Common Misconceptions About Publishing IV
Working on a book proposal? I can help.
Here’s last week’s post on the history of copyright in the US, this time focused on Twain, Dickens, LLMs and AI.
Over the years, I’ve published newsletters called “Common Misconceptions About Publishing” (that you guys like! They are popular). So today I’m going to add a fourth one, inspired by, well, lots of new misconceptions about publishing I’ve seen floating about! (Previous “Misconceptions” newsletters are here, here, and here —and include my own misconceptions that were often clarified by you lovely readers in the comments).
People who work in publishing usually have a better understanding of publishing than those who do not, including authors. I read a lot of wrong things about the industry, especially in Substack newsletters and in Notes. (I also find a lot of it in writing groups and workshops run by people who work in academia or as freelance coaches). It’s upsetting because there are so many people truly eager for reliable information and they are being fed distortions. No one is intentionally misleading others; they are just too quick to make statements about an extremely complicated industry that they understand too little, or only understand one small slice of. (This also pertains to me! I try to always hedge or state I only know one part of the industry, and I get things wrong) If you are interested in reading Substack newsletters to better understand publishing I would focus on those who work in the industry. These include:
(editor) (agent) (publicist) (publisher) (researched and reported publishing information; also publishes Bottom Line, mentioned below) (publishing worker)There are others—help me out in the comments? Other newsletters you like written by people whose day jobs involve publishing?
Even those who work in publishing and write about the industry often only understand and/or cover a small slice of it. And generalizations about “the publishing industry” are almost always wrong. To gain an even better, wider, and deeper understanding of the entire breadth of publishing, read widely and deeply, particularly reported pieces. Some of the best include Publishers Weekly, The Bottom Line, Publishers Marketplace, Publishing Perspectives, and Shelf Awareness (lovely readers please add what I’m missing in the comments)
Okay now for my pithier misconceptions:
Most US published books are not printed in China. Yes, most hardcover, full color books may be printed in China, but most black and white hardcovers and paperbacks are printed domestically.
Speaking of royalties, I must add this, although I have added it in the previous newsletter and explained it numerous times: advances are royalties, They are the same thing. Advances are simply royalties that come…in advance.
Sometimes I hear authors do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how much their publisher will make from their book, vis a vis how much they, the author, will from royalties. Usually it starts something like this: “The book is priced at $30, so the publisher gets $30 and then has to pay for printing, royalties, etc. etc. “ Wrong! Almost no one pays the publisher list price for a book: they pay the wholesale price. The wholesale price will vary widely, but back-of-envelope calculations might ballpark 50%. So “the publisher gets $15 for every $30 book it ships, and then has to pay….”
Small presses are not necessarily “small” in the way many think. By definition, a small press is one that brings in less than 50 million annually. That’s big money, actually.
Not all books are sold by agents. Many books are sold directly to a press. However, Big 5 presses mostly accept only agented submissions.
Indie bookstores often choose what they stock and display based upon the percentage discount they get from the publisher or distributor. If PRH offers an indie 65% off the title they hope to become a bestseller, they may stock more of it than a publisher offering 50% (or 45%, or 35%, etc.). Similarly, publishers often offer indies “coop funds” to place books on front tables displays and the like.
Overall, if one included all the books sold in the US, indie bookstores account for about 4% of those sales.
How many copies a publisher anticipates printing of a title may change between acquisition, manuscript delivery, and the date by which it needs to be sent to a printer. A book that sells at auction for a 1 million dollar advance, based on anticipated huge sales, may be disappointing, or dated, or for any number of reason less marketable when it is submitted, and then again after it is edited and put into production. The publisher may decide to only print a first run of 3,000 copies after all. Of course this also happens in another direction: a book that was acquired for a $1000 advance may, because of great pre-publication reviews, or events in the news, or author promotion, see far greater sales potential, and the publisher may decide to print an initial 10,000 copies.
Accounts (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram, Indie bookstores, etc.) usually decide anywhere between one to six months how many copies they want to have on hand on pub date. They make these decisions based on a variety of factors. Sometimes they are right, sometimes wrong. But long before pub date, and often before a printer quote with a first run amount needs to be signed, advance orders are in, and a publisher can estimate how many copies they will sell in the first 90 days.
“Ordering” a book and “selling” a book are two widely different actions. Because retailers can return any book they order for, often, full price, and, often, many months later, authors should only ask the question “how many books have been ordered?” But they really shouldn’t even ask that, as the answer will not be indicative of how many books have sold. That number is often much less. Returns, depending on the type of book, can be up to 50% of orders. Authors can’t really gauge how many books have sold for a year or so after pub date. (Once a book has been out awhile, the number of returns will usually dwindle, as will of course the size of advance orders).
Bookstores decide whether or not to order a book for their store. I think some authors have an idea that all books would be stocked by all bookstores? At least I’ve discussed this with two different people recently, who were upset that their book was not in stock at an indie or a B&N, and somehow blamed the publisher. Sure, the publisher should be doing all it can through its sales team to lobby a store to stock a book, but it is the store’s buyer who makes the decision. And think about it: any one store can only have a teensy tiny fraction of the books published in a year, or month, or week, or even day stocked. Amazon, Bookshop.org, and other online retailers who work with gigantic distributors with ginormous warehouses can stock and ship a huge number of titles, of course. But not a single brick and mortar shop.
Related to this, if authors promote widely and often the importance of pre-orders, which jigger the algorithms into thinking a larger number of copies will sell than is realistic (friends and family being disproportionate, and finite), they run the risk of having inflated advance orders, leading to even larger returns down the road.
There is little correlation between the amount of coverage a book receives, and the prestige of the outlet, and the number of copies sold.
Somewhat related to the above and not really about publishing, but: Substack Notes has a very aggressive algorithm. I am served up the same writers over and over again. Others are probably served up an entirely different set of the same writers. I don’t think it’s possible to generalize about anything based on Notes (“everyone is writing about, everyone is reading,” etc. etc.) , but I see many people doing just that (understandably). I find this extremely very frustrating! And it is all the more reason to read more widely and with more breadth if you are trying to better understand American publishing.
Recommend Indie Kids Books on Substack by indie publisher Darcy Pattison of Mims House Books for those who would like to see a different view of the industry.
I'd add literary agent Anna Sproul-Latimer's How to Glow in the Dark newsletter to your list. Well-written, funny, empathic, and full of good info.