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The Grass is Greener Over Here

16K views 93 replies 62 participants last post by  KevinH 
#1 ·
Okay, I have a massive amount of work, but I have to post this because it's something that many people on this board will deal with at some time or another.

Many of us salivate at the idea of a traditional deal. Me too. I'm not an exception. Even with my control freak, I-wanna-do-it-myself idiosyncrasies, it still looks like some pretty green grass over there, so when I turned down a few offers from the big boys a couple of months ago it made me really uncomfortable. The biggest hook they dangled was X amount of cash is here on the table now. It's a set number, sure thing. If I continued and pubbed my 2nd book without them, well, who knows what I might end up with. I heard that over and over again. It's a sales tactic that's used to close a sale/ deal - it's called fear of loss - and it's STRONG.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right? Well, that depends. And now that I know the bush had half a million DAMAGED birds in it and counting, I want the whole damn bush - birds, roots, and all. :)

My 2nd book in my series came out last week. In ONE week that title outsold the highest offer for the entire series. It was really hard to say no over and over again. There was a lot of pressure on me to just take the deal. I'm not gonna lie and say I was laughing about it, because it really freaked me out. I walked away from a huge pile of cash, it was painstakingly difficult, and it paid off. There's much more to consider than just the one bird in the bush. That's a very narrow way to view sales potential. I mean, there's a whole fricken forest around the bush. We need to see the big picture.

Anyway, more Indies will be pulled aside and given offers from trad pubs. Do the math. Estimate your sales (use pass through rates and est spill into your other works to get a number - don't do feels like this book is worth), and see what number you come up with. If they hit that magic number, awesome. But if they don't, going it alone isn't bad. It's actually very awesome. :)

Just throwing it out there... The grass is greener over here.
 
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#54 ·
Congratulations! Those sales were awesome, and I'd bet extremely validating for your decision. :)

Thanks for letting us know about the offer, and how you made the choice not to accept. Knowledge is power, and as others have said, it's important to understand the changing landscape of publishing.
 
#55 ·
Congratulations.

I've sat on panels this past year where I hear an author who has had wonderful self-pub success with a first title jump at an offer from NY and I shake my head.  I know there's a "prestige" factor-- until you actually do it.  Print distribution is losing it's punch for all but the top authors.  B&N is on the ropes and also fighting with S&S.  One has to remember the print percentage is really skewed because of the top 5% of authors being in supermarkets, Costco, Sams, Target, etc.  Places where most midlist authors aren't going to get racked.

It is a numbers game.  But it is also a looking to the future game.  In 2010 few "gurus" predicted correctly where publishing would be in 2013.  Right now, most are wrong about 2016.  I walked away from BEA this year shaking my head at the false optimism that was being generated.

Everyone is in a different situation, so everyone has to make different choices.  I just saw that Sylvia Day, who is a leading indie, is also perhaps the leading trad in that she signed an eight figure deal for US rights and seven figure for UK.  That's certainly a different scenario.

There are many roads to Oz and Oz means different things for different people.
 
#57 ·
RM Prioleau said:
But if you keep the e-book rights, then you can set the price however you want, can't you?

Why would it be more of a hassle to release your paperbacks rights to a traditional company? At this point, I'm not worried about the money. I just want my books to be seen/read by as many people as possible. Perhaps I am setting my sights a bit low, but I never expected to get rich off this. Writing has always been a hobby, but I would like to share my stories with the world.

But of course, I don't want to screw myself over either and completely surrender all of my rights to a publisher and never get it back. I realize you have to read the fine print. But I'm just wondering what other things do you really have to consider when doing the 'you keep ebook rights and publisher has paperback rights' route?
My take on it is this: Unless your book becomes an enduring classic, it won't be on the shelves for seven years. At the seven year point, the company is basically selling your book on special orders and Amazon, and you can meet that need with POD just as easily.

If it turns out that your book is an enduring classic, and IS on bookstore shelves and they're still doing print runs for it seven years after the fact, it's easy to negotiate for a re-up of the contract, and the publisher will be jumping with joy to do it.

It's always easy to negotiate to give the publisher an additional term of license if circumstances prove necessary, and hard to negotiate to take away licenses once given. It just makes sense to give the most limited term of license you can get away with, and if it turns out that you need to grant them more, grant them more.
 
