Publishing is Dead

Here's space for contributors who have more than a few words to say.


If you ran out of space in the Forum, or feel you want to develop your argument, then let us know you have a contribution you want to send in. Go to our 'Comments' page and send us an email. We'll let you know how to submit your article.

Send them in!
We welcome all means of extending the arguments and developing the case.

Many authors don't stop to think that they are not all the same.
They don't all want the same thing.
In fact, there are seven possible levels of achievement open to authors.

The first is getting their book published. For themselves.
Many authors slave over a hot typewriter for many months (or years), dreaming of the day when they can hold that book in their hand. They don't want to be stuck forever with a pile a papers, a manuscript. They want that collection of grubby bits and pieces to be taken off them and sent back all neatly bound up, with a glossy cover and their name in big letters on the front. Then they get to keep that copy.
One.
This is the First Level of Publishing, and to achieve this, all authors have to do is receive one copy, in their hands.
(Internet Publishing can provide this, easily, and usually for minimum expense, ie You want one copy? You pay for one copy.)
'Traditional' publishers cannot do this. If you, the author, want a copy, you'll have to be lucky enough to land a publishing contract, which means thousands of copies of your book will be printed and you, as the lucky author, will receive one, (or maybe a few) copies.
Traditional Publishers don't do singles.

The Second Level of Publishing is when you receive five copies.
Traditional Publishers do this, (if, by good luck and fortune, they happen to award you a contract, which of course they don't, in 99% of cases). The lucky author will be sent a handful of copies and will be able to give them to their friends, and relatives. You can prove to your mother that you are a real writer, and the milkman, and the postman (who carried all your manuscript packages back and forth to the publishers for you all those years). Also the next door neighbour, (and maybe your kids, if you've got any). Five copies will do it, usually, maybe a few more.
Internet publishers, like Lulu, can do this too. You want five copies? You pay for five copies. They deliver them, (even post them out for you to those family members who live far away from you).

The Third Level of Publishing is when you want 50 copies.
This enables you to send copies of your book to every single member of your family, including distant cousins, perhaps as Christmas presents. It also enables you to go into your local big bookshop, say Waterstones or Borders, and ask them to stock a few copies of your latest work. Big bookshops don't see much of a profit in that, but will usually do it if you are a local author. They want the goodwill, and the prospect of your buddies coming into their store and asking for your book. Who knows, they might be able to sell them something else once they're in!
Internet Publishers will let you order that amount, 50 copies, and encourage you to hawk them round locally.
This is where Traditional Publishing departs, isn't it? Authors who are lucky enough to land a publishing contract assume they can stroll into their local bookshops and their spanking new novel will be there on the shelves, next to all the other best sellers. That might work with the large multiples, which have 'arrangements' with national publishers and are visited regularly by the book reps employed by big publishers. However, new authors are often disappointed to find that their busy publisher, with their national profile and crowded agenda, hasn't managed to get into 'local' bookshops at all - the village store,  the newsagents. When they complain, the publisher sends them a cardboard box of another 50 copies and suggests they 'do it themselves'. So, you write and write, stories, poem and novels, you struggle for years and years to land a publishing contract, and you still end up being a book salesperson, (just like Self Publishers and people who go with Internet Publishers).

Worse, there's the whole sorry saga of Critics.
Authors who go for Internet Publishing realise that they have to send copies out to newspaper critics, plus their local radio and TV, in order to get mentions. Writers who land publishing contracts mostly assume that their new-found friends, the publishers, will be taking care of this side of business for them. Only if you're a star! If the publisher thinks you are going to be a bestseller, they might take the time and make the effort to contact their friends in the media for you. However, many struggling new authors have been dispirited to find that this hasn't happened. When they query it, another cardboard box of books arrives, together with the encouragement to 'go out and contact the critics'. This isn't right! Securing a publishing deal is projected as being the target for authors, the gold at the end of the rainbow, not the start of a new cycle of even harder work. Slogging books out to critics is work, all right, and demeaning for the newly-signed author with delusions of grandeur.

Next is the Fourth Level of publishing.
For the Self-Publisher of Internet Publisher, this is when they aim for sales of 500 copies. This means they have exhausted friends and family, all of them, including long-lost aunts, uncles, and people you used to work with years ago. It also means people you meet in Libraries and cafes, at Book signings and at Writers' Workshops. As one Literary Festival organiser told me a few years ago, it probably means you're a 'regional writer', quite well known in your own particular area, your neck of the woods. You will have been featured in your local newspaper and on local radio, maybe even TV. It's quite a high target and a place that some Internet Publishers never reach.
Strangely, this is a level not even noticed by Traditional Publishers. If one of their signed authors stops at this level, Level Four, they would be viewed as a complete disaster, a huge loss of finanical investment and someone not worth bothering about in the future.

