Publishing Industry: The Big House Blues

The main advantage to being published by a big press is the distribution, marketing, promotion, and visibility it can offer. Most of the time that kind of attention is given to the commercial novel that is destined to become a winner because of the author's previous performance. In all fairness, big publishers don't have the time or manpower to get behind all the books they publish. Actually, only 10 percent of books get any serious marketing or PR support. The strategy at the big New York houses is to get several books to market and see what sells.

A new publishing model is emerging. Because some of the new, independent publishing houses have fewer books to market, they are focusing on promoting titles, then editing and selling them. The operative word here is focusing . Some of these houses are actually hand-selling their titles. They are dispensing with an advance against royalties and putting that money toward marketing and promoting the author and title instead. Their strategy is to do fewer books but to do them right. This is gaining attention from book buyers.

Authors who have received six figure advances thought the big publishing houses were going to get behind their book when it came out. It didn't happen. There appears to be a lack of accountability at the big houses as it turns into a domino effect. It starts with the editor who contracts the book and is not responsible for its marketing. Then the marketing department doesn't feel obliged to earn the advance back. Finally, the disgruntled sales force is expected to be joyously enthusiastic about selling hundreds of books instead of just a select few.

With smaller, independent publishers, there is an artistic collaboration of sorts. As for the advance s/he didn't get, an advance means nothing if it isn't backed up by a long-term commitment from the publisher to promote the book through every phase of its life.

Two dozen authors who have been published by mega-houses have all complained about their experiences. On the other hand, authors published by the smaller houses describe their publishers as old fashioned in that they recreated a wonderfully synergistic author-publisher, author-editor relationship. Everyone is making money. Keep the faith, writers; no more big house blues.

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