Radical publishing notion, right here: if your publishers are making a living from publishing and selling your books, then you, the author, should be making a living from writing them.
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Absolutely. Same goes for scriptwriters who are barely making ends meet while the studios/networks distributing the shows/films they wrote are raking in millions.
Radical response: why? This is not how capitalism works. It's complicated. I've been writing and publishing for almost 50 years and have never made a living from this and never expected to and doubt that making a living from it would have been good for either me or my writing.
The harsh reality is that the real 'art' in today's advanced capitalist society is the art of making money off the creativity of others. The actual writer, painter, musician is now little more than the raw material from which the art of exploitation is created.
Yes! I've been saying this for ages. Why are the people creating the content the only ones in the publishing industry who are expected to not make a living?
This is interesting. While I enjoy a book here and there, I just assumed an author got a lot for their work; I guess I only ever considered authors who made it big, but never new and upcoming authors. I guess I am not necessarily surprised, but disappointing that this is a radical idea. 😳
And if your publisher is merely printing your books and putting them on shelves, but expects you to write, edit, and even market them, to the point where they won't publish you if you don't already have an audience, ask yourself precisely what they're doing for you to earn their percentage.
This isn't about me; but TBF, most publishers do provide editing, copyediting, publicity, artwork, marketing, and distribution beyond what most individuals can do for themselves.
Technically true. The reality is the author is often responsible for the bulk of marketing and making sure the publisher actually delivers on any of the above unless they are on the A list.
Exactly, and - correct me if I'm wrong - it didn't use to be this way in the past. Even if you were a complete unknown publishing your first book, publishers would market you (sometimes globally, other times just within your niche, but they would). Now it's on the writer to promote themselves.
Admittedly she's a more extreme example, but it's still wild to me how in 2003 Stephanie Meyer - a housewife with no industry connections - wrote a book in 3 months with no intention to publish and instantly got a $750,000 deal with a massive marketing budget. No way this happens today.
Yeah, exactly - which just makes no sense to me. If you already have a built-in audience, why would you ever need a publisher? Just self-publish and sell to them directly, keeping 100% of the profits. It's easier than ever to have a professionally-looking book ready to go.
It depends what you need, of course. But if I didn't have a publisher I would have to outsource and pay professional editors, cover artists, etc. Plus I wouldn't be published abroad, or translated, or included in libraries, or invited to festivals, or sold in most bookshops.
Building an audience CAN be free, and is often fairly low cost except time. But lots of books publish with 5-10k price tags and that’s an upfront cost a lot of people can’t handle. Or don’t want to.
Don’t get me wrong, I work with independent, small press, and larger publishers as well so I’m not slugging for any of them specifically, but publishers can spend 20k to get a single book out there and that plus the learning curve is a LOT to ask of people.
I've self-published two novels and haven't paid more than a few hundred bucks for each - almost entirely for the art and cover design. Admittedly, it meant I had to do things like formatting by myself, but it was nowhere near that $5-10k price tag.
No, that kind of price tag is usually associated with vanity presses, who promise a great deal, but who don't really provide more than an overpriced print-on-demand service. You can self-pub a book far more cheaply and efficiently, while still paying your editor and designer a fair wage.
That’s definitely an option, but lots of people have goals that require more than that. I do cover and interior design for $3-$5k packages which includes market research, admin assistance, file set up, full transfer of source files & copyright, & 10 years worth of knowledge in the industry, etc.
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“Trust me” by Michael Williams.