Authors, agents, and editors talk honestly about money

George Orwell, always prescient, once wrote, “If booksellers wanted to be millionaires, they’d be in another line of business.”

Few writers count on becoming millionaires, and just the promise of a book advance is enough to keep many motivated.  But in this time of transition, when publishers struggle with uncertain book sales and march towards new digital models, advances have waned.  The bulwark against day jobs and exigent debt, the champion of getting the writing done, the book advance is in retreat.

That is what writer and editor Meghan Ward discovered after she surveyed 105 authors in November 2011. Ward had heard rumors from colleagues and agents about the precipitous fall of advances, and because she is shopping a memoir of her modeling career (titled Paris On Less Than $10,000 Dollars a Day), she wanted to put the rumors to test.

“We hear that advances have plummeted in the last few years,” she said.  “One agent told me that advances are a quarter of what they were a few years ago.  Though I did not do a direct comparison, my survey clearly shows that advances were quite high in 2008 and have steadily declined since then.”

The authors Ward surveyed reported an average advance of $124,000 in 2008, and that number decreased to less than $60,000 in 2011, though the survey was taken shortly before the year ended.

Because of its small sample size, Ward’s survey is not comprehensive, but it does represent a range of authors—an illustrative cut of the market at large.  Authors with and without agents participated.  A third of the authors sold non-fiction books; the rest sold young adult titles, novels, memoirs, short story collections, and other books.  Most advances were given by “big six” publishing firms – that collection of industry captains including Random House, Harper Collins, and Penguin – but independent and medium-sized publishers were also in play.

Except for memoirs and young-adult titles, which garnered average advances that held steady above $100,000, book advances trended downward across all genres, for all authors.

“It’s really, really hard to sell books,” said literary agent Andy Ross. “Publishers are not being irrational. Large multi-media corporations have bought many of them, and they have much higher expectations for the return on their investment. They don’t take many risks. I talked to Random House, and they said if they don’t think they can sell 20,000 copies of a book, they will not buy it.  The bar is very high, and the big publishers are under a huge amount of pressure.”

Daniela Rapp, an acquisitions editor with New York publisher St. Martin’s Press, said that in the current business climate her company has also become risk-averse.

“We are generally even more conservative in evaluating sales potential than we used to be—e-books are eating into our print laydowns,” she said. “That there are fewer opportunities for media exposure in both print and other outlets makes acquisitions of certain projects more difficult.”

What about writers themselves?  Freelance Journalist Steve Kemper, whose book Labyrinth of Kingdoms, about a prominent and forgotten explorer of Africa, will be on bookshelves in June 2012, received a $250,000 advance in 2001 for his first book, Code Name Ginger.

That advance, he said, ”was extraordinary then and would be more so now.” He added that the advance for A Labyrinth of Kingdoms was nowhere near that amount.  “I don’t think it’s anybody’s business what I got,” he said in answer to a point-blank inquiry, “but I got enough to make me feel comfortable to write the book.”

Kemper mentioned that during the writing of Labyrinths he was forced to spend more time then he would have liked on magazine work to make ends meet.  As a result, he needed two months longer than anticipated to finish the book.

Like Kemper, most authors were reluctant to share specific dollar amounts of advances. Some echoed Orwell’s reminder that writing is rarely a lucrative business–tightfisted market or no. And some have clearly made their peace with that reality.

“Even in these difficult times I look to writing itself as a great privilege. I’ve been lucky to make a living doing what I love, and many people—writers, non-writers, furniture salesmen, nurses—aren’t so fortunate,” wrote Peter Orner in an email. His novel Love and Shame and Love was released last year, and he just signed a three-book deal with Little, Brown. “I would write even if I wasn’t able to make a living at it. That’s the nature of this. Anybody who doesn’t write because they know they won’t get rich is a) smart and b) probably not a writer.”

Orner’s recent success suggests that book publishers are hardly calling it quits. But they are in the midst of a harrowing transition, especially in the form of the book itself. According to The Association of American Publishers, between January 2010 and January 2011, e-book net sales leapt 115.8 percent. (See this update on e-books.) But e-book sales still comprise a small percentage of net book sales, and are not necessarily driving book advances.

It’s also a period of transition for book contracts, as publishers have begun to toy with different models. (Read this primer on bucks and book publishing.) Traditionally, authors received half an advance up front, and half upon acceptance. Today, advances are given in ever-growing numbers of installments, and some publishers, like the San Francisco-based McSweeney’s, have offered writers smaller advances in exchange for lucrative profit sharing terms.

But new terms don’t always favor the writer.

“There is an experiment with giving advances in chunks—a third, fourth or even fifth at a time, where the final payment would be after publication,” said Ross, who once owned the defunct Cody’s Books in Berkeley.

“The purpose of an advance is to get writer to sign on and to give them enough money to write the book. Now, essentially you’re getting an advance after the book is written,” Ross continued. “That’s not even an advance, that’s a behind.”

{Gianmaria Franchini writes fiction and non-fiction, and will settle for a five-figure advance.}

Is self-publishing really the way to go?

With a sidebar on what you need to know to do it yourself.

By Sarah Baker

Go to any panel on book publishing these days, and you’ll hear the hoopla over self-publishing. Easy to do! More control! A bigger cut of the profits! At a time when advances aren’t exactly advancing, editors are often too over-worked, and publicists are spending the house’s dimes on blockbusters, self-publishing sure sounds tempting. Add to this the allure of royalty rates of 70 percent or higher instead of the 15 percent (at most) from traditional publishers, and it’s no wonder all writers aren’t going indie.

