Times They Are a Changing – A Guide to Dealing with Changes in the Publishing Industry

I was going to write about something totally different today, but I just read an interesting post on Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog about how the publishing industry is changing to basically screw authors that really got me thinking. If you haven’t read the post yet I highly recommend checking it out. You can read it here. It’s long, but it’s worth it.

For those of you who don’t go read the post I’ll give you a little summery of what it says. In the post, Kris talks about the changes in the music industry that made it so the musicians didn’t make any money any more. They would get an advance, but by the end of making the album and touring they would owe the record company money forcing them to make another album with the company to help pay back the money owed. This basically made them indentured servants to the record company.

Kris then goes on to show how a similar thing is happening in the publishing industry. Writers rarely make any more money from their books than their advance. The problem is that unless you’re an ultra famous writer like Stephen King your advance isn’t anywhere near enough money for survival. People are making money from these books though and those people are the publishers and the agents. They leave the writers out in the cold. They eat caviar and drink champagne while the writers huddle next to their space heaters and live off ramen noodles and spam sandwiches. Okay, the last part may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point.

This may seem distressing to you at first, but don’t worry. This is a new age of publishing. The internet has opened the doors to the world for writers. With epublishing and POD presses like CreateSpace and Lightning Source, writers don’t need publishers to distribute their books around the world. They don’t need publishers to arrange book tours and interviews. Writers can do those things themselves now.

I know there are people who are going to complain and say, “I’m not a publicist; I’m a writer.” They don’t want to have to promote their books and worry about formatting their novel. As far as formatting and cover art goes you can try to do it yourself if you’re on a shoestring budget. If you can afford it, hire someone to do it for you. That frees you up to write and helps you get a good professional looking product. After all, you’re a writer not a graphic designer.

As far as being a publicist though even if you sign up with a traditional publisher chances are you’ll have to do most of the marketing of your book yourself. Publishers are becoming less and less likely to spend money advertising books that aren’t by the big names. That means many new writers end up arranging their own book tours and calling local media for interviews themselves. Kind of sucks if you’re shy. If you are shy I recommend checking out this book by Ruth Ann Nordin about how to market your book. She’s admits that she is shy and tells help she approached marketing her books online. She’s been self-publishing for a long time and has a lot of good information to share. You can get it from Smashwords here.

Times they are a changing and the only thing you can really control is how you react to these changes. You can hang your head and go on about how you can’t believe the market is changing. You can lament about the publishing industry dying a slow, painful death. Or, you can figure out how you can take advantage of this new situation. You can start doing something to keep your writing dreams alive. I don’t know about you, but I’m choosing the second option.

Photo by shutterhacks