As you probably know if you have ever been asked to ponder the relative benefits of trim size and paper stock and e-book conversions, there is whole a lot more that goes into a book than just writing it.
Another way of thinking of publishers is not as companies that decide your fate as an author, but rather as companies that offer the authors they’ve chosen to work with a comprehensive package of services.
Here are the basic services traditional publishers provide for an author, why these services matter, and how this is (and isn’t) changing.
UPDATED 6/28/19
Editing and copyediting
While the myth that editors don’t edit is alive and well, the truth is that books are edited and copyedited at traditional publishers (please please please know the difference between editing and copyediting). This affords a certain degree of quality control. Now, sure, we’ve all spotted typos in books, which infect us temporarily with disproportionate outrage and a jolt of smugness. It happens. But all you have to do is read this blog on a regular basis to see the horrorshow of typos that results from text published without copyediting.
Editors and copyeditors (yes, still), provide professional editorial expertise that improve books. I’m sure you’ve heard they don’t edit and copyedit anymore. It’s not true.
Design
Cover, trim size, interior design, illustrations/photographs, font choice, paper choice, etc. The best-designed books are works of art.
Printing and Distribution
Once the books are actually produced, someone has to get them into bookstores and e-bookstores. Traditionally this has been the irreplaceable service offered by publishers. Not only would they make the books, they would draw upon their reputation, sales teams, and infrastructure to get print books into bookstores in large numbers.
Even in the e-book era distribution still matters. There are new e-book vendors cropping up every day, and publishers have the scale to sell their e-books in as many venues as possible while dealing with all of the accompanying electronic conversion headaches.
Publicity and marketing
At minimum publishers get their books sent out for review and do some basic advertising. When a publisher turns on the publicity and marketing fire hose for their biggest books, they will manage book tours, author appearances, giveaways, major advertising campaigns, co-op, and much more. Publicity and marketing aren’t everything, but they can provide a major boost.
Patronage (i.e. an advance)
While debut novelists almost always have to figure out how to write a novel on their own time and dime, publishers nevertheless offer nonfiction authors and previously published novelists money in advance of writing the actual books, which both rewards authors before their book actually comes out and theoretically supports them as they’re writing it. Obviously the degree of support this affords the author depends on the amount of the advance, but money up front that the author doesn’t have to pay back even if the book tanks ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at.
Cachet
Aside from all the tangible services publishers offer authors, there is one intangible element: cachet. There is something to be said for the selectivity and track record publishers have demonstrated and for the endorsement they still lend to traditionally published books. While the name of the publisher on the spine of a book doesn’t matter to everyone, it does still matter to many bookstores and readers.
Now then. The key element in all of this that is changing is, of course, printing and distribution. In an e-book era, it is no longer be necessary to have extensive physical infrastructure in order to make a book available, and when it comes to e-book distribution publishers are no longer the only game in town. Authors can either deal directly with Amazon, Apple, etc. or work with third-party digital distribution services.
But that just covers one element of the book-making process. Every other basic element that goes into a successful book is still pretty much the same. Books may be edited on Microsoft Word instead of with colored pencil, but you still need editing. Your marketing may be more Twitter-based than newspaper-based, but you still need marketing.
Thus, an author dealing directly with an e-book distributor has to figure out how to handle patronage, editorial, quality control, design, marketing and publicity, and must possess (or build) cachet. They’ll have to either tackle all of this themselves, or farm some or all of it out to contractors and must possess the financial and time-consumption wherewithal to do it.
Will bestselling authors start to do it all?
For some authors (most recently Seth Godin), the flexibility, control, and greater back-end revenue afforded by self-publication is worth it. Other authors may feel that they don’t want to be bothered with the nuts and bolts of figuring out their own copyediting, cover design, interior design, marketing, and may still want the imprimatur of a publisher.
Personally I think this is the reason why publishers aren’t going to disappear even in an era where they no longer possess a virtual monopoly in distribution. Many authors don’t want to be bothered with the nuts and bolts of book-making so they can focus on writing and marketing and their day jobs, and are willing to part with revenue on the back end in order to have these tasks handled by seasoned experts.
What is inevitably changing, though, is that authors will have a choice: handle it all themselves, contract some elements out, or go with a publisher offering a comprehensive package of services.
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Nathan, I think a key insight was in your closing comment about publishers offering a package of services, some parts of which are not needed by all writers. DIY is a model that consumes a lot of time, so publishers can add a lot of value by shouldering important parts of the load, especially on the promotion and distribution side.
And then there's the case of Stieg Larson, which is bothering me greatly.
His novels–3 best sellers and already major motion pictures–were published posthumosly. As in, after his death in 2004 of a heart attack.
