#publishingpaidme

[Zilla1]

As part of BLM and the wider agenda, you may have seen this trending on twitter. I think the intent relates to the discrepancy in advances based on ethnicity but some UK authors have highlighted the scale of US advances. I know Publishers Weekly publish information to subscribers about deals but I found some of these tweets interesting. I found the thread difficult to navigate so probably missed most of the posts.

I checked this out but twitter isn't really the domain of indie authors and I find it all really confusing. Lots of talk but not many actual figures.

I do however have a POC indie friend who "quit". By quit I mean she pulled all her books down, and started a new pen name that didn't disclose her race. She made more with the 99c series prequel than she had during her whole "black pen name career".

Interesting.

Then, with the #blackoutbestsellerlist, another friend was featuring a different black author on her profile every day, to highlight POC talent. She featured (with permission) the original friend - outing her - and original friend noticed pre-orders being cancelled.

On one hand it just blows my mind how people can be so inherently racist. Then again, I'd say 50% of authors I know are male writing under female pen names. That would indicate that people want to read books written by "people like them". I think until people change this attitude, you will always have women writing crime thrillers under male pen names, men writing romance under female pen names, black men and women writing as white women.

The black women I know killing it in publishing are writing BW/WM romance, so their readers are primarily black women.

It's wrong, and I wouldn't even know where to start on solving the issue. All we can really do is continue to promote POC voices (which I do). I'm also making a conscious effort this year to check how diverse things like anthologies and book signing events are before signing up, and I think a lot of people are.

All that said...

My feelings on this somewhat remind me of the feelings I had when reading this article...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/01/publishers-must-act-now-to-develop-working-class-writers-report-common-people?utmterm=Autofeed&CMP=twttgu&utmmedium&utmmsource=Twitter#Echobox=1588344458

That is:

”When I spoke with him about his career development it was just like watching somebody on the ski slopes when you’ve never learned to ski,” said the writer. “Off they go with all their friends, whizz whizz whizz and you’re still stood at the edge wondering how to strap on the ski boots.”

We've discussed this briefly before but initially this article really annoyed me.

I’m working class, and not even just working class, I’m Scottish working class, which is probably down in the coal pits in the scheme of “work”. I barely even speak the language I see written in english books.

But even I could work out pretty quickly that the ski-slopes were not for me.

If you can’t work out how to put the boots on you... Google it! And then you find out there is a whole ocean of fantastic waves. Little training waves all the way up to 100 foot gargantuan MILLIONAIRE waves.

And there is a shit tonne of people willing to hold your hand as you take on those little training ones.

Yet they seem to be obsessed with skiing and completely overlook all the surfers.

So my question, why do they do it? I read the "looking for an agent" threads and wonder if they're all masochists (I mean that as kindly as possible).

If the woman in the article really wanted to give up when she saw her friend slide off on skis then she’s probably not cut out for the ups and downs that is being a professional author.

So I do wonder, if the system is so broken for unrepresented voices (WC, POC, sometimes anyone who isn't a university educated middle class person) why do they keep trying to get into the system? There is a whole other system where you can make your own rules and be your own gatekeeper.

Anyhoo that's my rant done for the day 😂

themental, good rant, not that you need agreement but I can see where you're coming from.

I've been in a room almost entirely populated by women, mostly white, all middle class, all Oxbridge or Russell group university and the focus is mostly on gender (possibly drawing on when the industry had more male representation back in the day), increasingly on race or LGBTQ+... provided the author or employee of the agent and publisher is middle class and Oxbridge. Complete blind spots about class and geography and nations.

I suppose there's some prestige, credibility or endorsement by having an agent then a traditional publishing deal to capture author's attention. To be fair, there's such an ocean of self-published books that earning from self-publishing isn't an easy option either for those who choose not to ski.

I struggled to see real data in the twitter thread but I don't navigate or feel twitter in the way I can use other media. From what I could see, there was a feeling that black authors' advances seemed smaller and USA advances seemed large compared with UK. I don't know whether either of those were significant.

I was puzzled at authors who felt their advances where too small for their (5-10?) subsequent books when I would have thought the royalties and earnings data would either make advances less significant (sales would just mean the earnings were moved in time from the advance to royalties) or give an evidence base for a decent agent to get a better deal (subject to structural racism across the industry).

I suppose there's some prestige, credibility or endorsement by having an agent then a traditional publishing deal to capture author's attention. To be fair, there's such an ocean of self-published books that earning from self-publishing isn't an easy option either for those who choose not to ski

Yeah that's very true. I totally agree it's not an easy option. That goes for all sides of the industry, though. I don't think there is any easy option. Even when / if you find success, it's never guaranteed to keep going that way for you and if you want to be a career author I think you need to "hustle" (hate that word 🤣) until you retire.

I guess my point is there are people who moan and bitch about things being unfair, and there are people who recognise it's unfair, it's unlikely to change in their lifetime, and if you don't like the unfairness then there is another place that exists where the requirement for entry is far more equal.

And in all cases the people who moan are always going to do worse than the people who just get on with it.

Be the master of your own destiny and all that.

There was a feeling that black authors advances seemed smaller and USA advances seemed large compared with UK.

Hmm.. I wonder if this has to do with "people like reading books by people like them". Are UK advances smaller because the % of sales are skewed toward the UK (which is a much smaller market)?

I compared sales data a while ago with my little mastermind who are predominantly US based. We all write in US english but obviously my settings are UK.

Their sales are on average 95% US and 5% UK

Whereas mine skew 80% US and 20% UK

Anecdotal of course, but that would suggest that books by UK authors have a bigger market share in the UK, which is a smaller market. And would possibly shed light on why advances are smaller?

But if minority writers stop making noise about the problem and just sidle quietly off to the world of self-publishing, nothing will ever improve. The trad publishing route should not be closed off to certain people just because there’s an alternative out there for those whose priority is just to get their book published one way or another.

Appropriate, I know and not for me to speak for her but I think themental was observing that it might be in BAME authors' interests to successfully self-publish rather than 'push open the gates' or give up. I know there's an argument about opening doors for others but equally I'm aware many self-published authors think their route isn't the poor relation, rather a better route than traditional publishing. There are no initial gatekeepers, authors retain c70% of earnings and no agent and publisher to 'parasitise' earnings like traditional publishing.

I think the UK industry does have access problems for authors (and employees) for BAME, class, regional/geography and disability. I think less so for gender and LGBTQ+ now though I know others will disagree. I could be wrong as I'm not certain my understanding is evidenced beyond anecdote (I looked for some data and couldn't find industry data. The first headline UK agency I checked seemed c85% female and c95% apparently white).

@AppropriateAdult

Everything Zilla said

Certainly wasn't suggesting that minority writers should slink off and stop making noise. I'm pretty sure you can still tweet while running a publishing business (I should know, I spend enough time mumsnetting ).

just because there’s an alternative out there for those whose priority is just to get their book published one way or another.

And I wouldn't phrase it the way you phrased it. If you go into self publishing thinking that you want to get the book published one way or another then you will most likely fail. I'm 99% sure they would fail, actually.

I'm merely pointing out there is more than one route to becoming a successful author.

And sometimes those two paths cross over. I know both indie > trad and trad > indie.