My Thoughts on the "Industry"

 By "Industry" I mean the writing, publishing, book industry at large.

And by my thoughts, as if I hadn't already made those clear over the year, exactly what I think of said industry as a whole.

Okay, so, let's preface this by saying I've never been Trad Pubbed. Traditional Publishing as in got an agent, got a contract with a big New York publisher, got an advance, had all the stuff that goes with that. That Trad Pubbed.

I tried in the early aughts. I sent out queries upon queries to agents and the publishers who accepted non agented query submissions. I had requests for whole manuscripts from Silhouette (not that they count as trad but in romance they sort of do) and from Pocket. I had two revise and resub requests from Silhouette who ultimately rejected both books. And the Pocket book came so damn close. The editor loved the story but, "unfortunately" we are moving away from American set historical romance and can not offer contract, but if you have something set in Scotland or the Regency era, please send and I'll be happy to read.........

Sighs.

I coulda been Bridgerton.

Except, I hate Regency romance and I know one thing about writing Scottish romance, and that is that I am not Scottish, and I don't know enough about Scotland to ever dare set a book in historical Scotland. And that was the end of my attempts to land a Trad contract.

I then set my sights on the up and coming ebook publishers. and regrettably sold my first two books to Ellora's Cave.I believe in the end, they took more money from me than they paid me. And then went on to publish with 4 more small press ebook first publishers. And every single one except Liquid Silver proceeded to either rob me blind or fuck me over in various ways.

I'd love a trad book contract. That was my dream in my 20's and 30's. My dream in my 40's was to stop being fucked over by publishers. My dream in my 50's... I don't have one. My dream was a nightmare and every time I feel like I am ready to venture back into the fray, I have a panic attack and I freak out and set everything aside and just... no, I can't do it. I can't. I won't. But... there's always something back there in the cobweb infested part of my brain where the young me goes... you know if you give it one more shot..............................................................

So, what about this topic and why this topic, again?

Try as I might, I can't get completely off BookTok and the other day I saw a TikTok from some random woman who filmed her reaction to getting "The Call" from her Trad Publisher of choice.

He says, I Loved The Book, and her face lights up. He goes on to say... but they can't offer contract. When you get to 100,000 followers please let us know and we will be glad to offer contract then.

Now... okay... there's a part of me that thinks this was staged. I mean who knows in advance to set up the camera for "the call"... and are there trad pubs who call to say they aren't offering contract? I'm asking because I don't know. It's not been my experience, and this decade is not like two decades ago when I was getting started.

But if this was real, and this is the state of trad publishing right now then this is what I have to say on that....

If they are waiting for you to establish a six digit following as an unpublished author you will never get a contract. Seriously, most authors would kill to hit ten thousand followers. Who the hell can manage one  hundred thousand? How many trad published authors have one hundred thousand followers?

But... after the shock of that wore off and I've thought about it for a couple of days, this is my advice to that person, and any person who wants to be a published author... if you have ten thousand followers you've already hit a milestone I never could and I have sold double that number of copies on several books. If you have ten thousand followers and you're waiting for your "call"... I will simply say, based on experience, just stop waiting, it will not be what you expect, and if they're already depending on you having a dedicated following, you've already lost most of the perks of being a trad published author... meaning you're already doing all of the marketing for them, and they won't give you anything more in that department. You will likely get some paltry advance, you will not have much input on cover or editorial direction, and you'll have to wait years for your book to come out.

If you've managed to reach ten thousand followers who would buy your book now... SELF PUBLISH the damn thing. 

Seriously!

If you can't afford to, maybe crowd fund, and give the donors free copies, whatever it takes. If you have ten thousand followers and you list your first book at 2.99 you will make 2.24 for every book sold and if every one of your ten thousand followers buy your book the first week you will hit the number one spot on Amazon and earn twenty thousand plus dollars. In one week.

If you wait for trad publishing, you will be left behind. Strike while the iron is hot as the saying goes. And if you have ten thousand followers... you've already won the publishing lottery. 

Good luck and happy trails, may your career be long and prosperous without ever having to deal with the bullshit of publishers fucking you over and stealing your money... or your work.

Peace,

Mercy