{"id":497,"date":"2014-03-05T16:12:04","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T16:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/?p=497"},"modified":"2014-03-14T16:49:06","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T16:49:06","slug":"traditional-publishing-why-would-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/03\/traditional-publishing-why-would-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Traditional publishing: why would I?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a reader, I\u2019ve been a fan of self-publishing for some time now. While many self-pubbed works really would have been better strangled at birth, some of my best reads have been by authors who side-stepped the traditional route. As I inch towards self-pubbing my own work, I wondered just what it would take for me to sign a contract with a traditional publisher. What would the benefits really be?<\/p>\n

Now I should, perhaps, point out the obvious here. I\u2019m never likely to receive an offer from a publisher. I\u2019ve no intention of submitting, I have no agent, I\u2019m unlikely ever to sell enough myself to attract any attention. So this is purely hypothetical.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s suppose, very hypothetically, that it\u2019s happened, and I have indeed received an offer from a publisher to put \u2018The Plains of Kallanash\u2019 out to the masses. Let\u2019s assume that it\u2019s a most likely scenario, that is, not a telephone number advance, but not derisory. About $5,000 seems to be a standard amount these days, so let\u2019s run with that, and assume a boiler-plate contract. What would be the pluses and minuses?<\/p>\n

Pluses<\/b><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The advance.<\/b> Since most authors never earn out their advance, this will likely be the only money received. If I were hoping to make a living from my writing, $5,000 wouldn\u2019t cut it, but even though money isn\u2019t a driver for me, this is a derisory amount for something that took me a couple of years to write and polish. There\u2019s probably close to 1,000 hours worth of work in there, and this values my time at $5 an hour. However, it\u2019s still $5,000 I didn\u2019t have before.<\/li>\n
  2. Access to bookstores and libraries.<\/b> This is a huge advantage over self-publishers, who can sell very easily through online stores, but just can\u2019t get their books into physical stores. [Edit: H Anthe Davis points out in the comments below that self-pubbers can now do this, by way of Amazon\/CreateSpace, although at a cost.]<\/li>\n
  3. Marketing muscle<\/b>. A publisher will send out advance review copies, and may attract attention from press and other media. However, authors still get to do most of the social marketing.<\/li>\n
  4. Warm fuzzy feelings<\/b> at seeing the book in bookstores, and the confidence boost that some independent party thinks the book is worth publishing. This isn\u2019t a driver for me either, but I don\u2019t underestimate the effects.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Minuses<\/b><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. No control <\/b>over editing, cover art, formatting, marketing, pricing.<\/li>\n
    2. No creative control<\/b> over the contents, since the publisher\u2019s editor may ask for changes. Many don\u2019t but if they do, refusing can be a deal-breaker. Given that I\u2019ve written the book I wanted to write, rather than one tailored for a market, it\u2019s very likely that I\u2019d be asked to do this: to cut the size, and also to adjust the content.<\/li>\n
    3. No freedom to publish other works<\/b> now or in the future. This is the biggie \u2013 the non-compete clause, which even big-name authors are unable to remove completely. The contract will usually specify that all future works be submitted first to them, and that nothing be published which is in any way in competition with the books they have rights to. This can cover pretty much anything, under any name, that an author has already written or might write at some time. It can be a career-breaker, if interpreted tightly.<\/li>\n
    4. The rights to that book<\/b> forever, since ebooks never go out of print. The publisher has them, and that\u2019s that. If the publisher goes bust, or is taken over, or decides to sell some of its portfolio, good luck with having any say in the matter.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I haven\u2019t mentioned such things as foreign rights, movie rights, audiobooks and so on. Publishing traditionally makes these things more likely, perhaps, but they\u2019re not impossible for self-pubbers either, and they\u2019re better dealt with by an agent than a publisher.<\/p>\n

      I also haven\u2019t mentioned how much time, effort and money it might cost to get that offer on the table in the first place. All that submitting, first to agents, then to publishers, over and over and over again. This isn\u2019t as testing as it used to be in the days when a manuscript had to be typed out in 12 point double-spaced whatever font, and then packed up, carted to the post office and mailed at great expense. I imagine some authors must have spent as much on submissions as they ever got back in advances. These days, digital submissions have taken a lot of the strain out of the process, but there\u2019s still the time involved.<\/p>\n

      Another factor that has a bearing is the cost of self-publishing. Where trad publishing gives the author an advance, cash in hand, self publishing incurs costs, which may be anything from free to several thousand dollars. I plan to spend around $2,000 on cover art, editing and formatting. On the other hand, a self-published work is earning money straight away, while the trad. pubbed author sits and waits for a year, maybe two years, before the book is actually on the market. But these are imponderables. It\u2019s impossible to say definitively which route is better financially in an individual case.<\/p>\n

      Every writer has to put their own weighting on these pros and cons. Some just want to see their book in the window of a bookstore, and don\u2019t mind the restrictions. For me, it\u2019s the ramifications of a contract that specifies forever<\/i> that bothers me. A time limited contract would be reasonable: three years after publication, say, or five from signing, even if the book is never published. That I would consider. But forever<\/i>? And it\u2019s not just the rights to this book at stake, there\u2019s everything I might write in the future. The non-compete clause is a deal-breaker for me.<\/p>\n

      Then there\u2019s creative control. Now, I\u2019m not so precious about my writing that I think it\u2019s untouchable Art-with-a-capital-A. I\u2019m quite happy to remove info-dumps, to tighten prose, make dialogue crisper, use more active verbs. But slicing out 40,000 words? Making a character more assertive? Changing ages or genders? Changing the ending? If I decide to do that myself, fair enough, but if it\u2019s some random editor who thinks it will make the book more marketable? Forget it.<\/p>\n

      So on these assumptions \u2013 a modest advance and a boiler-plate contract \u2013 I\u2019d turn down traditional publishing every time. But what if the stakes were raised? What if the advance were $100,000? $500,000? At what point would I roll over? We\u2019re into infinitesimal possibilities here, of course, but let\u2019s just play along. $100,000 is enough to fund a couple of years of full-time writing with no other income, or longer with another source of money, but after that \u2013 back to the day job (unless it turns into a mega-bestseller, which few do). Half a million is getting more interesting, and a million? Yeah, that might do it. Maybe.<\/p>\n

      Of course, this is serious flying pig territory. The zombie apocalypse is more likely than some traditional publisher turning up on my doorstep with a seven digit offer. I don\u2019t enter lotteries because the odds are stupid, and this is way, way outside those limits. So I\u2019m not ordering the Ferrari just yet.<\/p>\n

      But what this proves is that, for me, traditional publishing isn\u2019t an option. There\u2019s nothing they offer that I want, and I\u2019d be giving away enough to make me uncomfortable. So self-publishing it is. Others may take a different view. The beauty of being an author right here, right now, is that there are no truly wrong answers, just a variety of different paths to publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      As a reader, I\u2019ve been a fan of self-publishing for some time now. While many self-pubbed works really would have been better strangled at birth, some of my best reads have been by authors who side-stepped the traditional route. As I inch towards self-pubbing my own work, I wondered just what it would take for me to sign a contract with a traditional publisher. What would the benefits really be? Now I should, perhaps, point out the obvious here. I\u2019m never likely to receive an offer from a publisher. I\u2019ve no intention of submitting, I have no agent, I\u2019m unlikely ever to sell enough myself to attract any attention. So this is purely hypothetical. But let\u2019s suppose, very hypothetically, that it\u2019s happened, and I have indeed received an offer from a publisher to put \u2018The Plains of Kallanash\u2019 out to the masses. Let\u2019s assume that it\u2019s a most likely scenario, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":537,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}