Publishing Perspectives has a piece written by an established author who is taking her first experimental steps into the world of self-publishing. Alisa Valdez has written a number of books, including a two-book series called The Dirty Girls Social Club, both of which have proven to be half-million-sellers so far.
Valdez’s fans and her publisher don’t see eye-to-eye on some matters. Her fans want more Dirty Girls, she says, but her publisher, St. Martin’s Press, is reluctant to commit to a series on something that doesn’t fit into an established serial genre like mysteries.
After following her publisher’s advice led to declining sales, Valdez has decided to go it alone. She has “incredibly loyal” fans, and if she can produce and self-publish a book on her own, she will keep considerably more money from each copy sold than St. Martin’s Press would have given her. She knows people who can do the editing work, and feels she could assemble a perfectly serviceable cover from licensed stock photography. And she was already doing the bulk of the publicity for the book herself.
She tested the waters with another book she’d had available, All That Glitters, and discovered that formatting and uploading the book was remarkably easy, and with no more promotion than word of mouth on her mailing lists and social networking groups, it sold at least as well in the first few days as a paperback that St. Martin’s had published the month before.
In less than a week, I had taught myself how to publish a book that was comparable in quality to what you might get from a traditional publisher, all the while keeping most of the money myself. I’d uploaded my novel All That Glitters as an experiment. Within the first 48 hours, I’d earned $600 – with no fanfare whatsoever.
So her plan is to self-publish the third Dirty Girls book in May and see if her loyal fans prove her publisher wrong. While she still plans to go with Harper Collins for her young-adult books (she’s under a 3-book contract with them now), the experiment with Dirty Girls will decide how she plans to publish her adult novels in the future.
Of course, Valdez is in a different position from a lot of would-be writers who decide to self-publish today. Like J.A. Konrath, she has the benefit of an audience built through publication by a big publishing house. Newcomers to the industry won’t have that.
But when you’ve already gotten that boost, Publishing Perspectives Editor Edward Nawotka wonders, what can big publishers offer? After all, services like editing and cover art can be contracted, and authors themselves have already been doing a lot of marketing and publicity anyway. Compared to the 70/30 split Amazon offers, the low royalty rates that publishers are pushing are really starting to stick in people’s craws.
Actually, this may be a trend to watch.
I can see authors using the traditional old-school publishers to establish themselves and grit their teeth to serve out their contracts before going self-published. Kinda like in Professional Baseball where players are stuck with the drafting team until they establish themselves and serve out their three-year servitude before getting access to arbitration contrats and, later, after six years, full free agency.
And just as ballplayers feel no loyalty to the teams that developed/exploited them in their younger days, writers have no reason *not* to bolt when they get the chance. Not at current royalty rates and not when you factor in the BPHs ever-tightening content-acquisition policies.
Of course, unlike professional sports, most writers’ contracts aren’t exclusive so writers can play both sides simultaneously, as Ms Valdez seems to be doing.
Just another example of all the many ways ebooks are undercutting the 19th century model of publishing.
That may be the best reasoning I’ve heard thus far to maintain the traditional publishers: As “starter” organizations for rookies, giving them a big league start before they go off on their own as pros.
It seems to me that this is a logical route for an established writer who can easily fund editing and other ancillary services s/he needs prior to publishing and who knows the ins and outs of the process.
I agree with Steven above that ‘traditional’ publishers. They may have a role with new writers who are timid about the whole thing.
However I believe a new model publisher will emerge, much leaner and streamlined. They will offer editing, data processing and marketing services in a variety of packages with a variety of royalty split options depending on what the writer wishes. This will be a useful model for new and also established writers.