Tatiana Lutje

Project

Presentation

Progress Log

Capstone Essay

Tatiana Lutje

Ms. Kohler

Capstone Research Paper

5 May 2020

The Three Methods of Publishing

Last year, my 7th grade class had a final project in Social Studies called “The Africa Project.” During those two weeks, we had to make a presentation that tied all of the information we had gathered in the last week or so together. I decided to tackle what is currently called “HIC: AJTT,” which stands for “Hester Indigo Cruz: A Journey Through Time.” During the project fair, it was 80% waiting for someone to talk to me, and the other 20% of the time actually presenting. Eventually, a woman came to my corner, she respectfully listened to me ramble on about my writing process, and before she left she asked me “Are you thinking of publishing this?” I hadn’t and I told her as much. (Publishing this “masterpiece” was the furthest thing on my mind.) She replied that I should check out self-publishing, and also informed me that Amazon books was a good option if I did indeed decide to do that later on. I wasn’t instantly hit with the groundbreaking sensation, where the clouds part and where I knew then and there that I was indeed going to publish my story. Instead, at the time I thanked her, and shelved the thought, but it did spark my curiosity. I had heard of self publishing, however, I had my sights on the “Big Five,”as everyone my age does who wants to become an author. I was basically wearing “rose colored glasses”, the biggest publishers in America seemed so glorious, and rightfully so I mean, I would get the whole package deal, editors, marketers, book designers, everyone on my team would help make my book the best it could be. After a few months had gone by and I turned 13, I finally decided that I wanted my novella to be queryable at 15. It would need massive revisions but I wanted to send it in to some publishers. I ran into a problem right away:I knew nothing about the industry. I knew the bare bones of the publishing world, but beyond what I heard from the authors that I followed on Instagram, my knowledge was seriously limited. After a couple of google searches, I determined that there were three ways to go; self-publishing, working with a boutique, or trying to get a book deal with the “Big Five.” All three of them seemed great in their own way and basic research wasn’t going to give me the proper insight that I needed. I wanted to dive deep into the nitty gritty of the publishing world. I knew that, in order to make a good judgment of which option would be the most viable, I would need to take off my rose colored glasses, and actually give each option a fair trial. So, in the end, I decided to do my Capstone research project on the three types of publishing an author can choose between, because I wanted to shed some light on what the industry is all about.

My novella was originally called “A Journey Through Time”, a twenty chapter, 1,689 word story made in two weeks. The Africa Project was the culprit for its creation, and because of a time crunch I pretty much dragged my characters from another story that I was working on at the time, and placed them inside of it. In a short summary, it was about my main character getting teleported back in time with her friends to the ancient world of Ethiopia, and as a result, having to find several scrolls scattered throughout the ancient world; tying my own fiction with fact. I shelved the story shortly after its completion because I did not want to read the cringe that lay inside. It sat on my shelf for about a year, and now, come 2020, I decided I wanted to re-open it. Capstone seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally force myself to sit down and edit, so I took it. My goal for the story as a whole is to have it over 50,000 words and 300 pages. However, I learned the first time around that with a time limit of two weeks, finishing an entire manuscript is a lot of pressure, so instead I decided to aim for a more realistic goal:completing at least half of the story. In all, I’m excited that I can finally write in class without getting yelled at.

As of late, self-publishing has become a more popular method of getting stories out to the public as the industry evolves. In short, self-publishing is the act of a writer marketing and distributing their own work, without the representation of a company, and like anything, that decision can be both good and/or bad. Typically, self-publishing is much faster than going the traditional route, since come the final draft, the book can be uploaded, formatted, and ready to submit in a matter of hours, unlike, with some companies, who take more than two years to finally distribute the book. Another great aspect about becoming an Indie author is having complete creative control (Grey.) With any traditional publisher, big or small, there will always be a publisher dictating which scenes to cut, or how many book deals they’ll sign. With self-publishing there's none of that, the author is completely on their own, which gives them no limitations when it comes to their imagination.

On the flip side, an indie author works alone. There are no publishers providing marketing services, no editors checking the writers' work, and in order to give the project any hope of success the author needs to become the marketer, editor, publisher, and web designer. In the absence of the professionals, they need to learn the trade of each category (Grey.) The big problem with this is that it is easy for an author to overlook mistakes or plot holes in their own work, since they already know the ins and outs of the plot. Finally, there's less acclaim. For someone trying to reach a large audience of readers, self-publishing might not be the way to go. It is no secret that self-publishing has a bad rap. There are many readers and authors that classify self-publishers as second class, amateur, slipshods, self-centered, unprofessional and much worse (Notaras.) This is majorly due to the change in the industry over the last 20 years as the traditional world saw a lot of self-published works coming onto the market, selling, taking away from their own sales, and upon inspection the books weren’t good. They were either poorly edited, not professional looking, very clearly thrown together for some cash or in some cases all three (Notaras.) Most people considered self-publishing the alternative for those who were not good enough to make it on the mainstream.

When considering self-publishing, an author must be ready to come across the stereotypes of ‘oh their work is horrible since they don’t have an editor’, or ‘they do it as a hobby, not as a profession.’ The majority of readers think this way since, in the world of traditional publishing the book will go through at least 6-8 highly in depth rounds of editing. Commonly, the company gives the book 2-3 rounds of content editing, and 4-6 rounds of technical editing (Notaras.) However, recently, a lot of major authors have been stepping away from their companies in order to try out self-publishing. Authors are getting better at designing professional book covers, and some self-published works are becoming bestsellers. The industry is quickly changing whether the traditional world likes it or not, and self-publishing is certainly not a bad option for someone who is willing to put in the time and effort, to make their book the best it can be.

