Q: How is the publishing industry impacted by a struggling economy?

A: I can only answer on the basis of today, and on November 25, 2008, the answer is that the publishing industry has indeed been impacted negatively and at least in equal measure to the overall economy!

The old axiom was that publishing was recession proof - especially religious publishing. Why? In the overall scheme of the economy (and people's pocketbooks) books are a relatively inexpensive form of entertainment, best partaken of at home, which saves gas and eat-out money. In the case of religious publishing, the prevailing wisdom has been that when the economy is good "people play" but when it's bad "people pray!"

But in this maybe-post-probably-ongoing-subprime-American-automaker-melt-down-government-bail-out-required economic downturn, sales are not good for retailers or publishers. The list of retail chains reporting same-store declines is as long as the list of ... well, uh, retail chains. The only reliable statistics available on the health of independent retailers is the number that are closing on a weekly basis. Iconic flagship book retailer, Barnes & Noble, reports glum 3rd quarter results and 4th quarter projections:

B&N Sales Sink; Sees Gloomy Holiday
by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 11/20/2008 6:19:00 AM

The news was about as bad as it could be from Barnes & Noble. For the third quarter ended November 1, total sales fell 4.4%, to $1.1 billion, with sales through its bookstores down by the same 4.4%. Same store sales fell 7.4%. Sales at Barnes & Noble.com rose 2%, to $109 million. Moreover, the nation’s largest bookstore chain predicted that--based on the negative sales trend to date--same store sales in the fourth quarter will fall 6% to 9%. Earlier this month, B&N chairman Len Riggio warned employees in a memo that the company was bracing for a terrible holiday season.

Books-A-Million, which is strongest in the Bible Belt fared even worse.

BAM Comps Drop Nearly 10%
by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 11/21/2008 2:13:00 PM

The drumbeat of bad news from the nation’s bookstore chains continued Friday with Books-A-Million reporting that total revenue dropped 5.7% in the third quarter ended November 1, to $110.9 million. Comparable store sales tumbled 9.9%, the “weakest comparable store sales in many years,” said CEO Sandy Cochran. With the sales decline, BAM’s loss deepened to $2.2 million in the quarter compared to a loss of $555,000 in last year’s third period.

The sales decline was felt in most segments, Cochran said, with bargain books, gifts, and the teen categories among the few areas where business was up. A decline in customer traffic plus a cost conscious consumer where blamed for the poor results. BAM is focused on “controlling costs, managing inventory and preparing for the holiday season,” Cochran said.

While Cochran said the holiday publishing schedule is a good one, she sees few signs indicating that the difficult marketplace will shift anytime soon. For the first nine months of the year, revenue was down 4.8%, to $349.2 million, and the company had a loss of $635,000 compared to earnings of $4.6 million in the same period last year. Comp sales for the nine months were off 8.0%

Perhaps the most dramatic announcement came from the supply side of the industry with the news that literary giant Houghton Mifflin was putting a hold on acquisitions - akin to a fish saying that they might spend a year away from the water.

HMH Places "Temporary" Halt on Acquisitions
By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 11/24/2008 12:54:00 PM

It’s been clear for months that it will be a not-so-merry holiday season for publishers, but at least one house has gone so far as to halt acquisitions. PW has learned that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying books.

Josef Blumenfeld, v-p of communications for HMH, confirmed that the publisher has “temporarily stopped acquiring manuscripts” across its trade and reference divisions. The directive was given verbally to a handful of executives and, according to Blumenfeld, is “not a permanent change.” Blumenfeld, who hedged on when the ban might be lifted, said that the right project could still go to the editorial review board. He also maintained that the the decision is less about taking drastic measures than conducting good business.

“In this case, it’s a symbol of doing things smarter; it’s not an indicator of the end of literature,” he said. “We have turned off the spigot, but we have a very robust pipeline.” The action by the highly leveraged HMH may also be as much about the company's need to cut costs in a tight credit market.as about the current economic slowdown.

What's it mean for you as author or aspiring author?

