On Paying to Publishing: A Mini Polemic on a Major Hypocrisy

In book publishing, all authors are paying; so why are only some authors getting punished for it?

Subsidized publishing models have shaken up traditional publishing, and necessarily so. Most weeks I speak to authors who are grateful for new and emerging publishing models—hybrid, co-publishing, partnership publishing, etc.—in a world where traditional publishing shuts them out for reasons that range from evasive to sad. I’ve heard all the reasons: We published a book on that topic too recently (read, in the past three years); you don’t have enough name recognition; your book is too literary; you don’t have a big enough platform; we don’t think we can sell it; and on and on and on.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of this bright line in the sand, the question of who pays, a way for the industry to continue to shut non-traditionally published authors out, even post-publication. Awards programs and contests often stipulate that they will not accept author-subsidized projects. Associations often bar authors from membership if they’ve self-published or hybrid-published. Review outlets often won’t review the work of authors who pay to publish. For years, I’ve seen this stance as misinformed, and celebrated those outlets that encourage a level playing field by choosing other measures by which to evaluate books and authors’ worthiness; but lately I’ve started to think of it as hypocritical, in part because who pays for what when it comes to authorship is so often obfuscated or ignored.

Let’s look at some of the expenses that get overlooked when we talk about who pays for what in book publishing:

Agents’ unpaid hours:
Agented authors often get the benefit of agents working tens upon tens of hours for the promise that a manuscript might get sold. Agents I’ve talked to bristle over how many unpaid hours they spend on projects (especially when they don’t sell!), all because the Association of American Literary Agents insists that it’s unethical for agents to charge for editorial work, or any kind of work, since they’ll share in the eventual proceeds of the book once it sells. This might have been a good policy fifty years ago, but it’s not fair to agents in today’s publishing climate. After all, many great books don’t sell. And who’s talking about the publishing houses that are laying off editors left and right, all the while not acknowledging the hundreds of thousands of dollars they’re saving as they benefit from agents’ editorial hours. Well, agents are talking about it—but that’s about it.

Editorial work:
Before an author even gets to the point of looking for an agent, they’re likely to spend money on any number of experts to support them to get their book ready to shop, or ready for publication. They might hire a consultant, a coach, a developmental editor, a line editor/copy editor, a proofreader. They might hire more than one of these kinds of experts. They might even hire a ghost writer, or someone to develop or write their book proposal. These are expected expenses, and most agents and in-house editors recommend ghost writers or editors when they like a project but feel it’s not quite there yet. In-house budgets are being slashed, and editorial expenses are among the easiest to push back to authors (or their poor agents). These days, sound advice says that your book better be ready to go when you try to submit to a publishing house, and no book is ready to go without a super amount of support (and money shelled out) to an author’s editorial team.

Publicity:
Authors are expected to hire their own publicists, or marketing experts (or both). This is a thing that’s widely talked about at conferences and in online classes. Don’t expect a publisher to put any money toward a publicist, experts will tell you. If you’re lucky enough to get an advance, use it to hire a publicist. This is the most common place, second or equal to editorial work where authors of every sort—self-pub, hybrid, and traditional alike—are spending out of pocket to publish.

Art:
Many authors subsidize art in all kinds of ways. Maybe they own or purchase the image they’ll use for their covers. Maybe they commission a designer to create charts or graphs or line art for their interiors. Maybe they buy stock art to enhance the look of the book in some way. All authors are subject to providing art outside of what a publisher will provide, even though most houses will cover certain aspects, especially cover design.

Vanity:
Vanity is a word I despise, mostly because it’s lobbed only at a certain kind of subsidized author, those who might pursue publication for a passion project or a legacy project, something that may or may not only be for family and friends. Sometimes these authors have much larger ambitions, but even if they don’t, why do we hurl the word “vanity” at them and not at other vain projects? Consider cookbooks from popular restaurants; celebrity and influencer books, most of them ghost-written, which serve to elevate a person’s popularity and visibility; or books that serve as brand promotions for major companies. (Did anyone call Barbie a vanity film even though Mattel is purported to have spent $144 million on its production and $100 million on its marketing? Rhetorical question.)  

In recent years, there’s been an influx of predatory companies flooding the publishing marketplace, mostly because authors are easy prey. They are easily flattered, they want more than anything to believe that someone loves their work, and they often have money to throw at their creative endeavors. But the publishing industry, rather than working to find ways to identify bad actors (which would not be that hard to do), has instead worked in concert to stigmatize authors for paying for their work, refusing to see that many of those books are beautiful, amazing, well-written, and well-published. Worthy of our attention. And even though all authors are paying for some or many parts of their publishing process. Back to the line in the sand, and back to the hypocrisy.

The biggest offenders are review outlets, contests and awards programs, and associations, but they’re not the only ones. A hybrid publisher friend of mine recently told me that he was barred from a bestseller list because person in charge of the listings was suspect that not enough of the books had sold through Amazon. What’s going on here? Basically, the list suspected that the author had paid their way onto the best-seller list, using Amazon sales as a measure to prove their theory. Even though the publisher could prove its sales were valid. Not a good place for the industry to be. There must be other ways to measure a book’s viability/legitimacy. It doesn’t take much to look at the cover, the interior, and read a few pages to rule out the mediocre or poorly published. A reviewer at a major review outlet once told me that the only reason they held the line on subsidization as a measure for what they’d review was because it was one way to prevent the fire hose. It’s a measure, he said, and there are too many books, too many authors. That said, I call on these programs and associations to rethink their stance. Consider being part of a solution that elevates independent voices, the lifeblood of this vast publishing ecosystem.

And indie authors, the next time someone makes you feel like a lesser author for paying to publish, or if you start to doubt your legitimacy because you put your money where your mouth is, take heart. You believed in yourself enough to finance your work; you honored your work enough to invest in yourself; you are part of a long tradition of authors who decided to green-light their own work rather than to wait for someone else to tell them their work was good enough. To me, you are the heroes, and the naysayers need to stop worshiping at the altar of exclusivity and find a better way forward.