By David Hancock on April 07th, 2009
Against All Odds
Despite brutal economic conditions, several publishers managed to find ways to grow both their sales and profits in 2008. How did they do it? They are not afraid to be frugal—forgoing advances in favor of offering higher royalties, for example; teaching authors how to self-promote, as Morgan James does. These 11 presses have adopted a combination of strategies that have helped them not only survive in the recession, but prosper…
Against All Odds, Small Presses Prosper:Indies find ways to work through a tough economy By Lynn Andriani and Jim Milliot — Cover Story Publishers Weekly, 3/2/2009
Interesting article. I believe this is the future of successful publishing. The combination of genuine love for the author (e.g. actually paying them, and paying them well vs. the outdated glamor of an oversized, one time payment) and teaching them to promote themselves is a hybrid that creates a true partnership.
The ease of self-publishing has brought a wealth of information (and crap, but crap is nothing new–we have had crap since the dinosaurs) to the world. This is how the Renaissance changed the world, and any publisher who failed to learn this valuable lesson should be run out of town, tarred and feathered (pitchforks and torches might be a nice touch as well). New information comes from all manner of sources, but wisdom still needs to be distilled from those sources, blended with expertise, and packaged in tasty, bite-sized pieces, or the public will never consume them.
Combine the ability for the average man or woman to share their knowledge with the world, with the nimble expertise of intelligently run small presses snatching up talented voices and shaping them into true entertainers and educators, and you have the basis for a system where the smart publisher has 10, 20, or 300,000 authors constantly circling the globe, sharing what they know and love with a planet hungry for entertainment THEY like, and pertinent, valuable, information.
The old methods are dying a horrible death. Best to strip the carcasses clean–and don’t bother mourning. There are hundreds of thousands of new voices, many of them ready to become highly profitable superstars, with the right mentorship. At this time, there is a small cadre of “book marketing gurus” that are getting fat and rich by telling authors that they must become salesmen, but after the market matures a bit we will see the rise of the true new-model publisher, the one who realizes that authors WRITE because THAT is their voice. Salesmen sell, authors, write, actors act.
Would you hire an actor to paint your house or fix your car? Then why would you expect an author, who is statistically proven to be something of an introvert, to instantly become Vince, the Sham-wow! guy? the thought is absurd. Authors need to take a role in their on promotion, but there are many venues that have yet to be explored, and the SMART publisher, the one who survives this transition time, will be the one who finds those avenues: blogs, twitter, interactive websites, reader/author groups, forums, tele- and web-seminars, in-person workshops, lectures instead of signings, and other gentle transitions into the public eye–that do not stop the write from creating new content.
This is not an easy business, and that is why many will fail. Making money off of other people’s creations requires an understanding of the market, but also an understanding of the creative soul, and how to nurture it to create more and more, while helping it emerge as a public entity that can self-promote. I say this from 15 years of experience. A drop in the bucket, but enough to read the writing on the wall. Okay, I have books to write. thanks for reading.