Book publishers are dumb!!  Now you might discount that as the cry of a bitter man who has had his manuscript rejected but bear with me as we travel the murky road of publishing and hopefully I can give you some tips on what to do from my own experiences if you want to have a go.

Let’s be honest. The book world is cutthroat and like the music industry awash with ideas and books both good and bad. But you’ve got an idea for a book. Should you press on and write it and then try to sell it? Should you send the idea in and get reaction and maybe an advance?

The Publishers

If you’re writing a book about music then you can narrow the field down to Cherry Red, Omnibus, Plexus, Helter Skelter, Serpents Tail and IMP. Sure there’s the big boys but unless you’re a major author already or have got one hell of a book with amazing stuff then its possible (but unlikely).

Now these guys aren’t sitting there waiting for the next big thing to happen. They are like everything else, a business that has to generate ‘x’ amount of turnover/profit through the business to survive. Places like Plexus will be banging out titles of a regular basis with house authors assuming pseudonyms and penning books on bands like ‘Funeral For A Friend’ or the latest thing and committing the rock ’n’ roll  equivalent to bonkbusters that are all puff and no substance. Why? Because it’s guaranteed a few thousand sales and keeps things ticking over and it’s easy money feeding the youth market.

Your book though of course is special - you've put your heart and soul into it. It may or may not be mass marketed but it will be most likely be written from the heart and with an interest in the subject. And here’s your first problem regarding your subject matter….breadth.

Again it’s the populist approach that business prefers because it sells more. I.e.  people can quickly understand the remit of a ‘History Of Punk’ or a ‘Definitive Bands of Punk’ book. My Roxy Club Book was passed over because it was felt to be too narrow as Cherry Red explained to me in an email and by phone.

We liked the idea hence why asked for more details. Over the past year we have become more cautious on the book front and even though we like the idea of the book, we did not get great feedback from our book distributors regarding sales potential, so for the time being we decided not to take the risk of publishing it.

I hope somebody does take a chance on the book as I think the story deserves to be told.

So assuming you do get a publisher how many books do you think get sold and how much money might you get? Cancel the order for the Porsche!

“In 2004, 950,000 books out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen BookScan sold fewer than ninety-nine copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. The average book in America sells 500 copies.” The Long Tail (Chris Anderson 2006)

Here’s a quote from an email I got from a reputable source…

 ... I think, the best way to answer this is to say what I'd do which is pretty much based on (cynical) standard practice. If I'd published John Robb's book (or Alan Parker's f'r example) on Sid, I'd have tried to sign a deal for a £3000 advance and 6% royalties (which is stingy .... £4,500 + 8%) would be the absolute maximum I'd stump up for this kinda book. (BTW I'm pretty sure Cherry Red don't even pay advances!). Then I'd print 5,000 - unless I could pre-secure a good order from Hot Topic or similar, then I'd add whatever that accrued into the equation). Depending on how the stock shifted, then I'd reprint, or not. If the 5,000 went in two years, then I'd maybe reprint 3,000 - more if faster.

To add to that, photography, proof reading and book covers will probably ending up falling on you as well. I did the front and back covers for Andy Blade's Cherry Red book for free and my own one myself. You’ll probably be looking to do the same.

Agents
Maybe you don’t want to approach publishers yourself. Maybe you want to fins someone who knows their way about the business and can use their expertise to secure a deal. Finding an agent is as hard as finding a publisher and you don’t have a clue how good they are really. Agents take a percentage of your advance or payment. They submit to all the publishers and in theory if good should have relations with all of them. They will submit the book and your contract will say that even if you leave them and find a publisher yourself, if they have submitted the book to them then you still have to pay them a fee. My agent was not good, failed to even keep in touch with, me and was binned after 6 months. He was also Toyah’s agent which should have been a warning. Use an agent at your peril. They want an author who is going to write lots of books – that means more money obviously. Think about it.

Submitting Manuscripts
A leap into the unknown here. You fire it off with an S.A.E and it's not cheap. To add to that 99% of the time I never even got an answer back from people who I sent it directly too. I know they get loads of submissions but how rude is it not even to return the manuscript? This was one of the most annoying things and one result of this was that when an author I liked had a new book out (Take a bow IMP and What a rude tosser) and I could have helped promote on my website my answer was ‘no’. I refused to help a publisher that acted in such a way to a potential author.

