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I've seen several writers on KB talk about moving to trad if indie gets tougher, so I thought I would offer a little tale.
Kensington Books published The Home in mass market paperback in 2005 (my fourth book with them and the first in a new three-book contract.) It was my lowest-selling paperback ever, and fool that I was, I failed to see I was already in the dreaded death spiral by the time I'd signed that contract (where bookstores order only the number of copies sold of the previous book, guaranteeing you will always sell fewer copies each time, barring a bizarre development.) This was despite my first novel The Red Church having a phenomenal sell-through rate of around 96 percent (meaning almost every copy that hit a store sold, when the industry standard at that time was around 50 percent--I think it's lower now.)
Of course, The Home quickly went out of print and sat there dead for about 5.5 years of the seven years of the license. Kensington did have the right to publish an ebook version at 50/50 split but never did. I patiently waited for the term to expire, then had my agent of record ask for formal reversion (Kensington had an option to print 5,000 more paperbacks to keep the license). Their window to respond passed and I published The Home in October, hitting #49 (briefly) on the Kindle list. About a month after that Kensington's own version of the Home ebook miraculously appears.
(Apparently the "Your reversion is in progress" got altered to "Let's pirate the book" somewhere along the way. Anyway, their copy is down now and it's a pretty clean break, and I have to credit the agent for gently firm handling of it--I know I give agents a hard time but this was sticky--no way in h*ll was I ever dealing with Kensington again but the agent still has to pitch other books to them. Also made sticky because it is under option and a script is actively being shopped, so while unlikely, a film deal could have happened at any time.)
That's not really the point of the story, although it does show the frustrations that can arise when matters are largely out of your control. The real lesson was that in six weeks on my own, I sold more than Kensington did in SEVEN YEARS. More importantly, while my book dropped from the low hundreds to low thousands in rank, the Kensington ebook version hung out in the 300K-400K range for a month. Which of course meant it probably sold two copies a week at a slightly higher price than mine. And that would probably have been The Home's permanent fate if they had acted to keep the license.
I'm not much of a numbers guy, but the simple reality is that Kensington having control of my books for all those years and leaving them dead has probably cost me six figures of income. And they must be wholly unaware that I am a middling indie success, or surely they would have published the ebooks. (They do have a US version of one of mine that sells horribly and I ignore it, and because they have non-exclusive rights outside US/Canada, it has created the odd situation where there are two legal versions of the book on the market--of course, I undercut and outsell them, although that book just sucks.)
So, okay, this isn't pure data, but you won't get many situations where an indie book competes against the exact same trad book.
My takeaway lesson is the publisher will never care as much as I do. Some publishers will do more than others for some books (almost always decided by the advance, because no one wants to look like they made a poor decision so they throw money at the largest potential mistakes). I would suggest that believing a publisher is going to sell more books, bring you more money, build a better career, and give you more options may be a mistake. If you go that route, good luck to you, and if it is a dream of yours, you should go for it.
But I expect the divide to grow even wider: as tough as it gets for indie books, it will be even tougher for non-blockbuster trad books to get visibility. Remember, you're still going to do all the marketing but your royalty will be down to around 21 percent after agent cut.
Others have different experiences, but that's mine. I am staying indie until somebody backs a truck of money to my door and lets me negotiate my own deal.
Kensington Books published The Home in mass market paperback in 2005 (my fourth book with them and the first in a new three-book contract.) It was my lowest-selling paperback ever, and fool that I was, I failed to see I was already in the dreaded death spiral by the time I'd signed that contract (where bookstores order only the number of copies sold of the previous book, guaranteeing you will always sell fewer copies each time, barring a bizarre development.) This was despite my first novel The Red Church having a phenomenal sell-through rate of around 96 percent (meaning almost every copy that hit a store sold, when the industry standard at that time was around 50 percent--I think it's lower now.)
Of course, The Home quickly went out of print and sat there dead for about 5.5 years of the seven years of the license. Kensington did have the right to publish an ebook version at 50/50 split but never did. I patiently waited for the term to expire, then had my agent of record ask for formal reversion (Kensington had an option to print 5,000 more paperbacks to keep the license). Their window to respond passed and I published The Home in October, hitting #49 (briefly) on the Kindle list. About a month after that Kensington's own version of the Home ebook miraculously appears.
(Apparently the "Your reversion is in progress" got altered to "Let's pirate the book" somewhere along the way. Anyway, their copy is down now and it's a pretty clean break, and I have to credit the agent for gently firm handling of it--I know I give agents a hard time but this was sticky--no way in h*ll was I ever dealing with Kensington again but the agent still has to pitch other books to them. Also made sticky because it is under option and a script is actively being shopped, so while unlikely, a film deal could have happened at any time.)
That's not really the point of the story, although it does show the frustrations that can arise when matters are largely out of your control. The real lesson was that in six weeks on my own, I sold more than Kensington did in SEVEN YEARS. More importantly, while my book dropped from the low hundreds to low thousands in rank, the Kensington ebook version hung out in the 300K-400K range for a month. Which of course meant it probably sold two copies a week at a slightly higher price than mine. And that would probably have been The Home's permanent fate if they had acted to keep the license.
I'm not much of a numbers guy, but the simple reality is that Kensington having control of my books for all those years and leaving them dead has probably cost me six figures of income. And they must be wholly unaware that I am a middling indie success, or surely they would have published the ebooks. (They do have a US version of one of mine that sells horribly and I ignore it, and because they have non-exclusive rights outside US/Canada, it has created the odd situation where there are two legal versions of the book on the market--of course, I undercut and outsell them, although that book just sucks.)
So, okay, this isn't pure data, but you won't get many situations where an indie book competes against the exact same trad book.
My takeaway lesson is the publisher will never care as much as I do. Some publishers will do more than others for some books (almost always decided by the advance, because no one wants to look like they made a poor decision so they throw money at the largest potential mistakes). I would suggest that believing a publisher is going to sell more books, bring you more money, build a better career, and give you more options may be a mistake. If you go that route, good luck to you, and if it is a dream of yours, you should go for it.
But I expect the divide to grow even wider: as tough as it gets for indie books, it will be even tougher for non-blockbuster trad books to get visibility. Remember, you're still going to do all the marketing but your royalty will be down to around 21 percent after agent cut.
Others have different experiences, but that's mine. I am staying indie until somebody backs a truck of money to my door and lets me negotiate my own deal.