by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
There’s a crucial scene in The Godfather where Sonny and Tom Hagen and the capos, Clemenza and Tessio, are trying to decide what to do about Sollozzo, who had Don Corleone nearly assassinated. Naturally, Sonny wants all-out war. Tom Hagen wants Sonny to calm down.
In the middle of it all sits Michael, whom no one expects to hear from. Michael has just saved his father from a follow-up attempt on his life, at the hospital. When the corrupt police captain, McCluskey, shows up, Michael accusing him of being on the take from Sollozzo. Whereupon McCluskey has his men hold Michael so he can bash in Michael’s face.
But Michael is the youngest son, the one his father wants to be “legit.” As he listens to all the talk he has his “mirror moment.” Will he continue to be the straight-and-narrow war hero? Or will he take a fateful step that will change the trajectory of his life forever?
Michael chooses. He tells everyone of a plan. Get Sollozzo and McCluskey to meet with him. Find out where. Plant a gun in the bathroom. “Then I’ll kill them both.”
After a moment of silent shock, the others in the room begin to laugh. Especially Sonny.
“Hey, whataya gonna do, nice college boy, eh? Didn’t want to get mixed up in the family business? Now you wanna gun down a police captain because he slapped you in the face a little bit? Hah? What do you think this is, the Army where you shoot ’em a mile away? You’ve gotta get up close like this and bada-bing! You blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.”
Sonny kisses Michael’s head. “You’re taking this very personal. Tom, this is business and this man is taking it very, very personal.”
Michael lays out his plan in more detail. Cool and collected. Then looks at his brother. “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”
Which brings to mind traditional publishing. It’s always been strictly business. As recent news reaffirmed. According to the NYT:
In a significant shake up, Penguin Random House, the largest publishing house in the United States, announced on Monday that the publishers of two of its most prestigious literary imprints had been let go.
The departure of Reagan Arthur, the publisher of Alfred A. Knopf, and Lisa Lucas, the publisher of Pantheon and Schocken, likely came as a surprise to many in the company — including, it seemed, to Lucas.
Lucas posted on X, formerly called Twitter, that she had learned of her dismissal at 9:30 a.m. on Monday morning. “I have some regrets about spending the weekend working,” she wrote.
Reagan and Lucas were “splashy hires.” But the company faces financial challenges “with rising supply chain costs and sluggish print sales.”
So two high-profile, in-house publishers became part of an across-the-board cost cutting move.
It’s strictly business. Which means if you, dear author, wish to pursue the “traditional” way of publication, you must understand:
- You are entering into a business relationship, which means everything ultimately comes down to whether you make the company money…or not.
- If you don’t make the company money, you will not be offered another contract.
- If you are not offered another contract, you will want to get the rights back to your books the company has published. However, the company may want to keep your books in print. This is also a business decision. The company has paid for your book to be published; they would like to make that money back.
- This makes your contract’s reversion clause of crucial importance. In the “old days” it was based on a book being “out of print” (which meant copies in the warehouse and available to bookstores. But print-on-demand and ebooks have rendered this obsolete. The simplest and fairest clause will trigger reversion when the author’s royalty falls below a threshold (say $250) for two consecutive accounting periods.
- Another clause to be considered is non-compete clause. The publisher does deserve some protection from an author publishing a substantially similar work with another company, or as an indie project. On the other hand, the author should be free to sell or publish other works that don’t directly compete. I’ve written about that here. The Author’s Guild offers further advice.
And if you go the indie route? It’s still business if you are in it to make some dough. There are other reasons to write and publish. But to build a stream of income, think like a publisher.
- If you were an acquisitions editor at a publishing house, would you give an advance for your book? Is there a market for it?
- Don’t shut off quality controls, i.e., don’t just type and publish. There is a roiling sea of lousy to mediocre fiction—and AI-generated content—uploaded to Amazon every day. Publishing a dozen novels a month doesn’t build a readership unless people want to read them, which they don’t.
- Growing a fan base takes time.
- Build an email list.
(Further thoughts on this can be found in How to Make a Living as a Writer.)
Comments welcome! (I’m on the road today, so will check in when I can.)
When having a conversation with a fellow aspiring writer, it’s hard to give a good argument in favor of traditionally publishing. But it’s not like indie publishing is a cakewalk either. A lot of work involved either way and you’re competing with a bazillion other titles.
I’m still trying to figure out how to make books magically market themselves. LOL! Writing is fun. The business side? Not so much. But it comes with the territory. I just need to keep learning step by step.
Jim, thanks for this clear-eyed assessment! So many writers take setbacks and rejections personally when it really is business. Business can be cold and cruel but it’s usually a not personal attack on an individual.
Ironically, after Sonny accuses Michael of taking things personally, Sonny himself takes an affront personally, and goes out and gets himself killed.
This is one of my favorite scenes in the Godfather series…
There are still those who think that traditional publishing is the only way to go. Thanks for the insights into both, JSB. I’ll be going to a conference in a couple of weeks, reader-focused. I was disappointed to see that they would give preference to traditionally published authors for panel placement.
There’s still the stigma that if you “do it yourself” it has to be inferior.
You’re absolutely right, Jim, publishing is a business, both traditional and indie. The difference is, with indie publishing you are in the driver’s seat, with the all freedom *and* responsibility that entails. You decide what to publish, when and where. You have final say on cover design, editorial decisions, and marketing. You also pay for the privilege.
