nonfiction, 12% of juvenile fiction, and 6% of juvenile nonfiction for traditional publishers. Independent ebook sales continue to rise with ebook sales from independent, self-published, and small publishers, making up 59% of US ebook sales with independent authors capturing over a third of all ebook sales worldwide.4
Until Amazon released the Kindle in 2007, ebooks were an oddity—only a few niche markets saw digital sales, and those were insignificant. Consequently, publisher contracts said nothing about ebooks or digital rights. In 2001, Rosetta Books contracted with several authors to produce ebooks of physical books that Random House then published. Random House asserted that pre-ebook author contracts granting them rights to the author’s work “in book form” included ebooks. Random House sued Rosetta Books and lost—the court holding that the language of the contract itself established that digital content is separate and distinct from the work “in book form.” As a result, publisher contracts now have much more explicit language. Authors should be aware of definitions and clauses that deal with digital or electronic rights and sweeping phrases that may have unintended future consequences such as, “other versions created in a technology now known or later developed.” Further, authors should be aware that royalties for ebook rights are often much higher than print royalties. Print royalties take into account the overhead required for printing, storing, and distributing physical books. Ebook royalties must still take into account the overhead for editing, developing, designing, marketing, and electronically storing the files. However, without the physical overhead, authors should be able to negotiate higher royalty rates for digital content.
Under traditional publishing contracts, there is often a clause wherein the rights to the work revert automatically once the book is out of print. In traditional contracts, this was easy to define: whenever the publisher decided not to invest in further print runs, the rights reverted to the author. Now, with print on demand and ebooks, a book may never go “out of print” in the traditional sense. Contracts should therefore be drafted with a trigger for reversion that makes sense with digital technology or explicitly define what going out of print means. If the author and publisher intend for a reversion of rights to occur when no further print runs of a certain size are ordered, this should be explicitly stated in the contract.
Authors and publishers alike should be aware of the agreements they must enter with online ebook retailers. The retailer agreements for Amazon, Apple, and Barnes and Noble all contain “most favored nation” clauses. These clauses essentially mean that if an ebook is sold for less money anywhere, the retailer reserves the right to automatically drop the price of the book in their store as well. Thus, if an author or publisher decides to give a book away for free on a website or through social media, Amazon, Apple, and Barnes and Noble would be within their rights to drop the price to $0.00. Further, retailer agreements frequently contain difficult to understand royalty structures that incentivize authors into selling books at a certain level. This functions to keep independent authors’ book prices artificially low.
Online retail ebook stores often provide digital rights management, or DRM, for free. DRM encrypts the ebook files to restrict copying, distributing, and sharing ebooks. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal for users to purposefully circumvent, or break, DRM. There are some exceptions for libraries and persons with print disabilities that change on a yearly basis as per the recommendations of the Librarian of Congress. DRM is also available for individual titles from companies like Adobe; however, it is generally cost prohibitive for authors to purchase DRM for individual titles.
Some well-known authors, including Cory Doctorow5 and Peter Watts,6 are proponents of alternative licensing schemes such as Creative Commons. Creative Commons (“CC”) licenses are appealing to some authors who flourish in the remix culture of sharing that thrives on the Internet. Most CC licenses allow others to copy, modify, and share the work without the author’s permission—the only requirement being that the author be attributed in every copy.7 While this license may be useful in some circumstances, it is important for authors to recognize that it is difficult, if not impossible, to revoke this kind of license. Publishers seeking to acquire an author’s copyright may be turned off by a work that is tainted by a CC license as it is that much more difficult to sell a book that can be acquired elsewhere, legally, for free. It is, therefore, important for you to decide whether Creative Commons is something that is appealing enough to risk a problem with a conventional publisher if one becomes interested in your book.
VANITY AND PRINT-ON-DEMAND PRESSES
The ability of modern layout and printing technologies to incorporate word processing files has led to the blurring of the lines between vanity, subsidy, and self-publishing. Traditionally, vanity presses relied on payments from the author to ensure that the publisher made a profit irrespective of whether books were actually sold. Many such publishers still exist, although variations on the theme of having the author pay to get published have evolved.
Vanity presses are given this designation because of the common practice of preying on the vanity of unpublished writers who believe that mainstream publishers are unjustly neglecting their works. While some claim to choose work on merit, many are not actually interested in literary quality. Some vanity presses attract customers by advertising that they are looking for writers. At their worst, vanity presses extract large amounts of money from writers after claiming they believe the writers’ books will become successful, even though they know most vanity press books do not recover a fraction of what the writers are charged.
