Advocating for Authors

by Kira Henschel

When was the last time something made your blood boil?

Mine hit the 100 degree Celsius point when an author approached us for marketing support for his new series of mystery stories. He had just been accepted by a publisher, his book was being edited and it was due for publication in September or October.

We spoke for a while and it turned out his manuscript had been “accepted” by an on-line, print-on-demand publishing company. Alarms started sounding in my mind. “Tell me more,” I encouraged. “What will your publisher do for you in terms of marketing?”

“Make my book available internationally to 10,000 bookstores,” he said proudly.

“Barry, that’s free when your book is registered in Books in Print through the ISBN,” I told him.

“They’ll include my book in their online bookstore and get me on Amazon,” he continued.

“Your publisher can do those things for free as well. It only takes a couple of minutes at the most.” Switching gears, I asked him how much he had to invest in his project.

“Well, I had to make a deposit of around $800. But I’ll get that back when I sell 1000 books in 9 months, which is why I contacted you. How do I sell 1000 books? I know my friends and family will buy my books, but how do I tell the world about my book? My publisher said I was responsible for all other marketing,” he blurted.

“Can you send me a portion of your manuscript to give me an idea of your writing?” I asked him.

“I’m really hesitant to do that. How do I know you wouldn’t just take my stories and publish them yourselves?” (In addition to providing marketing support, we also help people publish their books).

Suppressing a sigh and an eye roll, I told Barry I’d be happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement and explained that reputable publishers do not take other people’s works, and that the success of a book is really dependent on the author’s energy and promotion.

So, within a few days, I had the manuscript, three cover designs created by the publisher (which were beyond bland and did not at all reflect the contents of the book) and a sell sheet created by the author, who happens to be a talented graphic artist.

The stories weren’t bad; the editing supposedly done by the publisher left much to be desired. (“The lady left the cemetery wearing a raincoat and an umbrella” got a good chuckle, I must admit). I suggested that Barry create his own cover – which he did and which had much greater appeal. (I’m still not sure that the publisher will accept it; I hope so.)

Barry and I touched base again. He wanted to purchase one of our marketing kits; we needed more information about him, his networks, his background, and his ideas about promoting the book. We needed to know the price of the book to create postcards, bookmarks, sell sheets, press releases, and whatever else he though could help. Because his publisher was print-on-demand, our standard approach of sending out review copies four months or so ahead of publication date would need to be modified. His voice took on a desperate tone. The Author’s Guide provided by the publishing company stated that with good marketing, he could earn his marketing budget of tens of thousands of dollars back within a couple of months of publishing the book. (“Warning! Warning!”)

“Barry,” I said, “would you mind if I took a look at the contract you have with your publisher? We need to know what we can do for you and what they’ll do for you.”

With some hesitation, he sent it through, along with the aforementioned Author’s Guide. Within the first minute of reading that contract is when my blood began to boil. Not only had Barry given away ALL rights for the term of the copyright – meaning that the publisher had exclusive rights to publish and reprint the book, but also had subsidiary rights such as audio, e-book, excerpts, movie rights, participation in direct mail promotions, and so on – forever, but the publisher also retained first dibs on Barry’s future books. Barry would receive one free copy of his book, had to pay 25 percent of retail to obtain galleys (minimum order of 100), and would need to pay $10,000 if he ever said anything bad about the publishing company. The ONLY rights Barry was granted were those allowing portions of the book to be excerpted in magazines or newspapers without compensation (the publisher needed to be notified of such occurrences and receive two copies of whatever publication).

After some wrangling and telephone tag, he also found out that the retail price for his book, a trade paperback, would be set at $22 by the publisher! He could purchase copies of his own book for $16, or 25 percent of the publisher-set retail price (compare these to the prices on BooksJustBooks.com). For any other sales made on the publisher’s own web-based bookstore, he would get an “amazing” royalty of 15% after all other costs had been covered. Any sales on Amazon.com would reduce that 15% by half. Needless to say, Barry would need to sell thousands of books to recoup his investment. That’s highly unlikely given the high price of the book and the fact that it’s print-on-demand (only printed when purchased by someone) and therefore not likely to be carried in bookstores, which take books on consignment so that they can return books to publishers if the books don’t sell.

In an attempt to determine what recourse Barry might have, I spoke with an attorney friend, who stated that in his opinion, the contract should be declared null and void because nothing in the agreement was really in favor of the author – in legalese: “inadequate consideration.”

In developing Barry’s book marketing plan, we determined that his best avenue (other than deep-sixing the entire project immediately and write a new book under another name) was to purchase books and sell them himself at events like book signings. Selling through bookstores, which take 40% off the retail price and rarely, if ever, carry print-on-demand books, would not make financial sense. Unfortunately, his local bookstores are all chains, which are even more difficult to get into. We’re recommending that he establish synergistic partnerships with local non-profits or churches and donate $1 (or more) to the cause for each book sold. In addition, we offered to put his book on our Authors’ Cooperative web site for a portion of net receipts. We cannot, however, include his book in our catalog or in any of our direct mailing efforts without his publisher’s permission.

Authors, beware of the modern snake oil salesmen: the online publishing company!

While thousands of books are published each year by internet publishers, the average number of books sold per author is a miserable 7. The only people who stand to gain are the companies themselves, who prey on authors’ egos and need for immediate gratification. If you only want five or ten books, or even fifty, perhaps POD is the way to go. But if you dream of becoming a best-selling author or making millions by publishing on-line, dream on! There are thousands of small to mid-sized publishers who can help you edit, design, market and sell your book far more successfully and with more potential profit than the scoundrels who dupe naïve authors into spending hard-earned money to create onesies and twosies that won’t sell.

Kira Henschel is the president of Goblin Fern Press, which partners with authors to share the risk, reap the rewards and create the books the author dreams of. She is an author advocate who believes that authors should understand the publishing process and make informed decisions about their books. Her book “From Brainchild to Bestseller” is due to be published later this year.