More About Direct Sales

 

What follows is grossly oversimplified. I have sacrificed nuance and accuracy for the sake a sketching a rough outline.

 

When we think of "how publishing works," most of us think about the model that dominated the last couple of centuries. The writer wrote and sent the resulting work off to a publisher. An editor considered the manuscript and, if it was found to be suitable, made suggestions or changes to fully realize the work's potential. The publisher designed the pages, commissioned art if necessary, paid for printing, and undertook whatever publicity or advertising would help to sell copies.

 

In other words, writers wrote, and publishers published.

 

The first thing to keep in mind about this model is that it represents a phase of publishing, a distinct era that now seems to be drawing to a close. Publishing was not always like this. The first printer in England, William Caxton, was in some ways like a publisher of the twenty-first century. He produced books in print runs of about 300 copies, so his market was small enough that he could get to know his buyers personally. He managed every stage of production himself. He wasn't a writer, but he worked at a scale that would be familiar to many self-published writers today.

William Caxton, the first printer in England (1476) and a savvy acquiring editor, publicist, and salesman.

The second thing to keep in mind about the nineteenth-and-twentieth-century model of publishing is that it is no longer as good at fulfilling its role as it was in the days of Frank Doubleday. Consider the services that a traditional publisher provides to the writer:

• Imprimatur. The publisher acts as a gatekeeper, only taking work that is good, so the reader can have some confidence. "Doubleday" on the spine is a mark of quality.

• Editing. The publisher pays an expert, or usually several experts, to work with the text at various stages, from development to copyediting and proofing.

• Design and Art. The publisher pays a different set of experts to make the book block and the covers of the book attractive.

• Production. The publisher foots the considerable bill for offset printing.

• Distribution. The publisher has existing relationships with wholesale distributors and book sellers.

• Publicity and Advertising. The publisher pays for ads, sends out copies to reviewers, and attracts publicity for the book.

 

What does the performance of a twenty-first-century large publisher look like in these areas?

• Imprimatur. The publisher still acts as a gatekeeper, but the criteria for what publishers will take has grown increasingly narrow. In Frank Doubleday's era, there was some room on a commercial list for books that the editors loved and knew would not be big sellers. No longer. On one hand, an ardent fan base of ten thousand readers who look forward to the next mass paperback from writer Jane Doe is not a large enough audience to satisfy her large publisher, so some high-quality work without enough mass appeal goes unpublished. On the other hand, a mediocre children's book by a pop singer will be published on the grounds that the singer's name will sell even though the book is run-of-the-mill. So imprimatur from a large publisher still means something, but certainly less than it once did.

• Editing. Large publishers still pay for copyediting and proofing, but most writers can forget about getting developmental editing from a large house. Editorial staffs are trimmed ever leaner, and the expectation is that if a manuscript needs editorial work to be ready for publication, the writer had better pay for help from a freelance editor before submitting to the already overworked acquisitions editor.

• Design and Art. Big publishers still do this very well.

• Production. This is another service big publishers still provide well.

• Distribution. Publishers have relationships with distributors all right, but there are fewer players these days, which makes for a fickle market. If one big chain store doesn't commit to carrying a title, the result will be a smaller print run. Publishers still have an in with various players in distribution, but this counts for less and less.

• Publicity and Advertising. Forget it. One of the questions publishers want answered up front about an author is, "What sort of platform does he have?" Platform is one's social and professional footprint. Is the writer a public figure? Are his name and face recognized? If so, he has a platform. He'll need it. Publishers expect writers to run their own publicity campaigns. Publishers do not spend a lot advertising books except for those at the top of the bestseller list. Increasingly, the publicity staff for a book consists of the writer, period.

I see a lot of writers opting out of the big publishing model. Editing and design are things that patient writers can learn to do for themselves or, if need be, hire a freelancer to do. Distribution is still difficult with physical books if the writer wants to sell them in brick-and-mortar stores, but e-book distribution and selling trade paperback through Amazon is as easy as registering an online account. Since publishers expect writers to do their own publicity anyway, the writer loses nothing in that area by publishing independently.

Depending on the distribution channel, whether a direct e-mail newsletter of content, or an e-book, or a trade paperback printed on demand, the writer may get to keep anywhere from 25% to 100% of the retail cost of the text. That certainly beats the 8% or 10% offered by a traditional publisher. That larger margin means that the writer may be able to survive with the support of a fan base numbering only a few thousand readers even if a large proportion of sales is in low-priced e-books.

The main difficulty for the writer who self-distributes is finding those few thousand readers without the imprimatur of a big press...or the similar imprimatur of being shelved in a book store. The work may be good, but how does the writer attract a skeptical buyer? The big publisher's value as a gatekeeper is hard to replace. For the independent writer, the validation of recognizable writing awards may be much more important than it is for a writer working inside the traditional model.

Culturally, this new model is bound to result in a larger number of writers surviving with the support of a relatively small fan base. In this scenario, there will still be breakout books that become bestsellers and common cultural references...the books everyone is talking about. Some of those will be very fine books. Some will be crap. But they will arise out of a much larger pool of candidates than traditional publishing has ever been equipped to put forward.