Former Big 5 high-ups have joined forces and founded Authors Equity, a new publishing house and methodology that has made authors a shareholder in their own work rather than receiving an advance upfront. The Bookseller has the current percentage at 60-70% of sales go to the author. Additionally, rather than building the business internally and having everything done in house, they’re utilising freelancers to create the projects and the authors and their agents will have a say in who gets to be a part of the creative process.
It’s all about profitability.
Each change Authors Equity has made away from “traditional publishing” is arguably damaging the already fragile and exhausted publishing machine. Removal of advances, increasing author sales percentage, and keeping the company small contribute to quick financial growth for the few people on the shelf, but leaves everyone else on the cutting room floor.
Advances are given to authors when the contract is signed and the book is ready to go into production, or can be split over several events (contract signing, manuscript acquisition, and publication, for example). This is usually a large sum, calculated by the sales forecast for the book. The advance is paid upfront by the publisher, but there will usually be a clause in the contract – “advance against royalties” – meaning the author will start receiving royalties at an agreed percentage (usually between 10-15%) after the publisher has made back the month from the advance. This may include books that get returned to the publisher too. Getting rid of advances gives the publisher more funds to work with when producing the books – I suppose the inference is that better quality products can be made with additional investment.
Increasing the author sales percentage is merely an incentive – if an author isn’t getting an advance and their cut of sales is still only 10%, why would they choose that publisher over one that still provides an advance? Big money is always enticing. My concern is with how high their percentage is – the majority of sales income is going to the author, who no doubt rightfully deserves it, but there are numerous processes that require that funding. Granted, I don’t know how much of an investment they are starting with (considering who is fronting this business, I suspect it’s not a small amount), but the mass production of books all need to be covered by 30% of sales? There is no way a fully staffed publishing house would be able to operate with so few funds… oh wait-
Hiring freelancers is arguably the biggest detriment to the publishing industry. Publishing Hopefuls (those of us who want to work in the publishing industry) are already finding it ridiculously difficult to find permanent work in their desired industry because of how London-centric it is. There aren’t enough jobs to go around, so we are already freelancing in the areas that interest us in order to gain experience that we can put on our CVs. Competitive pricing makes it almost impossible to earn a livable wage from the work thrown our way. But with the Authors Equity model, freelancers are more likely to get more consistent work, which is what we want right?
Wrong.
Well, right, but freelancers don’t have the stability and benefits of a permanent position; benefits like a pension, paid holiday and sick days, mental health schemes, guaranteed health insurance, and so on. Even the money isn’t secure – jobs come and go, and dry spells are very common. Using freelancers for their skills is great, but people need permanent work in order to live. And this is all assuming they get paid properly in the first place.
I’m not completely against the Authors Equity model – I use elements of it myself. I am unable to give my authors an advance on their projects, and I use freelancers when I can’t do the work myself (and I love working with them!). But my business and I are not in a position to do anything else – I don’t make enough sales, so I am essentially a freelancer (emphasis on free).
But I love what I do, and I want to make it work. So I carry on being a freelancer.
Authors, let me know what you think in the comments about the Authors Equity model. And readers, do you care about the payment model used for the books you read?
This blog was written using the below articles:
https://www.thebookseller.com/comment/is-this-the-equity-authors-need?utm_source=newslette r&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning%20Briefing
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