If your heart is set on publishing with a traditional publishing house of note, the news isn't great. My own company, Thomas Nelson, in anticipation of emerging economic woes, cut the number of titles being published almost in half as of March 2008. As a publisher I always find it more fun to do books than to not do books, but unquestionably, we were ahead of the curve.

If you are able to see publishing not just in terms of a paper and ink product with a particular logo or name on the spine - and are open to the array of self- and micro-publishing options available today - then this is just one more confirmation to go for it now rather than wait for your deal to sail in!

Q: What are subrights?

A: In the future, maybe everything!

Okay, first let's answer the question based on what subrights commonly mean in the publishing industry NOW.

Subrights are the permission to use the content from the primary license the publisher has purchased (almost always the book) in subsidiary forms. When a publisher buys the right to publish your book, that company usually secures all subsidiary rights in the deal. This allows him or her to exploit these secondary rights him or herself, or more commonly to sell these rights to others to create new products that disseminate the content and generate new revenue streams.

Common subrights are film and video rights, audio books, workbooks, gift books, e-books, translations, book club editions,  international editions, commercial rights, gift products, and according to the contract language of many publishers, any medium that now exists or that will exist in the future in the universe.  In other words, anything that can house your words.

The basic reasons that publishers secure subrights, the right to re-license what you've sold to them, are:

a. Most book publishers, not surprising, are very good at creating books, but also not surprising, not as good at creating other products that expand the reach of the content, like motivational coffee mugs or Lithuanian translations or motion pictures. But they do have staff or have contract workers who can find companies that do those things very well.

b. Since the publisher invests significant money into taking a book to market, with no guarantee that the book will be profitable, his or her default position is to reserve all opportunities available to earn a return on that investment. 

So does the publisher get all the money? Not unless you signed a bad deal. The standard contract terms is for publisher and author to split the proceeds.

Why should I give the publisher all these rights? Don't if you don't have to. But unless your name is Stephen King or John Grisham, it's probably going to be a deal breaker for the publisher. And if you have no history of selling subsidiary rights, why hold onto them? If you have a compelling argument on why you can outperform the publisher - i.e. Ridley Scott has already bought an option on the screenplay adaptation of our work - or you know your publisher doesn't attend international events and has never sold a translation right - or your uncle owns a direct mail book club - then fight for them! If you think you can outperform the publisher, try to negotiate a time limit for the publisher to have exclusive right to sell subrights to your work - or counter his or her offer with terms that give you a bigger share of the subrights revenue if you generate the sale.

How important are subrights? For many publishers, their core business, creating books, is a break even proposition; profits come from subrights. For the most successful authors, creating a book opens up opportunities for many other ways to express their content, while making more money and promoting sales of the original license, the book.

Can subrights hurt? Sure. If you've written a motivational classic and the publisher sells quotes to an employee award company that makes really ugly plaques with your name on every single one of them, then yes, it can hurt you. If the sell of subrights doesn't generate new business but only replaces what the publisher would have sold anyway (cannibalization), then there's really no benefit.

With the proliferation of e-books in particular, the reality is that subrights might soon be the only thing you, an author, sells. In other words, the primary product will be the content and any expression of it will be the sublicense, including the veritable paper and ink book, which may or may not be necessary to distribute the content.

That's undoubtedly a long ways off.  Or is it?

Oprah Winfrey just reported that the Amazon Kindle is now her favorite "gadget". That means the future might be closer than you think!

Q: Will e-books ruin book publishing?

A: Of course not.

Okay, let me qualify that. If by ruin you mean "bring an end to" and if by book publishing you mean the "careful and professional preparation and dissemination of long form intellectual property expressed in words" then I stick by my answer and say, of course not.

