Nov

The Ballad of Pay-to-Play

Posted by: Selah March in Industry, RWA, Romancelandia, blah blah blah

Most, if not all, vanity presses make the vast majority of their profits on fees collected from writers.

(Money flows to the author.)

Very few writers end up recouping their investment on vanity-press published projects.

(Money flows to the author.)

No matter what they tell you, if you pay up front to hold a copy of your book in your hand, you’re not published — you’re PRINTED. “Publishing” implies a vetting process and some sort of editing FOR WHICH YOU DO NOT PAY.

(Money flows to the author.)

Yes, even if you are traditionally published by a major house, you may pay to promote your book beyond whatever promotional support your publisher offers. That’s not the same thing as paying to have your book copy edited, printed and offered for sale. You can say, “Yes it is,” as many times as you like, but… it’s not. It’s really, really not.

And so my power ballad becomes a dirge. Hum along if the spirit moves you.

(MONEY FLOWS TO THE AUTHOR.)

Coda:

As to the issue of the RWA in this brand, spanking new venture of Harlequin’s… Well. I’m not a member. No dog in that particular fight. But given that approximately 70% of the RWA membership is comprised of unpublished authors, I think the organization has a responsibility to make sure its members know the difference between being “published” and paying to be “printed,” and to take a strong position in this matter according to their own, much touted, standards. It will be fascinating to see if this Board of Directors has the balls to put their money — and their relationship with the largest publisher of romance — where their mouths are.

Other blogs on this subject:

TeddyPig, EREC, SmartBitches (scroll thru comments for the good stuff)

Anne Aguirre, Barb Ferrer

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Industry, RWA, Romancelandia, blah blah blah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 comments so far

Eva

First off let me say I really could give a rats patootie about all of it-there’s enough in the universe to go around.

I totally disagree with you.

“Yes, even if you are traditionally published by a major house, you will pay to promote your book. That’s not the same thing as paying to have your book copy edited, printed and offered for sale. You can say, “Yes it is,” as many times as you like, but… it’s not. It’s really, really not.”

What about the person who sells less than 5k books out of ther 8k print run, never gets another contract and is unheard of again? They get to clutch thier books to their boosom and say once upon a time I was published? That book is ashes in thier mouth.

November 17th, 2009 at 9:58 pm

Selah March

Publishing is a hard road. Sometimes I wonder if romance and women’s fiction in general is an even harder road within publishing because we’re all so close to our books. Our stories are literally ripped from our hearts, so it’s easy to forget that the companies that publish us are really just in it for the money.

Not the individual editors, who may love working with books and authors, but the people who run these companies? Especially the big conglomerates, which includes Harlequin? They’re all about the bottom line. And is that a bad thing? If they weren’t, and went under, then everybody suffers.

But there’s a line here and, IMO, they’ve crossed it. Have you read that website? “Show people you’re a serious author by paying for the hardcover package?” (paraphrased)

That’s pretty insulting, don’t you think? And who do you think it’s designed to lure? People with big dreams who don’t know any better, but who will find out quickly when they sell forty copies of the book they paid a thousand bucks to have printed, and those copies only to their close friends and family.

Or those who are good enough, and should’ve held out for an agent, or even an epublishing contract with a shot at selling a thousand copies at a 40% royalty, but will now be stuck with the Harlequin average category advance after shelling out almost that much in the first place.

How does that not taste like ashes? And damned expensive ones at that?

I understand where you’re coming from. It’s that entrepreneurial spirit of yours, and I love it more’n my luggage. But this? Is a shell game. You deserve better. We all do.

November 18th, 2009 at 12:14 am

Diana Peterfreund

“Yes, even if you are traditionally published by a major house, you will pay to promote your book.”

Um, only if you want to. I’ve never been asked to pay a dime to promote my books. I made a website on my own (and could easily have gotten a free website/blog, as many authors do). I occasionally order bookmarks or do mailings — all on my own, because I chose to make that extra investment. My publisher has never asked me to do ANYTHING I had to pay for. And if I chose not to do any of those things i just mentioned, my books would still be there on the shelves at Barnes & Noble.

November 18th, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Selah March

When I said “pay to promote your book,” I meant stuff like bookmarks and websites and mailings. No, it isn’t mandatory. No, legit publishers don’t demand it of their authors. But if you want promo beyond what your publisher provides, you’ll likely pay for it.

My larger — and more important — point is that paying for your own promo efforts is a long, long way from paying to have your book published.

But thanks for the nitpick. I’ll clarify.

November 18th, 2009 at 6:49 pm

The Ballad of Pay-to-Play

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