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Originally Posted by darryl
Thanks for correcting my speculation. What reasons do you believe some already successful Indie's have to go to tradpub? Is it pie in the sky optimism? Or are they doing non-standard deals? It is difficult to see why a successful Indie would sign an "Industry Standard" deal. It seems to me they would want higher royalty rates and a more restricted rights-grab than standard. Perhaps they match Amazon royalty rates on e-books? Of course we don't see the contracts either way, so can only speculate.
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Well, not all tradpubs are predatory.
Some treat their authors fairly (BAEN is generally held up as a publisher with very good author relations) though they tend to be small and midsized publishers not "Ten thousand titles a year" monsters.
And, then,
successful Indies come with established fanbases. No real work needs doing building the brand so their agents have the leverage to demand better terms than the "Industry Standard". Like guaranteed payola support. Or, like the big boys; big enough advances the royalty rate doesn't matter. (For a guy like Patterson, "selling" a manuscript is *selling* the manuscript. The upfront payment is bigger than most books make in 100 years of copyright. It only applies to maybe a dozen authors but for a big enough Indie... Andy Weir, for example, got the movie deal *before* the Tradpub deal: the movie tie-in justified big bucks. Tradpub loooves tie-ins. Again, no promotion required. Not even payola.)
It's doubtful they can match KOBO/KDP rates on ebooks but they *can* match the old APub Scout 50% rate. Most authors are willing to accept that though few publishers have shown interest in it. Main drivers would be print, audio (expensive up front) and library sales. Ebook sales would be a wash or lower, both because of higher prices.
The single biggest problem with Tradpub for established Indies isn't necessarily the money or even IP control but rather the pacing of releases and the scheduling; one release a year (occasionally two) and limited sales reporting every six months, a year to 18 months apart, is a far cry from KDP and Kobo daily monitoring and monthly reports and payments. It's not as life bills arrive twice a year, a year late.
Different strokes for different folks.
The key word is "established".
That generally requires a back catalog of 5-20 titles, depending on genre. Indies can do that in three-five years, even without instant success at launch. Few tradpub newcomers get there without a "black swan" which is why there are so few newly-established tradpub authors and so many one hit wonders, despite (or because) the lower sales needed to hit the list in this age of diluted reader spending and the eternal backlist. (Readers have more choices of older, known good, books and they exercise those choices.) If you check the financial reports and insider stories, backlist is the main driver of big trade publishing these days, making up over 50% of the net. Frontlist has been declining steadily since 2014 and most noticeably since 2016. (The election did it!)
You may have seen this, last week:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...f-of-2019.html
The reported growth was driven by folding in sales of previously independent publishers, and one-time political books, one-time deals, etc. Notably:
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Acquisitions and hundreds of bestsellers drove the gains. Three acquisitions in particular affected first-half results, as detailed by PRH CEO Markus Dohle in a letter to worldwide employees: the purchases of children’s publisher Little Tiger Group in London as well as Spanish-language literary publisher Ediciones Salamandra and Catalan-language publisher La Campana Llibres, both of which are based in Barcelona. The company also acquired a 45% stake in Sourcebooks in late May.
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Those folks are using every trick available to hide the ongoing industry-wide stasis and consolidation. It's not so much cluelessness driving tradpub pricing, consolidation, etc, as much as desperation. It's surviving in an age of stagnancy. Think "musical chairs", with one less seat each year.
https://publishingperspectives.com/2...consolidation/
Finally, the numbers of successful Indies going Tradpub aren't really all that big.
Certainly way lower than tradpub authors going Hybrid or full Indie.
But the establishment media doesn't report the latter as breathlessly as the former. Wouldn't do to highlight how tradpub authors supplement their declining (their words, not mine) tradpub revenues by doing Indie releases in between their slotted tradpub releases.
The transition continues and it hasn't yet stabilized into a viable balance between tradpub and Indie. It looks to be a generation wide change that won't settle down for another decade or two, when the last of the pre-2010 authors retire.
By then the business might indeed be randy Penguin on one side and a horde of Indies and small presses on the other side.