Now if by book publishing you mean the above definition but specifically and predominantly in a paper, ink, and binding medium, then I guess the answer is possibly. Maybe the readers of the world will gradually or spontaneously decide that we don't need to kill any more trees and that electronic dissemination and acquisition is the only way to go. First, I would say that in the world of book publishing content is king and packaging secondary - a tough admission from someone who makes a living as a gift book publisher. So if paper, ink, and binding some day go away, I would simply say, no big deal. I don't think that's going to happen any time soon as the latest research (the PubTrack program from Bowker) indicates that 82% of Americans - who represent one third of the book publishing market - still prefer printed books exclusively.

In his book Business At the Speed of Thought Bill Gates asserted that we tend to overestimate the amount of change new technology will cause in its first two years but underestimate the amount of change that will occur in the next five years. How long has Amazon had the Kindle and Sony its e-book reader in the market? If Gates was right then it will be 2012 or 2013 before we have a pretty good idea where e-books are going.

Now if by book publishing your definition is closer to "long form intellectual property expressed in words" no matter what media is used to distribute the material then I would say for that to come to an end some entirely different dynamics other than an e-book reader would have to be involved. Mike Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson and my boss, raised the question of what the Internet is doing to our brains in his blog, particularly in relation to its impact on long form reading. He cites Nicholas Carr's article in the Atlantic Monthly, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Carr's observation is that as the Internet has become his universal medium, concentrating on longer pieces for more than a couple of pages has become increasingly difficult. Carr says:

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.

Since an e-book, at least in its most popular hardware expressions, is designed to essentially look, feel, and behave like a a paper, print, and binding book, you can't blame it for any for any widespread impact on people's ability to apprehend long form content just because it's in a digital format.

Again, citing the most up-to-date research from Bowker's PubTrack data, in 2007, 164 million Americans over the age of 13, about 75% of the population with discretionary spending power, purchased at least one book. Book consumption is greater with age but still relatively constant. And for those who assert that junior readers simply won't read unless the content is wrapped up in a digital sight, sound, and interactive experience, I'd simply point to the Harry Potter phenomenon where seven- and eight-year-old kids could suddenly read 800-page books! There is an ongoing voracious appetite for books across ages and within all the niches of the human marketplace. And America won't always account for one-third of all book consumption.

So will e-books ruin book publishing? Absolutely not. Will they change book publishing? Over time, most likely, but not in its essence.

So book publishing, a medium brought to the masses by Johannes Gutenberg through his invention of mechanical printing almost 600 years ago, is safe for at least another millennium?

Now that's an entirely different question! Give me a sec and I'll see if I can google an answer!

Q. I got my book published but it hasn't done very well. Can I get my publishing rights back?

A. Not without some help. Take a look at your publishing agreement. It might be a simple process. But if you don't find a suitable condition, you can still ask your publisher nicely.


Most publishing agreements have several provisions that allow you to get your publishing rights back.

First, most agreements have a time frame within which the publisher must publish your work after acquiring it. Eighteen months is not atypical. In other words, a publisher can't buy your book and just sit on it. Now, if you turned in your manuscript late or it has not yet been made acceptable through the editing process or there are some other extenuating circumstances, they (the publisher)are probably protected.

Second, most agreements have an in-print provision. If your book is not available for purchase and you bring it to the publisher's attention - in writing - with a specific request to rectify this by reprinting the book, the publisher must send the book back to press within a defined period of time or return publishing rights to you. Just to repeat, the onus is usually on you to initiate the process in writing. Now, this has increasingly become a point of contention between authors and publishers in the digital age. Why? In many agreements, offering a book in a downloadable e-book form qualifies as a book edition. And further, digital publishing means that the publisher can economically transition from offset printing to print on demand. In other words, your book will technically never be out of print even if nothing much is currently happening in the area of sales and marketing.

Third, a few agreements have qualifiers like a set time period for publishing rights or a minimum number of annualized sales or the requirement that it be included in a printed catalog. If you don't remember this coming up when you were negotiating a contract, then this probably doesn't apply to your agreement!

My book was printed on time and is still in print. It just isn't selling like I thought it would. This is so disappointing.

Even if none of the conditions apply, go ahead and ask for a reversion of your publishing rights, but don't be surprised if the answer is no. Or if the publisher encourages you to do things that will help rekindle demand for your book in the marketplace.

