by Amanda S. Green

I think it’s no secret that I don’t function without coffee — usually lots of it — to get me kickstarted every morning. My usual routine is to check the local news and then read my morning and then check the blogs. Tuesdays usually means checking the blogs and deciding if the blog post written the night before needs to be altered or thrown out completely. Usually, nothing changes. But there are times when something, even a quote, will send me scrambling to do a total redo.

What caught my eye this morning was a quote from Agape Publishing’s founder, Doug Seibold. It completely sums up my feelings about what’s happening in the industry right now.

The status quo is good for the big guys, but when it starts to break down, opportunity is created for small companies like mine. And fortune favors the bold. There’s a lot of things that are very, very uncertain right now, but from where I sit that’s a good thing.

How very true that statement is. All you have to do is look at what’s happening in publishing to see it. Who is railing against Amazon, the new kid on the block? Legacy publishers and certain authors’ associations that are headed by so-called best sellers or literary dahlings. Why don’t they like Amazon? Because it dares do something different. It is blamed for all of publishing’s ills, especially the decline of local bookstores. As I’ve noted before, this completely overlooks the fact that the big box stores like Amazon and the now defunct Borders are what really killed the locally owned independent bookstores. Sure Amazon had a hand in the decline of these big box stores, but the main problems have been over-expansion and a failure to adapt to the changing market.

All you have to do is look around the various blogs and publishing-related websites to see that there is a line drawn in the sand. Legacy publishers are fighting for their lives. They’d become bloated and complacent over the years. When e-books arrived on the scene, they poo-pooed the new technology, convinced the reading public would always want paper books. After all, that’s how it had been for centuries. They became the buggy whip manufacturers and kept telling themselves that things would soon go back to normal.

The only problem is that they didn’t. First, big box bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders came onto the scene. Because these retailers could buy in a bulk publishers had never before seen, publishers granted them concessions that would come back to bite the publishers on the butt later. Worse, publishers relied on these big box stores and didn’t do anything to help protect the local indie bookstores. So, when the big box stores started facing their own problems, publishers were so entwined with them that publishing as a whole was impacted.

These same publishers were slow — let’s face it, they are still dragging their heels — in adopting e-books. Terrified that this new-fangled technology will be the final nail in the coffin of traditional publishing, the legacy publishers have kicked and screamed and generally pitched a fit a spoiled two year old would be appalled by as they’ve tried to retard the growth of the e-book sector. Not only have legacy publishers failed to prevent e-books from taking off, they have failed to represent the best interests of their authors and their stockholders in doing so.

Now these same legacy publishers are sacrificing many of their mid-list authors, their work horses, in an effort to keep their best sellers. Advances have been cut, even in the case of the best sellers, and often cut drastically. But what is finally happening is that the mid-listers are starting to realize just how creative the bookkeeping has been over the years and they are starting to demand an accounting. Why? Because there is an alternative for them, several in fact. They no longer have to worry about being placed on a blacklist that would keep them from ever selling another book to a publisher.

There is no longer the stigma of going with a small press publisher that there used to be. In fact, many of these small presses offer the sort of amenities authors used to get from the legacy publishers. They get editing and copy editing and proofreading that is not only competent but, in some cases, exceptional. I’m not sure the promotion will ever be what it once was, but some is better than none. But there’s another factor that has to be remembered too. The reading public doesn’t care if a book comes from a legacy publisher or a small press as long at it is good and well edited and formatted.

Then there’s self-publishing. How many authors are now taking this route, at least in conjunction with the more traditional route of small press/traditional press publishing?

The reaction by legacy publishers has been to stick their heads further into the sand as they cut more and more authors from their stables. What gets me is that they are cutting authors, claiming books simply didn’t catch on with the public, when it would take a dead man, buried sixty years, to believe them. As Dave said Saturday, the average shelf life of a book is six weeks — and that’s if you are lucky.

And yet, I can walk into the local Barnes & Noble and find a series begun four years ago on the shelf. Funny though, according to the publisher, this series just didn’t catch on with the public so the publisher declined to buy any more books. Oh, and the author of the series has received royalties from the series. That is almost unheard of now, especially for a mid-lister. How many times have Dave and Sarah both commented on the rarity of a book earning out the advance?

So, authors are seeing with their own eyes, or through the eyes of their fans who are sending them photos of their books on the shelves, that their books aren’t selling. They are being told they just haven’t earned out their advances. And yet the books are on the shelves months and years after publication. Is there any wonder a large number of authors are finally getting a belly full and demanding the publishers open their books and give an accounting?

So, while legacy publishers are screwing over a number of their authors — and their readers in the process — these same authors aren’t, on the whole, standing still. They are out there looking for alternative ways to get their work into their fans’ hands. They are, you might say, taking a leap of faith by going into areas they’ve been told over and over again are bad and will hurt their careers. This is the same mantra the legacy publishers still recite. They fail to understand that you can’t hurt a career that has just been killed.

Just as legacy publishers have found their livelihood inextricably entwined with the survival of the big box bookstores, agents are tied to publishing. Some have taken steps to survive in case the legacy publishers fail. Some of these steps are, in my opinion, crossing into what can best be called a gray area: they have started their own publishing arms, be they call them assisted self-publishing or what. Others have started doing what they can to help their authors learn the different options open to them, admitting that mid- and small press  isn’t the bad thing they once thought.

But the time has come for writers to consider whether or not they need an agent. When legacy publishers were the only “legitimate” game in town, you just about had to have an agent. Most houses wouldn’t accept submissions that didn’t come from an agent. As time passed, agents became the gatekeepers AND, in all too many cases, the copy editors. Agents were the conduits between the publisher and the writer.

That’s no longer necessary. Most small presses, and even mid-sized presses, don’t require an agent to get through the door. Then there’s self-publishing. So the question becomes, what route do you want to take and do you need that guide that the agent presents?

If you’ve never had an agent, you don’t have any problem. You can choose the best path, in your opinion, for your work to take. However, if you have an agent, it’s a relationship you may deem is no longer needed. Hopefully, you can part ways amicably. Just don’t count on it. Make sure you have sent notice to all publishers you might be dealing with about the change in status and then keep an eye on your calendar. If the time comes for you to receive anything from a publisher and you haven’t gotten it — be it author copies, statements, edits, whatever — check with your editor. You don’t want to be caught in a situation where something was sent to your former agent and you never got it.

As Doug Seibold said, this is time for writers to embrace the challenges that the changes in the industry present. It is scary, sure. Change usually is. You’re being asked to do something you’ve long been taught by your masters is a career ender. But when you aren’t getting the advances you once did, when your series are being killed for “not selling” even when you know better, what other choice do you have? Now is the time to be proactive in your careers and take steps to protect yourself. More than that, now is the time to quit trying to write to a mold set for you by your editor and write what you want to. See if it will sell. If not, you figure out why and adapt.

ADAPT.

That is what the industry has to do and, whether publishers want to admit it or not, writers are the backbone of the industry. We have to adapt, and most of us are, to the changes that have been coming at us fast and furiously. We just have to be brave enough to take that next step. We have to have enough faith in our own product to keep at it, even if the initial returns aren’t as spectacular as we’d like. It takes time, usually, and it takes work. Use the tools at hand — Amazon for its KDP program and Createspace to get hard copies out there, BN’s PubIt, Smashwords, Lulu, etc. There are a number of programs and tools out there for us to use, none of which cost much at all. Many of them are free.

So, go forth and write. It’s up to you to decide what route you take, but don’t be afraid of trying something new.