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Writing vs Publishing: Chuck Wendig
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psychotick
Dangerously confused
Hi,
It's an interesting read, as was the Hugh Howie blog it seems to be based on. But I'm not sure I can agree with all of it. Yes publishing is where you take your work and present it to the world and your readers deserve the best you can do. But it doesn't necessarily have to be for the money or for making a lot of money.
People have a wide variety of reasons to publish, and the financial is only and should only be considered as one of them. Some people want to share their work, get feedback, maybe express their view, gain some fame or simply enjoy the rush of knowing that they wrote that. Indie publishing allows people to publish for all these other reasons as well as for the money. Trade publishing doesn't.
As for surveys, if its the survey that's been doing the rounds on Kindleboards, it probably is flawed. Every survey of this subject always will be. But the take home message was that at least half of writers who publish whether trade or indie, don't make enough to live on. No surprise there.
Cheers, Greg.
It's an interesting read, as was the Hugh Howie blog it seems to be based on. But I'm not sure I can agree with all of it. Yes publishing is where you take your work and present it to the world and your readers deserve the best you can do. But it doesn't necessarily have to be for the money or for making a lot of money.
People have a wide variety of reasons to publish, and the financial is only and should only be considered as one of them. Some people want to share their work, get feedback, maybe express their view, gain some fame or simply enjoy the rush of knowing that they wrote that. Indie publishing allows people to publish for all these other reasons as well as for the money. Trade publishing doesn't.
As for surveys, if its the survey that's been doing the rounds on Kindleboards, it probably is flawed. Every survey of this subject always will be. But the take home message was that at least half of writers who publish whether trade or indie, don't make enough to live on. No surprise there.
Cheers, Greg.
I don't agree with Hugh Howie's assertion that the survey is flawed in the manner suggested. He's trying to talk up self-publishing and talk down traditional publishing by complaining that those who don't achieve traditional publishing should be counted in that list.
The whole argument fails to comprehend the reality that the vast majority of books submitted to agents and publishers (according to them, 97%) are fundamentally substandard.
I've also lived and seen the reality that too often someone will think they have "finished writing a book" when they have only finished a first draft.
Therefore claiming that these people should be counted under the traditional banner, instead of self-published, is just a way to try and manipulate the statistics for a preferred outcome - ie, support self-publishing, just because.
Of course, I may have profoundly misunderstood the argument, in which case I stand to be corrected.
The one aberration that really stands out in the survey, though, are the hybrid writers. Aren't these people who have generally succeeded with self-publishing enough to negotiate print-only deals with a major publisher? In which case, they should be expected to outperform the other categories because these are primarily established sales-proven writers.
The whole argument fails to comprehend the reality that the vast majority of books submitted to agents and publishers (according to them, 97%) are fundamentally substandard.
I've also lived and seen the reality that too often someone will think they have "finished writing a book" when they have only finished a first draft.
Therefore claiming that these people should be counted under the traditional banner, instead of self-published, is just a way to try and manipulate the statistics for a preferred outcome - ie, support self-publishing, just because.
Of course, I may have profoundly misunderstood the argument, in which case I stand to be corrected.
The one aberration that really stands out in the survey, though, are the hybrid writers. Aren't these people who have generally succeeded with self-publishing enough to negotiate print-only deals with a major publisher? In which case, they should be expected to outperform the other categories because these are primarily established sales-proven writers.
Michael J Sullivan
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The point is that in self-publishing these same "fundamentally sub-standard works are being put "out there" and counted. Yes, they don't earn anything - because, well they "weren't worthy" but since they are counted and bring down the numbers of the self-published so should their counterparts be counted.
Hugh actually supports both self and traditional. He's not like Joe Konrath that is pretty much of the opinion that if you traditionally publish you're an idiot. He just wants to make sure that authors don't get taken advantage of if they do self-publish - which is a very real concern.
No, there are VERY few print-only deals. The only ones I know of are: Hugh Howey, Colleen Hoover, Bella Andre, Terry Goodkind, Brandon Sanderson, myself, and one more author who has announced yet. The vast majority of hybrids are those that have done both (and usually that means their traditional deals include audio/book/print).
A hybrid gets to be a hybrid in one of two ways. (1) They earn well enough to get a traditional deal or they were traditionally published and took at least one story (either an out-of-print work or something newly written) and self-published it.
Thanks for the reply, Michael, and welcome back to chronicles!
I've read some of your recent articles and they've been very interesting, not least common sense changes you requested of traditional publishers.
I asked some of the UK agents and publishers at WFC2013 about points your raised, but depressingly few in the industry agreed.
The traditionals appear to be run at the top by people out of touch with the modern world - ie, the internet. Editors and agents I spoke to do not feel they are in a position to challenge this leadership without becoming pariahs - at least, where they actually agreed any changes need to be made.
As for this:
Apologies if I'm getting confused over the issue, but my reading of Friedman's summary was that Howey argued for those who failed to make the traditional publishing route should actually be counted among traditional published authors, rather than self-published authors, so as not to bring down the success rates of self-published authors.
According to that interpretation, Howey would be looking to positively redefine self-publishing entirely, and negatively redefine traditional publishing. That makes little sense - hence why I keep thinking I must have completely misunderstood the argument being made.
I've read some of your recent articles and they've been very interesting, not least common sense changes you requested of traditional publishers.
I asked some of the UK agents and publishers at WFC2013 about points your raised, but depressingly few in the industry agreed.
The traditionals appear to be run at the top by people out of touch with the modern world - ie, the internet. Editors and agents I spoke to do not feel they are in a position to challenge this leadership without becoming pariahs - at least, where they actually agreed any changes need to be made.
