While training to become a psychotherapist I was taught that the thicker a client’s state of denial, the deeper the wound that lay beneath it.
As I look at the ways various sectors of the economy are continuing to spend money like there’s no tomorrow, never mind the economic depression that lay upon us today, I wonder what is the emotional wound that has caused certain people and companies–say as with publishing–to remain unable to make necessary adjustments for their very survival. Make no mistake many areas of the business world are rapidly evolving so as to stay afloat, and thrive over the long haul of shifting economic currents.
Sadly the publishing business is not one of them. On a more unfortunate note, many authors and would-be authors remain caught up in the fervor and fascination of wanting to attach themselves with a traditional, and yes, New York Publisher. Many of them obviously do not yet know that The Hachette Group based in Paris, France, owns Warner Books and Little, Brown and Company, still located respectively in New York City and Boston, MA.
The French are quite adaptable. While in Paris during June 2006, I was informed that the French government would be instituting a law that prohibited smoking in public. The law would take effect January 2007. While I love France, I had concluded that the French, revolutionary and freethinking people that they are–would not give up their cigarettes so easily.
Yet even they–with their social health care system–realized that they, the citizens who fund their health care system–could not afford the added expense that we all know illnesses from smoking cigarettes cause–not and keep their four-day workweek. I returned to Paris in January 2007 to see no cigarettes lit in public, and the thick haze and smell of cigarette smoke gone.
To highlight an issue that not only innervates the American publishing world, but also those who are ensnared and would wish to become hostage to the, “I want to eat my cake and have it too,” syndrome that so dominates the publishing world.
I repeat, publishing is not the only sector of the economy holding this desire. But in that I am a writer the conventional wisdom that pervades the thought-space of publishers and those in the industry greatly interests me. In short, I want to know the nature of handling money that rules the minds and actions of fellow colleagues.
That despite the fact, “…7 out of 10 titles do not earn back their advance, the system [of publishers giving authors 6 and 7-figure advances] doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon…” doesn’t make me want to get in bed with them as in signing a contract for traditional publishers to bring to print what words I have toiled over.
While I’m not saying never to the prospect of entering another contract with another traditional publisher, I have decided that I would like to be firmly established as a solid self-published author before, and when and if I do.
Why?
I refer back to the New York Time essay/article detailing publishers’ unrelenting commitment to mega-large author advances. The intent of “’Publishers [who believe they] have to keep buying books,’” and that, ‘…They have to bid for the best books‘ — … those that [they believe] will sell,'” by offering what children would call gi-normous advances leaves me wondering if those at the helm have any business sense–at least that for making money and not throwing it away.
I think my concern well-entitled since the article clearly states at the outset, that publishers continue down this path despite the fact that–and I’ll re-write it: “…7 out of 10 titles do not earn back their advance…” Anyone that would adhere to such a, forgive me, wacked-out method of running a business, can’t have my best interest–financial and creative–at heart.
On some level this sounds like the banking industry–where consumers were coerced into taking negative amortizing mortgages–loans with which the borrower faced a higher than average chance she/he would end up paying back in loan payments more interest than principal and that the property on which they had taken out the loan was worth. We saw where that landed us.
The fact that publishers keep paying so much money for books that don’t sell says they have no idea what the market wants or how to find out. Nor do they care to. Rather than spend money on figuring out what the market demands–what readers want–what it would take for a country with a higher than a 85% literacy rate would buy to read–they’ll just continue down the same path.
They choose to remain in a thick state of denial–one that entraps so many of us writers, authors and would be authors. The New York Time article warns, that while in the past the author received of her/his advance “…half up front, a quarter on acceptance of the manuscript and a quarter on publication…that model is changing…Now we see advance amounts being paid in thirds, fourths and even fifths…For a writer dependent on those funds, that’s not an advance, it’s a retreat.”
We hear from a novelist who received one of those mega-advances that, “…A low-six-figure advance has allowed me to work at less than minimum wage for three years.” The essayist of the article carefully points out that the novelist shared this information while speaking “…over the phone from the set of the film adaptation of his novel, Up in the Air, starring George Clooney.”
If you know anything about movies, the film adaptation could make it to the big screen–or it could simply be released on DVD as are so many good movies that executive producers don’t think will yield a sizable enough return at the box office to justify placing them in theaters.