If an author doesn’t want to work alone, there is a middle ground between self-publishing, and publishing with a huge company:Boutiques. Boutiques are smaller book agencies, with only a few authors representing them (Malatesta.) Over the past couple of years, similarly to self-publishing, small presses are starting to gain more control, and popularity by producing several bestsellers and even having authors from the Big Five leave and join their ranks. Small presses are pushing the boundaries of what can be done. Based on the experiences of people in the industry, the presses are praised for their formidable reputations of sticking to their principles. Unlike the big companies, which are largely motivated by aggressive sales goals, small presses are willing to take risks on projects that they feel have artistic merit. Jen Mochalski, for example, author of The Tide King, found that her story was tough to read and therefore inherently commercially unsuccessful. However, her work found a home with the Black Lawrence Press where she was able to distribute it, and it sold well. With small presses the author receives a lot of attention from the editors and designers, and while the book design will not be totally up to the author as it is with self-publishing, their input is valued, and taken into consideration. The publishing process is also a lot simpler. And without the 90-day window to make the book a bestseller, there’s a lot less pressure going in ( Brewer). A few unfortunate misconceptions that go along with boutiques are their rumored lack of connections and power, that they work at home, that they have no big name clients and finally that they have limited legal ability (Malatesta).

Boutiques have fewer book genres that they work with. While, for example, Simon and Schuster have many different genres running under their name, with boutiques only certain presses publish certains genres. It isn’t a huge set back, but the author must find a suitable press for their story. Wherever an author's story finds a home, the boutique won’t have the impressive marketing that large companies have access to. During an interview with Eve Connell, she stated that there was no money in boutique publishing, but then again, there was no money in Big Five publishing either. Boutiques are truly a good middle ground for an author who doesn’t believe their story will be commercially marketable, but doesn’t want to publish all on their own. With boutiques there will be a lot of back and forth work to produce a high-quality book that the author can be proud of.

Finally, there are five big publishers in America. There are many large companies, but these five are by far the largest, and secluded into a little group called “The Big Five.” They consist of Hachette, Harper Collins, Macmillan, Simon and Schuster, and Penguin Random House. Hachette is even part of Lagardere Publishing, which is part of the Lagardere group, who are the global leaders in publishing, production, broadcasting, and distribution. These books go through multiple rounds of book editing and with any of the Big Five, there are many types of editors and the book will go through all of them before ever being shown to the public. With each round the work becomes more and more refined (Peterson.) Then, when the book is ready, editors, marketers and designers will professionally design the package, making it appealing to the eye. They will also contribute to the book title, interior page layouts and book jackets. They will make sure the book is copyedited and hard copies are properly printed and bound. If the author were to self-publish, the service would cost a lot of money, and time to manage. Depending on the author’s existing platform, traditional publishers will get the baseline amount (at least) of exposure from the book marketing department, and an assigned publicist. With more publicity support, which includes great reviews and increasing sales, the author's publicity and marketing will grow, but overall, at least they get the minimum (Peterson).

In spite of that, the Big Five have often been criticized for their aggressive sales goals. There's always pressure on the author to produce a book that will sell, and they only have a 90-day window to get their book on a bestseller list (Brewer). Working for the Big Five is extremely competitive, and they’ll drop projects that don’t fit certain criteria. Authors from large companies like the Big Five, often share their frustrations with the lack of risk-taking and feel pressured into writing commercially marketable stories(Brewer). During an interview with Eve Connell, she said that “publishing isn’t like what it used to be. The glorious days of the industry are gone, replaced by the sole need for money.” It’s also important to note that there aren’t great advances like there were in the 90’s or even 80’s. Now, the hype and focus is put into large, already well established authors like Margret Atwood, or Brandon Sanderson. It’s a tough industry, it’s a changing industry, and the author really needs to evaluate their options, instead of simply jumping into it, blinded by their vision and the lure of large companies.

During the last couple of weeks, I feel as if I have been very much exposed to facts and topics I never knew before. Although I have no intention of trying to get the second draft published during this Capstone, I found my research helpful in the sense that I am now better informed about my options. I have the baseline of research, and then some. When the time comes when I am ready to query my project, I have something to go off of, and once I establish which route I want to take, I can dive even deeper into a certain area. Overall, I believe that this was a smart topic for me to choose, because now, I am better informed as I proceed into the ever changing world of publishing.

Works Cited

Brewer, L, Robert. “The Pros and Cons of Publishing With a Small Publisher.” Writer's Digest.

April 23, 2014. https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/the-pros-and-cons-of-publishing-with-a-small-publisher. April 7, 2020.

Grey, Isabella. “The Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing.” The Writing Cooperative, Medium,

August 26, 2019,

https://writingcooperative.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-self-publishing-e55584416885.

April 2, 2020.

Malatesta, Mark. “What Is a Boutique Literary Agency?/Boutique Literary Agency.” The

Directory of Literary Agents, July 10, 2019, https://literaryagencies.com/boutique-literary-agency/. April 7, 2020.

Notaras, Kelly. “Why Self-Publishing Has a Bad Rap: Three Pitfalls and Their Antidotes.” KN

Literary Arts, June 21, 2019. https://knliterary.com/why-self-publishing-has-a-bad-rap/ .

April 8, 2020.

Peterson, Valerie. “The Advantages of Being Published by a Big Five Book Publisher.” The

Balance Careers. December 5, 2019. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/big-five-book-publisher-2799839. April 2, 2020.