Last week, I talked about how selling print books is a very different proposition from selling ebooks. Print books can\u2019t change their covers, can\u2019t radically lower their price, can\u2019t link to the internet, and are sold (by publishers) to huge corporations not direct to consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So how do publishers sell books?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, there are two ways to look at it. There\u2019s the way that publishers will talk about (at length) if you ask them at a festival or elsewhere. Then there\u2019s the way that actually illuminates what happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How publishers sell books (publisher version)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s honour publishers first by talking about bookselling the way that they do. Selling a print book, these days, is more complicated \u2013 more multi-channelled \u2013 than it has ever been. So publishers will think about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s not even a comprehensive list \u2013 and it includes categories (eg: \u2018social media activity\u2019) which in itself comprises a whole bewildering and inventive range of initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, what publishers actually<\/u><\/em> do for any particular book tends to be a very small subset of what they could potentially<\/u><\/em> do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s say that you have a really capable agent from a heavy-hitting literary agency in London or New York. Let\u2019s also say your Really Capable Agent has sold to a highly credible imprint at a major publisher. The publisher concerned has a fancy office building at some glamorous address. They have a billion dollars plus in global revenues and make a very healthy profit on those sales. Let\u2019s also say that your book deal wasn\u2019t even marginal. It wasn\u2019t one of those $10,000 \/ \u00a35,000 advances that basically say, \u201cLook, we\u2019re not that excited by this, but we\u2019ll give it a shot \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, you\u2019re all set, right? You just need to stand back and let this mighty machine do its perfectly polished work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What actually happens<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well \u2013 maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes, yes, an author will find it pans out, all as they\u2019ve dreamed it. It\u2019s as though they\u2019ve gone to sleep in some frozen landscape, then woken up on a geyser, tossed higher than seemed possible. \u201cHey,<\/em> sorry, Oprah, I\u2019m on Jimmy Fallon that night, could we maybe reschedule?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But mostly \u2013 it\u2019s not like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mostly, you have these weird conversations with whichever Glossy Marketing Person your publisher allocates you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n YOU: \u201cCover reveal on Twitter, OK.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n GMP: \u201cYeah, it\u2019s called X now.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd, uh, the book\u2019s in a catalogue?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes, we\u2019ve really revamped the way we address indie bookshops, so there are going to be a LOT of eyes on this.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd proof copies? When you took me on, you were going to print up some book proofs with a fancy cover \u2026?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, yes. I mean, we\u2019ve gone the PDF route, in fact, because so many people find PDFs easier to handle.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd Festival appearances? We spoke about that too \u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes, we\u2019re really getting your name out there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut nothing booked?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, we haven\u2019t yet heard back from the Little Piddle Lit Fest team. They were very enthusiastic at one point.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBook reviews?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can send out another email, but it can be positively unhelpful to chase too much.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAdverts? I mean, are you taking any<\/u> positive steps to get this book in front of readers?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n [Glossy Marketing Person does the nervous laughter compulsory when an author mentions a strategy that costs actual money.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe really feel that organic reach works better on digital.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s perfectly possible \u2013 no, likely \u2013 that your marketing conversation goes something like that. And you watch on as this huge machine, this reliable creator of bestselling books and authors, appears to do virtually nothing to support your book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure enough, what looked likely to happen, does happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not many retailers buy your book, and those that do don\u2019t buy it at huge scale. Sure enough, you make some sales, because it would be weird if literally no one bought it, but the sales seem very low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nobody from your publisher ever calls you up and says, \u201cHey, you do know that your career is completely ****ed, don\u2019t you?\u201d, but by the time you get to the latter stages of your two-book deal, the mood music has altered so unmistakeably, you get the message anyway. You always quite fancied pig-farming \/ floristry \/ exotic dance as a way to make a living, so you start retraining as one of those good things instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are about to be a former author, except that \u2013 like American presidents \u2013 you always get to call yourself an author, even if it\u2019s been years since you ran a country \/ wrote a book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How publishers sell books (the reality)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What publishers say about selling books is all, 100%, completely true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But they mostly don\u2019t add a crucial little rider, and everything that truly matters is in that rider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your book will get a huge and impressive density of marketing effort if retailers agree to stock your book in significant volumes. If retailers don\u2019t agree stock your book in bulk, we will offer you the absolute minimum of support \u2013 and yes, we are well aware that this lack of support will be terminal.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n They are extremely unlikely to tell you this directly. They are not likely to volunteer what level of orders they are looking for. They are not likely to tell you if you have \/ have not met this level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Publishers are, in the end, profit-seeking companies. Their basic sales model (for print) is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this is perfectly logical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Retailers can\u2019t possibly stock all the books they\u2019re offered. If a publisher runs an expensive marketing campaign aimed at generating sales in bookstores, that campaign is bound to fail \u2013 badly \u2013 if your book is invisible in the places where people buy books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The result is that, if your book doesn\u2019t get ordered in significant volumes, your publisher will simply throttle any marketing effort. They\u2019ll do just enough to stop you being shouty and screamy, but they know perfectly well that the little they do won\u2019t meaningfully shift books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In effect, modern publisher bookselling is akin to twelve fat men running for the same revolving door. It\u2019s not really an athletic competition. It\u2019s more of a random scramble. But in the end, only one fat man can pop first through that door \u2013 and the bliss of Selling Heaven \u2013 and eleven portly gentlemen will be sitting all a-tumble on the skiddy granite outside, wondering what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What happened, my friend, is that you just got published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pipes and tweed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I should say that all this is very much the pipe and tweed version of things \u2013 what happens with a very print-led publishing process. There are, for sure, imprints at big publishers that are either digitally-led or reasonably adept at pivoting between the two. But since the pipe-n-tweed imprints are always the most prestigious, and the ones most likely to create the kind of bestsellers you\u2019ve always dreamed of writing, this model is still profoundly influential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re startled by my cynicism, I should say that I\u2019m hardly alone. I had a conversation a year or two back with someone who used to run one of the most prestigious imprints in British publishing. I gave him my 12-fat-men analogy, and he essentially agreed. He said that one of the reasons he left publishing was precisely because he felt it had become too much of a lottery, with books elevated by happenstance more than quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (And all this, by the way, explains lot about your experience as a reader. Let\u2019s say you read about the new bestseller by Q. It has fancy reviews from X and Y and Z, and it\u2019s selling a LOT of books. So you buy the book and read it, hoping to learn something about how to write \u2026 and you think, huh<\/em>? I mean, books don\u2019t get to be super-big bestsellers unless they genuinely have something special. And you don\u2019t even get to be an ordinary-level bestseller unless you bring a basic competence. But dazzle? Bestselling debut fiction should be dazzling, and it often isn\u2019t. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. This email explains the reason why.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This email would be Depressing, Pointless and Nihilistic unless it ended with some words of advice on how to win that 12-fat-men-and-a-revolving-door<\/em> race. And \u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this email is too long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And these emails are ALWAYS too long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, that being said, I do nevertheless have some Very Sound Advice to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you\u2019ll have to wait till next week to get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tell me what you think<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As we go further with this series of emails, I\u2019d love to know what you think. What\u2019s useful? What isn\u2019t? What do you want to know more about? Just hit reply, and let me know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got a lot of replies last time, so do keep your thoughts coming. I read everything and reply to nearly everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Build Your Book Month – Plotting<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s Build Your Book Month and we\u2019re plotting away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sophie\u2019s workshop last week – \u201cStart your book with a bang\u201d was free to all and and generated a LOT of interest. So the assignment this week is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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