#58 ·
Courtney Milan said:
My take on it is this: Unless your book becomes an enduring classic, it won't be on the shelves for seven years. At the seven year point, the company is basically selling your book on special orders and Amazon, and you can meet that need with POD just as easily.

If it turns out that your book is an enduring classic, and IS on bookstore shelves and they're still doing print runs for it seven years after the fact, it's easy to negotiate for a re-up of the contract, and the publisher will be jumping with joy to do it.

It's always easy to negotiate to give the publisher an additional term of license if circumstances prove necessary, and hard to negotiate to take away licenses once given. It just makes sense to give the most limited term of license you can get away with, and if it turns out that you need to grant them more, grant them more.
As far as I know, the extent of POD that I can do for my paperbacks is Amazon. I don't think you can get it in B&N or other places via 'special orders'. Is that the extent of what big publishers do, as well?

I know quite a few authors who are published traditionally, who aren't in physical bookstores, but their books are still widely distributed/noticed throughout the world. Is there some other kind of advertising that publishes do to bring awareness to their not-so-popular paperbacks/authors that I'm unaware about?
 
#59 ·
RM Prioleau said:
As far as I know, the extent of POD that I can do for my paperbacks is Amazon. I don't think you can get it in B&N or other places via 'special orders'. Is that the extent of what big publishers do, as well?

I know quite a few authors who are published traditionally, who aren't in physical bookstores, but their books are still widely distributed/noticed throughout the world. Is there some other kind of advertising that publishes do to bring awareness to their not-so-popular paperbacks/authors that I'm unaware about?
Here's my POD book on Barnes & Noble's website: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-duchess-war-courtney-milan/1113915769?ean=9781481207478&itm=1&usri=the+duchess+war Here it is on indiebound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781481207478

I have people special order my POD books all the time. Use LSI or Amazon's extended distribution.

By contrast, my first traditionally published book on Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/proof-by-seduction-courtney-milan/1100346793?ean=9781460302804

Notice that you can't buy a new copy. That's because it's out of print, and new print editions of that book have been unavailable since mid 2011. At this point, my first two traditionally published books (out in 2010) are both unavailable as new print editions. You have to buy them used. My second two traditionally published books (out in 2011) are still available, but give it another year and you won't be able to find them in print.

So my self-published POD books are more available than my traditionally published books.

I'm not sure what you mean by "their books are still widely distributed" if they're not in physical bookstores. How is it distribution if it isn't distributed?
 
#60 ·
Lady Vine said:
Turning down a publishing deal was unheard of a couple of years ago. Gotta love this new landscape.
My sentiments exactly. I am nowhere NEAR Holly's status but five years ago I turned down and offer and between November 2011 and April 2012, I made a LOT more than that offer. The times they are a'changing.
 
#61 ·
h.m. ward said:
Okay, I have a massive amount of work, but I have to post this because it's something that many people on this board will deal with at some time or another.

Many of us salivate at the idea of a traditional deal. Me too. I'm not an exception. Even with my control freak, I-wanna-do-it-myself idiosyncrasies, it still looks like some pretty green grass over there, so when I turned down a few offers from the big boys a couple of months ago it made me really uncomfortable. The biggest hook they dangled was X amount of cash is here on the table now. It's a set number, sure thing. If I continued and pubbed my 2nd book without them, well, who knows what I might end up with. I heard that over and over again. It's a sales tactic that's used to close a sale/ deal - it's called fear of loss - and it's STRONG.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right? Well, that depends. And now that I know the bush had half a million DAMAGED birds in it and counting, I want the whole d*mn bush - birds, roots, and all. :)

My 2nd book in my series came out last week. In ONE week that title outsold the highest offer for the entire series. It was really hard to say no over and over again. There was a lot of pressure on me to just take the deal. I'm not gonna lie and say I was laughing about it, because it really freaked me out. I walked away from a huge pile of cash, it was painstakingly difficult, and it paid off. There's much more to consider than just the one bird in the bush. That's a very narrow way to view sales potential. I mean, there's a whole fricken forest around the bush. We need to see the big picture.

