Do authors really have to spend their own money to make a book successful? ‹ Literary Hub

Last week The guard published an article about how some authors are looking for help outside of their in-house publishing teams to market their books. This is nothing new. There are plenty of independent publicists who have been working with authors for years to supplement the work of their in-house teams. But this article seemed to strike a particular chord on literary Twitter, probably because of one particular line: “Reading tours can cost $15,000, publicity campaigns can cost up to $16,000, and marketing work can cost up to $100 an hour—numbers that can be substantial compared to authors’ advances and distant promises of royalties.”

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That is a lot of money, I think we can all agree. So yes, (some) commercial authors spend considerable sums on outside help, and the authors who are in the Guardian are happy with their investments. But I think many readers left the article feeling like they couldn’t be successful without spending extra money. That’s not true! Here are a few other things to keep in mind.

In-house PR and marketing professionals are not lazy.

I mean, maybe some of them are, but that’s not the point here. I’ve written before about how there are too many books overall, often because the people who run publishing houses consistently put quantity over quality. That’s stressful for the workers on the ground, the ones who probably chose to work in book publishing in the first place because they really, you know, How Books. As workloads increase and internal staff become overworked day by day, external consultants can be attractive simply because they have sufficient time for each of their clients.

The resources list disappears.

There is a wealth gap in publishing that has been exacerbated by corporate consolidation. The rich (celebrities, politicians) are getting richer, while the rest of us (most of whom actually write our own books!) have less money and resources at our disposal. In theory, a book advance should pay authors for the time it took to write their book, plus the time it takes to promote it. As advances decline (or at least don’t keep up with inflation), authors end up spending time on these assignments that is well below minimum wage. Paying for outside help on top of such low wages is absolutely not an option.

Most readings and tours do not have much influence on book sales.

Most authors who pay for outside help on reading tours are unlikely to see much return on investment. There are other benefits to real-life readings: the community, the opportunity to interact with booksellers, the chance to meet friends in far-flung places. But a big tour is probably not what makes or breaks a book, which can be a hard lesson when so many of us (myself included) have romantic notions of what it actually means to be an author.

Book coverage is more fragmented than ever before.

As Kate Dwyer recently wrote in a esquire Articles about why debut novels are harder to publish than ever, there is no longer a recipe for success for the kind of book coverage that would secure bestseller status. Even the most coveted spots in print media are no longer a guarantee (even the cover of the New York Times Book Reviewwhich has always been my gold standard), nor do radio and television appearances or celebrity book club endorsements. Hiring the “right” outside PR agent with the right connections to promote their books may not pay off as much for authors as they hope.

Authors are increasingly being asked to deliver more.

Authors are constantly told to be their own brand, build their own following, be active on social media, and craft their own path to literary success. This is ironic, because brand identity means so little to book publishers. itself. Apart from a few really focused indie publishers (NYRByou’re awesome!) and genre imprints, publishers don’t differentiate themselves in a way that is meaningful to consumers. It’s a lot of pressure when the burden is solely on the author, so it’s naturally tempting to seek outside help.

If the barriers to entry are too high, the entire literary culture suffers.

It would be terrible to live in a world where you can only become a bestseller if you pay for it. We are not there yet (well, except for political books, which are bought in bulk by PACs). Yes, outside help can be worth the money, but it does not guarantee success (and the opposite is true: if an author not If you have extra money to hire outside help, your book is not doomed to failure. Ideally, publishers could provide all the resources needed to help their authors succeed, but even in the good old days, success was never guaranteed.