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.}

Related posts:

1. Constance Hale on Bucks and Book Publishing
2. Sarah Baker on do-it-yourself books
3. Sarah Baker with an E to Z on e-books

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.}

Related posts:

1. Sarah Baker with an E to Z on e-books
2. Heather Ross with an e-books update
3. Sarah Baker on the Art of Writing Free

This frenzy, and a barrage of media attention, has left most people involved feeling confused. Agent Laurie Liss, vice president of Sterling Lord Literistic, says, “I have never felt such a divide between publishers and agents as there is now about electronic rights.” And Mark Gompertz, executive vice president of digital publishing at Simon and Schuster, acknowledges an “anxiety on the publishing side, too. We’re on the threshold of something new.”

So what should a writer know in a labyrinth of twisting alleys and ad-hoc product stands? Here are some key terms and general guidelines to the unstable warren of the U.S. market.

E-book

According to PC Magazine Encyclopedia, an e-book is “the electronic counterpart of a printed book, which can be viewed on a desktop computer or a portable device such as a laptop, PDA or e-book reader.”

E-reader

The Free Dictionary states that an e-reader, or e-book reader, is “a small, portable device onto which the contents of a book in electronic format can be downloaded and read.” Although there are more then two-dozen different brands of e-reader available, the most popular are Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader, and Barnes and Noble’s Nook. Then there’s Apple’s iPad Tablet, which will be available April 3, 2010.

Enhanced e-books

These are e-books with bells and whistles. Think of a DVD—you get the movie plus the option to watch cuts or interviews with the director. An enhanced e-book could include audio, a video interview with the author, passages cut from the final text, slide-shows, or illustrations. You might even be able to click on a recipe, or a footnote, that takes you to a full citation. Enhanced e-books are interactive e-books.

How big is the e-book market?

Publisher’s Weekly recently reported that “e-book sales from the 13 publishers that report figures to the Association of American Publishers soared 176.6 percent in 2009, to $169.5 million.” The jump in sales increased the e-book’s share of trade sales from 1.2 percent in 2008 to 3.3 percent in 2009. And, five million e-readers sold worldwide in 2009 and an estimated twelve million will be sold in 2010, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Who is the market?

“Most e-book devices were bought by baby boomers (or older) and, mostly, women,” says Gompertz. At $259 a pop for a Kindle, or around $500 for the iPad, it’s understandable that they are selling to a more mature market. Peter Miller, director of publicity at Bloomsbury Books says that these readers are devouring “genre fiction.” In other words, the e-book market so far is most popular for “people who read for guilty pleasure.”

What should I be aware of in my contract?

Get an agent or have a publishing lawyer check over your contract. “You wouldn’t have your spouse pull your tooth for you,” says agent Wendy Strothman. That isn’t just a plug for her industry; contracts are confusing and if a professional looks at them, you’ll sleep better. Some things to look for in particular:

1. If you have been previously published, now is the time to check your contract to see if you control e-rights, says Liss. In other words, be on top of it.
2. For new contracts, “publishers will demand e-book rights. “No book publisher will allow e-book rights to be retained by the author,” adds Strothman.
3. Double-check the reversion of rights clause and insert a minimum number of annual sales for a work to be deemed “in print,” suggests The Author’s Guild.
4. Agents and publishers are in battle mode over enhanced e-books and there is no standard yet. A big question is whether they will be classified separately from regular e-books. Many publishers want these rights, but most agents are trying to retain them.
5. Read the fine print regarding the format of book. If the publisher is considering publishing straight to e-book, you want to be aware of that.

Don’t rush into anything. The e-book market is uncertain and changing.

What royalties should I expect?

Most publishers (“about 90 percent” according to Liss) are offering rates of 25 percent of net receipts for e-books. The Author’s Guild thinks these are low and suggests ways to protect you if industry standards change: First, because the market is changing so quickly, don’t lock yourself into a rate. Try to obtain the unconditional right to renegotiate after a period of, say, two years. Second, negotiate for a royalty floor. Insist that your royalty amount for e-books will never fall below the royalty amount for the hardcover edition of your work.

Do books ever go straight to e-book?

You can self-publish straight to an e-book. The advantages are obvious: no rejection letters from editors, no distribution costs, no royalties to an agent. Plus, you’ll get marketing for you or your business. The disadvantages are that—unless you are a jack-of-all-trades—you must now pay someone to copyedit, proofread, design your cover, market, advertise, and publicize. And you don’t have the advice and expertise of editors and designers. There are many sites on-line that offer self-publishing services including Amazon.com and Lulu.com. Or you can set up PayPal on your own Web site. Publishers have started publishing a few books straight to e-book. According to Gompertz, this is still experimental. Simon & Schuster published a book straight to e-book because it was topical, but then published it as a regular book.

Are there any pitfalls to e-books?

Piracy. It happens. If you are self-publishing and want to make sure that nobody steals your content, copyright every page or install PDF security features. If you are working with a publisher, check with them about protecting your content.

The other pitfall? Things can go wrong, Orwellian wrong, like in 2009 when Amazon removed 1984 from people’s Kindles.

What’s the lowdown on the pricing of e-books?

