Hello publishing spectators, publishing experts, publishing side-hustlers, and publishing newbies!
Strap on your seatbelts ’cause we’re going for a ride—into the wild world of book publishing. Guest Kathleen Schmidt is a leading voice in publishing. Her popular Substack, Publishing Confidential, is a go-to source for tell-it-like-it-is realities about the industry and what authors can and should expect. We talk shop this week, touching upon author platform, Barnes & Noble, and why advances make no sense. This is a not-to-be-missed episode for anyone who’s ever published or wants to be published.
Check out some of our favorite posts from Kathleen’s Substack, Publishing Confidential:
Partial transcript from the show
Brooke: Wherever you are on your publishing journey, this episode is going to shine light into the dark recesses of this wild industry—because it matters that writers, aspiring authors, and authors alike know about this marshland that is the ecosystem. Listeners, I am a publisher who’s been working in the publishing industry for 24 years, and I am still learning things about publishing and most days trying to keep up with the what’s what—so I know that for writers and authors it can frankly be overwhelming, with a lot of conflicting information, and a lot of head-scratching about why publishing works the way it does. If you feel this way, trust me, you are normal. The publishing industry elicits head-scratching and moans of frustration and head-shaking and eye-rolling and much more. Grant, I want to ask you about what level of education authors should aspire to have about the industry they’re in. And maybe it depends on the personality of the author, but tell me where you sit as an author looking in at the publishing industry in terms of how much involvement and know-how you have with your publishers and within the industry more broadly.
Grant: I actually have strong feelings about this because I think there’s a long history of publishers essentially infantalizing authors, not including them in any of the business decisions around their book because authors, especially novelists, are thought of as being creatives who just don’t know about the other parts of the business. So authors are kept on the sidelines, and their input is often manipulated to stay on the sidelines, by both agents and editors. I think authors have played into this role as well because there was a day when so much was done for the author, such as all of the publicity and the marketing and the book tour, but now the author needs to be a business person at the table with a vote on many things. Publishers can be very coy and cryptic when it comes to giving an author the seat, however, so you might have to be pushy. So I think it behooves authors to know the business side of writing just as I think it behooves professional athletes to know the business side of their sport. Otherwise, you’re likely to get taken advantage or, or just not get what you deserve.
Brooke: Today’s guest Kathleen Schmidt is the perfect person to talk to about all this because she has this fabulous newsletter on Substack called Publishing Confidential where she’s educating writers and authors about the industry. There are a lot of amazing publishing people out there and I love reading about publishing and what’s happening, but it’s not very often that I come across something like Kathleen who I feel like is really speaking my language across all the points. I have yet to read something from her that I don’t agree with. She’s also a straightshooter. She’s not bullshitting anyone. She’s calling out bullshit as she sees it and is trying to support authors to set expectations. I do a lot of that so maybe I just see a soul sister in her, but regardless, I love it. In our interview with her today I basically just want to pepper her with questions about topics she’s covered in her Substack posts. And a lot of her posts speak to things I see in publishing, too, that are just broken. I think a lot of people agree that traditional publishing is fundamentally problematic for the way it gambles such big money on books that often don’t earn out, how publishing makes parriahs out of authors who don’t do as well as the publisher had hoped, but then the publishers often don't give enough support for those authors to have succeeded in the way the publisher wanted them to. I was talking with a publishing friend just this week who talked about how publishers often consider their authors a necessary annoyance basically. And that dynamic stems from some publishers that would surely prefer to just have the author turn over their work and then get out of the way. But what that kind of publisher behavior is precipitating is authors turning elsewhere, right—authors trying their hand at nontraditional models, wanting different kinds of relationships with their publishers, varied ways to think about the flow of money. With your publishers, Grant, and maybe you can’t say too much, but have you felt that they value your input and want what you want, or have you sometimes felt at odds with your publishers?
Grant: I think all of the above to some extent, but I’ve also been fortunate for the most part, and there have been moments when my agent stepped in and very astutely made sure our opinions were being considered. I’ll tell a story, though, that I think illustrates the author as “necessary annoyance” in publishers’ minds that you mention. I’ve had this experience several times, and I know authors who have had the same experience. Every time I’ve been shown the first draft of the cover of my book, I get a gushing email from my editor, telling me what an amazing cover they have, and that everyone at the publishing house, editors, publicists, marketers, is just in love with it, it couldn’t be better, it’s perfect, and they show it to me not really asking for feedback—and with the whole world cc’d. It’s one of those “let us know what you think” emails, but it’s telling me that everything is so perfect that I’ll be the lone naysayer if I don’t like it. The first time I experienced this, the cover was wildly off the mark. Fortunately, my agent thought so as well, so she pushed back, we got new designs, and, as with any collaborative creative process, we arrived at a really good cover. This has happened with each of my books, even though I’ve had different editors and designers. Each time, we had to play the squeaky wheel role and be a necessary annoyance, but each time, the cover got better. The reason it’s important to include authors in this and not view them as an annoyance is that I now like all of my covers, which is really important for my own promotional efforts. I want my books to be seen. I don’t want to hide them.
