Author Topic: A business question about publishing…  (Read 2199 times)

Publius

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A business question about publishing…
« on: February 19, 2009, 03:20:00 PM »
I have read many reviews of different fantasy authors and many of them receive the same criticism when there series is longer than a trilogy.  From what I have read they all get bogged down and are full of filler, many times the author is accused of milking the series for more money. 

I’ve never believed that authors stretch their series to make more money because I don’t think writing bad novels is a good way of making money.  I think that in the long term it hurts their profitability because who’s going to start a new series from an author who’s going to give you tons of filler.
 
Let’s say an author outlines a series and a publisher buys a ten-book series.   What happens if the outline only gives you six books worth of material?  I don’t believe that authors want to write books full of filler, but they can hardly go back to their publisher and tell them their only getting six books, can they?  I mean that would be bad business wouldn’t it?

I was just wondering if this could be a reason why series tend to always get bigger and slower.  Those authors try to come up with new material for the final four books only to add to much material and over-shoot the projected ten book series.

I’m curious about what other peoples thoughts are…
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: A business question about publishing…
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2009, 07:01:12 PM »
It's not really a problem like that. Most publishers will work with you... If the story's done in six books, it's done. You still owe the publisher four more books—but they don't necessarily have to be in the same series.

Brandon has had contracts a couple times for books that he decided not to write because he wanted to write something better instead. (Like a publisher would refuse to put out a book everyone knows is better.) Of course, he can greatly help himself get away with that because he writes darn fast. It's a lot easier to convince your publisher when you've got an already-completed manuscript and can still meet the publication schedule of your old book with your new book. A publisher is going to be less enthusiastic about waiting another year for you to finish a book to replace the book you were supposed to have done already.

I think where "filler" actually comes from is poor planning and not dividing your plot into satisfying novels. If your book is just a middle without a beginning or end, it's going to feel a lot like filler even though what happens in the book might be very important to the series as a whole.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2009, 07:03:45 PM by Ookla The Mok »
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Bookstore Guy

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Re: A business question about publishing…
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2009, 09:38:51 PM »
apart from the certainties in Ookla's post, my personal opinion is that it would be dumb of an author to sign ONE deal for that many novels. I don't even think Jordan did that, Goodkind didn't, Brooks didn't Eddings didn't, Martin didn't (i dont think). The only person i know of that DID was Erikson in the UK...and he made a KILLING.

The simple idea behind this is that as you write more, your popularity grows, as does your monetary worth. For example, Brandon makes far more per book now than his prior contracts. Why do 1 contract for ten books at a lower price when you can do a few contracts of 3 books each that increase each time?

From here, you could argue that filler novels are better for an immediate money maker - long term, not so much. I mean, this is Goodkind in a nutshell yeah?
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Publius

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Re: A business question about publishing…
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2009, 03:00:43 PM »
Thanks for responding!  I find books on business and economics to be very interesting, so I have a couple more questions if you don't mind answering them...

OK.  Ookla this question is mainly directed at you because I've read that your an editor.  I have read in several places that an editor is the difference between a good book and a great book.  What exactly does an editor do?  How closely do you work with the author?  Do you have any input in the overall plot?  I apologize if these questions seem overly simple, but I'm a Chef not an editor or an author, and a curious one at that.

A Memory of Light aside, if your just a average author who generally decides if a book is to be split?  Is it the publisher, author or the editor, and how much influence do the bookstores have in the decision?

Final question.  I recently bought the Host for my niece for 40% off the cover price.  I assume the author gets paid whatever he signs for, but how does the rest of the sales get split up?  Does the publisher get paid a set amount for each book bought or do they take less money if the bookstore has to sell for less? Does the author get any bonuses if the book sells better than expected? 

Again, thanks for responding and I hope I didn't bore too many people with these questions...
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Re: A business question about publishing…
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2009, 05:09:20 PM »
I'll leave the editing questions for Ookla. Here is some input from when I did the whole bookstore thing:

When you buy a book a x% off, the author still gets his or her cut of the sales. Generally their contracts are tiered. For hardbacks, lets say they get 15% of the cover price in royalties for the first 20K books sold. Then for every book sold after that initial 20K, they get 17% of the cover price. The remaining amounts go towards covering any expenses incurred in the printing of the book - printing, marketing, yada yada. Those fees, I imagine, vary from book to book. When the novel goes into paperback, the royalty percentage drops down a lot lower because the profit margins are WAY lower on paperbacks. They make their money by selling in sheer numbers. An author might get 5% royalties on the cover price for the first 50K paperbacks sold, then 6% for any sold after that.  The other thing to realize is that author do not actually receive any of these royalties until those cumulative earnings pay back the publishing house for the advance they gave the author. So, the bonus for authors who sell more than expected? First, they make higher royalties, and pay off their advance faster. Second, the better they sell, the more likely they will receive better subsequent contracts. Then it all snowballs, and you get more and more royalties with bigger and bigger contracts. Good stuff.

Did that sound more or less how you know it Ookla?

