Becoming a "midlist" author...

huu · Sep 5, 2011

So I was browsing the web, and came across this article.

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/03/22/midlist

Basically, it's written by a "mid-list" author (whose name isn't revealed) and details the "inside" of the publishing world.

Obviously the business side isn't always pretty, but does it ever scare you that your career as an author may be..."stagnant"?

I will say that the article is a little on the dramatic side.

htrent · Sep 5, 2011

Well, that was depressing. Then again, I don't write "important" books. I'm hoping my mileage varies from that tale considerably.

Amadan · Sep 5, 2011

At the risk of sounding like James Ritchie (oh god, shoot me), this article was written in 2004, and nothing this midlist author describes was new then. It sounds like s/he suffered from a combination of bad luck ($150K advance for a first book that tanked), rather high expectations, and rather poor business sense.

James D. Macdonald · Sep 5, 2011

Oh, Ghod. "Confessions of a midlist writer" again.

Here's a word of advice for that author: Frontlist money + backlist sales does not average out to midlist.

And poor Jane Austen Doe! Five books in ten years? What's she been doing with her time?

$150,000 advance, with all the promotion that goes with it, yielding only 10,000 sales, means that the book wasn't just a "disappointment," it was a smoking hole in the runway. It's hard to see how she managed this unless readers hated it, and told their friends that they hated it. Or perhaps the publisher bound the copies in decaying codfish. But ...

Current status: Out of print. Small but loyal cult following; 10 years later adoring fans still show up at readings, clutching well-worn copies, eager to tell me how book changed their lives.

So here's some practical advice for her: The book's undoubtedly reverted by now. Find a high-prestige small press that's willing to take it. Get it back into print. Don't insist on an advance.

Second book: Ghost writer for celebrity. Hint for Jane A. Doe: The sales weren't for your golden words, they were for the "author's" name on the cover. Practical advice: This is a good gig. See if your agent can get you one of these per year. Treat it as your day job.

Attempted book: A short-story anthology? Srsly? Hint: Don't do that.

Third book: That money you spent on a publicist was wasted. Also: rather than fiddle around with screenwriters and such, write another book.

Speaking of money, don't be an idiot with money. The kid doesn't need Nikes when Keds will do.

Book Four: $80,000 advance. Why are you wasting time and money on publicists? Write another book. And, if you're doing this to be recognized by total strangers on airplanes, then ... maybe you should reevaluate your priorities.

Book Five, $50,000 offer. Why are you complaining again?

Never, ever forget: The Reader is King. Readers aren't liking your books. Choices: Write different books, or write the same books under a different name.

And what is the moan? An average of $40K per year. That's right around the median US single-person income.

I see that she's complaining that publishing is now a business. The article was originally published in 2004.

News flash: Publishing has always been a business. You can find Raymond Chandler making the same complaint in the 1950s. You can find H. P. Lovecraft making exactly the same complaint in the 1920s. Get with the program -- and write books that the public actually wants to read.

Other reactions from actual mid-list authors:

http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/405207.html

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/002699.html

blacbird · Sep 5, 2011

James D. Macdonald said:
You can find H. P. Lovecraft making exactly the same complaint in the 1920s.http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/002699.html

. . . with lots of obscure archaic adjectives.

caw

SomethingOrOther · Sep 5, 2011

I'll remember to have my contract explicitly forbid the use of decaying codfish binding.

Al Stevens · Sep 5, 2011

I made a good living as a midlist author of technical books and freelance magazine writer for years. But I was able to write two and three books a year and several articles/columns a month. And play piano in saloons at night. It's not about buying clothes and being recognized. It's about discipline and work. Whimpering and bellyaching won't get the writing done.

Allen R. Brady · Sep 5, 2011

Is there any kind of ballpark rule of thumb as to how many copies of a book a publisher needs to sell to make back an advance? I'm sure it varies depending on genre, publisher size, etc., but is there any broad way to estimate how many copies need to be sold to turn a profit?

Stacia Kane · Sep 5, 2011

QTF this entire post, every word.

James D. Macdonald said:
Oh, Ghod. "Confessions of a midlist writer" again.

