The Third Gatekeeper In The Publishing Chain

By now we’ve all had a gander or a chuckle and may have perhaps experienced moments of outrage over author May Walters’s article: “The Talent Killers: How literary agents are destroying literature, and what publishers can do to stop them” I waffled back and forth between the laughing and outrage.

To her credit, the author was very loyal to her position and committed a lot of time and effort to commenters without becoming flustered or flying into a rage. As for the article itself, I was unimpressed. It was the fairly typical complaints of the uninformed. I also fail to see how it was necessary and right to demean an entire profession of individuals whom you don’t know in order to free oneself from the uncaring (and presumed moronic, greedy, and/or trivial) agent – editor publishing model. If the pressures of the agent hunt as a road to publication are too stifling creatively…um, don’t query? Why is it necessary to blacklist yourself in order to free yourself?

Now I’m going to stop myself there because the point of this post was not to comment in depth on this article. My reasons for this are:

A.) I didn’t agree with a lick of it so everything that I have to say is pretty much one-sided.

B.) Everything that I would like to say has pretty much already been said. Specifically see the posts of agent Nathan Bransford, Fenestra, and Nick Mamatas. There were a lot of good points brought out in the discussion but at the end of 250 comments those three names were the ones I remembered. And finally…

C.) Something odd occurred to me while reading through the article and its comments. There was a third party missing from the whole equation that no one seemed to be recognizing or pointing the finger at, and that, folks, is what I really want to talk to you about.

Bookstores

Writers tend to look at the agent/editor hunt as their one and only –major- hurdle. It’s often presumed that once a publishing house purchases the rights to a manuscript the rest is in the publisher’s hands after a few rounds of editing involving author, editor, and a copyeditor or two. After that though, the author’s part is done. The publisher has entire departments working on the production, marketing, and sales of the author’s book (though it is only one of many). Certainly many authors are willing to put their efforts into grass-roots marketing via their own bloging platforms and connections, but the major marketing expenses such as advertising, co-op, and events and/or signings are handled by the publisher when the budget allows. The author will very rarely have any communication with sales, ever, unless it is a large title and the publisher feels that this author is so charismatic and strong that sitting them down at a lunch with the book buyers may influence a store’s buy.

Meaning that early on, many writers have a very narrow understanding of the complete road to publication. They’re looking at it from acquisition-on because that’s the stage that is really most important to them. The contract. The chance to maybe make it as a bestseller now that their work is going to be in print one day soon (theoretically). Publishers, editors, and agents, however, are all looking ahead and working BACKWARDS from sell-in to acquisition. Can we project this book to sell well into the bookstores? In what quantities do you think we can get this book out in? What quantities do we want to get out? What kind of marketing and co-op do we need to plan for to influence the buy in this way? It is a different world-view. Before a book is ever signed up, an editor has already projected the profit margins on the idealized finished book and presented that to the business side of the publishing house. When agents and editors talk about whether the book will sell they are not just talking about how many books they can sell to the consumer. First, they have to consider whether the book will be visible to the consumer. If the bookstore is not on board with a title, no matter how high the level of quality is of the writing after all the editing, you won’t be seeing it on the shelves.

When a bookstore takes on a book, they do so for very limited amounts of time with the understanding that they can also return the unsold stock before ninety days is out.. Just because your manuscript is picked up by a publisher and immediately made available once it pubs in all of the major chains such as B&N, Borders Group, or Books-A-Million, do not assume as a writer that your book will always be available. The average initial buy period used to be eight weeks. That’s only two months, folks. If your book hasn’t sold-through or at least sold steadily, the bookstore will return those books and not re-order. Eight weeks is not a long time, especially for a mid-list author who is just beginning to build his or her brand. The situation is so much worse now since four week buys are starting to come through more and more, especially for non-celebrity or franchise authors. It’s tough out there folks. And I’m not just talking about tough-times for the author. Imagine that you are the publisher in an industry that returns an incredibly low profit margin on the goods it produces. Authors complain about how paltry royalty percentages are. It’s really not any better on the publisher’s end (oftentimes worse) once the expenses are paid including developmental fees and company overhead. We’re really all in the same boat, not making much money but doing what we love to do.

Anyway, imagine you’re the publisher and you’ve made your plans hoping this would be an eight week buy with the potential for re-order. Suddenly word comes through that B&N is only going to take the book on as a four week trial and it’s expected that Borders will follow-suit because of that. What are you going to do? Obviously you’ll be watchful over the next four weeks hoping that the sell-through was enough to convince the retail chains to re-order. You can either suspend what marketing activities you haven’t paid for yet in order to cut your losses or increase the budget for that title hoping that the extra effort on your part convinces the buyer to increase their buy as well. Perhaps you’ll be more cautious the next time a project similar in scope, audience, and cost comes through the pipelines from a mid-list author. This in turn affects the agents pitching to the publisher and all the while the grip gets tighter around the mid-list author. It is sad. It’s unfortunate, but that is the state of things. I am glad that self-publishing technologies have advanced as far as they come. I honestly do believe in the value that the publisher adds to the finished book or I wouldn’t have pursued a career in the industry, but as a writer too, I am glad that an author has another option. The traditional publishing model is tough, and it’s not for everyone.

I write this not to point blame at the retail chains. I write this only to point out that they too are gatekeepers, the third and oftentimes overlooked gatekeeper in the publishing cycle. A bookstore is not a library but a business with concerns, overheads, and mortgages just like the rest of us, and it is really not fair to whine about them either. In the end they have no control over consumer purchasing habits; they can only try to influence them. If the book is selling well they’ll be happy to re-order, but they need books to move and move quickly before next month’s promising releases arrive. With all the books being published in the U.S. there is just simply a lack of shelf-space to put it all, and there is only so much room in-stores for a backlist. There are hundreds upon thousands of titles releasing every season. The book buyers have to make some pretty tough calls when looking at all of this and setting up their stores to offer the widest ranging selection to appeal to the consumer. Every book on-sale may not be to your liking, and I’m sure there is a lot out there you might consider utter crap, but you are not everyone. The book buyers are trying to weigh the needs and wants of a variety of individuals and personalities who come to the brick and mortar buildings in search of many different things.

/End of Line

~ Darcy