Now, as for buying the book at 40% off, you realize the real reason for that is to build loyalty and entice you to buy additional books right? Do you remember when the last Harry Potter book came out, and stores were selling it at 50% off or higher? That is a direct financial loss to the bookstore. They typically buy books like that for 46% off the cover price. The thought there is that if you can entice customers into buying the main book for 40-50% off, you can then get them to spend those savings on another book with no discount attached. The money-phrase in bookstores is "Units-Per-Transaction." A store with high "UPTs" will make those losses taken on heavily discounted books turn into profits - assuming the bookstore salespeople know their stuff (which is rare these days).

As for splitting a book, the bookstores don't have a direct say. By direct i mean the publishes don't call up Borders and say, "Gee, do you need us to split the book?" The publisher decides how they will best cover their costs and make the most money. if that means splitting the book, then so-be-it. Now, part of that means they look at bookstores and say, "Well, considering the shelves at bookstores are X long and Y wide, the hardbacks and/or paperbacks need to be split in order to fit Z number of copies. If we DONT get Z number of copies on the shelves, then we lose exposure, and we may lose money."

That help at all?

And Ookla will slap me into place if i messed up anywhere. Ookla and I tend to have awesome discussions about this stuff when we get together every now and then.
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: A business question about publishing…
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2009, 08:41:53 PM »
Looks good except that your hardback royalty numbers should probably go down a bit. I think it's more common to start around 10–12%.

Publius, different editors work with authors to varying extents. As an author gets more famous, the author has more power and how much input the editor has is really up to the author. I think wise authors like Brandon will listen to the good advice their editor is giving them, while egotistical authors will tend to ignore their editor, perhaps to the detriment of the book.

Ultimately, unless you're writing in someone else's universe, the author has final say about the words of the book (though not fonts etc.) even if they're just starting out—it's their book, after all. But how willing the author is to work with the editor will greatly affect the editor's desire to work with that author in the future.

Brandon has mentioned a few times that he feels the editor's job is not to suggest how to solve a book's problems but to point out those problems to the author and let the author come up with something. This is on the macro level, not on the micro level—the editor will go through the book and do a line edit (each edit of which the author can then decide to keep or stet), but it's the overall advice which is probably more valuable. The editor will point out things like character inconsistency or not enough motivation for actions, pacing issues, plot holes/dropped plot threads, forgotten characters, lack of description, etc. Then it's the author's job to revise to address these issues.

As for splitting books, when this happens it's at the suggestion of the publisher or editor. (If the author thought it needed to be split they would have written it that way in the first place.) The author can disagree with this of course—but then they may have to find a new publisher, because it's usually phrased as "we think we can sell this split, but we can't sell it unsplit." Maybe they're lying and they really would be able to sell it unsplit but think they can make much more money split, but if the author thinks the book can get away with being split (i.e. it will still be a satisfying read if it's split)  then they might as well go for it—but if the author feels it will ruin the book, they may have to put their foot down.

One book that I think was hurt by splitting was Bujold's The Sharing Knife, which was split into TSK: Beguilement and TSK: Legacy. I think it was unnecessary and the wrong choice. While there was a good plot point to split at in the middle, it made the conflict of each book seem simpler—with both books together I think it would have felt like a more well-rounded novel. And it could have easily been printed that way; they could have fit a third more words per page and still had a decent page count. Yes, it was longer than her previous books, but it wasn't anything unusual in the genre. However, the publisher knew they could sell two books instead of one.
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Publius

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Re: A business question about publishing…
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2009, 02:02:19 PM »
While reading Deadhouse Gates I was looking at the map looking for a place called SkullCap.  This is where I'm introduced to a lot of new characters, and I noticed that it wasn't marked on the map.  So that's the origin to my question about maps.

The author writes the novels and someone else draws the map. I've  read that the author has little to say about the covers, but what about the maps?  Do they get to pick who draws the maps?  Does the author get 100% approval or disapproval over the map?  Does the illustrator place the city names on the map, or does the author do that?  And finally, is the map generally the last thing done or the first thing done?

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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: A business question about publishing…
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2009, 08:30:01 PM »
Depends.

Brandon came to Tor with his map artists picked out largely because he wanted a lot of control. However, Tor could have rejected both Jeff and Isaac for any reason, especially if Brandon hadn't picked people who knew their stuff. And Brandon could only pick them because he knows them personally and they're friends; an author can't say "I like the artist who did the map in XXX book; get that guy to do my map" and expect to have a very high rate of success. Anyway, authors are generally not granted the right in their contract to pick the artists of anything. Art is part of design which is part of marketing, in which an author does not have the final word because that is not the author's specialty. (Story text is.)

Some authors really don't look at the map the artist comes up with. Some authors make their own rough map and the illustrator makes their own artistic version of it and goes back and forth with the author about it to make sure everything is in the right place. And, of course, some authors are good enough artists that their map gets used in the book. (Tolkien made his own maps.) Some maps get done long ahead of time in order to fix mistakes, and some maps may get done at the last minute due to oversight.
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