Dishing Dirt: When Trashing a Publisher Hurts Your Credibility

By OFW chief editor: Renée Miller

Published: August 09, 2012

Penelope Trunk, a self-published author with much to say, recently blogged about how she got a big advance from a “big” publisher, and ended up doing it herself anyway. PS: She says she kept that advance, and therefore won’t reveal said publisher’s name. Nice of her. More on that advance later.

First, let’s examine the bulk of her post. Trunk says that the reader (that’s you and me) probably respects the publisher she is trashing, but that they won’t by the time she’s done. I read the article twice, and respect her less than I do the publisher at the end of it. Before those of you that like her get your panties in a bunch, I’ll explain why. It’s not her personally I dislike. I don’t know her. She writes well, has a natural and easy voice, but what she puts out there gives me that gut feeling that says “bullshit.” She brags, she taunts, and she insults my intelligence. That makes me a little hesitant to buy what she’s selling.

Trunk explains how the decision to self-publish came about after discussing book promotion.

“To be clear, I wrote my book, and they paid me my advance, in full. Three months before the publication date, the PR department called me up to “coordinate our efforts.” But really, their call was just about giving me a list of what I was going to do to publicize the book. I asked them what they were going to do. They had no idea. Seriously. They did not have a written plan, or any list, and when I pushed one of the people on this first call to give me examples of what the publishers would do to promote my book, she said “newsgroups.”

Most big name publishers have a marketing and promotion plan in place. To allege that there was nothing “on paper” begs the question, did you see proof of this? Did they say they had no plan at all? I’m not implying that in her case they had an unsuitable plan. I’m not saying that she’s not correct. That’s entirely possible. But if this publisher is as big as she says, it would stand to reason that said publisher would have had policies established long ago regarding marketing and whatnot. And hey, here’s a reality check for everyone: Authors are ALWAYS expected to do most, if not all of their own marketing. It’s how shit rolls nowadays. Get used to it.

The post then goes into what she told her publishers in a face-to-face meeting about what they plan to do for her book in terms of promotion. She says that “More than 85% of books sales are online, mostly at Amazon.” – Where is this figure coming from? I’m not saying it’s inaccurate, but there is no solid data, no link, nothing to back it up. Is this the US market? Is it worldwide? Print? Digital? Both? Online sales? What? Is it non-fiction? Fiction? All books? I looked online, and despite finding many figures about book sales, I found none that broke down into the numbers she gives, and I’m usually pretty adept at mathematical shit. Some clarity here would have given her more credibility. With this statement alone, the odds I’ll buy her book have plummeted because she seems to be pulling figures out of her ass to make herself look better.

Trunk also says that “Print publishers have no idea how to market online.” Can I just point out here that Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, and I don’t know, almost every bestseller the past what—five years has been marketed EFFECTIVELY online? I don’t have any fake figures to toss out, but I mean, seriously? Print publishers market the hell out of shitty books, and they do this almost entirely online. And you know what? Their marketing works. It works almost too well.

She claims to have done six months of research into the publishing industry. Because six months is an adequate amount of time in which to become an expert, you know? Based on her extensive research, she’s determined what she refers to as “the new rules for book publishing.” Let’s look at her new rules a little, shall we?

“1. Self-published books are the new business card. It’s a way to remember someone and also know what’s interesting about them.”

And dumb is the new stupid. What? Traditionally published books don’t accomplish the same things? No, self-published books are not the “new” business card. They’re a version of the old card with “self-published” in place of a publisher’s logo.

“2. Nonfiction writers write books to get something else—speaking gigs, consulting gigs, a steady flow of job offers. Books are good for a lot of things, but direct sales from a book are rarely a way to support a life.”

They're rarely a way to support a lifestyle either. But let's not split hairs, I think I agree with her here, although I don't think this is something we all haven't heard before.

“3. Book sales are about community. If you have a community of people who listen to you via blog posts, then you have a community of people who will be interested to know how you put a bigger idea together in a book.”

This took six months to figure out? This is true for both traditionally published and self-published books. It’s not rocket science and certainly not an epiphany.

“4. Book sales are about search engine marketing. The only markets that exist on the Internet are search terms. If no one searches for xyz, no one will land on a page that sells xyz. You can only sell what people are looking for.”