Here's a word of advice for that author: Frontlist money + backlist sales does not average out to midlist.

And poor Jane Austen Doe! Five books in ten years? What's she been doing with her time?

$150,000 advance, with all the promotion that goes with it, yielding only 10,000 sales, means that the book wasn't just a "disappointment," it was a smoking hole in the runway. It's hard to see how she managed this unless readers hated it, and told their friends that they hated it. Or perhaps the publisher bound the copies in decaying codfish. But ...
So here's some practical advice for her: The book's undoubtedly reverted by now. Find a high-prestige small press that's willing to take it. Get it back into print. Don't insist on an advance.

Second book: Ghost writer for celebrity. Hint for Jane A. Doe: The sales weren't for your golden words, they were for the "author's" name on the cover. Practical advice: This is a good gig. See if your agent can get you one of these per year. Treat it as your day job.

Attempted book: A short-story anthology? Srsly? Hint: Don't do that.

Third book: That money you spent on a publicist was wasted. Also: rather than fiddle around with screenwriters and such, write another book.

Speaking of money, don't be an idiot with money. The kid doesn't need Nikes when Keds will do.

Book Four: $80,000 advance. Why are you wasting time and money on publicists? Write another book. And, if you're doing this to be recognized by total strangers on airplanes, then ... maybe you should reevaluate your priorities.

Book Five, $50,000 offer. Why are you complaining again?

Never, ever forget: The Reader is King. Readers aren't liking your books. Choices: Write different books, or write the same books under a different name.

And what is the moan? An average of $40K per year. That's right around the median US single-person income.

I see that she's complaining that publishing is now a business. The article was originally published in 2004.

News flash: Publishing has always been a business. You can find Raymond Chandler making the same complaint in the 1950s. You can find H. P. Lovecraft making exactly the same complaint in the 1920s. Get with the program -- and write books that the public actually wants to read.

Other reactions from actual mid-list authors:

http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/405207.html

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/002699.html

Not to mention, I really wondered while reading it why nobody ever suggested a pseudonym, if her books are that great but her sales are that crappy.

Al Stevens · Sep 5, 2011

Allen R. Brady said:
Is there any kind of ballpark rule of thumb as to how many copies of a book a publisher needs to sell to make back an advance? I'm sure it varies depending on genre, publisher size, etc., but is there any broad way to estimate how many copies need to be sold to turn a profit?

Two different things. A book that does not earn back its advance can make a profit.

rugcat · Sep 5, 2011

Stacia Kane said:
QTF this entire post, every word.

Yes.

But I did learn something. I thought I was a midlist author myself, but since I've never gotten close to a 50K advance, much less a 150K one, I now realize I'm not midlist, I'm an abject failure.

One thing that does seem to be true, however, at least in my genre. If you wrote a mmpb for a paltry advance, and sold 10-15 K copies, you might not be a success, but at least they'd publish your next book.

Nowadays, that does not seem to be the case. Publishers prefer to use their dwindling resources to seek out the next flavor, hoping for a true hit. You can't really blame them.

James D. Macdonald · Sep 5, 2011

Jane Austen Doe did do one good thing: She inspired Scalzi to write this:
Even More Long-Winded (But Practical) Writing Advice

Allen R. Brady · Sep 5, 2011

Al Stevens said:
Two different things. A book that does not earn back its advance can make a profit.

Really? How would that work?

blacbird · Sep 5, 2011

rugcat said:
Publishers prefer to use their dwindling resources to seek out the next flavor, hoping for a true hit. You can't really blame them.

Oh, sure you can. Won't do any good, but you can go ahead and blame 'em all you want.

caw

swvaughn · Sep 5, 2011

rugcat said:
since I've never gotten close to a 50K advance, much less a 150K one, I now realize I'm not midlist, I'm an abject failure.

Me too! Let's make a club...

Only I've already hit that part where nowadays 10 - 15K copies sold isn't enough to get picked up again, so I'm ... not getting picked up again. So my advances from now on will be $0.

I only got to play for like two years, too.

Can we have a secret handshake?

