Self-Publishing in the Age of E
Hugh Howey (Wool, @hughhowey),
Kirby Kim (William Morris Endeavor, @pantherfist)
Rachel Deahl (Publishers Weekly, @PW_Deals)
Erin Brown (Erin Edits)
#selfpub
·
Self-publishing not new. Anyone can publish,
find an audience.
·
50 Shades of Gray, essentially self-published,
fastest selling adult series of all time.
·
Number of books self-published has grown nearly
3x.
·
About 250K books self-published books per year.
·
Q: More projects start as self-published, and
are they of higher quality?
o
Kim:
§
Authors trying to show that they have a sales
platform, that they can get reviews.
§
But for quality, not necessarily. Even if
someone puts something on Amazon, I am still looking at whether the project is
appropriate for me, their query letter.
·
Q: Has 50 Shades changed things?
o
Kim:
§
At one time, it cost money to self-publish, and
lots of barriers: hard to get books into stores.
§
It’s a natural result of more ereaders and ease
of publishing that more works are self-published.
·
Q: Hugh, you went traditional, then
self-published.
o
Howey: I saw my traditional publisher using the
same tools for self-publishing any author would. When I looked at the royalties
and the amount of work involved, it was obvious I could do it myself. It’s a
startup with zero up front costs if you’re willing to do the work yourself.
·
Q: What about pricing?
o
Howey: I wanted to make them free, but Amazon
wouldn’t let me, so I set them for 99 cents. Then readers would complain that
they couldn’t find my books because they were underpriced, so I raised the
price.
·
Q: When did you decide to get an agent?
o
Howey: I didn’t, I was too busy writing. I was
pitched by Kristen (his future agent) that I was missing out on all these other
markets.
o
My sales were a hundred thousand copies per
month. Publishers were offering advances comparable to just a few months of
royalties.
·
Q: When should people go self-published vs.
traditionally published?
o
Brown:
§
I encourage people to go traditionally published
first, including getting an agent who will protect their interests. Publishers
are also useful feedback: if you get criticism, then maybe you need to address
that feedback.
§
§
Success stories are still few and far between in
self-publishing.
o
Howey: It’s hard in both paths. And I know
hundreds of people online who are quitting their day jobs and earning a modest
income from their self-publishing writing, and that is really hard to
accomplish with traditional publication.
·
Q: “Amazon bestseller” is thrown around a lot,
and it’s a slippery term.
o
Kim:
§
Agents have to decide that either they are going
to work on books they have a passion for, or sometimes they’ll work outside
their comfort zone. They’ll think “oh, there’s some money here.” The agent then
is left focusing on the wrong thing: the numbers. It makes it hard for them to
pick up the phone and call editors and pitch the book with enthusiasm.
§
Some people are successfully leveraging that sales
platform.
·
Q: Is it harder to find success in either way,
given that so many people are self-publishing, is there too much competition?
o
Howey:
§
We can’t possibly produce enough material to
entertain all the readers.
§
I don’t worry about it. I write because I enjoy
it, and I’d keep writing if I never sold a book.
§
Writers are not my competition. We’re all in it
together.
o
Brown:
§
Finding quality material is about the same:
you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. Readers are looking for so many
different things. There are storytellers who are great writers, and great
writers who aren’t good storytellers. Some people love 50 Shades, and some hate
it.
o
Kim:
§
All boats rise with the tide. These are dark
days in the industry. When you hear of any book working out, it’s good for
everyone.
§
Publishers are learning about new markets,
markets that were underserved.
·
Q: Howey did a unique deal with S&S. Can you
tell us about that?
o
Howey:
§
It make be dark days for publishing, but
publishers are making record profits. The upside for ebooks is huge.
§
I said to publishers, if you want the print
rights, you can have them, but I’m keeping the e-rights. I get paid every month
with ebooks, I can’t afford to give that up, and only get paid every six
months.
§
S&S came to me with the deal I had wanted
all along: they bought the print rights, and left all the erights with the
Howey.
§
I still want to be an indie author. “I don’t
want the stigma of being with a big publisher.”
o
Kim:
§
Ebooks are outselling print books now.
§
So it’s extremely rare for a publisher to give
that up.
§
Howey had an a lot of leverage based on the
strength of his sales.
o
Howey:
§
I’m not the first person to do this, and I’m not
the last. Next year we’ll have a panel on how to do print-only negotiations.
§
The publisher sees the sales, and they’d rather
have part of something, than nothing.
o
Kim:
§
It’s hard to bootstrap sales from nothing.
Having sales is a big deal.
·
Q: What were you selling in digital versus
print, and how did you sell those print copies?
o
Howey:
§
The up-front cost of producing physical books
has gone to zero.
§
Fans will want them. You need to bring them to
signings. They’re nice to have on your shelf. Some readers are always going to
want print books.
§
When you sell hundreds of thousands of books,
people are going to talk about it. When the coworker who doesn’t have an
ereader wants it, they look for a print copy. When a Barnes and Noble gets 5
people who ask for a book, they’re going to stock it at a bookstore.
§
S&S has done a second print run of the
hardback already. True fans want the ebook and then they also want the print
copy too.
·
Q: The success stories (Amanda Hocking, Bella …,
etc.) are genre writers with a lot of books self-published. Do you need to be
writing genre fiction? And do you need a lot of books published?
o
Brown: It’s helpful to write that way. In
traditional publishing, I dealt mostly with genre fiction. They have rapid fans
who want to read a lot of books, at least a book or two a year. If a writer
publishes a book every five years, they can’t sustain their fan base.
o
Kim.
