Posted in News on 05/02/21
Does size matter when it comes to choosing a publisher?
Received wisdom is that larger publishers will spend more money on promotion, while smaller publishers will offer the personal touch, for example, re editing.
Is this really the case?
Over the years I’ve worked for a conglomerate (the Penguin Group), medium independents (Harrap and Faber), and a couple of small publishers, including my own. I have found that the size of publisher does not guarantee either marketing spend or the personal touch.
Let’s start with editing…
A small publisher once commissioned me to market a book called Modern Life is Rubbish! My brief was to select snippets from the book to spice up the press release.
I assumed that I had been given an unedited draft by mistake. When I later joked to the publisher about ‘life being too short to read beyond the first paragraph’, after a stony silence he replied: ‘I spent all weekend editing it’.
Clearly, the publisher and I had a very different understanding of the meaning of the word ‘editing’. He meant typesetting and proofreading – the final stages of book production.
As an editorial assistant at the Penguin Group, I received a robust grounding in the successive editorial stages – structural/developmental editing, line-editing and copy-editing. These were deemed essential for producing a good book.
Smaller publishers may worry about the expense of editing. The booktrade’s editorial body, CIEP, recommends 2024 rates as £29.85 per hour for a proofreader and £43.20 for a project manager. Given that the editorial process needs at least two stages (excluding proof-reading), costs mount up.
The moral is, don’t take professional editing as a given. Instead, ask about the editorial process.
Does working with a large publisher guarantee a big promotional spend?
Not always.
Bigger publishing houses have higher promotional budgets. However, marketing spends, such as in-store promotions, will not be spread evenly across all books.
Today, book sales are as much a function of visibility as of merit. The cost of creating a bestseller through front-of-store displays such as those you see in WH Smith, for example, is eye-wateringly expensive. Ditto Amazon’s online equivalent – I once had to sign a confidentiality agreement just to be shown their Christmas promotion prices!
A book’s sales expectations are set at the publisher’s commissioning meeting. Authors do not attend these meetings. Ultimately, the promotional spend for your book will be proportionate to its sales estimates.
This may sound harsh but it’s simple economic reality. The problem is the lack of transparency.
The moral is to make sure you know the score from the start. Otherwise, you’ll be imagining jolly lunches at The Ivy only to discover you’re in Costa Coffee territory.
What’s the story with self-publishing?
Self-publishers lack traditional routes to market, such as bookshops. They therefore have to develop alternative routes, especially online. Many of them are doing it rather well, thanks to online forums, blogs and organisations offering how-to knowledge on everything from DIY videos to marketing ebooks on Amazon. The result is a burgeoning market, with promotions on a shoestring showing a particular wealth of creativity.
In a nutshell…
In another post I’ll be discussing the questions I wish I’d asked as a first-time author.