Fee-based, print-on-demand (POD) publishers have emerged as another alternative to traditional vanity presses. Whereas traditional vanity presses produce a print run of at least several hundred books (as do conventional publishers), POD publishers use technology that allows them to print either single copies or very small runs as orders come in. The typical POD publisher charges a fee to set the book up for printing and does not keep books in inventory. Since POD printing cannot take advantage of economies of scale, however, the cost per book will likely be higher. Editing and proofreading services are generally not included in the setup fee, though some POD publishers offer them at additional cost.
A variation on vanity publishing is subsidy publishing. It costs money to place a book with a subsidy publisher, but not as much as some of the other publishing options. In this situation, the author contributes to the cost, but the publishing is done by a publishing house that also contributes its own funds to the process. The better subsidy houses provide all the editing, design, typesetting, printing, and distribution that they would give to any other of their books. What the author contributes and gets back will be negotiable. This approach has worked well for some writers and poorly for others. In any case, since subsidy publishing is readily abused, writers should be careful before attempting to get published through this route.
These presses typically accept all submitted works, regardless of quality. Perhaps the biggest disadvantage to using vanity presses, aside from the expense and lack of mainstream distribution, is the stigma often attached to them. It is very rare for books published by vanity and POD publishers to be reviewed. The major review media, such as Publishers Weekly and the New York Times Book Review, ignore them completely. Similarly, bookstores and libraries tend to view them with a hefty degree of cynicism, because such books have not gone through the editorial evaluation process inherent in conventional publishing. Nevertheless, for the writer who is not concerned about reviews or distribution, but simply wants a book that is competently printed and bound, these publishers may be acceptable.
Another risk of publishing with a vanity or subsidy publisher is that many are financially marginal and others are even unethical. It is not uncommon for the owners of these types of publishers to milk the business and then file for protection under the bankruptcy laws. Should this happen, writers will likely find their rights tied up in the courts, and for all practical purposes, lose complete control of their works. To protect themselves from unfamiliar publishers, writers should check on their reputation and their credit rating. Information about reputations can often be found by doing an Internet search. Credit history reports can be purchased online from Dun & Bradstreet at www.dnb.com. It is also prudent to check with the Better Business Bureau, the consumer protection division of the attorney general’s office in the state where the business is located, and with other authors (for example, through writers’ forums).
Fees
Writers who deal with vanity presses and POD publishers should evaluate their contracts carefully. Since the economics associated with this kind of publishing clearly rely on money flowing from writers to sustain the publishers, writers need to be wary that the contract does not provide the publisher with additional opportunities to extract money after the fee is paid. That is, the contract should be complete and comprehensive, and if optional services are available, they should be discretionary with the author—not mandatory. Further, rates should be clearly spelled out.
Prospective contracts should be evaluated to determine what services are and are not being provided. Editing at vanity and POD publishers tends to be rudimentary (if done at all), and some publishers provide editing only if the writer pays an additional fee.
Another device publishers may use to enhance their revenues is to require the writer to purchase a certain number of their books. A variation is a requirement that the writer agree to sell a certain number of books prior to release or else the publishing agreement is canceled. A few publishers do not contractually require writers to buy their books, but do put intense pressure on them to do so once the books are printed.
Another aspect to check for is whether the publisher separately charges for services, such as publicity, or requires the writer to hire editors or publicists from a list the publisher provides.
Royalties
While the contracts offered to vanity and POD publishers may appear to offer generous royalties, they are often illusory, since sales are rarely substantial. Most writers never earn back more than what they paid to the publisher. One reason for low sales is that the presses need not worry about recouping expenses through sales, since the author has already covered their costs. Presses that have already made their profit may have little sales motivation. Another reason is that booksellers are disinclined to deal with these publishers, since they do not offer standard industry discounts nor do they accept returns of unsold books. The books are mostly sold through online book retailers, such as Amazon and the publishers’ websites, neither of which is likely to be sufficient to achieve an adequate number of sales.
SELF-PUBLISHING
Although self-publishing requires the author to finance all the costs of publishing, distribution, and promotion, it has a more respectable history. Walt Whitman, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Beatrix Potter, Virginia Woolf, Stephen Crane, and Stephen King are only a few examples of famous writers who, at some point, chose self-publishing. A few writers have had successful self-published works picked up by major trade houses, and there are quite a few who profit nicely from their books through adept promotion and hard work.
The primary difference between self-publishing and vanity and POD publishing is that in self-publishing, the writer is also the publisher. Every aspect of the process, including preparing the manuscript, hiring the printer, and arranging for distribution and publicity, must be handled by the writer. In addition to the writing aspect, the self-published writer must meet the challenge of being an entrepreneur in the highly competitive publishing industry. To run this kind of business, regardless of the scope, requires a significant amount of energy and financial resources. In any case, the decision to self-publish should not be made without a realistic appraisal of total costs and potential return.
