Traditional Publishing - Why it Sucks (Part One)

I was reading a thread on LinkedIn yesterday about publishing. I ended up having to quell the urge to grab two fistfuls of my hair and rip them toward heaven and scream, "Why?" I've been tooling around in the writing/publishing world now for over twelve years. The landscape has dramatically changed and continues to morph in directions few can predict.

Yet there are a number of baseline truths that permeate the industry simply because publishing is that - an industry. I possess a BS Degree in Business Administration and was a low to mid-level retail manager for around twenty-five years. Because publishing remains an industry, more and more a service industry, there are definitive statements, observations and conclusions one can make. In this first Hub, I'm going to vent a little about perpetuation of the traditional publishing mentality and lead into part two, which is more direct in analyzing the big-house publishers. Both Hubs are already written as I could not hold my peace yesterday when perusing the LinkedIn thread. Here goes!

Who is normal and who is the exception? Michael Ray King or Stephen King?

This question was prompted by an absurd comment thread on LinkedIn. I know there are many misconceptions in these United States about the industry of publishing, but outmoded and archaic mentalities of how it used to be need to end.

One person who posted on the group thread stated that traditional publishing "was good enough for Stephen King, J.K. Rowlings, blah, blah, blah." Heck yeah! Traditional publishing eventually made them wealthy. Or did it? The comment writer was making allusions to - since it was good enough for Steven King and company, it was good for him. I submit that Stephen King is the exception and not the norm.

One could safely argue that their writing made them wealthy. Take away their writing styles and you have nothing. For one thing, the famous authors listed all got their start back before digital print and ebooks. I'd be willing to bet they took a bloodbath on their initial contracts.

In what other industry would a manufacturer sign away all their rights and get little to no return for their product? I'm telling you, the traditional publishing houses have financially raped authors for decades if not centuries. To make matters even more bizarre, traditional publishers have made authors feel damned lucky just to get financially abused.

I've said this before and I will continue to speak it - authors often put years of work into their product only to have it stolen from them for a pittance while publishers and movie conglomerates rake in billions of dollars. I find it repulsive that authors defend this ridiculous industry and business model.

I'm sure to tick off some stalwart, big-house-publisher-loving authors. If only these authors would look at the changing landscape, see that the large publishers have not had their best interests in mind - ever - and adapt to the new environment.

Yes, digital print has brought a ton of poorly edited (if at all) crap to the publishing world. Yes, digital print has made writing books available to anyone walking this earth. Pandora's box has been opened and there is no resetting life back to the way it was.

Yet, the new-look publishing has some major upsides. The success of a book is more prone to be market driven than publisher driven. Great books by incredible authors that would never have seen the light of day or LCD glow of night now have a fighting chance to get exposure. Authors now possess the opportunity to make money off their writing instead of all the big dollars going to filthy rich corporations and CEO's.

There was a reason for the writer's strike a few years ago. Of course, writers on the whole, tend to not be business savvy and backed off their demands when it was apparent there were many writers willing to sell their soul to get into print. What a shame writers do not have a powerful advocate that tells it like it is.

I'm not the only voice out here shouting, "Wait! Don't sell yourself to the big dogs! There's a better way!" Our main issue is that we do not have the money and clout needed to get our message out. I will go down swinging. I will stand and fight for the ideal of writers actually getting fairly compensated for their work along with their ability to keep rights to what they produce. I cannot spray words on the screen powerful enough to convey my disgust for how writers have been abused over the years. That this mentality continues today makes it even less palatable.

Beware Amazon, folks. They are the big-house publisher on steroids. They want to dominate the market, take all the money for themselves, and leave authors with the same shaft they've received from traditional press, only this is a digital shaft. Don't be fooled by their 'royalty' structure. They've managed to 'price-fix' the digital market and if you read the fine print in their contract, they can (and have) make changes to the pricing structure of your book as well as how they can alter the delivery of your book and to whom. They've given themselves total control, and authors have bought into it.

Do you realize you can make ALL the money after print and setup costs as an author? No agent. No publisher. Just you, your graphics design folk, paginators and the printer. An industrious, entrepreneurial author can produce a book for less than $150 plus cost of editing. Then all you have to do is determine how many books you wish to keep on hand and order the print run - with NO MIDDLEMAN! Is this a lot of work? Heck yeah. How bad do you want it? This will determine what you have to pay to get your book launched. Make no mistake, you pay even with traditional publishers. How? (That's the subject of another post.)

You can conceivably pay less than two dollars per book and sell it for $15. That's a nice margin. The traditional publisher may get you twenty or thirty cents per book. Don't talk to me about the big-house publishers loans, uh, er, I mean, advances. Advances are only loans against future royalties. The advances given today have no chance of being enough money to cover the marketing and promoting costs needed to sell enough copies of your book to earn back the advance. So you will be spending tons of your own money to do this.

This Hub has run a bit long, so I'm going to break it here and pick up with Part Two. The next Hub deals with the question posed on LinkedIn, "What is the best place to self-publish a book." This discussion got hijacked in a couple places by people deriding self-publishing and stating traditional publishing is the only legitimate form of publishing. I had a lot to say in my response...

I must run. This subject will be central to my next series of speaking presentations - Do the Math, The Truth About Publishing in the Twenty-First Century . I could go on forever...