Advance Wars
The question comes up sometimes of why I don't ever talk about the better parts of traditional publishing, which include things like advances, access to distribution networks, promotional campaigns, etc.
Well, the answer is twofold. The first is that I don't have nearly as much experience with those things. I just don't. The second is that approach already has its own advocates, whether it needs them or not. It's the default approach. A lot of people consider it to be the only viable way of doing things.
Anyway, while this should be taken with the grain of salt that I don't have direct experience, but I think it's possible to overestimate the value of those things for the average writer.
Let's talk about advances. I think everybody knows the basic idea: the advance is the money you get up front, sometimes split between a sum at signing and a sum at delivery. The key word in "advance" is advance... you're being given a chunk of the expected royalties up front. While a lot of people just starting out assume it's a given part of the business, smaller publishers can't always afford to give out advances... giving them requires that you've got a lot of money coming in from different sources and that you can make the modest assumption that the book you're buying will be profitable.
I've read that when new authors do get advances, it's generally a few thousand dollars. That's a mad amount of money to have dropped on you all at once, but think about how long you could really live on, say, five or six thousand dollars. I don't know anybody who would say no to it, but when you divide it out over time... well, it actually averages out to somewhere between two and three months' paychecks for a lot of folks out there. If you managed to get in the low five figures, that could effectively be a year's paycheck... so all you'd have to do is do that again every year and you'd be golden.
As I've said, I don't have a lot of direct experience, but I do recall this essay in the New York Times. It talks a lot about the subject, shining a light on how it can be a mixed blessing. It's an interesting look at a subject that's fairly arcane to most of us.
A quick Google on the subject also turned up this interesting and informative page written by somebody who does apparently have direct experience.
Basically... with the caveat that I'm not speaking from personal experience... I have to stand by my contention that the vast majority of potentially successful authors can get themselves a better deal by taking matters into their own hands than they can buy seeking out a traditional publishing deal.
I think a publisher working in partnership with a self-directed author might be an interesting middle route... we might see what that looks like when yuki-onna and tim-pratt finish their serials. But even then... well, if I were either of them, I'd crunch the numbers hard and poll their readership to try to get a picture of how much they could make if they stuck with self-publishing before accepting any deal, shiny advance or not.
Well, the answer is twofold. The first is that I don't have nearly as much experience with those things. I just don't. The second is that approach already has its own advocates, whether it needs them or not. It's the default approach. A lot of people consider it to be the only viable way of doing things.
Anyway, while this should be taken with the grain of salt that I don't have direct experience, but I think it's possible to overestimate the value of those things for the average writer.
Let's talk about advances. I think everybody knows the basic idea: the advance is the money you get up front, sometimes split between a sum at signing and a sum at delivery. The key word in "advance" is advance... you're being given a chunk of the expected royalties up front. While a lot of people just starting out assume it's a given part of the business, smaller publishers can't always afford to give out advances... giving them requires that you've got a lot of money coming in from different sources and that you can make the modest assumption that the book you're buying will be profitable.
I've read that when new authors do get advances, it's generally a few thousand dollars. That's a mad amount of money to have dropped on you all at once, but think about how long you could really live on, say, five or six thousand dollars. I don't know anybody who would say no to it, but when you divide it out over time... well, it actually averages out to somewhere between two and three months' paychecks for a lot of folks out there. If you managed to get in the low five figures, that could effectively be a year's paycheck... so all you'd have to do is do that again every year and you'd be golden.
As I've said, I don't have a lot of direct experience, but I do recall this essay in the New York Times. It talks a lot about the subject, shining a light on how it can be a mixed blessing. It's an interesting look at a subject that's fairly arcane to most of us.
A quick Google on the subject also turned up this interesting and informative page written by somebody who does apparently have direct experience.
Basically... with the caveat that I'm not speaking from personal experience... I have to stand by my contention that the vast majority of potentially successful authors can get themselves a better deal by taking matters into their own hands than they can buy seeking out a traditional publishing deal.
I think a publisher working in partnership with a self-directed author might be an interesting middle route... we might see what that looks like when yuki-onna and tim-pratt finish their serials. But even then... well, if I were either of them, I'd crunch the numbers hard and poll their readership to try to get a picture of how much they could make if they stuck with self-publishing before accepting any deal, shiny advance or not.