Anyway, more Indies will be pulled aside and given offers from trad pubs. Do the math. Estimate your sales (use pass through rates and est spill into your other works to get a number - don't do feels like this book is worth), and see what number you come up with. If they hit that magic number, awesome. But if they don't, going it alone isn't bad. It's actually very awesome. :)

Just throwing it out there... The grass is greener over here.
So they put the fear of God into you and you eclipse their number in a week. Good on you! That's must feel awesome!! Thanks for sharing your experience.

This is what I love about KBoards and this group of writers--the sharing of experience, the camaraderie, the celebrating, and the support given in the day-to-day existence of being and staying independent; because, let's face it; some days are harder than others.
 
#62 ·
Bob Mayer said:
Congratulations.

I've sat on panels this past year where I hear an author who has had wonderful self-pub success with a first title jump at an offer from NY and I shake my head. I know there's a "prestige" factor-- until you actually do it. Print distribution is losing it's punch for all but the top authors. B&N is on the ropes and also fighting with S&S. One has to remember the print percentage is really skewed because of the top 5% of authors being in supermarkets, Costco, Sams, Target, etc. Places where most midlist authors aren't going to get racked.

It is a numbers game. But it is also a looking to the future game. In 2010 few "gurus" predicted correctly where publishing would be in 2013. Right now, most are wrong about 2016. I walked away from BEA this year shaking my head at the false optimism that was being generated.

Everyone is in a different situation, so everyone has to make different choices. I just saw that Sylvia Day, who is a leading indie, is also perhaps the leading trad in that she signed an eight figure deal for US rights and seven figure for UK. That's certainly a different scenario.

There are many roads to Oz and Oz means different things for different people.
+1
 
#63 ·
h.m. ward said:
From Hugh: In 7 years, I get all the rights back and can return to POD, which keeps my book in print forever.
SHUT UP! How the hell did you do that? I feel like I'm asking my agent to find outlandish things. The other day I was wondering why foreign sales has limited usage rights and wondered why it wasn't like that for US sales. When I ask these things, they say I'm a crazy person. I need to tell ppl that pigs are flying b/c of authors like you, and maybe Im not that nuts. ;)
Haha - I'm going to beat Hugh on this one - my print-only deal is for 4 years then revert - SCORE!

H.M. You are definitely not nuts - the Life of copyright terms and low thresholds of sales for reversions have GOT TO GO! Keep insisting and we'll get there.
 
#64 ·
ellecasey said:
They were stupid not to offer you more. Your agent should have showed them the numbers. I hope she did!
They should have offered a print-only deal. Then Holly could have her 70% ebook and they could do what they do best - distribute paper. Maybe they'll come back with that the way they did with Hugh. We need more print-only deals!!

I would definitely go back to them with that 1 month's sales that beat their offer and say, "Look you want a piece of this action...you can have it - print only or nothing.
 
#65 ·
Courtney Milan said:
My take on it is this: Unless your book becomes an enduring classic, it won't be on the shelves for seven years. At the seven year point, the company is basically selling your book on special orders and Amazon, and you can meet that need with POD just as easily.
Very true. But remember that the contract can terminate if they remainder or sell out and don't reprint. Print-only isn't like ebooks - where they are always around. It's easy to go "out of print" in a paper world. So reverting after a year or so if you stop selling well is certainly possible.
 
#68 ·
Congrats, Holly!

I'm a new guy here, but after reading all that Konrath, Howley, and Blake have to say on this subjet (not to mention being COMPLETELY frustrated with my Traditional Publisher), I've decided to wade into the waters... Thanks for posting this and letting a newbie know that the waters are all *still* fine, not to mention welcoming. ;)

Looking forward to learning lots and interacting with the lot of you...not to mention publishing some books! :D
 
#69 ·
Ashy said:
I'm a new guy here, but after reading all that Konrath, Howley, and Blake have to say on this subjet (not to mention being COMPLETELY frustrated with my Traditional Publisher), I've decided to wade into the waters... Thanks for posting this and letting a newbie know that the waters are all *still* fine, not to mention welcoming. ;)
Welcome!
 
#75 ·
Congratulations, Holly. It's got to be awesome knowing you made the right decision.

And Hugh is right, you're paving the way for future authors. So wonderful. The deal I turned down was really nothing, but I was still anxious to turn it down. I know I did the right thing, even if it was just to help future authors get better deals than what they tried to give me.

The grass is greener here in indie land. :)
 
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