"Traditional Publishing" -- what I expect when I hear that.

[seawasp]

So here's todays discussion. It is in fact related to some personal experiences, but I'm not going into those here. 

The explosion of self-publication and small presses, and the concomitant growth in numbers of people (authors as well as readers) who have never really had contact with the world of traditional publication presents a few issues of its own. For me, professionally, I have seen a lot of confusion about what traditional publishing entails/includes, and I have seen people -- including companies that should know better -- claiming traditional publishing advantages while not actually meeting the requirements of such publishing. 

This isn't helped, of course, by the creeping corporatism that has been eroding the advantages OF traditional publishers. This is, as are many moves in modern corporate America, a shortsighted approach born of the fact that  companies serve stockholders, not their customers. 

So I thought I should post what *I* expect in a Traditional Publisher (and I'll note where what I'm saying is the standard I learned in the industry, and where I'm adding my own requirements/preferences):

1. An advance. An advance is money given to the author by the publisher BEFORE the book is published. It is called an "advance" because it's applied against earnings of the book; you won't get any more income ("royalties") from the book until the amount of royalties you would have received surpasses the amount of the advance. HOWEVER -- it's a non-returnable payment, as long as the author actually delivered the book as specified in the contract. If the book comes out and not one single copy sells, you as an author still keep the advance. In essence, an advance is both a bet on you by the publisher that you'll make more money than that, AND a direct payment for the publication rights (which is why it's non-returnable; even if they lose the bet, they've still made use of your publication rights in that interim).

If you're a small press trying to play the traditional game, that advance can of course be fairly small -- no one expects a small press to compete with the big boys on that level -- but even a couple of hundred dollars is a mark of earnest intent, and a reasonable small-press payment for the publication rights you are taking over.

2. Royalties based on MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) of the book. This is a really, really important one, and it's one of the reasons that the percentage paid to the author in traditional publishing is so low: the payment is calculated based on what the COVER PRICE of the book is, not on what money was actually paid for the book. So when you see a bestseller at 30% off list price, the author's still going to be paid X% of the list price, not X% of the 30% off price. Royalties as a percentage of NET? That's strictly small press stuff, and even there, you need to get a good idea how they're calculating "net"; that is, after all, the classic trap seen in moviemaking contracts, where "percent of net" means "zero". 
3. Competent editing provided at no charge. Editing, in a publishing context, is NOT proofreading (though it can include that). It is looking at your book with an eye to seeing what you may have missed doing to make *your* book the best it can be. A competent editor does NOT rewrite your book to their specs; they tell you about things YOU may need to change to better achieve the goals you obviously have in writing the book. This may range from simple consistency checking ("on page 35 you say this guy's name is Jack, but on 350 he's Joe") to a request to trim stuff that is slowing down the book ("you already went into detail about this kind of magic on pages 105 to 107, do you really need to do it again?") to pointing out areas where you've failed to achieve the effect you obviously want ("this is supposed to be a test of the warrior's skill and all, would this ancient warrior-sage just accept ONE hit as proof? If so, I need to understand WHY, and make the fight more dramatic in that case, because it doesn't seem to be that much of an achievement as it stands.") and so on. Editors are also usually making SUGGESTIONS; usually they're GOOD suggestions, but they'll usually make clear when something is a requirement versus a suggestion for improvement. 
4. Competent proofreading provided at no charge. No one wants typos or poorly-chosen words in their final manuscript. A competent proofreader reduces these mistakes (it's almost impossible to remove ALL mistakes, even with a very good proofreader and the best spell/grammar checking). Again, this is something that's very expensive for an author to provide for themselves. 
5. Competent book layout and typography provided at no charge. Making a book nicely readable and reasonably attractive to the eye is a nontrivial task, and again, one that an author can't necessarily judge on their own, let alone find the proper specialists and pay them for it. 
6. Appropriate and effective cover images and layout provided at no charge. Anyone can slap together some images in Photoshop or, these days, in AI, and use it for a cover. Making a cover that meets professional standards is something considerably harder, and if you as an author go down that path, it can be quite expensive.
7. Broad distribution capabilities including (as long as they still exist) physical bookstores. This is one of the absolute keys to the success and operation of traditional publishers: by virtue of them publishing you, your book will be put before the buyers of every significant book distribution/marketing/retail outlet and has a strong probability of being put on bookstore shelves. This is one of the hardest qualifications for any small outfit to match, and it is by itself publicity you can't buy -- and if you could, it would be something like twenty thousand dollars or more.
8. Clear, regular, documented sales reports and (if earned) royalties. This really should be from ANY publisher; if they don't give you this, don't work with them. 
9. An actual vetting process for manuscripts. This is the downside for the average would-be author -- and that includes established authors; there's no guarantee that today's manuscript will be accepted by last year's publisher. Trad publishing's advances are, as I said, bets placed on your success, as are all those free services. Well, they don't just slap those bets down without carefully examining the candidates, and they reject a lot of them. A trad publisher will decide to pass on many -- most, in fact -- of the submissions given to them, with reasons starting at "this is flat-out plaigiarism" and "I can't even understand what I'm trying to read here" and going to "it's a fabulous book, but it just doesn't fit anywhere in our kind of publishing line; try X books for this, they'd love it." 