Although some vanity and POD publishers make it seem as though they are providing self-publishing services, there are significant differences between self-publishing a book and having it published through a vanity or POD publisher. First, payments from vanity and POD publishers come in the form of royalties, whereas self-publishers receive all the proceeds. Second, all the rights remain with the writer who self-publishes, whereas they are licensed to vanity and POD publishers. Should a work do well enough to attract the attention of a large publishing house, a self-publisher will have no difficulty in reaching a contract. However, someone who has contracted with a vanity or POD publisher may be precluded from making a deal with another publisher. Finally, the self-publisher retains control over aspects such as the design of the book and the editing.
Publishing is a complex and difficult business. If you are thinking of undertaking the publication of your own work, learn everything you can about how to produce and market a book. Specific issues that self-publishers need to know about include typography, book production, distribution systems, bookseller practices (such as discounts and returns), inventory management, publicity, and sales. Stories abound about self-publishers who, believing that their writing abilities would be sufficient to sustain the enterprise, lacked the graphic arts and business skills needed to make self-publishing viable.
Books Suitable for Self-Publishing
Certain types of books are more suitable for self-publishing than others. Many of the successful ones have been nonfiction how-to books by writers who are well-known experts in their fields. In many of these situations, the writers have direct access to an audience and are well positioned to promote the book through means such as seminars and workshops. Books with a focus on specific subjects, such as travel or cooking, are also suitable for self-publishing if the writer has good access to a relevant audience and relevant retail outlets. By knowing how to market their books, some writers have made self-publishing more profitable than publishing with a trade book house.
Fiction is not well suited for self-publishing, because it is difficult to market on the scale needed to produce a profitable level of sales. Ironically, poetry can be a good candidate for self-publication, simply because it is rarely profitable in the best of circumstances. Once books are published, poets can market them at special venues (such as readings).
Legal Issues
Anyone who self-publishes a work must be reasonably proficient at understanding the legal issues that apply to businesses, such as commercial law and taxes. Another legal consideration especially relevant to the self-publisher is the effect of establishing a business entity. This may provide the writer-publisher with some tax benefits. In addition, the benefit of limiting exposure to personal liability is important, since acting as one’s own publisher adds the risks associated with running a business to the risks associates with writing (e.g., defamation, invasion of privacy, and copyright infringement).
EBOOK PUBLISHERS
For the most part, ebooks have not reached the levels of print book sales, but have a significant market share. According to Publisher’s Weekly and other sources, sales were down from 2014 to 2015 and down again in 2016. There seems to be some difference of opinion as to the cause, perhaps the discounting by Amazon of print books, or the change by some consumers from ebook readers to tablets or phones, or other reasons. In any event, many publishers produce both print and digital versions of their books, and the biggest ebook retailer is Amazon.
Like print publishers, e-publishers cover the spectrum, ranging from reputable to vanity. Writers should be wary of dealing with an outfit that charges a fee. It is rare for e-publishers to offer an advance. They usually pay royalties that are higher on a percentage basis than the print publishers, since ebooks cost less to produce. The better e-publishers limit themselves to the electronic rights, which leaves the writer free to submit the work to print publishers.
Self-publishing ebooks can also be done. There are businesses that sell ebook compilers to writers. It is not too difficult to list an ebook with the major online retailers such as Amazon.com or to create a website from which to sell ebooks. However, writers should be aware that e-publishing has not received widespread consumer acceptance, and online sales are unlikely to provide much in the way of commercial success (despite claims made by entities that offer services related to self-publishing ebooks). Even a writer as well known as Stephen King did not find ebook publishing to be particularly successful when he released Riding the Bullet exclusively as an ebook in 2000. Although the release generated a lot of media attention, King decided not to publish his later works exclusively as ebooks. As with the conventional form of self-publishing, producing one’s own ebooks may be a good means to market information to a specialized audience, but is not a promising way to enable a writer to break into the general trade markets.
1 Julie Bosman, “Times Will Rank E-Book Best Sellers,” New York Times, November 10, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/books/11list.html.
2 “E-Book Fiction Best Sellers,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/e-book-fiction/?mcubz=3.
3 Stephanie Chandler, “How Books by Self-Published Authors Can Land on the New York Times Bestsellers List,” Nonfiction Authors Association. May 17, 2016, https://nonfictionauthorsassociation.com/how-books-by-self-published-authors-can-land-on-the-new-york-times-bestsellers-list/.
4 Author Earnings Report, February 2017, http://authorearnings.com/report/february-2017/.
5 Case Studies/Cory Doctorow, Creative Commons, https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Case_Studies/Cory_Doctorow.
6 Peter Watts, The Backlist, http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm.
7 For more see Creative Commons at https://creativecommons.org/.