Marginal books (no, not the distributor)
Aug. 2nd, 2004 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msagaraHigh advances are not the whole game. Promotion is not the whole game. And by now you've seen that promotion is a slippery word -- there are many elements of promotion that are invisible from the outside. Like, for instance, being Lead or Lead SF title. Placement dollars for position in bookstores is now no longer invisible -- to you. To most book buyers, it still is. In order to get the money and the positioning, there has to be a reasonable chance -- in the eyes of the editor or publisher -- that your book is enough like a bestseller that it has a damn good chance of being one. Money alone won't buy you that. And brilliant writing doesn't either.
Also, at most houses, you're in competition with John Grisham for placement dollars. No, seriously. The house as a whole is pulling for that promotional money. In a house which specializes in your genre, your chances are much better, because what else is there to spend the money on? But the down side of that is that there's frequently less promotional money to begin with because, well, much smaller publisher.
In the store, I can walk by the shelves and pick up authors I admire. And I know, reading their works, that the publishers could spend 6 figures in promotional dollars, and in the end, it would be 6 wasted figures; the author's sales would increase, but marginally; there wouldn't be that rabid fan-base word of mouth that would cause it to grow by leaps and bounds. If I, as the person buying and shelving these books, have a pretty good idea of what those books are, you can bet the publisher does as well. There are many that are not clear either way. Some of those will creep up; they start out beneath the radar, build momentum, and break out without any initial wattage from the publishing lights.
There are whole months that go by where I wonder why editors don't talk to writers more openly about the publishing business and their place in it.
And then I wander into discussions -- either in real life or, much more frequently, on-line, and listen to writers (often unpublished but by no means always) and realize that it's partly because it would take the editors a zillion hours to explain enough of the background to make that discussion possible. I don't know about you, but I have enough hissy fits in my life from other sources that dealing with them is one of the last things on my desireable list.
And, for the sake of full disclosure, I've -had- hissy fits. At my poor editor. Or DAW's poor managing editor (about type-face, and it ended up being about nothing; the printer's proof machine didn't actually have the font installed, so it printed a really ugly approximation that was -unreadable-. Um, if you're sensitive to typefaces. Neither I, nor the managing editor knew this, so I assumed that the galley pages were what the book would look like. I phoned, I had a fit, I asked pointedly that they never ever use this font again, and then I struggled to proof the pages. And then, of course, the printed font, the published font, was absolutely fine. It was SEA OF SORROWS for anyone who's curious. I phoned and really groveled. Total abasement. Exposing of throat.) And I do understand a lot of how the business works. I've perfected the art of groveling. Oh, and mentioning PMS. Because, you know, I have that too.
Because I've established that digression is essentially my mode of thought, I'm about to wander off on a different tangent, and discuss something else. An author of my acquaintance, who is as yet unpublished, is fabulous with words. The books this author has written are dense little gems; they're not without flaws, but the flaws are structural and harder in some ways to see clearly because the prose itself is so flawless. Because I'm generally not known for tact, and I'm always insanely busy (or distracted), I seldom read first novels that aren't published. In this case, tact was not an issue; it was neither expected nor actually wanted. So I read the first novel this author wrote; I adored it.
So, too, did an editor at a major house. But both she and I had the same secondary reaction, the first being I love this! and the second being and fifteen other people will love it, two of whom would probably only be able to understand it in translation.
Why? Because it's dense and difficult in places, requires and rewards an enormous amount of attention; it isn't accessible enough. For what?
Good question.
An editor works for a publisher. Everybody knows this. What some writers -- and I would have been right up front and center in that line when I was sending my first novel out -- don't understand is that the editor loving the book is not a guarantee that it will sell. It's not a guarantee that readers will love the book. There are books which editors will buy in blind hope; they love it, they don't think it will sell in anywhere like huge numbers, but they think it might sell enough to justify the purchase and publication, and they want that book out there, speaking to the small audience that does exist for it. The small audience that will love it just as passionately as they did.