I know a number of trad-published authors who are more than happy to let a publisher pay for and handle the publishing process, but this of course means surrendering a degree of freedom. Also, tradpub still carries the stamp of validation, too, for many. It’s a powerful thing.
I remind myself to focus on what I can control, namely which projects I choose to pursue and the choice to make them as good as a kind, and publish them as well as possible.
That should have read “the choice to make them as good as I can”–this is what I get for not being sufficiently caffeinated first thing in the morning 🙂
Great information and review, James, especially the last four items.
Think like a publisher…
Safe travels, my friend!
My middle grade series is being traditionally published, and it’s been interesting to compare the experience with being my own master. Fitting into the publisher’s schedule rather than my own timeline has been a little frustrating, but I thought trad publishing might be better for middle grade since they would have distribution channels into libraries, bookstores, and schools that I don’t have as an independent author.
The first MG book, The Other Side of Sunshine is due to be released this spring. The second book will come out in the fall. I hope to have some good comparisons to share later this year.
Jim, your book How to Make a Living as a Writer has been a huge help.
Excellent advice, Jim. Quality matters more than quantity, though we still need to produce to scratch out a living. Hope you & Mrs. B are out having fun today! 😊
The Penguin behemoth, largest publisher in the U. S., just disgorged two publishers in a massive cut to stave off the inevitable. I wouldn’t go trad on a bet after that. The move away from traditional has been underway for a good decade now. It’s nothing new, and any writer coming late to the table ought to realize that and make an decision accordingly.
Another point is that the indie writer today has tons of support in terms of editors and marketing tools in the form of software apps and, most recently, AI partners. True, there’s a price to pay, but it’s nowhere near the price of losing your book rights, or discovering that your big-name publisher assumes you will “assist” their marketing effort, however slim the budget is therefor. I like Kindlepreneur, K-lytics, and Joanna Penn in particular for their educational approach to publishing assistance.
Thanks, Jim, for your sensible, down-to-earth reality check.
Traditions publishing is good if you have the time to waste on querying for a year and then waiting two years for the book and building hype for it, etc. etc, etc. Being in the older set, I tried traditional. I got good feedback from editors but I wasn’t “what they were looking for” at the time. So I went indie and haven’t regretted it. I like being in control and publishing on MY schedule, not theirs. I strive for the best books possible and as I learn and improve, I can see the difference in my writing. Today, a new writer is blown off, not nurtured simply because it is a business and they are going to continue to find that they will need to keep in shrinking due to their archaic structure.
Traditional publishers won’t even look at SP works (unless they’ve already sold thousands of copies.) That’s a tacit admission that they don’t consider their marketing ability significantly better than an SP author.
If you’re willing to learn the ropes of self-publishing, it’s very fast and inexpensive to crank out an SP book. I started compiling my new n-f book in June of 2024, and published it October 8, following up with the Kindle version a week later. Total outlay was about $99 for an SPR review plus $100 for an ISBN and another $40 for a cover image license.
The vast majority of new writers I meet at conferences and such espouse no interest in making a living as a writer. Most just want to see their books in print, whether it be on paper or with electrons. They commit themselves to the indie route because at its face it’s easier. No gate keepers stand in their way to reveal weaknesses. In the end 90+% of these writers will spend thousands of dollars in production costs and will be thrilled if they sell a hundred copies. They’ll get business cards printed announcing themselves to be published authors and blame a thousand external factors to explain why no one is buying their book.
I may not be speaking about a single soul who reads this response on this site, and if that’s the case, you know that you represent the tiny percentage of self-pubbed universe whose work is not dreck.
The biggest obstacle to success in indie publishing is the inability for real talent to rise above the noise of the dreck. And when the rare exceptions like Andy Weir rise up and get notice, their careers only get supercharged after signing with a traditional publisher. (Work with me here. There are undoubtedly other one-off exceptions, but they are extremely rare.)
If a new writer wants a shot (not nearly a guarantee, but at least a shot) at selling thousands or hundreds of thousands of copies of his book, then I believe the traditional route is the only one to consider. The right trad publisher opens up doors to marketing routes that are otherwise locked for indies. They can get your book into libraries, and they have access to the otherwise locked-away network of sub agents who can sell your book to foreign publishers so your book can be published in multiple languages. Then there’s the access to studios for film options.
There is no one common path for everyone. But before choosing your path, or dismissing one, I urge you to evaluate your goals and objectives.
It IS business, because we finish it, clean it up, put it into the right format, advertise, talk about it – all things which the writer doesn’t need to do if the story remains in their head where it started.
Why put all that extra effort into the presentation and the selling if the intent isn’t to share?
And not in the ‘see what I can do’ sense, but in the ‘this is cool’ sense where enthusiasm for the product makes us want to find other people to love it.
And, since it IS a weird way to spend gobs of our time and energy, we want other people aware of, if not in awe, that we did, in fact spend that energy, and the result is a desirable thing.
Readers could write, too. Most of them don’t. But our species has a whole middle band of humans who like to read stories, feel as if they were the characters, but is not interested in putting in the huge effort to get it down and put it out there. They may criticize – “I could do it better” – but they don’t usually then go do that.
For our labor, we are traditionally given a small sum, like the bards of old.
It’s a business, recognized by the exchange.