So, not only did he not benefit financially–apparently not his goal–but neither did his long-time girlfriend. Nor did he ever get to see his crime novels, which have awakened eager readers to the fact writers in other countries and languages exist, published.
As he would have had he self-published them…
Nastly little trick to play on a writer, who obviously was publishable, no?
If your goal as a writer is to publish, I still say, publish after putting some time in getting your writing looked at and maybe considered but rejected by "traditional" publishers for reasons other than "literary merit."
If your goal is to get rich, maybe find another line of work?
I'm currently with a small press and my editor rigorously edited my book! It's a better book for his efforts. Plus, I'm getting TWO rounds of copy edits.
We also rigorously edit Electric Spec and quickly fix anything we've missed after we go live. We aren't perfect, but we damn well try.
Editing is alive and well, thank the writer gods.
Anon, you asked about the Developmental Editor. At my (small, brand new as of last fall) publisher, we have Acquisitions Editors, who make the decision whether to contract a book, Developmental Editors, who make suggestions for plot, character, etc., etc. revisions as well as clean up the text for grammar, wordiness, etc. etc. Next stop is the Managing Editor who gives a follow up edit for grammar and plot, etc., and then we have the Copy Editor. So, once a manuscript is accepted for publication, it goes through no less than three fantastic, amazing editors.
So, yeah, Nathan's point that editing is alive and well is right on.
My opinion is that the developmental editor is absolutely necessary for newer authors. Perhaps not so much for more experienced, proven authors. They give it straight in a way that friends, family, and colleagues may not. And they clean things up enough that the follow-up editor can more easily spot the little errors that they might miss if they were bogged down doing the whole edit themselves.
Terin – Although his books were published posthumously, Larsson had a publishing deal before he died.
I'm all for consolidation 🙂 I want the agent, then the publisher, and I want only to write and go where they tell me.
I'm pretty good at scheduling.
I'd been thinking this way throughout all the "e-publishing is taking over" craziness. If I don't want to mees with the publication details, I'm sure lots of others feel that way too.
……dhole
Ashton: I think you're right. There is a niche. Some agents are already scouting, I believe. Also some "acquisition editors."
Gemma: you, too, are right. However, small consolation, considering he still died before his first novel was published in 2005. And in Sweden. In Swedish.
Yet, he's up there with Khaled Hosseini's Kite Runner as far as most copies of a book sold in 2008.
Which brings us to another "market," or marketing move: some books do REALLY well in translation. Some do not.
But the market for translators, at least into English, of really great books just shot up dramatically…
So. Back to Ashton: also a niche for agents to scout out works, perhaps self-published or at least on some shelf, that lend themselves well to translation and a wider audience?
I would not have read Zola or Balzac or even Galdos at first had they not been translated from the French and Spanish somewhat well. To say nothing of the Russian authors.
But reading the writers in their original language gives you an even greater appreciation of their skill, talent, and art.
Thank heavens Joseph Conrad wrote in English rather than his native Polish…
For authors with out of print backlists, e-pubbing is a gift from heaven.
Nice post Nathan. However…..how do the changes to what publishers offer affect what Agents offer? They may, of course not…but would be interested to hear your views.
bryce-
I think you're seeing agents step more and more into the editorial, marketing, and cachet realms as resources at publishers become more strained, and as they want more of a finished product up front.
That thing looks like a steampunk machine!
For some reason "the Package of Services Publishers Provide Authors" is leaving me with a bad taste.
I have always viewed this to be the other way around. Authors providing publishers with a service, something for them to print and benefit from financially:)
I think where we will not see self publishing being an option to Commercial publishing is in Picture Books (and Chapter Books that may rely heavily on Illustration)
Few self publishing authors can afford the services of a good Children's Book Illustrator, as can a Commercial pub, and the quality of printing needed for images has a hefty price tag attached to it as well.
So many self-published books simply skip the editing phase, assuming it's not very important. So I think we are moving more and more into a market that is flooded with books that contain serious issues. The kind of things that would never have gotten by a good editor. It will be a matter for the reader of separating the wheat from the chaff. And I think the reader will often use the professionally published model as a guide to a better (at least potentially better) reading experience.
The debate is constant. To self-publish and have full control and no one to blame for errors or use a publisher and hope that what they have to offer increases my chances of success.
As a student at an on-line university, the self-publishing route is appealing. After all, my entire life is spent on-line, in front of my computer. However, it is clear that publisher's can offer more in the way of distribution and publicity. The question is, do they? Research indicates that many authors still have to do most of the leg work in marketing their book–whether they use a publisher or not.
there is an error on Line three under section CopyEditing. The two links are throwing error 404 – page not found!
please fix that for readers’s sake 🙂