Author Dumps Publisher At Book Launch Party
from the cold dept
We've discussed a lot lately how we've reached the point at which many authors have realized that self-publishing is a better deal than going with a big publisher. This is leading some to turn down huge advances from publishers to go it alone. And some are now asking if it makes any sense for authors to bother with publishing deals any more.As with record labels, I've always thought that there are a variety of factors at play here, and for some authors, it can absolutely make sense to sign a publishing deal -- though I would be very careful to understand what's in the deal. For example, I've noted that for an author that isn't that well known, it's possible that doing a deal with a publisher can help with the marketing and getting the book in the right hands. Of course, some recent authors have pushed back on this, noting that publishers often expect authors to do much of their own marketing anyway... and that the marketing that they do contribute often is a total waste.
Indeed, it appears that some more authors are agreeing with that. Novelist Polly Courtney, who had successfully self-published a couple of books a few years back, leveraged that success into a three book contract with HarperCollins. However, now she's made the news because at the launch party for the third book... she announced that she's dropping HarperCollins and going back to self-publishing. Part of the problem? The "marketing" that HarperCollins provided. In her mind, they tried to pigeonhole her book in a category where it didn't belong.
"My writing has been shoehorned into a place that's not right for it," she said this morning. "It is commercial fiction, it is not literary, but the real issue I have is that it has been completely defined as women's fiction � Yes it is page turning, no it's not War and Peace. But it shouldn't be portrayed as chick lit."Apparently, the issue of the covers has been going on for all three books, so she's dropping HarperCollins at the first opportunity -- and doing so in quite a public manner. The final straw was apparently the positioning on this final book.
[....]
"I'm not averse to the term chick lit," said Courtney, "but I don't think that's what my book is. The implication with chick lit is that it's about a girl wanting to meet the man of her dreams. [My books] are about social issues � this time about a woman in a lads' mag environment and the impact of media on society, and feminism."
The jacket, which displays the chick-lit staple of a pair of slender legs, misrepresents the novel, Courtney believes. "The titles and covers have been a problem with all three of my HarperCollins books, right from the start," she said. "If I had my time again I certainly wouldn't have signed with them. There's a feeling that any author should be grateful for any attention they can get from any publisher � that they should take what they can get. But I don't think they should have looked to sign me on the basis of what I'd written so far."What this highlights is that some of the benefit of a big publisher might also be its biggest weakness. And that's scale. Book publishers can do scale well, but in order to handle scale, they try to run things through the same formula. You classify and then you follow the playbook. But that keeps you away from doing anything really creative, and creates problems when a book doesn't necessarily fall into a pre-defined area. I think if publishers are really going to serve authors usefully going forward, they're going to have to become a lot more flexible, and a lot less about marketing-by-the-numbers.
Her decision to publicly ditch her publisher was the result of "three years of pent�up frustration", she said. "People are looking at my books and saying 'you've turned chick lit'," she said. "The irony is that what's inside the books hasn't changed. To give Avon their due, in terms of the editorial process they didn't try to change what's inside into something different. It's the packaging. From the reader's perspective, they'll see it on the shelf and think this is chick lit, and it's not."
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Filed Under: books, business models, polly courtney, publishing, self publishing
Companies: harpercollins
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TOTALLY different!
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'no, it's not just a bucket of pain thrown at the canvas, it's a deep meaningful expression of everything that is meaningful about all life!' 'come off it mate, i was standing right there. you took the lid off the can of pant and threw it at the canvas, then spent the rest of the day plotting how to market it!' 'either way, the gallery offered me several thousand for it.'
'tis amusing, however valid the points are or aren't.
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Chicklit doesn't have to be about sex or romance.
According to wikipedia:
"Chick lit is genre fiction which addresses issues of modern womanhood, often humorously and lightheartedly"
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The saying implies that the one accused of protesting isn't actually unhappy with the situation at all, but merely wants to inform the listener about it. For example, a guy who complains that every other guy is hitting on his girlfriend because she is so good looking.
It has also come to mean nitpicking about things that don't really matter, but that's not the source meaning.
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Doesn't matter unless you're in it for the money
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Re: Doesn't matter unless you're in it for the money
That's a pretty big if, don't you think. You may be an excellent writer, but that's not going to make your story popular all by itself.
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Re: Re: Doesn't matter unless you're in it for the money
actually it does, and has nothing to do with the quality of the writing. If something is popular to most, it will be regardless of marketing. It the definition of popular. In the rare cases when something does become popular, people always find out about it regardless of forced exposure. The best marketing is people who tell other people.
My point was, if you are in it for the money and expecting your work to magically become popular because you signed with a publisher or went to the self-publishing route, then you're in the wrong line of work. Neither offer a guarantee of profitability, nor should they. Self-publishing just offers greater creative freedom and a bigger chance of greater profit share in the long run.
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Re: Re: Re: Doesn't matter unless you're in it for the money
That's not a bad idea if you think of it. You can go the safe route of a large label, but you may get your best returns from doing it yourself.
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Re: Re: Re: Doesn't matter unless you're in it for the money
A big dollar marketing campaign is not a guarantee of anything, but that does not mean that marketing is never important, or that popularity has nothing to do at all with marketing.
