The publishing landscape is littered with misinformation. Sometimes it helps to see what the terms we use actually mean. Some of these will be familiar, but some might make you see the process from a different perspective.
Copyright:
Literally “the right to copy” a work. The person or entity that “holds the copyright” is recognized as the legitimate agent to distribute and collect revenues of a work. In the U.S. the first instantiation of a work sets the copyright to its creator. For writers, that means a completed first draft is covered by copyright as is every subsequent draft.
A copyright may be sold – some markets require the transfer of copyright from the creator to the producer – or licensed. A license permits a producer to create and distribute copies of the work for some limited amount of time without requiring the creator to give up their intellectual property forever.
Copyright covers the work for any form of production including
- Primary right – the right to produce the product
- Derivative rights – the right to produce work created from or extending the primary like sequels and spin offs
- Subsidiary rights – the right to produce work in different forms and media like audio or merchandise
Copyright registration creates a third-party validation of copyright for a particular work and creator. In the U.S. registration offers additional legal remedies for cases of infringement beyond those granted on creation. The creator must have the wherewithal to pursue those remedies in court for them to be of value. In the U.S. registration does not provide extra protection, only additional paths for remedy.
Key Point: As soon as you make it, you own it.
Publisher:
The person or entity that presents your Intellectual Property (“the work”) to the public. For writers, this usually means the person/entity that uploads your files and collects the revenues – if any – from the sales.
Key Point: The publisher makes the work available to a public.
Traditional publishing:
A process by which creators agree to license their work to a company or individual for production and distribution. The company collects the revenues and dispenses the creators' share to them.
The process for publishing traditionally usually goes through a query period followed – with luck – a negotiation process to establish the terms of the relationship, leading to a contract. It doesn't matter if you're dealing with a short story for a magazine, or a novel for individual publication. You could be working through an agent to get to the publisher, but the same query process occurs. Twice if you use an agent because you need to convince the agent to represent you, then the agent has to convince a publisher to consider the work.
The company takes on the duties of production and publication – creating a product that is suitable to the purpose and making it available to the public. They perform these duties according to the strict terms of the contract. The creator bears the onus of knowing and understanding those terms before signing.
Companies involved in traditional publishing include but are not limited by:
- The Bigs – The largest global publishing conglomerates. They operate multiple companies each of which may have multiple imprints serving discrete market niches. Typically agents control access to these publishers.
- Independent (Small) Press – Publishers that remain unaffiliated with the Bigs including various short story markets like zines. Some small presses represent significant market share in their niches. Writers who use these publishers are sometimes referred to as “independent writers” (See also: Self-Publishing).
- Vanity Press – Publishers who charge the creator for production and publication expenses. They depend on creator fees rather than sales revenue for their income.
- Scams – A subset of vanity presses present themselves as “self-publishing companies” or “hybrid presses.” They usually disguise their fees as “risk sharing” or “service fees.” Like other vanity presses, they make most of their revenue from the fees authors pay. I classify them as scams because they hide their role as vanity presses behind the language.
Key Point: You cannot choose traditional publishing. You can only choose to pursue it. A publisher has to choose you. (I don't remember who I heard this from. If was you, thanks!)
Note: Vanity Presses and Scams have very low barriers to entry in terms of the works they'll accept, but you must be willing and able to pay them for the privilege.
Query:
In order to be considered for traditional publication, the creator must submit an application to an appropriate publisher. In the trade, that's a “query.” The query must conform to the specific guidelines posted by the publisher. Failure to follow said guidelines is grounds for rejection. The process is made more complicated by use of the terms like “Standard Manuscript Format” for which no universal standards exist.
The typical query cycle consists of:
- Determining an appropriate market for the work
- Finding a target publisher (or agent) that serves that market
- Preparing the query documentation that conforms to that publishers requirements
- Waiting for the response.
- If the publisher (or agent) rejects the query, the cycle begins again at step 1 or the creator gives up trying to be selected for traditional publication for that particular work.
- If the query gets accepted, the query cycle ends.
Key Point: The only limits to iterating steps 1 through 5 involve the number of appropriate markets for the work and the creator's willingness to continue the cycle. This seemingly unending cycle is sometimes referred to as the “query-go-round” which can only end when you stop the ride or catch the metaphorical brass ring.
Rejection:
The query process necessary in Traditional Publishing frequently results in the publisher (or agent) declining to publish (or represent) the queried work. The publisher (or agent) seldom states the reason(s) for declining.
Typical reasons:
- The submission violated the company's submission guidelines. Ex: Failing to format the manuscript with proper paragraph indents, not including a 500 word synopsis, or submitting more pages than required.
- The submission does not meet the company's content area. Ex: Submitting a romance novel to a horror publisher, a novella to a short story magazine market, or adult litfic to a kitlit publisher.
- The submission is too similar to a work recently signed by the publisher. Ex: They just licensed Lil Piece Of Your Heart cozy murder mystery so rejected your Fifty Ways To Leave Your Liver cozy murder mystery.
