Claire Cook: Why I left traditional publishing

Brian G Turner

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Although from 2014, I found this linked to from a more recent article.

Two specific issues come up: of being let down by her traditional publishers, and then a money grab by her agent when she moved into self-publishing:

Why I Left My Agent & New York Publisher by Claire Cook
 
Interesting. We're getting an awful lot of this side of the argument on the boards at the moment which i think is unbalanced. What about some case studies of authors doing well agented and trad. @tobyfrost seems to do fine. Chris Beckett. Sarah Pinborough. I could go on and on
 
Brian T,

That was a good article. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for posting it.

Interesting. We're getting an awful lot of this side of the argument on the boards at the moment which i think is unbalanced. What about some case studies of authors doing well agented and trad. @tobyfrost seems to do fine. Chris Beckett. Sarah Pinborough. I could go on and on

I think that a lot of authors want there to be one path that works for everyone. Perhaps in today's turbulent, fast-changing publishing landscape, authors pretty much have to determine what is right for their particular situation.

There are a ton of advantages to self publishing, but note that part of the term is "publishing." That involves a business and marketing mindset/skill set that a lot of authors simply either don't have or don't have any desire to figure out, so it's definitely not a one size fits all kind of situation.
 
There are a ton of advantages to self publishing, but note that part of the term is "publishing." That involves a business and marketing mindset/skill set that a lot of authors simply either don't have or don't have any desire to figure out, so it's definitely not a one size fits all kind of situation.

I think that hits a big nail on the head. Writing a book is about writing, but selling it is totally different and requires its own skill set and time devoted to it. And its not a skill everyone has with its own pitfalls and traps and mistakes. If you've the skill or time to invest in it you can learn it yourself and market and sell well; but if you don't then going traditional or hiring an agent or similar can result in a vast improvement on what the individual can achieve.

Also I think its something that isn't static. You might start out green and in need of help; but once you get experience and also a fan base I think many can cut back and step back and say "its dead simple you don't need middlemen". Which is great advice for them but possibly not a novice who rather either needs a crash course in marketing and such; or advice on avoiding bad agents/contracts/etc...
 
We're getting an awful lot of this side of the argument on the boards at the moment which i think is unbalanced.

My first instinct is to agree - after all, all those exclusive deals that give writers extra rights and royalties are just not being talked about.

But what so many of these articles underline that authors must treat writing as a business, and that means being aware of business issues being made for them and terms they are agreeing to, rather than simply delegating the responsibility to other people.
 
My first instinct is to agree - after all, all those exclusive deals that give writers extra rights and royalties are just not being talked about.

But what so many of these articles underline that authors must treat writing as a business, and that means being aware of business issues being made for them and terms they are agreeing to, rather than simply delegating the responsibility to other people.
But signing with an agency is a business décision - as is understanding the deal on offer and what looks good.
 
My first instinct is to agree - after all, all those exclusive deals that give writers extra rights and royalties are just not being talked about.

But what so many of these articles underline that authors must treat writing as a business, and that means being aware of business issues being made for them and terms they are agreeing to, rather than simply delegating the responsibility to other people.


Laura Marshall, on my creative writing course with Curtis Brown just signed an exclusive pre-emptive 2-book deal for a six-figure advance. There, I've talked about it.
 
But signing with an agency is a business décision - as is understanding the deal on offer and what looks good.

What agents/editors keep saying in articles is that most of their authors only want to know is how much they'll get paid, and when. And that's the extent of their business interest.

Laura Marshall, on my creative writing course with Curtis Brown just signed an exclusive pre-emptive 2-book deal for a six-figure advance. There, I've talked about it.

Congrats to her! :) But that's not what I'm talking about. Did she get more than a standard 25% net royalties on ebooks? Opted out from double discounting?
 
I'm in danger of coming across as facetious or overly cynical here, which isn't my intention.

So when I do more author interviews, I'll try to ask more direct business questions so I can get some form of responses to points raised in some of these articles.

For example, I've never seen Brian McClellan's books discounted, so it'll be interesting to find out whether that was because of something his agent negotiated, or whether it was the publishers strategy.
 
I'm in danger of coming across as facetious or overly cynical here, which isn't my intention.

So when I do more author interviews, I'll try to ask more direct business questions so I can get some form of responses to points raised in some of these articles.

For example, I've never seen Brian McClellan's books discounted, so it'll be interesting to find out whether that was because of something his agent negotiated, or whether it was the publishers strategy.

But, also - not every writer wants the big deals. Not every writer does it for money but for other reasons. I know you are very focused on it as a business but there are other angles to writing that are important, the confidence it gives people, the escape, whatever. For writers like that, they may be more interested in the product quality, or the cost to buy some for their families.

