tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post113347028463716250..comments2024-03-27T07:25:07.401+00:00Comments on Grumpy Old Bookman: Publishers' profitsMichael Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11338398159818400930noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1139621482642911472006-02-11T01:31:00.000+00:002006-02-11T01:31:00.000+00:00Jeremy Snippet here, Grumps. I appreciate your poi...Jeremy Snippet here, Grumps. I appreciate your point about authors, on the whole, being mugs in a mugs' game. But I think what I was really saying in my previous post was that most publishers and agents live a lot better than I do – or at least have a lot more money – and achieve this trick largely by sleight of hand.<BR/><BR/>It seems to have litttle to do with real economics. Publishers pay millions each year to a handful of authors and buttons to the rest. It makes no sense. there is no m arketplace logic to it. But the trick works and it benefits those it was always intended to beneift: publishers themselves, the better known agents and an approved list of top authors. <BR/><BR/>I used to be a Fleet Street journalist and have met lots of senior publishers down the years. They live for the most part well-heeled and "agreeable" lives. Some, of course, have trouble making ends meet, as do some agents. Not everyone keeps his snout securely in the trough. But if they are employed as editors or executives within one of the four or five conglomerates who dominate the industry, or as agents within an established firm, they make, typically, £75,000 a year, plus bonuses. Some, of course, make a great deal more.<BR/><BR/>My last agent, though totally useless, has a fine office in a large block in central London. His secretary and assistant occupy the outer office. Various colleagues enjoy similar suites. He lives in a large house in North London and has a second home in the country.<BR/><BR/>My current publisher is sleek and prosperous, as are his senior colleagues. Yet he cheerfully admits that<BR/>he pays his authors as little as possible. I can certainly vouch for that.<BR/><BR/>Now let me think of the authors I know. One, with an enviable Fleet Street platform, was paid £100,000 for two novels, the first of which sold badly. Another, in a similarly elevated position, secured two advances, one in the UK, the other in America, for a beautifully written book that did well in Britain but bombed in the States. Both are engaged on their latest projects – but only when they have time off from their day jobs.<BR/><BR/>Another friend, no longer a journalist, has secured three advances of, I believe, £40,000, for three books, all of which have done quite well but not exactly stormed the bestseller lists. He makes an honest living but could not remain in London were it not for his wife.<BR/><BR/>My favourite example (an acquaintance, not a friend) is a man, already well employed, who is paid upwards of £150,000 a pop for his books, which are well reviewed in London and New York but never sell more than a few thousand copies. In recent months, he has expressed some annoyance at the fact that his luck seems to be running out. But given that he has amassed close to a million pounds in the meantime, my sympathies are limited.<BR/><BR/>Against all this, I also have friends who struggle to sell their books at all. It doesn't seem to matter that they are at least as good writers as their successful brethren: they lack "platform." They are not seen by agents and publishers as "one of us."<BR/><BR/>When I consider that Piers Morgan received a reported £1 million for his book, The Outsider, which went on to sell about 20,000 in hardback and 80,000 in paperback (thus earning out a mere fraction of his advance), I am forced to the conclusion that certain classes of well-connected writers are not paid royalties, they are paid fees – and these fees must be appropriate to their status, having no regard to the number of books they might actually sell.<BR/><BR/>There are innumerable examples of this. We read about them all the time. In some cases, I can verify the authenticity of the reports. I can think of one man who wrote an instant book on a "hot" subject in 2004. It was full of the most egregious errors, yet was treated as holy writ. A sequel was immediately commissioned.<BR/><BR/>Rageh Omaar – a charming man – received £800,000 for two books. The first, on Iraq, sold a reported 6,000 copies; the second has yet to be written. But is he worried? No – for he is about to start a new job with Al Jazeera on, I would guess, a salary of a quarter of a million pounds a year. He continues to be held in high regard. Besides, he was not paid an advance, he was paid a fee.<BR/><BR/>Meanwhile, at the bottom of the heap, full-time authors are routinely paid advances of as little as £10,000 (sometimes less) for books that take them a year or more to write. The publishers take them on in the hope that that maybe one of them will break through into the bigtime, thus adding a fresh carriage to the gravy train. They are just one notch up from the slush pile, and if they don't deliver the goods, they are soon shunted into a siding.<BR/><BR/>But you can be sure that the publishers and agents will still raise their glasses when they meet over lunch and drink to "success." Whose success do they mean? Theirs and their mates'. It certainly ain't mine.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1133524504379551372005-12-02T11:55:00.000+00:002005-12-02T11:55:00.000+00:00oops... I mean the hits finance the flops, but you...oops... I mean the hits finance the flops, but you get the idea.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1133524444713394382005-12-02T11:54:00.000+00:002005-12-02T11:54:00.000+00:00Great post, but I'd say that how much a publisher ...Great post, but I'd say that how much a publisher makes depends totally on the success of a book. For a big hit -- a million seller, the publisher will make tons. Most of the costs are fixed costs, and the rest is gravy. The problem is, most books are not hits, so the large number of flops ends up financing the hits.<BR/><BR/>If he/she gets a decent advance, the author makes more on a flop than the publisher ever will.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com