Brooke: I love that story and I have to say I’m probably guilty of having done that to my authors, you know? It’s interesting because where you sit in the industry matters, but it also matters how you talk to your authors about it. We do that thing where it’s like “I love these, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about them,” and in my case, I always say to my authors “If you’re not happy with the covers, let’s have a proactive conversation about it and talk about what needs to change and why.” But I think the problem with traditional publishers is that they don’t have that nuanced conversation. Kathleen has a lot of points about publishing that she covers in her Substack posts, but one I’ve seen her talk about often is that publishing should stop being so over reliant on social media, which is a sentiment I believe to be true. She’s advocating for a more holistic approach to author platform and to how publishers think about the authors they’re acquiring, which of course is a very sane way to think about things. The industry is so obsessed with author platform—meaning that the authors have to already have a built-in audience, or that they need to be very active online with lots of engagement. And the most obvious place to measure this is through social media of course. But I think what a lot of publicists are saying is that it’s shortsighted for social media followings to be the be all end all when it comes to measuring sales outcomes. Publishing is operating a lot on a hope and a prayer, though, and sometimes you publish a book or many books having no real sense of how it might do. That’s less true of nonfiction because with a lot of nonfiction there are measures of an audience. But when it comes to fiction and memoir, it’s much tougher. Readers don’t need those books. They’re not filling a need other than reading for pleasure. So those kinds of publishers have a harder time knowing what is going to hit. But for my part, I think Kathleen is right because some of our most successful books have been from authors who have little to no platform, whose books have sold on the power of the writing, the message, the author’s personality, and the package—or some combo of all three.
Grant: I’m on board for this. You can be a hit on social media, but that often doesn’t translate to book sales. And I know some successful authors who have built up their platform in real life, and those people buy books. So I’m curious, Brooke, if after all of these years of helping authors know that they need to build their platform if now what you’re saying to aspiring authors is not to give up if you don’t have much of an author platform?
Brooke: Yeah, for sure, or maybe to change your expectations. It might be true that you can’t get a deal with a Big Five publisher, but I know a lot of authors who’ve had barely there platforms who have sold their books to publishers, but they’re smaller publishers. And this is a vast ecosystem. There are a lot of players. We’ve said this before on previous episodes, but you want to cast your net wide. And sometimes you have to make room for a new dream.
Grant: And publishing is changing so much, Brooke. In today’s trend we’re going to tackle a brand-new publishing imprint called Authors Equity, founded by some of the most illustrious New York editors all of whom took a buyout package from traditional publishing in recent years—and it’s a nontraditional business model. Which just bolsters what you’re saying, that the ecosystem is vast and getting ever vaster. And that’s another reason for authors to be paying attention. Because if you want to publish you want and need to know your options, and there are more ways to get published than ever before, but also more ways to get taken advantage of than ever before. Change breeds opportunity as they say, but that can be a double edged sword.
Brooke: Yes, that’s a good point, which is why it’s great to connect to folks who are at the forefront of that change, who are watching and paying attention and writing about what they see. Kathleen is one of those people and I couldn’t be more thrilled to connect with her about one of my top three topics to talk about, the other two being memoir and politics, which fortunately for you, Grant, we don’t cover on this particular show.
This Week’s Book Trend:
Today’s trend is about the brand-new imprint, Authors Equity, that’s making waves in New York publishing. The short of it is this: Authors Equity made a splash last month when it announced that it will be paying authors monthly, not offering advances, and allowing authors to get 60%-70% of the proceeds from book sales. Ultimately, I think Authors Equity is a good thing for nontraditional publishing because this is the place where there’s industry growth and innovation. And, they’re entering into an already-thriving indie space with lots of players in the sandbox who’ve been hard at work forging ideas and attempting to define the space.
We look forward to seeing what they bring to the table.
ABOUT KATHLEEN SCHMIDT
Kathleen Schmidt is the Founder of Kathleen Schmidt Public Relations. She’s previously worked in all aspects of the industry, as a literary agent, acquisitions editor, and ghostwriter. Her career encompasses 30 years of creating and directing impactful and strategic global media, marketing, and branding campaigns for politicians, A-List celebrities, athletes, and high-profile personalities. To date, she has worked on 50 New York Times bestsellers, and her clients have continuously appeared in top-tier national print, broadcast, and radio outlets.