Many people are expressing dismay at the rapidly changing landscape of publishing. As writers, we just want to write.
My first book came out in 1991 in hardcover. I was clueless. Most writers were and still are. I’m not even sure there was an internet then. Joking. There was, but not like today, and I didn’t get on it until around 1997 or so. No social media. There were writers conferences. If you knew there were writers conferences, which I didn’t. I did my first conference in 1995 and only found out about it because I was in grad school and someone I knew in the English department knew I had been published and suggested I might present.
I had naïve thoughts my book would immediately make the bestseller list and I’d be famous. Wrong. If I’d have known, simply the print run number would had told me there was no way I could make any bestseller list.
For several years I thought I was making royalty off cover price, only to find out it was off what the publisher received which was 50% of cover price. I also didn’t know royalty should be off cover price, but with this publisher my agent had settled for the other without telling me the difference.
My title was Eyes of the Hammer. Incredibly dumb. Meant nothing. My agent and editor didn’t say a word about it.
I didn’t do a single book-signing. Since the publisher wasn’t sending me on book tour, why should I do one myself? Plus, I didn’t want to do booksignings. I didn’t want to talk to people.
The print run was 10,000 copies hardcover. Which, actually, was pretty decent. I had no idea if it was good or bad. It sold around 7,500. Which is very good sell-through. But the publisher switched distributors and I went to the bottom of their list for the sales force. Over the course of six books I died the slow, agonizing death most mid-list authors do.
Except, of course, I was always a manuscript and a publisher ahead. That was one thing I did do right. (Because of all this I eventually wrote Warrior Writer, to educate writers how to be successful authors, along with many other reasons).
My point? In the good old days, promotion and marketing was as important as they are now. In fact, I submit, things are better today, because you actually can promote and market as an author much more easily than back than. You have social media now, which we didn’t have then.
Once I woke up and realized my publishers were doing no promoting or marketing, but were just distributors, I tried just about everything. Direct mailings, media, articles, contacting every independent bookstore in the country, driving 40,000 miles a year to do booksignings, doing conferences, teaching, etc. etc. Did any of it work? No idea. I’m still making a living writing.
Does social media work? We’ve switched web site providers over the past few days and updated the site. Because of that, I couldn’t tweet about our books because the URLs for the pages were changing. Our Kindle sales dropped 50% during those few days. Consistently for 3 straight days. I’m back to tweeting those key hashtags (#Lost, #SDCC for San Diego Comic Con, and other TV shows.) I anticipate our sales will get back up to where they were. Our new book, We Are Not Alone: The Writers’ Guide to Social Media is a good resource to learn content and procedure and an example of how publishing is changing. It would have taken a traditional publisher a year to produce the book. We did it in two weeks after delivery.
I saw authors 20 years ago who felt all they had to do was write. While a few of them might have broken out and become huge successes, there are none I met. Every single author I met in my first 10 years as an author who
a) Thought they had it made because they were published.
b) Didn’t think they had to promote.
Is now not published.
eBooks, Social Media, etc. has not changed being an author other than to actually make it easier in some ways, which means it’s still incredibly difficult.
Way back in the days of Faulkner, Hemmingway, the Algonquin Round Table, etc. it was just as hard, but different. Then you had to schmooze, make contacts, get known. Gee. It’s kind of the same now too.
In all these eras you still needed a good book at the base of it all, but on top, all that has changed is the medium. It’s still an integral part of an author’s job to promote and market.
There were no good old days for authors. There’s just now.
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I’ll confess, this post is depressing. I’m one of those writers who just wants to write. I’m not a huge “people” person, and the idea of having to sell myself is horrifying to me. The worst job I ever had was an internship at an ad agency when I had to cold call people to try to convince them to do something. I’m so not a sales person.
But I do see what you’re saying. If you want to make a living at this, I guess it’s a necessary evil to get yourself out there in any way possible. At least these days there are alternative ways to do that besides face to face schmoozing. Did Jane Austen schmooze, I wonder?
Perhaps if it’s just a matter of wanting to share your stories and you can be happy being e-published and not concerned about making a livable income, the pressure might be less. I don’t know. I just want to write.
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I love this post! I get really annoyed when people say such negative things about today’s publishing industry and that it used to be so much better. But *Gasp!* back in the day I’m sure people were saying negative things about it then, too!
You’re so right: “There were no good old days for authors. There’s just now.”