Why I love my indie publishers

[mollyringle]

EDIT: Here I use "indie/independent publisher" to mean "small press." I am not, at this time, self-published, though the term "indie" seems to mean that too, lately.

I'd like to state again how pleased I am with the independent presses who have published me, Central Avenue Publishing and The Wild Rose Press. I've met more authors over the years, and read more about their experiences, and increasingly I'm coming away with the impression that those published (or formerly published) with the big houses often felt ignored and unloved. The attention from their editors/agents was being devoted far more to those couple-dozen huge-name writers who made all the money for the house, with little time to spare for the lowlier names.

As to advances and royalties: indie presses don't pay advances as often. True. But that's always been fine with me, as an advance is only that: an advance against future royalties. So you earn no royalties until the book has "earned out" its advance, and, according to the experts, the majority of books take years to do that--if they ever do. And your advance isn't likely to be a cool million bucks. Heck, no. Try a couple thousand dollars. To last you a few years? I'd rather just take the modest quarterly royalties I rightfully earned. In addition, royalty rates with big houses are usually smaller than ours in the small-press world.

So between the personal attention, the input we're allowed on cover art (again, almost unheard of in the big publishing world), the no-worse-than-average royalties, and the way e-readers have taken off lately, I'm getting happier by the year to be involved in indie publishing.

Also, in the indie-press world, we're far less likely to have movies made of our books. That's actually a blessing in disguise. Let's be honest: 9 times out of 10, doesn't the movie adaptation suck? And the writer usually gets no say in it. I mean, even with Twilight, which had the most gigantic following in the world and should have been able to afford doing everything perfectly, they couldn't get the makeup right and ended up making Robert Pattinson look like a powdered donut with lipstick.

Comments

[mariole.livejournal.com]

Okay, I've looked you up! I was wondering how happy you were with your margin? $3.99 for a novel seems a bit low. I know there's a great debate about pricing, but have you noticed any difference in sales for that vs. your $4.99 and up books, where I assume you'll get a better return per book? Feel free not to answer if you don't wish, but some authors have actually seen sales improve with a slightly higher cover price. I'm thinking the $5-$9 range for a digital novel is about right.

Your other Ghost and Geeks one appears shorter, yes? Hence the lower price? Does the house set it, or do you get input on that? Also, I see "The Man In The Rain" with no price. Is that a teaser giveaway? Sounds like that could be a good strategy; get them to like your writing so they'll want to buy your book!

As I said, just getting into this epub bit, so very interested in your experience. Cheers!

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Hello! Hah, I actually was remembering your unfortunate small-pub story when I put this post together. (Oh, and I use "indie press" and "small press" interchangeably--though on thinking it over I'm not sure that's accurate.) We should indeed add the caveat that not all presses (small or large) are created equal, and authors should do their homework, just like you're doing--ask writers published with the house in question, and check reports on sites like the Absolute Write Water Cooler or Piers Anthony's Internet Publishing list, and probably other sites I'm not even aware of. I've also gotten good leads from the high-rankers on the Preditors and Editors poll, informal though it is.

Yeah, I have to admit I'd still be thrilled at any offer of a movie deal, even with the 90% chance that I'd cringe at how it turned out. Excellent publicity, if nothing else, as you say. But then, I also don't really want Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling's life of being hounded by millions of insane fans. I did once, but honestly, I don't now. Midlist sounds awesome to me. :)

Self-pub has become so respectable that I might've gone that way for some of my titles if these presses hadn't picked them up. Pros and cons of self-pub, as far as I have thought about it:

Pros:
Total control over everything--formatting, font, cover art, pricing, etc.
100% royalties!
Freedom of pulling it off the market and reworking it as you see fit, without having to invoke contract language with another party

Cons:
Usually some upfront fees
I am not at all sure I'd be able to create a good cover
Having to do the boring stuff like file conversion for the various ebook formats, figuring out shipping problems, and other bookkeeping
Having to do 100% of the marketing and review-seeking, rather than perhaps half of it in the small-press world (hard to say on the actual proportion; that's an instinctive guess)

You likely already know self-pubbed authors and can ask them their experience. But if you need more, I know at least two smart and lovely women in the Seattle area--Pam Stucky and Cyndi Tefft--who have done a great job self-pubbing their first novels lately. I think they each used a different venue; Amazon vs. Smashwords, or something like that.

$$ issues: we are still talking modest amounts for sure. But it's gone up from me bringing in around $20 a quarter a few years ago, to more like $150 a quarter these days, with the huge majority of the sales being ebook, not paperback. So I like the trend, though the figures are still nowhere near enough to live on. :)

I don't get to set prices; the houses do that. But I can't see a clear pattern in terms of sales vs. prices. The Ghost Downstairs has always sold best, and Summer Term has always sold worst, though they're about the same price (and are the two highest-priced generally of my titles). I can only assume paranormal romance is still the popular thing. Relatively Honest has been selling better than What Scotland Taught Me, which I will guess is because I put a lot of effort into having YA book bloggers review it, back when it was released. But I may never know for certain. Maybe people just liked those covers and blurbs best?

Of Ghosts and Geeks is a novella, yeah, so a lower price because of that. And yep, "The Man in the Rain" was a short story intended as a free read--a promo thing the house set up.

Probably if I learned to read animal entrails, it would all become clear. Am hazarding a guess there.