- The submission has no clear genre category. Without a genre label, the publisher doesn't know where to put your book in their catalog. Ex: Your gritty, dystopian retelling of Peter Rabbit, set-in-space whodunnit as written by Jane Austin.
- The slush reader had a bad morning and hasn't time to put up with your nonsense.
- The writing. Ex: Kludgy language usage, lack of punctuation, surplus punctuation, pacing, profanity or lack of same, story that doesn't conform to accepted structure, characters that have no/too much/too little personality, etc.
Key Point: The rejection may have little to nothing to do with the story itself. A successful query consists of the right work to the right company at the right time in the right format. While the creator can control most of those aspects, fate spins the wheel on every submission.
Negotiation:
After the publisher agrees to accept a query, the creator and producer may enter into a period of negotiation to establish the terms of their agreement. In some cases the negotiation starts and ends with “take it of leave it” when it comes to what the two parties will accept. Many markets – like short stories and poetry – use simple enough contract language (and small enough compensation) that legal assistance may not be necessary or even advised. For contracts involving longer works and substantial amounts of money, it behooves the creator to involve legal counsel specializing in intellectual property when dealing with extended contract terms.
Following the contract negotiation, an additional “negotiation” period may occur when the publisher requires the creator to make changes to the work prior to publication. Note that the creator's right to refuse these changes may be curtailed – even negated – by the terms of the established contract.
Key Point: Getting accepted is just the first step toward a publishing contract. The next steps carry greater risks.
Royalty:
The amount a publisher owes the creator for the sale of a unit of work. For short works, this might be a flat sum on acceptance as in an article or story for a magazine. For longer works, this might be expressed as a percentage of the cover price or gross profit.
Key Point: Royalty is your share of the revenue earned when the work sells.
Advance Payments:
Some traditional publishers offer an “advance” or “advance payment” as part of their contract. The terms usually specify how that payment gets made – often a third on signing, a third on their acceptance of a final manuscript, a third on publication. Depending on the publisher's production cycle, those three payments may be separated by weeks, if not months.
Before any royalties accrue to the writer, the book must “earn out” – that is, accumulate in royalties an amount equal to or greater than the advance. In effect, repaying the advance payment to the publisher with sales before the publisher will make additional payments to the writer.
Key Point: A large advance might signify the publisher is willing to support a title with more efforts in sales and promotion or higher production values. It also means the book must earn that much more in accrued royalties before the writer gets paid again.
Self-Publishing:
The creator takes the roles of the publisher, becoming producer and distributor. The creator underwrites the production of the work and collects all the revenues. In the simplest cases, the writer and publisher are the same entity so gross profit becomes revenue without consideration of a royalty split.
Self-published authors sometimes use the term “indie” or “independent author” to describe themselves because they publish through the smallest of independent presses – one that produces and distributes only their own work.
Key Point: You can choose to be a self-published author.
Production
The process of preparing a work for publication. This might be done in-house by the publisher or contracted out to specialists like audiobook producers.
For writers this generally means
1. Editing – Some level of review for story structure, continuity, format, and correct spelling and punctuation prior to layout.
2. Cover selection – Acquiring the appropriate artwork for the publication. The nature of the cover varies by form (ex. Short stories or poetry may only have an evocative graphic or none at all).
3. Layout – Designing how the final product will look, putting the manuscript into the appropriate format to support that look, and combining it with the cover art. This may include acquiring and assigning ISBNs where applicable, creation of bar codes, or other necessary features required by the market.
Key Point: Production consists of translating a manuscript into forms suitable for a reader's consumption.
Distribution
The process of putting the work into the pubic sphere. For writers this means sending the book to bookstores, making it available to readers. The publisher handles this process using the appropriate technologies for the market.
For paper-based products, publishers sometimes use catalogs and/or sales representatives to inform bookstore buyers of a title's availability. Online stores generally use print-on-demand technology to produce each book as it's ordered and shipping it directly to the reader, by-passing warehousing and intermediate shipping.
For digital products, publishers need only make the appropriately formatted file available to the bookstore's system. Readers purchase and download the files.
Key Point: Distribution is a necessary but insufficient condition for sales. The book may be in the store, but that's no guarantee that a reader will buy it.
TLDR
- A publisher presents a work to the public.
- A traditional publisher chooses what works to present, sometimes with the intervention of an agent. They are responsible for making the work available to bookstores that – in turn – make the books available to readers.
- A self-publisher generally makes their book available to readers directly through digital storefronts, through alternate modes like crowd funding, and physical sales via dealer rooms and bookstores.
Once the publisher distributes the work, the process becomes one governed by sales and promotion – a completely separate set of tasks but which get bundled into the publishing umbrella because the publisher needs to recoup publication costs before paying the writer.
Re-phrased: Publication is easy. Getting paid is a different process.
Up Next: Art of the Schmooze
What else is there to see in The View From Here? Check the Table of Contents for other essays about writing, marketing, and publishing.