§
Agree with above. Genre readers, who read a lot
of books, have a particular affinity for the ebook form. They don’t want a
stack of 100 physical books.
§
For commercial novels, you need to get into the
50,000 sales range before they are impressed. 5,000 sales doesn’t cut it
anymore, unless you’re talking about a literary novel.
o
Howey: We have to remember what readers want.
Look at TV, and what’s popular. People want fun, they want escapism. They want
Twilight and 50 Shades.
o
Kim: You also see people coming out of MFA
programs and they want to write a literary genre novel: it’s a science fiction
setting, but it’s a sophisticated writing style. They’re elevating the entire
category.
·
Q: Is Hollywood having a hunger for self-pubbed
works, or are they just motivated by sales?
o
Kim: Hollywood wants commercial stories, and
most self-pubbed successes are very commercial. Hollywood is looking for a good
story.
o
Howey: Hollywood is dying for the next thing.
They’ll option a twitter feed or a grocery list. The economics are different:
$5,000 is a big deal for a publisher, and it’s a valet ticket for Hollywood.
·
Q: Is erotica tapped out after 50 Shades?
o
Brown: Romance and erotica has been around
forever. It’s not changing.
o
Kim: We see 50 Shades and knockoffs on the racks
even at airports now.
o
Howey: I think the anonymity of ereaders and
reading online allowed it to expand. We’ll never see another 50 Shades, because
you’ll never be able to brag about reading BDSM erotica again. Once is
curiosity, and twice is perversion.
o
New Adult: It’s YA books, ramped up, and more
explicit, with risqué sexual themes.
o
Howey: The books are following the readers.
Harry Potter readers became Twilight readers.
·
Q: What’s the biggest misconceptions about
traditional and self-publishing?
o
Brown:
§
MisCon: That traditional publishers are
heartless corporations out to extract every last dime. But publishers are full
of people who love and breath books, and want them and the authors to succeed.
§
MisCon: That you’re going to get a big advance
and quit your day job. It’s not going to happen, and it’s split among four
payments over a year or more.
§
MisCon: That, for self-publishing, that you
don’t need an editor. And that success is easy or overnight.
o
Kim:
§
We’re all in it because we love it. Discovery is
the best part of the job, championing and advocating for it.
§
MisCon: That your job is over once the publisher
has the book. You have a lot of work ahead of you, lots of pounding the
pavement, lots of work to get the word out.
§
MisCon: That self-pub is easy. The odds are
still against you.
o
Howey:
§
Everyone I worked with at traditional publishing
has been amazing, even the ones I had to say no to.
§
MisCon: That once you get an agent or a book out
there, that you have a career ahead of you. The reality is that you have six
months to prove yourself. In my case, it took three years for me to take off.
I’ve had friends whose dreams has been crushed when the traditional publishing
didn’t turn out the way they wanted.
§
MisCon: That self-pub and traditional pub is
very different in quality. They aren’t, the only difference is that the
self-pub slushpile is available for purchase. If you look at the top 1%, they
are of roughly equal quality.
·
Questions from audience
o
Q: Why would an author who does the hard work to
build an audience, why would you go with a traditional publisher?
§
Howey:
·
Publishers are doing e-only imprints to get
authors into the stable early, because once a book becomes big, it is too
expensive for them to acquire.
·
We will see more hybrid deals.
§
Kim:
·
Publishers can help you break out, reach new
audiences, at a faster pace.
·
Publishers can help you get reviews, they can
give you some financial security up front.
o
Q: From an editors point of view, do you have a
preference for who to work with? What should selfpub authors do to not make
their editors mad?
§
Brown: I’m never mad at my writers. I always
work directly with writers. I get a clients manuscript in the best shape
possible, whether they are pitching agents or self-publishing. I can’t make
promises. It’s a collaborative relationship to make the best relationship
possible.
o
Q: What are you seeing for kid’s books,
especially with ereaders? Is there much talk in the industry about it?
§
Deahl:
·
All of the children’s publishers see apps as a
major potential revenue stream. It’s not been the business they’ve been in, so
it’s something new. Is it the product? It is ancillary? How do we price it? How
do we link it to the book?
·
No obvious examples of anything that’s been big
revenue generators.
o
Q: Are there any creative, outside the box
examples of authors who were able to market their books?
§
Kim: John Green, his first thousand books he
sold on Amazon were signed copies. He always had a fan base, so this was a big
boost for that book. He also has done a lot of viral videos with his brother.
§
Howey: science fiction author did his own
audiobooks serially.
o
Q: As a big six publisher, what can we do,
within reason, to recruit new authors and keep them happy?
§
Howey: Pay us monthly, and show us real-time
sales, so I can see the effects of the marketing I do.
§
Kim: We have full agency meetings about
marketing. We have our own brainstorming meetings for marketing our authors. We
want publishers to come to us early and have a candid conversation about
marketing and trying new things. Too often we see the same old stuff.
o
Q: How can business founders who are writing
business or self-help books market their books?
§
Howey: it’s easier for those kinds of books, you
just need to get the meta-data right, so people can find it when they search
for the topic.
o
Q: Lots of new digital marketing tools out there
like goodreads. Are you using them, and what do you use?
§
Howey: My blog post this morning was thanking my
goodread readers. It’s good to engage with your readers, rather than try to
brow-beat other people into your books.
o
2 comments:
Thanks so much for sharing your notes. I missed the first 15 minutes due to daylight savings. Enjoyed your talk yesterday.
Thanks for posting notes for those of us who can't be there - very helpful.
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