No one starts out in this business for money. Not the editors, not the writers, and even -- at least in small press cases, not the publishers. But because it is a business, at one point or another, a wake-up call comes. It's not a happy call. The bottom line is made of barbed wire. When it happens, it doesn't mean that the editors buy only crap, because lord knows that doesn't work either. But it means that their buy decisions are based on a number of factors, and what they can do with the book in house depends on those. So back to the book an editor loves that won't sell huge numbers.
For a book like this, which pierces editorial heart, but which doesn't have that mass market potential, a publisher is simply not going to offer scads of money. Ever.
The author who somehow feels that if this type of book had gotten a higher advance, it would have been promoted, pushed and would have sold a zillion copies is, in fact, living in a dream; high advances in this case would guarantee only that the P&L statement would suck rocks, and the editor would have a lot to answer for.
The editor is probably fighting a rear-guard action for love of the book in house. She will do everything she can for that book. But what she can do is limited. And one of the things that it's difficult to explain is that it is limited. That the quality of the writing, that the love of it, is not going to be justification for the bean counters. [Getting a fabulous NYT review for your first novel can often bump advances up a bit even if the sales don't justify it -- prestige does matter. People are people. But you won't know prestige until after the first book is out -- and in the end, prestige can only carry you so far. At some houses, I don't think it matters; at some it definitely does.]
Of course it's best if the editor both loves the book and thinks it will sell a zillion copies. Sometimes that does happen. Sometimes she likes a book, and thinks it will sell. Sometimes she holds her nose because all the other books by this author have sold well and she doesn't want to lose a successful author over a single unsuccessful book.
Sometimes love of the book just isn't enough. If you can't justify it financially, you don't buy it. You can weep and pull out your hair and feel a deep and desperate regret at the state of the universe -- but you don't buy the book. Because you're doing your job. Saying no in this case is your responsibility. Recognition of genius -- which some odd people seem to feel is actually the editor's responsibility -- is, in fact, not part of the job description. An editor is supposed to acquire properties for the publishing house that employs them that will make the publisher money.
In fact, recognition of a certain type of genius is probably only painful.
If the editor can justify it, she can buy it -- but again, she won't be able to secure the money for placement dollars beyond the bare minimum required to actually get a couple of copies onto shelves. She won't get money to advertise it in those flyers that the chains publish (everything advertised in those is paid for by the publishers), or on the front page of Amazon, etc. She won't get Michael Whelan to paint the cover for it. With good reviews, and a hardcover publication, she could get library sales, and foreign sales are also more of a possibility, but again, no guarantee.
And there's no point in trying to convince people that the quirky book she adores is a mass market break out novel -- because a) they won't believe it and b) if they do, and it isn't (and let's assume the editor knows enough to know it isn't), this is bad in the long run for both the editor and the writer's possible chances of selling another book to the house.
As an author, what do you do in this case? If the book is something that gets NYT reviews that are glowing, because one of the people who does love it as passionately as the editor is a reviewer, you have prestige. Not sales, but prestige is not without some value to a publishing house. You don't, however, have a career that allows you to quit your day job. Day job is important.
You can do one of two things. You can try to make your work more broadly accessible -- if that's even possible -- or you can continue to write for love of the writing, and understand that it is, in financial terms, a hobby. Many, many people work day jobs to support their hobbies; in theory, yours at least won't cost you a lot of money.
Also, at most houses, you're in competition with John Grisham for placement dollars. No, seriously. The house as a whole is pulling for that promotional money. In a house which specializes in your genre, your chances are much better, because what else is there to spend the money on? But the down side of that is that there's frequently less promotional money to begin with because, well, much smaller publisher.
In the store, I can walk by the shelves and pick up authors I admire. And I know, reading their works, that the publishers could spend 6 figures in promotional dollars, and in the end, it would be 6 wasted figures; the author's sales would increase, but marginally; there wouldn't be that rabid fan-base word of mouth that would cause it to grow by leaps and bounds. If I, as the person buying and shelving these books, have a pretty good idea of what those books are, you can bet the publisher does as well. There are many that are not clear either way. Some of those will creep up; they start out beneath the radar, build momentum, and break out without any initial wattage from the publishing lights.