There’s been a lot of press about e-books, but a little history might help. It all started with Amazon and its Kindle and an e-book price of $9.99.  Amazon and the publishers used a wholesale model, whereby publishers would sell the books to Amazon at about half the list price and then Amazon would set the Kindle price. So, if a book was priced at $24.95, Amazon would pay the publisher $12.50. But since the online giant was charging $9.99, it was actually losing money ($2.50) on the e-book. It didn’t matter to Amazon because it was making up for it in Kindle sales. In the process, however, consumers got used to paying that lower price.

This price started a dispute between Amazon and publishers because, as Mark Gompertz points out, “publishers are against devaluing content.” Two years of disagreement led to Amazon temporarily removing the “buy” button from Macmillan books in January, although they were still offered on the site by third parties. Eventually a resolution was reached; soon an e-book on Amazon will be priced at $12.99 to $14.99.

Then publishers came to a pricing agreement with Apple, known as an agency model, for the downloading of e-books on the iPad.  Apple will give publishers 70 percent of the consumer price, which the publishers set. But Apple wants a guarantee from the publishers that no other retailer will sell e-books for less then their iBookstore price. Consequently publishers and Amazon are back at the negotiating table. Now, according to The New York Times, Amazon is insisting that publishers sign a three-year contract guaranteeing that no other competitor will get lower prices or better terms.  Mark Gompertz says, “We felt like we were losing ground, but now we have possibility because of competition.”

Next up, Google. Publishers are currently in discussion with the Internet giant over its plans to enter the e-book world. Because of the Amazon and Apple discussions, Google is now open to talking about an agency model and to paying publishers 70 percent of each sale, according to Mokoto Rich of The New York Times.

For the moment, publishers and e-retailers have devised a formula that works. But if e-book sales outpace hardcover sales—or if bookstores can’t compete—the equation might not work. This would mean that publishers aren’t making the money they need to acquire, edit, design, support, and promote books. And, as Jonathan Galassi wrote in The New York Times, “An e-book distributor is not a publisher, but rather a purveyor of work that has already been created.”

So, check regularly. The offerings at this bazaar change daily–new vendors, new products, new prices, and new customers. I’ll do without enhanced pomegranates, though. I like them just the way they are.

{Formerly a book editor at Viking/Penguin and Simon & Schuster in New York City, Sarah Baker is now a freelance writer and an independent producer for Word of Mouth on New Hampshire Public Radio. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.}

Sources:

Motoko Rich, The New York Times, “Amazon Threatens Publishers as Apple Looms”

Douglas MacMillan, Business Week, “E-Readers Everywhere: The Inevitable Shakeout”

Motoko Rich, The New York Times, “Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book”

Jim Milliot, Publisher’s Weekly E-Book Sales Jump 176 % in Flat Trade Year”

Louisa Ermelino, Publisher’s Weekly PW’s Panel on Going from Book to e-Book

Nicholson Baker, The New Yorker, “A New Page”

Jonathan Galassi, The New York Times, “There’s More to Publishing than Meets the Screen”

Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Wall Street Journal, “More Makers Jump into the E-Reader Market”

Ina Fried, CNET News, “Amazon recalls (and embodies) Orwell’s ’1984′“

Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post, “The Amazon-Macmillan book saga heralds publishing’s progress”

Sarah Weinman, Daily Finance, “Enhanced e-books”

Kevin Kelly, The New York Times Magazine, “Scan This Book!“

Related posts:

1. Sarah Baker on do-it-yourself books
2. Heather Ross with an e-books update
3. Constance Hale on Bucks and Book Publishing

1. If you have more than one idea or book you are working on, pick ONE of them to lead off with, and don’t mention the others for a while. (The woods are full of amateurs who have drawers full of unpublished manuscripts.).

2. In a bookstore, browse through lots of other books in a similar category, books you admire and think are in the same style as yours.

3. Look in those books’ acknowledgments sections to see if the authors thank their agent; thereby you will accumulate a list of agents who handle this kind of material.

4. Research these agents online to get their addresses, names, and submission criteria. If a website is good, you can also get a feel more broadly for the kind of work the agency represents.

5. You can then send a highly professional, crisp query to any number of your selected agents at once. However, don’t make it look like a blanket submission. Tailor each query letter to the specific agent; mention if possible other work you admire that the agent represents. If you know one of the agent’s authors personally, get a personal reference. Be sure your query letter gives background on you personally and why you are a credible expert on the subject addressed. Publishers think of nothing but “platform” these days — authors who teach in the field at a reputable institution, who run workshops nationally on the subject, who have a popular blog on the subject, who have already published material on the subject in national media and thus have a pre-existing audience.

6. To bypass some extra steps, you can attach to your query an outline or short prospectus of your proposed work, together with a short sample of the actual prose. (A sample is important, since summaries often don’t make a work sound attractive.)

7. Keep in mind that an agent is running a business and looking for commercially promising projects. Agents will not be interested in helping you develop your ideas, or helping you select good ideas to develop, until you have already proved you can be a solid breadwinner for them. You’d do best to arrive with a very clear, professionally presented package. Good agents are overwhelmed with prospects (we get more than 30 submissions a day) and in many cases they don’t even have time to answer a query unless it is irresistible.

8. Remember, the gods favor the persistent.

—by Jill Kneerim

{Jill Kneerim is the co-founder of Kneerim & Williams, a literary agency in Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. Since she is not actively looking for new clients, Kneerim put together this list to help prospective authors find agents who are.}

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