The above, I believe, cover the essential points of trad publishing. The biggest overall difference, obviously, is monetary: percentages to the author are lower, BUT are pegged to the list price; advances are paid; ALL PRODUCTION COSTS ARE PAID BY THE PUBLISHER. The only thing the author HAS to do is write the book, respond acceptably to editorial suggestions/requirements, and give any desired input on other aspects of the process. 

Now, there are a few other elements that are my own preferences, mostly relevant to contracts. If you don't have a contract with your publisher, they're not being serious about the work. If you DO have a contract, you have to read it CAREFULLY. If you don't have confidence in your knowledge of legal phrasing, you should have someone who DOES look it over. The contract is a legally-binding document, and once you sign it, you are expected and required to live up to all the terms and conditions. And some of those can be tricky, especially if you're not used to this kind of thing. 

• Clear and limited rights assignment. Unsurprisingly, traditional publishers, and many smaller presses, will throw the kitchen sink into the default rights assignment clauses. For my part, I will cross out any rights that the publisher clearly is unlikely to ever exercise. A trad publisher should expect to get publication rights for all formats they intend to release (paper, ebook, likely audiobook); for larger publishers with reach, foreign publication rights may also be reasonable.  Any other rights should be considered in light of (A) whether the publisher has any resources or track record in using these rights, and (B) whether you as an author find the advance sufficient to cover those rights, with a realistic estimate of how valuable they really are to you. The simple fact is that even the big publishers don't generally have much focus on monetizing other rights outside of book publishing. Oh, if you're a NYT bestseller they likely have a department checking on whether Hollywood wants to make a movie, but otherwise, no. On the other hand, don't overvalue yourself; unless you already ARE in that category, movie, TV, game, etc., rights are mostly pleasant dream material. But if the publisher doesn't DO anything with them, they're not even worth dreaming, so keep them otherwise.
• Clear and limited duration of rights with clear reversion conditions. A publisher is not buying your book for eternity. They're going to publish your book and hope to make money from it. The contract should state the duration of their rights to the book, the conditions of any renewals, or denial of renewals, of those rights, and their obligation to DO SOMETHING with those rights. The latter is usually in a clause that states that they will be releasing specific versions (hardcover, trade paper, ebook, etc.) within some time following the final acceptance of your manuscript. Depending on circumstances, anything up to 5 years is reasonable, though I would balk at that long for anything but a large publisher with wide reach. 
• Clear description of any other desired or required activities by the author. Self-publishing requires you do everything yourself;  small publishers still rely on the authors to do various things. Unfortunately, a lot of trad publishers have started expecting or even requiring authors to do more work than, you know, authoring work -- but often these expectations aren't phrased as requirements, and may not even be clearly stated. As an author, you have to know what you are both willing to do, and capable of doing, in support of your book. If you're comfortably well off and have fewer demands on your time, travelling to a dozen conventions and participating in book sales and signings across the USA may be not only feasible but an attractive and enjoyable way to spend a bunch of your free time. If you're not so flush with money and have a lot of other responsibilities, you may not be able to attend more than local conventions or events. Make sure that any additional activities are spelled out clearly and don't let them stay in the contract if it's not something you can do. 

The expectation of an author to be their own publicist is one of the more pernicious changes caused by the explosion of self-publishing. Most of us have neither the temperament, nor the experience, nor the knowledge of how to effectively promote our books. That is, put bluntly, the publisher's job. In my case, if you want me as an author to do a book tour of the US, or show up at these seven conventions in seven states, you'd better be jacking up your advance, or else paying all the expenses, because I don't have the money to spend on such travel and accommodations; it's not a matter of whether I WANT to -- I actually enjoy doing those things -- but that I just can't afford it without some kind of guaranteed payback, or advance payment of, well, a much more substantial nature than usual. You, as an author, have to evaluate any additional requests or requirements against the honest background of how much time and money you can afford for those tasks. 

I may think of other elements to discuss, but that certainly covers the high points. 



 

Comments

[ninjarat]

Very much read the contract and have a lawyer review it if you have questions. There are plenty of horribly predatory "publishers" out there like Shadow Light Press which I heard of via John Scalzi. Their standard contract is, paraphrased by me:

IANAL but... "exclusive, irrevocable"? This isn't a publishing contract. This is a "you agree that everything you ever write forever is work for hire for us" contract. If you're fuzzy on the whole "work for hire" thing? Go read up on what the Kowalski family did to Bob Ross.

[seawasp]

This post was triggered by a publisher claiming traditional operation and failing to meet any of my standards for it. Yes, there's a lot of predators out there, or just clueless people who are trying to squeeze money out of a not-very-profitable business and don't realize how much trouble they can end up buying for themselves.