There are whole months that go by where I wonder why editors don't talk to writers more openly about the publishing business and their place in it.
And then I wander into discussions -- either in real life or, much more frequently, on-line, and listen to writers (often unpublished but by no means always) and realize that it's partly because it would take the editors a zillion hours to explain enough of the background to make that discussion possible. I don't know about you, but I have enough hissy fits in my life from other sources that dealing with them is one of the last things on my desireable list.
And, for the sake of full disclosure, I've -had- hissy fits. At my poor editor. Or DAW's poor managing editor (about type-face, and it ended up being about nothing; the printer's proof machine didn't actually have the font installed, so it printed a really ugly approximation that was -unreadable-. Um, if you're sensitive to typefaces. Neither I, nor the managing editor knew this, so I assumed that the galley pages were what the book would look like. I phoned, I had a fit, I asked pointedly that they never ever use this font again, and then I struggled to proof the pages. And then, of course, the printed font, the published font, was absolutely fine. It was SEA OF SORROWS for anyone who's curious. I phoned and really groveled. Total abasement. Exposing of throat.) And I do understand a lot of how the business works. I've perfected the art of groveling. Oh, and mentioning PMS. Because, you know, I have that too.
Because I've established that digression is essentially my mode of thought, I'm about to wander off on a different tangent, and discuss something else. An author of my acquaintance, who is as yet unpublished, is fabulous with words. The books this author has written are dense little gems; they're not without flaws, but the flaws are structural and harder in some ways to see clearly because the prose itself is so flawless. Because I'm generally not known for tact, and I'm always insanely busy (or distracted), I seldom read first novels that aren't published. In this case, tact was not an issue; it was neither expected nor actually wanted. So I read the first novel this author wrote; I adored it.
So, too, did an editor at a major house. But both she and I had the same secondary reaction, the first being I love this! and the second being and fifteen other people will love it, two of whom would probably only be able to understand it in translation.
Why? Because it's dense and difficult in places, requires and rewards an enormous amount of attention; it isn't accessible enough. For what?
Good question.
An editor works for a publisher. Everybody knows this. What some writers -- and I would have been right up front and center in that line when I was sending my first novel out -- don't understand is that the editor loving the book is not a guarantee that it will sell. It's not a guarantee that readers will love the book. There are books which editors will buy in blind hope; they love it, they don't think it will sell in anywhere like huge numbers, but they think it might sell enough to justify the purchase and publication, and they want that book out there, speaking to the small audience that does exist for it. The small audience that will love it just as passionately as they did.
No one starts out in this business for money. Not the editors, not the writers, and even -- at least in small press cases, not the publishers. But because it is a business, at one point or another, a wake-up call comes. It's not a happy call. The bottom line is made of barbed wire. When it happens, it doesn't mean that the editors buy only crap, because lord knows that doesn't work either. But it means that their buy decisions are based on a number of factors, and what they can do with the book in house depends on those. So back to the book an editor loves that won't sell huge numbers.
For a book like this, which pierces editorial heart, but which doesn't have that mass market potential, a publisher is simply not going to offer scads of money. Ever.
The author who somehow feels that if this type of book had gotten a higher advance, it would have been promoted, pushed and would have sold a zillion copies is, in fact, living in a dream; high advances in this case would guarantee only that the P&L statement would suck rocks, and the editor would have a lot to answer for.
The editor is probably fighting a rear-guard action for love of the book in house. She will do everything she can for that book. But what she can do is limited. And one of the things that it's difficult to explain is that it is limited. That the quality of the writing, that the love of it, is not going to be justification for the bean counters. [Getting a fabulous NYT review for your first novel can often bump advances up a bit even if the sales don't justify it -- prestige does matter. People are people. But you won't know prestige until after the first book is out -- and in the end, prestige can only carry you so far. At some houses, I don't think it matters; at some it definitely does.]