Now, if sales of your book have steadily waned to next to nothing, if you have earned out your advance against royalties (or you are willing to pay back unearned advances against royalties), if inventory levels are low (and especially if you're willing to buy the remaining copies in stock), and if there isn't sufficient demand to warrant an offset print run (let's just say about 1,500 copies), then your publisher just might shrug his or her shoulders and say sure, you can have your publishing rights back. Often, the publishing agreement specifies that in such cases the publisher will let you have any plates, films, and files free or at publisher's actual cost.

But again, even if all the circumstances of the previous paragraph are present, many publishers (self included) are loathe to return rights. Why? They (we) have invested a lot of money into publishing your work and as distribution technology changes and morphs into podcasts, e-books, print on demand solutions, and more, they don't want to lose opportunities to recoup their investment through new means of exploiting your work.

And one final question for you to ask yourself. What can you do that the publisher hasn't done? If the answer is "a whole lot more" then go for it and simply ask.

Q. What must I do to copyright my work?

A: Nothing.

The moment you write something original in idea or expression on the back of a napkin, in your journal, or any other sheet of paper (or any other textile or surface) - or input it into your computer, you own the material. Unless you sell your copyright to someone else (i.e. a Work Made for Hire Agreement).

Outside of that nebulous area called "Fair Use" no one else can publish your material without your permission. You created it; you own it. When publishers offer you a book contract (and "book" is very inadequate term to convey what they want), they are purchasing your permission to own exclusive sales, distribution, territorial, and publishing rights to your material. Publishing rights means they have all control over the printing of your work, whether on paper with ink, whether in audible voice, whether in dramatic presentation, whether in workbook form, whether in electronic medium - or in any other medium that exists now or will in the future exist in all the universe. And so forth. (Get the idea?)

But YOU will still own the copyright. It is your intellectual property. You just can't do anything with that property. Unless you reserve certain rights, you no longer are allowed to do anything with your material that is no allowed by your publisher. If you want to donate three chapters to your church for a ministry booklet, that's fine - if and only if it's fine with the publisher.

One of the classic historic battles between writers and publishers was over copyright ownership. Even into the 90s (and yes, this Century), many boilerplate contracts indicated that the publisher was acquiring ownership of the copyright and that the book would be copyrighted in the publisher's name. That battle is mostly over, with most publishers agreeing to register a book with the U.S. Copyright Office (or the country of origin) in the author's name.

But I thought I didn't have to do anything to copyright my work? Why would a publisher go to the trouble?

There are some smaller publishers who actually don't go to the trouble and in most cases, it won't be a big deal. It won't change the legal standing to the work. But registering the material is an action that conveys a publisher is going to protect the copyright, which is a huge issue.

Protecting copyright is the source of much acrimony and confusion in the world. As an example, I lived in a city where a local high school copied a university's trademarked logo (a trademark is different than a copyright, but you get the idea) for their football helmets. The university, after learning of the violation after several years of use, issued a cease and desist letter. The moral outrage and outcry by supporters of the high school team was loud and sometimes vicious - and wrong. If the university had not protected their trademark in this instance, they would lose the ability to control something essential to their identity and possibly lose millions of dollars in licensing fees in the future.

Does that mean you can't let others use your material? Of course not, but I wouldn't recommend it without requiring proper attribution, including the (c) designation with your name. In a church bulletin? Yes. As a chapter in someone else's book? Definitely. If you don't protect it that way, why would a publisher offer you money for it at a later date? Be generous all you want, but be consistent in protecting your ownership.

Bible publishers have done a good job of granting generous permission for authors and organizations to use the material from their translation, in many cases at no charge, but always with the requirement of proper attribution and copyright notification. Outside of the King James and a few other public domain translations, there will be specific guidelines set forth in the front matter of your Bible or on the publisher's website. Check it out as a good case study.