Alessandra Kelley · Sep 5, 2011

Wow, so she's cranky and self-pitying and years out-of-date.

Thanks for this link, James:

James D. Macdonald said:
Jane Austen Doe did do one good thing: She inspired Scalzi to write this:
Even More Long-Winded (But Practical) Writing Advice

... it's wryly useful.

I'm still a bit boggled at her $150,000 advance. Person-I-know got a $5000 advance (in the 1990s) and started getting royalty checks within a year (i.e. the advance got covered pretty fast) and still was receiving checks ten years later. I gather this is not typical.

Cyia · Sep 5, 2011

Allen R. Brady said:
Really? How would that work?

That's how it usually works. The book is profitable for the publisher before the advance earns out; the author just doesn't get any royalty checks until that point because the advance is their royalties.

Mr Flibble · Sep 5, 2011

Allen R. Brady said:
Really? How would that work?

Publishers have shit hot accountants with good forecasting skillzors (well, mostly, can't be right every time!)

Al Stevens · Sep 5, 2011

Allen R. Brady said:
Really? How would that work?

Author's advance plus the cost of publishing is less than revenues. Not enough sales to earn back advance, but enough to show a profit.

Astronomer · Sep 5, 2011

Al Stevens said:
Author's advance plus the cost of publishing is less than revenues. Not enough sales to earn back advance, but enough to show a profit.

Isn't "Author's advance plus the cost of publishing is less than revenues" the very definition of "enough sales to earn back advance"?

Cyia · Sep 5, 2011

Astronomer said:
Isn't "Author's advance plus the cost of publishing is less than revenues" the very definition of "enough sales to earn back advance"?

No. You earn out the advance when your earned royalties meets or exceeds the amount of the advance. Most books will turn a profit for the publisher before that threshold.

Once you've hit the advance level (which, in the case of a series or multi-book deal may equal the advance for all books at once, if the accounting isn't separated), then you'll start getting royalty checks, if there are still books out in the wild and selling.

ChaosTitan · Sep 5, 2011

rugcat said:
But I did learn something. I thought I was a midlist author myself, but since I've never gotten close to a 50K advance, much less a 150K one, I now realize I'm not midlist, I'm an abject failure.

I thought everyone who wasn't a bestseller was a midlister, regardless of advance.

Huh....

James D. Macdonald · Sep 5, 2011

Okay, definitions:

The frontlist consists of the books that are in the front of the publisher's catalog (where the bookstore buyer starts looking at the offerings). The closer to the front, the bigger the push. These are books that each have a full page in the catalog. The backlist is the books that are listed at the back of the catalog. Previous years' books that are still in print, perennial sellers, that sort of stuff. Generally just a listing of titles and authors, because the bookstore buyer presumably knows what those books are, and how they're selling in each store.

The midlist is everything in the catalog that's in the middle, between the frontlist and the backlist.

That's all it is.

One reason the midlist has been "vanishing" is that the publishers have been splitting their offerings into more and more lines and imprints, each with their own catalog and their own frontlist. The same or greater numbers of books are on offer, but fewer of them are in the middles of catalogs. It isn't the vanishing midlist, it's the expanding frontlist.

There are other possibilities. Our first adult novel wasn't frontlist, backlist, or midlist. It was offered as an "off-list special."

huu · Sep 5, 2011

James D. Macdonald said:
One reason the midlist has been "vanishing" is that the publishers have been splitting their offerings into more and more lines and imprints, each with their own catalog and their own frontlist. The same or greater numbers of books are on offer, but fewer of them are in the middles of catalogs. It isn't the vanishing midlist, it's the expanding frontlist.

Is this good for authors? Or is it one of those things that really "depends".

Allen R. Brady · Sep 5, 2011

Sorry, I'm not following the money scenario, and it's probably because I'm not using terms correctly.

In the example cited, a publisher has paid an author a $150k advance. As Mr. Macdonald points out, selling only 10,000 copies would represent a clear failure. What I'm wondering is, about how many copies would have to be sold before the publisher breaks even?

Becoming a "midlist" author...

Can't wait till the draft's done...

practical experience, FTW

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