As for this:
Apologies if I'm getting confused over the issue, but my reading of Friedman's summary was that Howey argued for those who failed to make the traditional publishing route should actually be counted among traditional published authors, rather than self-published authors, so as not to bring down the success rates of self-published authors.
According to that interpretation, Howey would be looking to positively redefine self-publishing entirely, and negatively redefine traditional publishing. That makes little sense - hence why I keep thinking I must have completely misunderstood the argument being made.
psychotick
Dangerously confused
Hi,
Hybrids basically refer to those who both self publish and have trade publishing deals. Usually they are those who started out with a trade deal and were either dissatisfied with it and switched to indie for their new works, or those (and this is a smaller but growing group) who started indie and were picked up by an agent. So their stable of books is a mixture. I'm not aware of any who have their books split along the lines of print by trade publishers and ebook by themselves, but that could happen. It would seem unutterably foolish from the publisher's perspective to only want some of the publishing rights but it could happen.
In the survey mentioned, they looked at median incomes of authors in the three groups (Note median not average which is often a better representation when you have a distribution skewed by a few extreme outliers), and found that the media indie earns less than 5k per anum from his writing. The median trade published author earns between 5 and 10k per anum. And the median hybrid author between 10 and 15k per anum.
Take home messages are that most writers (deal or no deal to quote a show!) don't earn a living wage. What else is new! I was peronally surprised that the figure was so low for trade published authors, but there you have it. The other message was that hybrids do the best of all - I'm guessing because many of them are established authors indie publishing their back catalogues and so have more books to fall back on and a name.
However all of these surveys are flawed. They depend on self reporting, which a lot of people refuse to do. And they are skewed by all sorts of factors.
The biggest reason that the median indie figure is so low is that a vast chunk of indies publish books that never sell at all for many reasons. They aren't ready for sale, they aren't in topics that people would want to read, they have poor covers and poor editing, they're really just ego trips or personal crusades in disguise, they aren't marketed, and often enough there is no particular incentive on the part of the indie to sell them etc etc.
My thought is that the median trade publishing income is so low is due mostly to the slow turn arounds of publishers. I put out seven books this year, I can't think of one trade published author who could do the same because they are slowed down at every stage of the publishing process. So if you only get out one book a year and your advance is small - 5 or 10 k you get an inevitable income reduction. Also I doubt the likes of Stephen King would be willing to specify just how much they make from their sales. Indies are probably more open about these things in my view.
(As an aside if the big six (five?) were ever to get serious about making more money for their authors (and keeping market share for themselves) and fighting the battle against indies, they'd massively speed up their turnarounds, publish damned near everything they could by their stable of authors - in ebook format first and if it sells, later in print.
If they did they'd be dangerous. But as it is even I, an indie with only a modest skill set and no real marketing desire or effort, am earning as much as if not more than their average trade published author.)
And therein lies the strength of the indie. Most indies can, if they're willing to do the extra work and edit and cover design, can make some money. If that happens, expect those survey results to change fast with trade published authors being at the bottom.
Cheers, Greg.
Hybrids basically refer to those who both self publish and have trade publishing deals. Usually they are those who started out with a trade deal and were either dissatisfied with it and switched to indie for their new works, or those (and this is a smaller but growing group) who started indie and were picked up by an agent. So their stable of books is a mixture. I'm not aware of any who have their books split along the lines of print by trade publishers and ebook by themselves, but that could happen. It would seem unutterably foolish from the publisher's perspective to only want some of the publishing rights but it could happen.
In the survey mentioned, they looked at median incomes of authors in the three groups (Note median not average which is often a better representation when you have a distribution skewed by a few extreme outliers), and found that the media indie earns less than 5k per anum from his writing. The median trade published author earns between 5 and 10k per anum. And the median hybrid author between 10 and 15k per anum.
Take home messages are that most writers (deal or no deal to quote a show!) don't earn a living wage. What else is new! I was peronally surprised that the figure was so low for trade published authors, but there you have it. The other message was that hybrids do the best of all - I'm guessing because many of them are established authors indie publishing their back catalogues and so have more books to fall back on and a name.
However all of these surveys are flawed. They depend on self reporting, which a lot of people refuse to do. And they are skewed by all sorts of factors.
The biggest reason that the median indie figure is so low is that a vast chunk of indies publish books that never sell at all for many reasons. They aren't ready for sale, they aren't in topics that people would want to read, they have poor covers and poor editing, they're really just ego trips or personal crusades in disguise, they aren't marketed, and often enough there is no particular incentive on the part of the indie to sell them etc etc.
My thought is that the median trade publishing income is so low is due mostly to the slow turn arounds of publishers. I put out seven books this year, I can't think of one trade published author who could do the same because they are slowed down at every stage of the publishing process. So if you only get out one book a year and your advance is small - 5 or 10 k you get an inevitable income reduction. Also I doubt the likes of Stephen King would be willing to specify just how much they make from their sales. Indies are probably more open about these things in my view.
(As an aside if the big six (five?) were ever to get serious about making more money for their authors (and keeping market share for themselves) and fighting the battle against indies, they'd massively speed up their turnarounds, publish damned near everything they could by their stable of authors - in ebook format first and if it sells, later in print.
If they did they'd be dangerous. But as it is even I, an indie with only a modest skill set and no real marketing desire or effort, am earning as much as if not more than their average trade published author.)
And therein lies the strength of the indie. Most indies can, if they're willing to do the extra work and edit and cover design, can make some money. If that happens, expect those survey results to change fast with trade published authors being at the bottom.
Cheers, Greg.
Boneman
Well-Known Member
And it seems this is what some of the smaller presses are considering doing (or at least, a simultaneous ebook and hard copy published). In five years time some of the big six may actually be replaced...
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