Books are team efforts. People involved in your book project, like editors and publishers, have vested interests in doing things a certain way. There’s nothing malign about that, but as you work with these professionals, it can be helpful to know what motivates their decisions. How the people on your book team are biased (and…
The basics of publishing contracts are simple: the publisher agrees to pay you (the author) money up front (an advance) and royalties on book sales, and in exchange you give the publisher exclusive rights to print and sell copies of your book and keep part of the proceeds. But as the economics of publishing have…
A recent piece by Maris Kreizman in LitHub bemoans the rise of “gig work” in publishing — and in particular the freelancer-driven model being pursued by the new publishing venture Author’s Equity. What naive and misguided claptrap. What’s Kreizman’s objection? In an essay titled “Publishing Models That Rely on Gig Workers Are Bad For Everybody,”…
The hybrid publisher Wonderwell is ceasing operations and becoming an imprint of a competitor: Greenleaf Book Group. I’ll let you know what happened, why, and what it means for the publishing industry and for you, if you’re considering publishing with a hybrid. Start with this: this is not going to be an objective post, because…
An author contacted me recently regarding his book proposal. His agent had accepted it and shopped it to some publishers; there were some nibbles, but no bites. This guy was well positioned: good speaking career, solid book idea, well-written sample chapter. Now he wanted to know if I could help him to improve the proposal….
There are three basic ways to publish a book. You can pitch a traditional publisher, hire a hybrid publisher, or self-publish. If you want to make an impact, especially with a hardback book, self-publishing isn’t nearly as effective as traditional or hybrid publishing. But how do those two publishing models compare, based on authors’ actual…
Publisher’s Lunch, usually a reputable source, is reporting that “Ghostwriting and publishing services firm Scribe Media abruptly shut down yesterday, laying off its staff.” A second source that I trust received an email saying that Scribe had laid off most of the staff in preparation for a sale. Other authors are reporting no response to…
The biggest publishing house, Penguin Random House, is merging with the number three publisher, Simon & Schuster. Here’s what that means for you as an author: lower advances, less service, more publisher nickel-and-diming, and still more of the responsibility for success landing on you. Publishing houses struggle to maintain profits and market power in a…
You finally got a literary agent to engage about your book proposal. Now they’re no longer getting back to you and things are stalled. How can you move forward? The first thing you need to accept is that, as friendly as agents may seem, they are transactional by nature, because they only get paid if…