There are a host of subplots surrounding the topic of copyright. I've already mentioned Fair Use, which deserves its own blog and is still too slippery to nail down. There's subrights issues, international and U.S. differences on the term of a copyright, tricks for extending copyright beyond its expiration date, review rights, Work Made for Hire issues, serial rights, and other nuances. This blog is in no way exhaustive, but is at least highlighting one simple application for you as an aspiring published author: protect your property.

How? You don't have to put (c) Your Name on all your work. But why not do so anyway as an initial precaution. Make sure you establish when you created your work in case someone claims that you borrowed or stole from them. Let others enjoy and use your work before you are able to turn it into a payday, but only with proper attribution and notification - and any other conditions you would want to stipulate. And when you have a publisher ready to buy your work, make sure you understand exactly what you are selling. If you are a new author, the publisher is going to want to buy all rights from you to make sure he or she can "exploit" those rights in any way necessary to make your deal profitable for both parties. (Exploit sounds awful but it's not a bad word in this context!)

The small things can save you big problems later. If you think disagreements over physical property gets brutal, wait until you see a fight over something that is a product of the mind!

Q. Why won't a publisher just read my manuscript?

A. A better question might be this: Why should he or she give two or three hours in his or busy schedule to pore over what you've written?

Let's start with the simple reality that most of the publishing world is situated in a low demand, high supply section of the supply-demand curve. That means publishers must deal with the fact that we publish more books than there are interested readers. That means for you, the writer, you are part of a group sending more manuscripts than a publisher has open slots.


Note that the third variable in the SD Curve is Price. High supply + low demand = low price. Price, for you the aspiring author, is the publisher's motivation to read your manuscript. Don't get mad that the price you can charge is low, just understand it and do what you can to change something on the graph. Incidentally, I know a lot of publishers and acquisitions editors who are very nice people and would love nothing more than to encourage and help you. Those who spend a lot of time doing this, however, tend to be ex-publishers and ex-acquisitions editors. It doesn't pay the bills nor justify the salary.

Publishers aren't looking for more manuscripts to review but we've got to publish something, so unless we have a strong cadre of proven authors signed to long term deals we do want to read the right ones. (See my blog on whether you need an agent to round this discussion out.) What makes a manuscript the right manuscript? Bottom line: It offers something unique and compelling to a well defined audience. If you can't articulate in a sentence or two what makes your book special for a group of readers that the publisher has some history or means of reaching, then an acquisition specialist probably won't sort through your material to develop your "elevator speech" for you. Let's break down the components of the sentence that is set in bold face.

1. Articulate: Is your sales pitch as well articulated as your manuscript? (Both are well written, right?)

2. In a sentence or two: When you skim book shelves or magazine contents or advertisements or any other message, how long do you give it to catch your attention? Five seconds? I doubt it. Why would you expect a publisher to be any different than you, particularly since he or she knows that the finished book will have the same requirement to nab attention in a second or two put on it by consumers. Hint: There's something that goes on the cover of a book that serves as the best sales pitch available. (I'll address titling and subtitling in a future blog.)

3. What makes your book special: If you have quoted someone elses work in every chapter, there's a good chance your book is not needed. If you haven't created something with a new angle, a new discovery, a new application, a new character, a new anything that is important and compelling - why bother?

4. For a group of readers: Chances are your book idea will not appeal to everybody. So bold assertions that millions will want to pick up this book is a real turn off and indication you haven't thought through who will actually take the time to look your book over and purchase it. Better to be honest about the size of the group that your book appeals to.

5. That the publisher has some history or means of reaching: Textbook publishers don't effectively market to fiction readers and fiction publishers don't do a good job of marketing to preachers and ministry publishers don't tend to reach romance enthusiasts and so on! When you determine who to send your manuscript to, make sure that the publisher has published comparable titles.

This Q/A is as philosophical as it is practical. It's about helping you measure your expectations and understand why the process is frustrating without getting to frustrated. I'll come back to the major points of a good book publishing proposal (because whether or not you hire an agent, you're going to be the one who has to write it!), which will have significant overlap.