But, wait. Self-publishing might be the word on everyone’s lips, but is it right for you?

“You have to decide what your goals are,” said thriller-writer and self-publishing guru Barry Eisler at a lecture in November 2011 at the Park Plaza hotel in Boston. For him, it seemed like a no-brainer. He had already published three books with a traditional, or what he calls “legacy,” publisher. He has a following, developed when he pounded the pavement one summer, visited 500 bookstores, and called on 1,200 bookstores in 40 states. Other things in his favor: His wife is a literary agent, so he has access to publishing professionals.

As if his platform weren’t enough already, the press from his decision to turn down $500,000 from St. Martin’s and go indie practically made him a household name. The mighty-marketing-machine Amazon is his publisher. He likes control. He likes business. He’s clearly very good at it.

But not everyone has built what Eisler has. For first-time authors, like Boston Globe reporter Billy Baker, who is armed with a literary agent and a nonfiction book idea, an advance from a traditional publisher is necessary for him to take time off from work to report and write. “I don’t have 50 grand in the bank,” he said.

Other authors make the point that they want the strong winds of a trusted publisher in their authorial sails. Pagan Kennedy, author of ten books including Spinsters and Black Livingstone, doubts she would ever go indie. “If you can live with 1,000 readers and not making any money, then fine. But, if you want an audience of 20,000 for your book—how do you get that?” she said.

So what should a writer weigh when considering self-publishing?

“Self-publishing had a stigma,” said Eve Bridburg, literary agent and founder of Grub Street, Inc., an independent literary-arts center in Boston.  But she points out some critical new factors: increasingly sophisticated self-publishing tools are available; you can distribute via the Internet (and not just via the back of a station wagon); Twitter and Facebook can help to spread the word. Then there is the payoff: higher royalty rates. So many more serious writers are self-publishing, she added, that Grub is now offering workshops not only in the craft of writing but in marketing and publishing, as well.

Many people are taking the plunge. An article by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg in the Wall Street Journal cites an estimate by R. R. Bowker, which tracks the publishing business: the number of self-published titles exploded 160 percent from 2006 to 2010 (that is, from 51,237 to 133,036.)

Some recent success stories—Amanda Hocking and John Locke, in addition to Barry Eisler—have helped fuel the movement. And let’s not forget that some historic bestsellers (What Color is Your Parachute and The Elements of Style, for example) started out as do-it-yourselfers (DIY), the old-school name for the self-published. They were acquired by traditional houses after they were already successful.

Sales figures for self-published books are difficult to track, and hard to interpret, since people choose this route for all sorts of reasons. Many are printing 10 copies of a memoir for the family or 100 for the business. Amazon.com doesn’t share overall sales figures of books, according to Brittany Turner of their public relations department. But, in an email she was willing to say that “John Locke and Amanda Hocking have both sold more than 1 million books using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), 12 KDP authors have sold more than 200,000 books and 30 KDP authors have sold more than 100,000.” Over at Amazon’s self-publishing service site, CreateSpace, she added, former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin self-published his memoir Katrina’s Secrets, which hit the Top 100 Best Sellers in Books on Amazon the week of its release.

(If you’ve seen anyone report on the other end of the spectrum—that is, the number of self-published authors who never surpass their break-even point—please post links in the comments section! The more solid information we all have, the better.)

Even traditional publishers are capitalizing on the popularity. Book Country is Penguin Books new foray into the do-it-yourself world. It’s a place for genre fiction writers to circulate their work, get feedback, and buy self-publishing services. “Self-publishing is a trend that isn’t going away,” said Book Country president Molly Barton to Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly.

But all of this takes time and ingenuity. Martha McPhee, author of Dear Money and three other novels, said self-publishing would be like pushing a boulder up a mountain, and she wouldn’t know where to begin. Claire Messud, New York Times-bestselling author of The Emperor’s Children, equates self-publishing with home schooling.

Would you consider home schooling?

SIDEBAR: Should you self-publish?

If you want a professional-looking book with a chance of success you’ll need four things: Time, Money, Connections, and Gumption. Traditional publishers have been in the business for a long time and a book contract, despite that many authors accuse them of everything from neglect to abandonment, guarantees a professional process. You’ll have a well-oiled machine behind you so that you can focus on writing and promotion. If you want to replace them you’ll need to:

1. Hire a load of people if you aren’t a jack-of-all-trades: Editor, copyeditor, jacket designer, interior designer, publicist, marketer, rights salesperson (for foreign and first serial), Web site designer, printer, and distributor (for print books). If you’re publishing nonfiction you might need a lawyer to check for libel and an indexer to create an index. But buyer beware—these people work for you, so make sure they tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear.
2. Verify your account balance and uncap your pen—you’ll be writing a lot of checks.
3. Buy a Starbucks Card or a Nespresso machine. With the amount of work this will involve, you’ll need your caffeine. Self-publishing is akin to starting your own business.
4. Do the hustle. Work your friends on Facebook, your followers on Twitter, your old colleagues in the media, your local librarian, and your buddies in the bookstores to spread the word and buy the book.

Good luck.

{Formerly a book editor at Viking/Penguin and Simon & Schuster in New York City, Sarah Baker is now a freelance writer and an independent radio producer. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.}