Is Traditional Publishing Dying?

In 2018, my daughter was 2 years old and I found myself with a little more time to read. Towards the end of the year I read a 2009 New York Times Bestseller that was so poorly written, it convinced me to write my own book. I reasoned that I could write something better than this, and if this could get published, so could I.

I read a 2009 New York Times Bestseller that was so poorly written, it convinced me to write my own book.

I wrote my first draft of Stricken in the Shah's Haven from Dec 2018 to Sep 2019, edited and shared with a first round of Beta readers, edited some more, took a writing course, edited for a third round, and by June 2021 decided I was ready to start “querying” the book, or sending it to literary agents to seek representation. It was only at this point that I joined Twitter, connected with other authors (both aspiring and published ones) and started to get a fuller picture of the traditional publishing industry.

I learned that there are terms for book deals: Lead Title, and Midlist. The term Midlist is deceptive because it suggests there’s something lower, which I guess makes everybody in the Midlist feel better. In rough numbers, let’s say 95% of the money publishing houses will spend to acquire a book goes to 5% of books, and 5% will go to the other 95% of books. This is why book deals range from flashy 7 figures all the way down to $5000.

This is why book deals range from flashy 7 figures all the way down to $5000.

I’d previously asserted I’d never self-publish because I wanted to “work with professionals,” meaning the pros who would market my book. It didn’t take long for me to realize that despite netting only 10% of proceeds from $18 sales, the vast majority of authors are Midlist, and will be tasked with marketing their own book. They do this with the grand hopes of selling a few hundred, maybe a thousand or two thousand copies, and fingers crossed it'll be enough to get a second book deal.

Despite netting only 10% of proceeds from $18 sales, the vast majority of authors are Midlist, and will be tasked with marketing their own book.

Which brings me to my next point…

One of the biggest teachings spread by the writing community is that to write better, you have to read more in your genre, and you should always buy books to support your fellow authors. While this is noble, I also suspect this is a major source of sales for the publishing houses. Most debut authors are marketing their books on social media, and most of them are only followed by other authors, who return the favor of following each other and buying each other’s books. Those few hundred books most new authors are hoping to sell are coming from their friends, families, and their fellow aspiring/debut authors. Most books will never out-earn their book deal, and those authors will be offered a bargain to purchase the unsold copies of their own book.

Most books will never out-earn their book deal, and those authors will be offered a bargain to purchase the unsold copies of their own book.

Publishers do these tiny book deals in the hopes of landing Sleeper Hits. Authors stick with it because with time, passion and energy, they hope to establish a loyal following that will eventually lead to enough income to sustain full time writing. (Plus, having a traditionally published book under your name is cool.)

What this taught me is that if you can’t land a LEAD book deal, and you can’t stand to wait long enough for the chance that that might one day happen, you might be better off self-publishing on a platform that will share more of the profits with you, or even dividing the story into a serial e-pub through many websites that offer this service. In fact, many successful full-time writers do a hybrid between traditional and self-pub/indie-pub.

Many successful full-time writers do a hybrid between traditional and self-pub/indie-pub.

What else did I learn?

It turns out the world has changed A LOT since 2009. The split between Lead titles and Midlist seems to be getting worse. With the rise of self-publishing, business is getting tougher on traditional houses. Some of the business of publishing is at odds with the core principles touted by the people working in publishing. They care about books, libraries, and people, but it still makes business sense to hand out multi-million dollar book deals to media giants and political figures they don’t agree with.

The split between Lead titles and Midlist seems to be getting worse.

Editors are leaving, publishing houses are not replacing them. Fewer people are expected to handle more. On the other hand, more people are becoming literary agents, representing more authors, and all of these books are going on submission to these fewer and fewer editors to read and acquire them.

More people are becoming literary agents, representing more authors.

Bookshelves are becoming more monotonous. Feel free to pick up the 10 year anniversary edition boxed set of the Divergent series, but of the hundreds of debut books published every year, book stores will only carry a handful.

To me, this is all neither good nor bad, just a mixed bag. A recent tweet says Traditional Publishing is Not Dying, which spurred the response, as a former newspaper reporter, this looks very familiar to me.

I think what’s happening is a democratization of published books. Self-publishing gets rid of the gatekeepers; the agents, the editors, the acquisitions team. More and more professionals are offering their book cover design services, editing services, on a pay-as-you-go basis, so you can have a professionally polished book that you sell on your own terms. Rather than landing a book deal and waiting 2 years for your pub date, you can write and publish on a rolling basis, multiple books per year.

You can have a professionally polished book that you sell on your own terms.

But…

Is there a drop in quality? To be honest, as resource limited as traditional publishing has become, I believe you’re at least half as likely to read a bad traditionally published book as you are a self-published one (quality being in the eye of the beholder).

Here's my book's update: Querying indicated further changes needed to Stricken in the Shah's Haven, and I started a new edit. I stopped 14 chapters in and rethought my goals. Am I self-publishing? Maybe. Am I continuing to edit and query? Maybe. What am I doing? At the moment, I’m setting this book, which I’ve so enjoyed creating, aside. For now I’m focusing on a different project.

I feel a little like a quitter, but I also feel like I joined a game only to find out that the rules were different than I thought, and I finally decided to sit on the bench until I’m in a better position to play again. In the meantime, I’m keeping up with my writing community, which really is full of some of the greatest people you’ll meet.

I joined a game only to find out that the rules were different than I thought.

In the meantime, I’m keeping up with my writing community, which really is full of some of the greatest people you’ll meet.