Okay, back on topic. Why won't a publisher just read your manuscript and proposal? Don't blame him or her. You haven't yet articulated a concise and compelling reason to do so.

Q: Do I need an agent?

A: It depends.

In the "old days" of publishing, let's say prior to 1990, there was a common publishing phrase that referred to unsolicited manuscripts as something that "came in over the transom." (A transom is literally a hinged window over a door. Think of the book return slot at a library.) In other words, a writer sent in his or her manuscript to a mail drop, which then ended up in one of several 4-foot high stacks in a junior editor's office, and which after six or seven months of collecting dust was either rejected with a form letter - or voila, it got discovered and published. One way many publishing companies handled projects over the transom was to hire college interns to sift through hundreds or thousands of manuscripts over summer break and separate the winners from the losers.

Many publishers were still leery of agents in the mid-90s. (Many still are.) Since acquisitions is the lifeblood of publishing, they preferred to take the initiative and go find someone with a marketing platform to promote their own work; if that person couldn't write, the publisher would help them write it with a ghost writer or collaborator. If an author didn't have a platform but had exceptional verifiable credentials - for example a professor at a university with a reputation for expertise in a particular discipline - the publisher would still take the initiative. Both of these and many other scenarios still happen all the time but even when the publisher is responsible for basic ideation, it is more common to work through an agent.

The worry for publishers back in the "old days" was that once an agent was involved, he or she would demand too much money up front as an advance and too much in royalty rates and thus damage the economies of publishing. (Okay, the publishers were right on this point for many deals.) But even with that concern, sometime in the mid and late 90s, agents went from being a luxury for big name authors who wanted to sell projects to one of the big publishing companies, to a near necessity for almost all writers interested in placing a project with almost any size publishing house.

Today, many publishers will no longer receive unsolicited manuscripts from authors. They prefer and require agent involvement. In a sense, the agent, for many publishing companies, has become a way to streamline the acquisitions process - and maybe even reduce head count. The hardcore, full time, certified agent - and yes, there are many former editors and other publishing staffers who moonlight at agenting - earns his or her commission (more often 15%, up from 10% even a decade ago), along with a trustworthy reputation that opens doors to a variety of acquisitions editors and publishers, by carefully screening authors and projects and vouching to the publisher that the author can deliver both great material and can help market it.

What does this mean for the aspiring author? It means that finding an agent who will represent your work can feel - and be - as hard as selling the project.

So, do you need an agent? The answer is YES, if ...

1. You don't have inside connections with one or more publishers who are already disposed to buying a project from you.

2. You haven't been approached by a publisher to write a project, which is a dream come true for anyone who has toiled with speculative work (you still might be better off with an agent if the deal seems fishy in some way).

3. You don't have a large established platform (connection to a well defined audience that is motivated to buy from you) whereby you can guarantee a certain number of sales. (Some publishers will make a deal with this kind of author if the author commits to buying X number of copies, which becomes part of the contract. Some authors, particularly if they speak to large audiences, will then determine that they'll make more money self-publishing.)

4. You want to be with a larger publisher (not necessarily the right option for every author or project) that will present your work to bookstores and other retailers. (I have a friend who has sold more than 1 million copies of his self-published book. He still feels disatisfaction because the books he did with big time publishers did not do well in the trade.)

5. You have a big idea and a big audience that loves you, but don't know the first thing about book publishing and aren't really fond of writing.

That list isn't close to being exhaustive and even if you can turn each point around and answer it conversely, you still may not need or want an agent. And acquiring the services of a well connected agent who really believes in your work is no guarantee that your work will be purchased by a publisher at all, much less at terms that feel reasonable to you. Plus, today there are many more professional quality self-publishing options available to the aspiring author. You can even go on the internet and typset and design a cover for your own book with a service like lulu.com.

So do you need an agent? Unless you have the ways and means to sell a self-published work or have incredible connections within the publishing community, the answer is probably yes. I'd wish you well in finding the right agent for you - but I'll save that for another post!