The second thing that happened was another publisher that didn’t tell me my manuscript had been rejected passed it on to a well known journalist who was writing a story for a major monthly music mag and who then contacted me to ask to use quotes. I was not best pleased at this.

Self Publishing
OK so you’ve submitted, got no answers and got some rejections and your book is sitting there folornly. Do you give up?

Look you don’t need publishers any more. You can do it yourself and you can’t get much more punk rock than that. There’s places like Lulu in the US or the ones I used such as Print On Demand who can print the books off for you for a reasonable price and you can sell them through Amazon and Play. There’s no stigma to it. You’re supplying a niche market and at the same time you’re skimming sales of the big boys. You are an AUTHOR – just a bit more switched on!

Ands critically it won’t cost that much to do. Look most books are around 200 pages long with a few pictures in the middle. Based on that you could get a good deal and even get Print on demand where they do you 100 books at a time. I’m supplying a niche market and went overboard. I wanted everything in mine so you’ve got inside cover art, gloss paper photo spreads, colour and hundreds of photos. The book is over 500 pages. I’ll just about break even but I haven’t skimped on anything. The point is; it’s your choice.

BUT…You are going to have to proof read it yourself and set the book up for the printers supplying images and artwork.

Double BUT…It’s all about marketability. I’m lucky I’ve got a website that attracts a lot of visitors, in fact just the visitors I want to buy the book. I also understand how websites work and I’ve set one up for the book. I’ve also set up a MySpace for the book.

Over the years I’ve done favours and helped people out. At the point of publication I called in all those favours and am asking for some more.

Bands play gigs, do interviews etc etc. Authors seem to publish and fade away. It’s a lot of work to sell the books because you’ve got to do it yourself. Reviews are critical. The big boys rely on reviews. You need to get some.

Triple BUT…Amazon are rightly a paradigm of an E-Commerce website. As such you need them to sell your book as like Google is to search so Amazon is to books i.e. people use it as the first place to start looking. It comes at a fairly hefty price. 60% to be precise. In other words if you sell your book at £10 Amazon will take £6 and you will also have to take the cost of sending them their books. Play however charge 10% on a transaction but are not associated with books, more videos.

Your Checklist 

1. MySpace/Facebook – Acquire friends and build up a profile. This will look good on your accompanying submission letter but remember if you go it alone and its full of rubbish then that’s’ what you will be selling to.
2. Website – create one even if it’s just one page and get it to the top of Google by linking to and from major related sites. Enable people to subscribe to the page and build up a database so you can tell them news and when it’s going to be published.
3. Were you famous then? It matters! Play on it!
4. Your idea? Generalist or Niche? Easily understandable? Definitive? Does it have rare or never seen before photographs, reminiscences or anything to set it apart? If yes get all of this in your submission along with the website and MySpace details.
5. Get an agent if necessary
6. Choose your Publishers – I’ve mentioned some of them and send sample chapters with covering letter
7. Take decision to self publish (proofing, setting up, artwork, costs, space – do the maths)
8. If its relevant try and sell space in the book to record companies or other publishers.
9. Whether you self publish or not, market the thing to death. If you’ve got a deal another edition means more dosh!
   • Publicise it by bulletining MySpace
   • Call in favours
   • Email your database
   • Post on blogs and news sites
   • If necessary print leaflets and leaflet gigs
   • Sell from your site

In Conclusion

Writing about Music is not the gateway to untold riches but then again if you’re doing it for that reason you’re in the wrong business. It may be the gateway to more writing and other avenues opening up but most likely you’re writing for your peers and self satisfaction.

And so back to the opening statement. OK so publishers aren’t really dumb but like record companies and to be honest authors themselves) they haven’t grasped the power of the web sufficiently about the dialogue you can have with your readers and its commercial possibilities.

Cheaper self publishing and the web will mean more erosion of their sales and less importance on paper reviews as less people read them. If you’ve got a story you don’t need them anymore BUT you’ve got to sell it! One day an author like JK Rowling is going to say at an end of contract “I’m going to self publish my next one” and boy wouldn’t that change the face of publishing!

Good Luck!

Paul Marko October 2007