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Re: Doesn't matter unless you're in it for the money
I disagree. Even if you are a great writer, popularity doesn't necessarily follow. Firstly, you need to get noticed, increase circulation, etc. For that, you need to attract those who will be interested in the product you are offering.
Those heading to the 'chick lit' area of the shelf are not necessarily going to like a book that deals with feminism and media - especially if this theme isn't tackled through the lens of romance. If you aren't interested in the subject matter, it doesn't matter how well it is written.
Equally, those interested in fiction that examines and challenges a social status quo probably aren't going to head to the romance section to look for it.
Even an excellent writer needs to reach the right market in order to gain recognition, word of mouth, and increased popularity.
Ridiculous analogy: How popular do you think Coca Cola would have become if it was marketed as fruit juice?
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I've always thought there needed to be Better Negotiating on the contract
1) no upfront payment (I will write the book in my own time)
2) I retain the copyright, They only publish is for a set amount of time. (say 5 years).
3) Future books would have the same deal. So, each would have a 5 year deal with them.
4) During that time I receive some percentage of the sales (NOT PROFIT{gotta avoid MPAA accounting})... lets say 10% (I really don't know what % right now offhand. I'd have to look more into that before I went to a publisher
5) ... not sure how to handle signing for multiple books right now.. but still just some thoughts I had on the issue. I'm sure I'd be able to find someone to publish for that... or I could use www.lulu.com to allow people to buy my book in whatever (paper/hard)-back version they want... and just go from there....
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Re: I've always thought there needed to be Better Negotiating on the contract
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"In it for the money"
It's actually not true that good work always rises. There's a great deal of writing out there, and a vast field of self-published writing, and much of it is by people who think they never had a chance before because publishers hate them for some mysterious reason. (It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that they think every word they put on the page is golden and not in need of such a thing as an editor.)
Publishing companies think they know what they're doing, yet test nothing, as far as I can see (and have heard). It's astonishing to talk to other author friends of mine and see how their covers have been ruined, and to hear pronouncements (by publishers) like "White covers do not sell!" (Hmm, Ann Coulter's book did okay.)
The problem, for an author like me (a former TV producer who knows better than to cheap out on editing, layout, etc., and whose boyfriend shot her last book cover on her porch), is that PR is expensive, and that TV producers and book reviewers don't want to deal with authors directly. Promotion, in other words, is the real problem for anyone who can hire great editors, take criticism, work their ass off, and who is willing to pay for professionally done layout, etc. If you can't afford it and don't have a substantial "platform," even if you're a wonderful writer, you probably shouldn't expect to sell too many books.
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Re: "In it for the money"
Let me quote what my graphics design professor said to us on our first day:
"If you signed up to this class to make money, you should have gone to business school"
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The product description starts like this:
The marketing does totally make her book sound like chick lit, doesn't it? But, let's look at the reviews to get some perspective; the worst one (2 stars), while praising her writing, says:
She is completely in the right to be angry with her publisher because they totally failed to find her market -- when she has readers complaining about the misleading advertising it means her publisher really screwed up the marketing!
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Her publisher borked this all up. She will do much better on her own.
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In this particular case, however, I agree. Not only did the publisher fail to find the right customers, the ones they did get were left disappointed because they were essentially lied to.
Overall, this was just a terrible business decision that ignored the author's wishes and tried to sell the wrong thing to the wrong people for quick and dirty profit.
If you look at the bigger picture, to the publisher an author is no different than a sack of potatoes. They sell hard to shift as much product as they can before it goes out of date, and whatever's left is sent to the landfill of out-of-print books.
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Editors also check for consistency - are the characters consistent throughout the story? Is the timeline correct? Is the main plot plausible, at least enough to get the reader to suspend belief? Are there glaring holes in the main plot? Does the text read naturally, or is it halting and awkward in areas? And so on.
An editor is also most likely to be the one keeping you out of the copyright soup.
While I agree there are many benefits to self-publishing, I also think that an editor could only add value to your work. And hiring a freelance editor before publishing, while most likely an expensive undertaking, would be a serious consideration.
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The other problem is that writers, especially amateur writers, have a tendency to believe that everything they write has value. They have a love of language and often tend to overwrite. They fall in love with their own words, and it is difficult for them to cut content that really needs to go. There are very few first drafts that would not be improved by cutting 20% of the words. There are almost no first drafts that would be improved by adding more words. Again, the editor is there to point out where the words are getting in the way of the story.
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You didn't do too well in reading comprehension class, huh?
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What a waste of melodrama.
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publisher got it right
BTW, anyone else love how the author's photo has in her pose and outfit very similar to thsoe of the woman on the cover the book?
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Peter is an author.
Source(s):www.petersacco.com/about_peter.html
I read books written HAUNTED NIAGARA: LEGENDS, MYTHS AND HOAXES .Peter who can write their own work. Thanks
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self-publishing
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Self Publishing > Self Employed
Self publish, and you are in control. The book becomes a part of your own company, you write it, build it, market it and can potentially make a lot more money from it.
If you can sell it direct yourself even better (Amazon take a massive commission from sales). Hard work, but maybe more rewarding in the long run.
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