Hmm. Yes and no. E-book sales, yes. They’re marketed successfully via search engines. But the reader has to know your name or book title, no? How else will she know to type in xyz? Self-published book sales, the same. Print books? Oh yeah, same thing again. Search terms are huge in online marketing. She’s right. However, the readers have to type in your name or your titles in order for search engines to do you much good. Sure they might type in the genre or subject you write about, but you have to get up to the top of the search engine rankings for that to be of any use. So, how is that done? Marketing. Not search engine marketing, that’s later. You begin with plain old marketing. Book sales, whether print or digital, are about promoting on social media sites like Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook, interviews, blogging, websites, book reviews, and by hauling your ass to writer’s conventions and bricks and mortar stores to get yourself “known.” It’s called a marketing plan and sales depend on both online AND “real life” marketing. You want someone to search your name or your book title online? They have to know you. You want them to punch in your genre or area of expertise and get your name on the first page? You have to get other people searching for you first, or have traffic to your website and social media pages. There are dozens of ways to make that happen, not just “search engine marketing.”

“5. The only reason to have a print book is to be in Barnes & Noble. You can achieve just about every goal you might have for book publishing by publishing it electronically…”

…and later in this excerpt she writes,

“A print book is mostly about vanity. It’s about being able to go into Barnes & Noble, when you are there for the magazines and the free Wi-Fi, and stroke your ego by holding your own book.”

Um…what?

She’s joking, right? Look, I see how she reversed the whole “self-publishing is about vanity” argument. Bravo. Except, it’s untrue. Don’t lump me into a category of people you know nothing about, and I won’t do the same to you. I want my book available to every reader, and that includes the ones who don’t own a computer, a cell phone or an eReader. Believe it or not, there are many people out there that own none of these things. I want to market to them as well. Vanity? Pfft. It’s about money, exposure, reach. It’s about my audience. I don’t go to bookstores, by the way, for the magazines and free Wi-Fi. I don’t think I’ve ever used the free Wi-Fi, but I shall remedy that because I’ll take almost anything that’s free. Usually I go there to buy books, as 99% of all other authors do. Sure, it’d be a kickass thing to see my book on a shelf, but it’s not the only reason I go to a bookstore. And magazines? I don’t recall the last time I read a magazine.

By the way, I pulled that 99% figure from my ass. Full disclosure. That’s me.

Finally, there’s her claim that she kept a large advance, despite not publishing with her mystery publisher. This one I just can’t wrap my head around. To my knowledge, advances are given ONLY after the manuscript has been handed over. It usually goes something like this:

1. A publisher reads a manuscript and offers an advance in exchange for the author signing a contract to publish.

2. The advances are ALWAYS paid in three steps:

a. 33% AFTER signing the contract (please, don’t lose sight of this point).

b. 33% after the manuscript has been typeset and RETURNED by the writer with accepted corrections etc.

c. 33% after the author gives the go-ahead after receiving and accepting the first-pass proofs (just before it goes into print).

IF she has kept an advance, it can only be a portion thereof and AFTER having signed the contract. If she’s signed the contract, keeping said portion of the advance and publishing elsewhere is breach of contract and can be construed as a criminal offence (fraud). Therefore, IF she has done that, besides having no ethics, she can be in really deep shit.

Perhaps she found a giant loophole in her contract. I suppose that’s possible, but it’s unlikely.

Look, while Trunk might truly believe she’s doing the industry a favor with her extensive research and well thought out claims, what she’s done is discredit herself and self-publishing in the minds of those who actually do carry out extensive research to determine which books to buy and which to ignore. This is why trashing a publisher or anyone in the industry should only be done with a lot of thought beforehand.

Any author worth a shit should fact check before making any claims, because once you toss a figure or a claim out there, it’s there forever. I’d rather say that I don’t know something, or that I’m uncertain, or state something as my personal opinion, than say something is fact without making sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is.

I don’t doubt she was unhappy with her publisher. I don’t doubt that self-publishing was the right decision for her. But I do doubt everything else she says in this post. Someone with a less open mind might doubt the entire self-publishing industry as well. This is what’s dangerous about trashing both sides of the industry without hard facts.

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