Industry Panel: Beyond Big Publishing - Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs and received a starred review from Library Journal. As part of her work at Writers Digest she was on the 'self published' beat and has been watching that side of the book world for decades. 

Moderator Laurie Miller explains this panel will look at the four main paths to publication outside of big trade houses: self-publishing, hybrid, book packaging, and small or indie press deals and asks Jane to give brief definitions of each. 

Jane defining self-publishing: To take on all the responsibilities of the publisher for yourself. That includes who you work with to edit, print, host, and market the book. You set the budget, incurring all costs and all profits. 

Jane sees that self-published adult books still do better in sales than children's books, but Young Adult, or any book that is just text in black and white can earn profits since you can still be more competitive in your pricing. Adding color imagery to a self-published book increases the cost per unit, especially if it's a print-on-demand title, and kids still prefer physical picturebooks to their ebook versions.

Jane mentions Darcy Pattison is a great resource on making a living self publishing for kids. 

Hybrid publishing defined by Jane: The author pays a firm to assist them with the publishing process. These firms are called: 'paid publishing services', 'assisted', or 'partner' besides hybrid. What they all have in common is the author is paying to get the book printed and distributed by the hybrid publishing partner. Jane advises authors to please not spend money they don't have. If budgets approach five figures, Jane finds that the likelihood of an average title making a profit with a hybrid publisher disappears.

Jane defines small press and independent publishing as still on the traditional publishing side of the business because the author does not pay anything up front. That said, there may be lower advances or maybe no advances. And there may not be the same range of support that is available at a big name, big budget publisher. 

Jane briefly describes book packagers: Companies that put together projects for other publishers to then print and distribute. A company might be putting together the talent and idea and pitching it, or the publisher has the idea/owns the IP and is looking to the packagers to team up creators that can work on assignment. Like Sweet Valley High, Nancy Drew, or Pretty Little Liars, the writing or art is often work-for-hire on existing IP, but there are many, many scenarios for book packaging projects.

NANCY DREW covers! Book packagers have been around since the 1890s?!

Jane Friedman: Publishing Options in 2019 Panel

Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman has twenty years of experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers. Her newest book is The Business of Being a Writer.

Monthly, she analyzes the publishing market and looks at the spectrum of self publishing to traditional publishing in order to provide this information to authors and publishing professionals on her website and via Twitter.

She explained that true hybrid publishers bring the strengths in traditional publishing with the strengths in self publishing. Many self publishing services will call themselves hybrids but they are not doing anything that you couldn't do it yourself. She shared that you have to educate yourself and examine what you are getting from them versus what you could do yourself.

Jane shared that when a creator self publishes, it is easy to get it distributed by Ingram, uploaded and available on Amazon, and listed on Barnes & Noble. But the more difficult part is making sure that others actually know it exists. How do consumers, teachers and librarians know that the book is available for them? That is the challenge because the marketing falls on you. In traditional publishing, the publisher has wider channels of connectivity to make your book known and available to readers. It is important to understand where on the publishing spectrum your project best fits and also what you bring to the table to get the book out in the world.

Some resources she mentioned for those interested in self publishing are Independent Book Publishers Association and Writer Beware.

Jane Friedman: The Future Of Authorship

Jane outside

Jane (left, on the big screen) on the panel

Jane Friedman has spent over fifteen years in the publishing industry as an editor, publisher, and professor. Currently she serves as the web editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review at the University of Virginia, where she also teaches digital publishing and online writing. Her newest digital media initiative is Scratch Magazine (www.scratchmag.net), a quarterly magazine all about the intersection of writing and money. Jane was also the publisher of Writer’s Digest, and her expertise on the transformation of the publishing industry has been featured throughout many events and media, including NPR’s Morning Edition, Frankfurt Book Fair, Publishers Weekly, SXSW, and Nieman Journalism Lab.

Her opening statement on the panel reflects on how much has changed in the last fifteen years, saying,

"Now that everyone can publish, everyone does publish."

She raises important questions:

How is work discovered - and what's the role of companies like Apple, Google and Facebook who control how people reach each other?

What should be/will be publishers' role?

and

How do author careers get made?


On creating author platforms, Jane advises it should be organic, slow and about connecting with readers.

"Platform grows out of your body of work."

The panel discusses how the the bad rap of self-publishing "has disappeared or is rapidly disappearing" - that's a quote from Paul Aiken, executive director of the Author's Guild (which now accept self-published authors as members.)

Jane suggests there can be an experimental approach, with self-publishing mirroring technology startups - it doesn't have to be perfect the first time. And she referenced Abbi Glines' story that Abbi just shared on the panel of how her "The Vincent Brothers" (one of her first self-published books) wasn't as good in that initial launch, and when it was acquired for traditional publishing (Simon Pulse) she went back and spent a year to fix the book. She became a better writer and built her following as she kept writing and publishing.

The panel discusses niche markets, marketing, and what authors have to weigh between self-publishing and traditional publishing - it's a fascinating discussion!

The Future Of Authorship panel begins!

Lin Oliver (far right) expertly moderates the panel of, right to left: Paul Aiken (Executive Director of the Author's Guild), Jean Feiwel (SVP Publishing Director MacMillian Children's Books), Jane Friedman (Web Editor, Virginia Quarterly Review), Abbi Glines (best-selling author of both self and traditionally published books), and Timothy Travaglini (Director of Children's Acquisitions for Open Road Media.)