Common Misconceptions about Publishing Part II
AMA
January sale! $16 for the year if you sign up using this link.
I’ve had some queries re: my next book proposal course, so I’ve set one up for early summer. Hope that date works for those who are interested in joining.
We are deep into a production phase here at Belt, which means we are working with authors on final stages before publication. So I’m reminded of questions I often receive (and used to ask!) from authors, as well as questions that more authors should probably ask. These may strike some as too obvious to merit explanation, but many very savvy people don’t know the answers, so hopefully this explanation will help some of you. (Part 1 of my series on common misconceptions is here.)
How long should my book be (and how does length matter?)
You will probably have this written into your contract, but word count is important. The longer a book, the more pages it will be, and as pages are printed on paper, and paper is expensive (and about twice as expensive today as it was in 2018); word count, which translates to page count, does literally matter (except for ebooks, which is not literally matter!). So that means the costs to publisher rise with page count, and the price of the book might need to be higher accordingly. There were lots of outcries over the cost of Barack Obama’s memoir, which retailed for $45 in hardback, but it clocked in at 768 pages. Given that 300 page hardbacks are often $30 or more, that price for that many pages didn’t strike me as outrageous (notwithstanding the question of bestsellerdom, celebrity of author, and economy of scale).
You Don’t Always Need An Agent
You do need an agent if you want to publish with a corporate press. Many small presses, indie presses, and academic presses do not require submissions to be agented. Agents work on commission, which is typically 15% of any money you receive from a publisher.
Advances are Royalties
Another popular and confusing topic I’ve written about before.
ISBNs
Each format of a book—ebook, paperback, hardcover—has a unique ISBN. You have to buy ISBNs (which suddenly strikes me as quite odd!). (See my earlier post about the progenitor of ISBNs, Bowker—who was a person! A cool person!).
Size Matters
The size of your book matters. Trim size is the term, and there are standard and less standard ones. Standard ones are easier to shelve and cheaper to print. Sometimes authors talk to me about how cool it would be to do a (nonstandard trim size) kinda book and how that might help sales to which I have to be an annoying grump when I respond “no, actually.”
Formatting Matters (but not to you)
Don’t worry about formatting, authors. When the book goes to typesetting, all your formatting—in Word, say— will be stripped. And speaking of typesetting, I think the internet has led to a general amnesia about how different it is to print a book from posting on a website. There is special software (InDesign, usually), specific skills, and all sorts of very technical know-how involved in typesetting. (I’ve written about this a lot in the past, if you want to search archives.) I can write books, and edit books, and proof books, and market books, and publish them, but I am utterly incapable of typesetting them. There are experts for that.
Amazon Discounts Are Not Publisher Discounts
So many people are confused by this, including indie booksellers, it flummoxes me, because this is not a publishing thing; it’s true for all Amazon discounts on all products, from eye cream to tents.1 I’m gonna say really obvious things now but bear with me: Amazon is store that sells products made by other people—think of it like a grocery store (which of course it also is). Giant Eagle or the Piggly Wiggly often have sales: oranges are $1 off per pound this week! This does not mean that Giant Eagle paid the orange-sellers less money that week. It probably means they had too many, or maybe it was a big week for orange-buying, so they wanted to lower the price to sell even more. Same with Amazon and books. Amazon will discount books when they decide to. Their contract with the publisher of that book is not related to their decision for how to price the book.
Maybe it’s confusing to so many, in part because of how Amazon often hides the retail price of the book, which is set by the publisher and usually printed on the book itself. Let’s go back to Obama: if you go to the page for the book now, it looks like this:
$16.45! It’s less than the ebook! You lied about the price, Anne! But no. Look below:
Why is Amazon offering 63% off? Probably, given that the book is three years old, because they have tons of copies sitting around they want to offload. (It may have also been deeply discounted the week it came out, just as the Piggly Wiggly might offer their New Kind of Tuna Fish for 50% off when they start stocking it).
Because of the varying reasons for an Amazon discount, authors cannot really conclude anything from their book showing up as 63% off. Could be good news! (tons of sales). Or bad news! (inventory overstock). But the discount will not change the royalties you receive on books sold through Amazon: your contract with your publisher will determine that.
How can bookstores order the book?
If your book is being traditionally published, booksellers will simply go to one of several distributor accounts they have and order copies (to order Belt books, they would go to Ingram’s iPage). Each of these accounts come with specific terms (how much of a wholesale discount, the terms for payment, the policy for returning books for credit, etc.) If your book is self-published,2 it won’t come with this same ease and assurance re: invoicing, terms, etc. This is why bookstores are often reluctant to stock self-published books. It makes their job more complicated and sales riskier. If a bookstore is not stocking your just-published book, they can order a copy by going to a database on their computer and clicking a few times. The books, if they are in stock at the distributor, will be shipped to them quickly and promptly. (Booksellers, feel free to correct/elaborate any of the above in the comments! I get so many questions about this).
What have I missed? There is no such thing as a stupid question.
Of course there may be cases—deals between Amazon and publishers, say— when this is not true.
Edited to add if your book is published by a press that does not have a distributor, it often works the same as with a self-published book.
A question from a reader:
Are royalties usually based on a percentage of wholesale or of retail?
If a $20 book sold wholesale for $10, would the author usually get 10 percent of $20 or 10 percent of $10?
Publishers do this in various ways: either as a percentage of list price (retail, so the author would get 10 percent of $20) or as a percentage of net revenue (which would be based on wholesale price and other factors, so the author might receive 20% of $10).
I'm a part-time bookseller. Here are are two notes about visibility and availability for self-published authors.
1) Get your book listed on Ingram's iPage. Use Ingram Spark. Use "Extended Distribution" in KDP. Use whatever it is that Draft2Digital is offering. It doesn't matter. The point is the bookstore will see it. They can order it. It'll be part of their regular ordering infrastructure.
2) Bookstores like to see "REG" in the discount field, because that means they'll be getting their normal discount. For Ingram Spark, that means 55% (which isn't what the bookstore gets, mind you, but it's what the field is in Ingram). I know it sucks, but anything less means the bookstore gets less, which means they're less likely to take a chance on it. I don't know that you can get "REG" discount for the bookstores if you're using KDP's Extended Distribution.