It is at this point that Updike’s words at the close of the New York Times article, and addressing the state of an author accepting such large advances, echo with an eerie refrain. “It was like being a fallen woman in the old days,” Updike wrote. “Once you sold yourself, you were never your own again.”
To bring Updike’s warning into perspective it’s helpful to note that the deceased author’s fictional character and alter ego, Henry Bech believed that, “…a respectable author never asked for an advance; that was strictly for the no-talents starving down in the Village.” I don’t know what to make of it that many who do and have received advances are also starving, and have no health insurance to boot.
All this makes the words of the novelist, quoted earlier in the article, ring ever clearer, “…When I hear these large, publicized advances, it feels like watching the casino play around me…” I’ve heard more than one agent say that trying to figure out which books will garner the large advances was like trying to figure out when the bullet would fire when watching a person playing Russian roulette.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the thought of people who run their business like the game of Russian roulette taking charge of my baby–a book–and those future works I write and that are promised by contract–leaves me nervous, scared and unhappy. Anxiety drains my creative energy. Creativity fuels my ability to write. Without it I am an emotional mess.
Perhaps the reason 7 out of 10 books do not earn back the royalties paid to the author in advance of their sales is not so much that they aren’t well written–grammatically and sensibly structured. Maybe there’s a simpler reason fewer and fewer people are buying books. Notice I’m not saying that people aren’t reading.
I suggest that the books publishers bring to print weren’t written so much for readers’ delight and enjoyment. Rather they were crafted, like a less than sincere smile, with the intent of attracting the attention of agents who are the gatekeepers for publishers–more specifically those publisher’s dollars–of which agents take 15%-20%.
Sadly enough agents, publishers and potential readers/consumers, it seems, aren’t reading on the same page–not even the from the same book.
Regarding the topic of book advances where do you stand?
On what page, out of what book are you reading?
New York Times Essay–About That Book Advance…
“I suggest that the books publishers bring to print weren’t written so much for readers’ delight and enjoyment. Rather they were crafted, like a less than sincere smile, with the intent of attracting the attention of agents who are the gatekeepers for publishers–more specifically those publisher’s dollars–of which agents take 15%-20%.”
This is terrible, but I believe you’re right. Everyone seems to be jumping on the “hot” band wagon. Some of us slog away, true to our muse. Perhaps we won’t conventionally publish. But we have the (disappointing) consolation that we did remain true.
They say that the best work eventually does make it. I hang on to that.
After reading your article, I’d have to agree that it’s a sad state of affairs in the publishing world. While those of us who aren’t published yet are striving to get published the “old fashioned way,” it may be the right time for us to look at getting published…in a different way.
Being published would validate our work, but does it earn us enough money to pay our bills and to work full time at something we love to do?
Some say they do earn a good living writing books, but is that true for everyone?
I will be looking at more than one way to get published in the coming year, because the “old fashioned way” takes too long anymore and who has that much time to wait for someone to get back to them?
It’s crazy out there, here, whatever–in publishing. And the people running the publishing business have never been truly on top of their game concerning economics, not when comparing them to say the record/music industry which has evolved must faster in the digital age. I truly believe it is going to be people like us, writers like you and me who take this thing called writing and publishing into to the next phase of where consumers are demanding we go to meet them.
In short, publishers seem quite complacent with fighting over the small numbers of people who purchase books. Notice I don’t say, the small numbers of those who read. With a world literacy rate of 82% I am certain more than 82% of the people in America can and do read. They’re simply not purchasing books. I submit that just like urban fiction writers gave voice to stories that resonated with individuals who prior to the emergence of that genre had no one writing stories with characters with whom they identified, there are vast numbers of people in our culture who have yet to find stories with characters and plots that speak to their souls and hearts.
Traditional publishers have a vision of what they believe needs to be brought to print and made into books. The internet and digital technology now allows books to come in many forms, that are also less expensive than printed and bound books.
You and I and all others whose writing careers are setting out with this digital wave of the new century are the voices that will speak to those consumers yet tapped. Instead of focusing on trying to sell to the shrinking pool of people buying what the traditional publishers have to offer–which often lacks imagination, heart and soul–we inherently speak to what I believe consumers who have yet to enter the book-buying arena are looking to place their money on.
We are the ones that will change the publishing industry. We are the ones who will usher in new people that will buy books and renovate the publishing world. And we will do it by connecting with each other as you and i have done using the internet, but using it wisely and with balance.
Thanks again for stopping by and commenting.