Similary for Level Five. This is where a single book's sale amount to five thousand copies. This would be laughable for a Traditional Publisher. Sure, some hardbacks launched in the UK never sell more than a few thousand copies, but this is mainly to get the critics interested and establish some kind of presence. The hardback that gets noticed through this initial launch would be followed by a paperback edition that would be expected to sell in the tens of thousands. Anything less, and the author would be quietly dropped, (even if a long-term contract had been agreed) and swiftly replaced by a new hopeful.
For the Internet Publisher, this is a far more significant level. It means that the Self-Publisher will start to see an important contribution to their income. It starts to look as though they can really think about planning to give up the day job. It seems that they might finally make it into the realms of the 'full-time, professional author'.
Why the big difference? Because an Internet Author doesn't have to make a huge profit for the publisher who signed them up. Those publishers need big sales to pay for all their glossy offices and expense account lunches, all the Conventions and Festivals they have to attend, plus the hangers-on, the Literary Agents, the publicity people, the photographers and layout artists, the book jacket designers. An author who has followed through on publishing their own book (with the help of an online publisher like Lulu) will be pleased to reach Level Five and will start to feel their careers are finally taking off.
For a Traditional Publisher, looking at one of their authors at Level Five, means that if the person has peaked at this level, then they have completely failed.

Traditional Publishers want Level Six, at least, that is, sales of fifty thousand.
Even then, the author isn't a 'success'. They won't be on the Bestsellers list, (they need the next level for that) and will be on the cusp of being 'profitable'. Still, with an author at this level, the Publisher would probably be willing to risk the next book and may even put some effort into it, perhaps even providing an Advertising Budget, at last.
The irony is that we are now at the level of the 'Midlist'. A generation ago, Traditional Publishers were happy to have a range of authors, perhaps with many at this level. They were balanced, and ultimately paid for, by a clutch of Bestsellers, but the Midlist made a publisher respectable, admired in literary circles, showing that they had a stable of professional writers, skilled and able to produce a regular stream of novels that might be admired, well received by critics, even if ignored by the vast mass of the population, who weren't enthused enough to make any of these people a runaway success. But some of them did. The investment in the Midlist meant that publishers had a string of people producing solid work, and who knows, their next book might be the one, the 'breakthrough' novel that would take them up to the level of 'household name', fame and, ultimately, fortune.
If there is one thing that characterises the collapse of the confidence in Traditional Publishers in recent years it is that they have given up on the Midlist. Now, all they want is Bestsellers. They will tolerate a few near misses, but if the author is stuck at Level 6, they won't last long. They might survive for a novel or two, but then it's goodbye. (Sadly, this means there are a new clutch of 'might-have-beens' out there, writers who achieved the Holy Grail, the Publishing Contract, only to lose it in a few short years. Their fate? To be reviled and shunned by other Publishers. 'You didn't make it then? We don't want to know you now'.)
What of the Internet Publisher? If you've put a book together, loaded it up on the web and seen it sell this kind of numbers, then you are swimming in money. Unfortunately, this is the time to be most wary. It's when Traditional Publishers will come swarming over the horizon, clutching their chequebooks. They will offer all kinds of silly money, hoping to woo you. Beware! Their enthusiasm, as we've seen, can be short lived. You're at Level 6, great, but if your next book doesn't hit the next level up, you will die, as surely as all their other signings. There is no sentiment in the world of Traditional Publishing.

Level Seven is the top. It indicates sales of five hundred thousand, which makes you an international bestseller.
In fact, anything over one hundred thousand will probably get you into the top sales charts, at least for a short time, which means publicity, interviews on TV, and journalists willing to hear your life story. It's all gravy, as they say, or more accurately, champagne, for a while. Beware, again. You have to be interesting! The mistake most authors make is that they spend so much time sitting at a desk, staring at sheets of paper, they don't have time to go out and do silly things. They don't put enough energy into affairs, or divorces, or scandals. They don't go out enough, to Opening Nights, to art galleries, to nightclubs and swanky restaurants. In fact, some writers see the public life as something of a distraction, and avoid it. Big mistake! Is it any wonder that one of the bestselling authors in England is an ex-politician called Jeffrey Archer. He's spent the last few years assiduously building his career. He's been in prison. Now that is interesting!
Sadly, most authors don't have his flair for publicity, (and don't last as long as he will).
Where are Internet Authors? They're probably nowhere near this level. If they could achieve it, they would have been signed up, tempted by pieces of silver and seduced away from the internet years before. That's fine, because Internet Authors know one thing. The best reward for an author is not glory, but to be given the time and money to sit at home and write books, which is something you can achieve at Level Five (on the internet). You don't need anything else. Levels 6 and 7 lead to a life in the spotlight, dragging you away from writing and taking up your precious time with fripperies. It's sometimes seen as a necessary evil by successful writers, but you can live without it. More important, you can exist as an author without it, which is more important.

Let's learn the lessons of the Seven Levels.
Authors, people who want to see their work in print, can achieve most of their ends through the internet, at minimum cost in terms of both time and effort, (and money). Traditional Publishing only comes into its own for the top 2 levels, and then, it comes at a price, (in terms of mind-boggling banality and triviality). Why bother?
If you write and want to share your work, find out about the opportunities on the internet. Don't be tricked by online Vanity Publishers, of course, but see what print-on-demand can give you and work with the kind of Internet Publishers that other authors will recommend, (through chat rooms and discussion forums).

The bottom line is this.
99% of people who have written a book will never see it in print, especially if they pursue the fruitless and time-consuming task of trying to interest a Traditional Publisher in their work.
If you take up Internet Publishing, you get the most important part of what you want at Level One!
Anything after that is a bonus.


Article by Mike Scantlebury, Internet Author
c.2007, reproduced with permission