11-26-2014, 12:18 PM | #1 | ||
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PW: Rise of the 7-figure advance
From Publishers Weekly:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...e-advance.html Quote:
Quote:
More at the source. |
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11-26-2014, 02:47 PM | #2 |
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A smaller pool at the legacy publishers, yet a larger and larger ocean to fish from for the consumer.
It hasn't been hard to predict that this was where things would go in the world of writing, since we have an almost exact parallel going on in music. |
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11-26-2014, 05:02 PM | #3 | |
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Much like the hollywood studios, their reliance on high volume sellers drives them to put their money on big payout lottery tickets rather than slow but steady midlist titles. Especially now that midlist/backlist buyers are increasingly receptive to indie titles. Combine those two trends with declining midlist advances and the process can only accelerate as future midlisters stop submitting, waiting, and praying. Hollywood studios rarely deal in cozy little movies these days; those are increasingly the province of indies or cable. Corporate publishing is well down that road. |
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11-27-2014, 11:36 AM | #4 |
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I have frequently predicted that we will see more and more small independent publishers, a la Baen Books, as the overhead for publishing goes down. I see the publishing industry being a lot more like the music industry rather than the movie industry. I think this blog post by Larry Correia about why he likes Baen Books is worth reading, it may have been linked here before.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/...with-baen-too/ Larry Correia is the sort of author who is going to thrive in today's publishing world. He started as an independent, then moved to Baen Books. He publishes a mix of independent and regular publishers depending on the project that he is working on. He mentions the multiple streams of revenue from paper books, ebooks and audio books. For authors who generate a number of books a year, advances aren't really a big deal, especially is the advance is priced appropriately so that the author earns out in the first month or two. If a publisher does their job and provides value (i.e. editing, marketing, etc...) then they take all that work away from the author. Not all authors want to do all the grunt work needed to be a successful indie. |
12-04-2014, 07:06 AM | #5 |
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I can guess why there are fewer submissions to the traditional publishers. Author's are going the e-publishing route. Add in that the older writers are getting older all the time and in some cases have already died and that adds on to the situation as well. A dead author writes no new books after all.
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12-04-2014, 08:41 AM | #6 | |
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The tradpub world is evolving and new authors are increasingly aware of the risks in dealing with the big corporate publishers. Increased risk requires increased payouts. Unless the risk is mitigated in other ways, the submissions will continue to decline and the BPHs and the Agents that feed them won't even get a chance to gate keep unpublished manuscripts. Some will go to smaller specialty presses, some will go to the honest (non-vanity press) publishing service channels, and some will selfpub. Many of the BPHs have talked of tapping successful Indies for books but at that point the upfront costs go up. Into 7-figure territory. Because if an indie author is good enough to come to their attention, they are good enough to make six figures on their own. Of course, each of those 7-figure advances eats up the cash that would otherwise go to 50 or so "lesser" manuscripts so the direct result of this would be less titles published. Which fits in nicely with the decreasing bookstore shelf space. |
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12-04-2014, 09:48 AM | #7 |
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Funny how people want to talk about the extremes while pretending that must be the norm.
Authors, be they indie or traditional publishers, who pull in 6 to 7 figures on a book are very much the exception rather than the rule. A little research shows that the vast majority of authors who do get advances, get under 20K. |
12-04-2014, 10:17 AM | #8 | |
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Perhaps this is a foreshadowing of the new norm for the big five. Sell big, or don't sell at all. |
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12-04-2014, 02:51 PM | #9 |
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The dynamic of a handful of big selling authors and then everyone else scrambling to make a living hasn't really changed in the last 100 years or so. People stormed the docks to get the latest Sherlock Holmes back at the turn of the century. William Morris, not so much. Somehow, I doubt that particular dynamic is going to change anytime soon.
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12-05-2014, 01:50 PM | #10 | |
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12-06-2014, 04:36 AM | #11 | |
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The publishing industry is a lot like the music industry and movie industry in that they all depend on the blockbusters to carry the financial load. It's been that way for a long while. As the cost of publishing books, creating music and creating movies goes down, we see more of the mid list artists becoming more profitable. I would still expect all three industries to be dominated by the blockbuster in the future, but that doesn't preclude non blockbuster authors from making a decent living at it. Last edited by pwalker8; 12-06-2014 at 04:43 AM. |
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12-06-2014, 06:13 AM | #12 | |
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No, Anne Rice was an example of how the system wasn't broken, and now it is. |
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12-06-2014, 06:25 AM | #13 |
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As I recall when Stephen King published his first book "Carrie" he got around 250k in advance money and that was his share after his agent had theirs (if I recall correctly). It was a big advance I imagine for the time.
Last edited by crich70; 12-06-2014 at 06:31 AM. |
12-06-2014, 06:58 AM | #14 | |
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More of the story here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=53235 |
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12-06-2014, 07:15 AM | #15 |
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I concede that I mis-remembered it. Still selling the rights to a 1st book for 200k had to be a lot back then I'd think.
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