Of course it's best if the editor both loves the book and thinks it will sell a zillion copies. Sometimes that does happen. Sometimes she likes a book, and thinks it will sell. Sometimes she holds her nose because all the other books by this author have sold well and she doesn't want to lose a successful author over a single unsuccessful book.
Sometimes love of the book just isn't enough. If you can't justify it financially, you don't buy it. You can weep and pull out your hair and feel a deep and desperate regret at the state of the universe -- but you don't buy the book. Because you're doing your job. Saying no in this case is your responsibility. Recognition of genius -- which some odd people seem to feel is actually the editor's responsibility -- is, in fact, not part of the job description. An editor is supposed to acquire properties for the publishing house that employs them that will make the publisher money.
In fact, recognition of a certain type of genius is probably only painful.
If the editor can justify it, she can buy it -- but again, she won't be able to secure the money for placement dollars beyond the bare minimum required to actually get a couple of copies onto shelves. She won't get money to advertise it in those flyers that the chains publish (everything advertised in those is paid for by the publishers), or on the front page of Amazon, etc. She won't get Michael Whelan to paint the cover for it. With good reviews, and a hardcover publication, she could get library sales, and foreign sales are also more of a possibility, but again, no guarantee.
And there's no point in trying to convince people that the quirky book she adores is a mass market break out novel -- because a) they won't believe it and b) if they do, and it isn't (and let's assume the editor knows enough to know it isn't), this is bad in the long run for both the editor and the writer's possible chances of selling another book to the house.
As an author, what do you do in this case? If the book is something that gets NYT reviews that are glowing, because one of the people who does love it as passionately as the editor is a reviewer, you have prestige. Not sales, but prestige is not without some value to a publishing house. You don't, however, have a career that allows you to quit your day job. Day job is important.
You can do one of two things. You can try to make your work more broadly accessible -- if that's even possible -- or you can continue to write for love of the writing, and understand that it is, in financial terms, a hobby. Many, many people work day jobs to support their hobbies; in theory, yours at least won't cost you a lot of money.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 07:08 pm (UTC)I work in the marketing department of a nonprofit, independent trade press--a rather rare breed in this day and age. My company's idealistic and progressive, but money still talks. It has too; if it didn't, we'd very quickly go out of business and be little more than a memory. And it's worth remembering that it's not just publishers who make decisions based on money. My press has launched a number of good authors, only to see them take their next book to a bigger publisher for a bigger advance. And it's not unusual for that author to come back to us later, complaining of how little attention they're getting at their new company. Is it better to be a lead author at a small press or a less-important one at a large one? My company will often pull out the full promotional press--tours, national publicity campaign, advertising, coop--for a book with a first printing of 5-7K. That's not normal in other places. I don't really blame my company's authors for leaving us for the bigger advance or the bigger name. In their shoes, I'd be tempted to do the same.
There are whole months that go by where I wonder why editors don't talk to writers more openly about the publishing business and their place in it. And then I wander into discussions . . . and realize that it's partly because it would take the editors a zillion hours to explain enough of the background to make that discussion possible.
*sigh* We still try. We really do (for very self-interested reasons). We try not to roll our eyes when our authors suggest sending their book to Oprah or "the NPR program in Philadelphia . . . Fresh Air or something?" But in the end, as you say, it's a lot of time, and there's hardly enough hours in the day to do the actual business of marketing (or editing or production of) a book.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 08:37 pm (UTC)Marketing is one part of the business I've had almost no contact with; I do see publicity people in the store from time to time with authors, and there's almost always some contact because of that.
Actually one of my favourite people in the industry was the VP of one of the Canadian distribution companies. He was slightly surprised at how low on the totem pole my knowledge was, and it was he who pointed out that the person who actually held the title "publisher" for various lines did, in his opinion, make a difference to the line; it wasn't a convenience or a figure-head title. I did try to pay attention to more of that, but that's still harder for me because I tend to be very focused on things that reflect the genre I write in <rueful g>.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 04:35 am (UTC)