the Hidden Influence of the Hardback

Hard backs are expensive. Not just to buy, but to create.I have never liked them. Heavy and cumbersome, printed in a type that is so large that it feels like it takes a day longer to read, if only for all the page turning. Their only advantage, it seems to me, is how lovely they look on the bookshelf (after the gaudy dust jacket is removed).

They are also a glass ceiling of sorts, in the book world. Not every publishing house can afford to print them. If the book is expected to sell copies by the hundreds, rather than the thousands, printing in hardback is unwise. Not only will it be pricey, it is risky too. If the book doesn’t succeed, the publisher has lost that much more money. Moreover, consumers are less likely to shell out the money for the hardback so initial sales would be lower than straight to paperback.

Why print in hardback at all, then? Because many of the big trade media won’t review a book if it is a paperback. Paperbacks are for second editions and they only want to see what’s brand-spanking-new. And without those reviews, it is much harder for those books to get publicity. Without publicity, books only sell if someone happens upon them or are looking for that books existence. Some nonfiction can make it this way, biographies and memoirs are seriously wounded and fiction is finished, without a first edition in hardback. This is clearly disadvantageous to the smaller publishers and the riskier books.

You Don’t Own the Idea

 

The other day we had an author get really upset because he didn’t like what we were planning for the book he pitched. I have seen this a number of times. It makes me sad. I hate to break it to you, authors, but you don’t own the idea. If you go to a publisher with a non-fiction pitch, and they like it, that doesn’t mean that they will choose you to be the writer.

Even if you have already published a book, and they come to you to buy it from you, you still don’t own the idea. You own the book but not the idea. Should they decide that you are too fussy to work with or that your name isn’t recognizable enough or if they just don’t like the smell of you, they may move onto to pitch the exact same idea to a different author.

This happens more often than you might think. A lot of potential writers feel like they have some sort of power because they have ownership of that concept. They want to play hardball. Then they get no book contract at all.

When you go to a publisher and try to sell your book, don’t just sell the book. Sell yourself as the author. Why are you the best person to write this book? If you don’t have that authority, what makes you think they will publish it? Because at every step of the process, they are going to have to convince other people that you are the go-to-guy/girl when it comes to the subject you write on. If you can’t compel the publisher than it is likely that they won’t be able to convince the buyer at the wholesale level or, later, at the retail level. A book that doesn’t find its way into bookstores is a waste. You have to prove that won’t happen to you.

Furthermore, I am more likely to give the yes-vote on a book that I know I can promote. If the writer is out in the world doing things related to their subject matter I know it is going to make my job easier. So you want to write a cook-book full of peanut butter ice cream recipes. Why you, and not Emeril?

If you don’t have that authority, it is not to late to establish it. I’m not saying you need to go to culinary school. But you could offer free classes on how to make your tasty recipes. You could start up a peanut butter potato newsletter. You could start giving away your fixin’s at nursing homes/homeless shelters/clinics etc. Then when you take that idea to the publisher,they are more likely to buy not just the idea, but you as the author. They wholesaler likes it, the retailer likes it, and the Joe on the street is more likely to take it to the cash register. And before you know it, everyone in town is eating hot peanut butter baked potatoes.