It's just, recently, it's felt like there are a plethora or posts about the business and what to do to make money and, frankly, it can be depressing for a new person trying to write to find themselves, or wanting to ra-ra about selling a short story. Not every writer wants, or needs, to know the business. Some want a different reward from it - and I'd hate to see the Chrons, which had always celebrated a diversity of writers and their aims turn into another identikit how-to-be-a-bestseller website.

At which point, i'll put my money where my mouth is and go post a thread ;)
 
Not every writer does it for money but for other reasons.
Yes, I think that's an important point to make. There may be many people in the wider world at large (yep, there's life beyond Chrons:eek:) who assume anyone starting a novel intends to be the next Lee Child/J K Rowling, or at the very least make a mahoosive pile of cash, but that isn't always the case. 10 years ago I started writing, partly for fun, partly as Jo says to "write to find" myself, and stayed with it because - despite the many frustrations we all get along the way - I just loved doing it. And I'm sure I'm by far from the only member here who can say something similar.

We're getting an awful lot of this side of the argument on the boards at the moment which i think is unbalanced.
I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but that could be partly due to the greater general regard for self-publishing and indie publishing over the last few years. I think that in turn may have shone the spotlight on the trad publishing industry and how, to a certain extent, it works. Before there was nothing to compare it to - you wanted a book deal/agent, you took the deal. Now it feels more like people are saying, "Okay, so what do I get out of it that I don't if I do it myself?" I hope (perhaps naively) that this competition could be better in the long run, but who knows...

recently, it's felt like there are a plethora or posts about the business and what to do to make money
I'd noticed more posts about publishing and "the Business" in general, but I think that may be partly because a number of us (yeah, one day I'm going to publish something. Honest) are at various stages of dipping our toes into the pool of self/indie publishing. There's a lot of books on the subject out there, but I've found the articles and direct experiences shared here are invaluable, as is the support of like-minded folks. Some stuff is just interesting, even if it doesn't apply - I read the threads on open doors, even though I'm not planning on entering one at the moment. Perhaps one way forward, if people feel strongly about this, is to have a dedicated section on self-publishing and/or the writing business? Just an idea...

I'd hate to see the Chrons, which had always celebrated a diversity of writers and their aims turn into another identikit how-to-be-a-bestseller website.
So would I, but I honestly don't think it's likely - I think the site's large and diverse enough not to undergo such a shift (though keeping the business stuff in it's own thread group could help. hint, hint;)). Um, but if everyone goes off and does their bestseller thing and I'm the only one left, can we rename the site ChroniclesOfGonk? Pleeeease?:)
 
Writing a book is about writing, but selling it is totally different and requires its own skill set and time devoted to it. And its not a skill everyone has with its own pitfalls and traps and mistakes.

Exactly, and this is what has deterred me from pursuing self-publishing for so many years. I'm perhaps naively expecting that my job is to provide content and it is an agent's or marketing team's job to sell it to the general public. Like you don't find the engineers and designers from Toyota factories out on the dealership's lot smiling, shaking hands, and test-driving cars with potential buyers. I've always felt -- and still feel -- that these are 2 distinct tasks and mutually exclusive of each other. Now, it may be possible that an entrepreneurial type person can put on 2 hats and manage all aspects of the self publishing business, but that isn't everybody's cup of tea.

I've been struggling and working HARD for over 3 years to learn about marketing stuff from the ground up. I don't have any background in this area, or anything remotely close to it. I am only now beginning to feel a small measure of competency at the tools and processes. I'm learning what SEOs are, but I still feel woefully inadequate about how to chase those butterflies. So much time is wasted. So many useless hours of spinning my head around concepts that agents or marketing folks or go-get-'em indie writers already know. They are all sprinting swiftly ahead of me while I am at the starting line navigating the track.
 
Traditional publishing has worked for me, but it’s important to establish what “working” is. The first question I would ask is “What are you trying to achieve here?” In other words, at what point do you feel that your work has succeeded? There is no longer a clean distinction between published and unpublished. There are degrees. In the circumstances, it becomes all the more necessary to decide what constitutes success.

For me, the goalposts have moved. 10 years ago, the very idea of seeing my name in print, and being able to pick up and buy a book by me seemed like an amazing, almost unachievable goal. Five years ago, the idea of writing a trilogy sounded pretty good. Now, I want to write a big fantasy novel and get stupendously rich doing so. Simple, achievable goals.

I grew up before the internet existed, and that clear dichotomy has always been there. For me, the book had to be in print, with a proper cover and the approval that comes from a publisher being willing to invest time and money making and selling something you made. That won’t go away: even if I was making considerable sums self-publishing, I would miss that validation. It feels (to me) like a mark of quality.

My publishers are pretty small, but they have been willing to produce very good products and to try to punch above their weight. I don’t make big money out of it, and it is difficult for a smaller publisher, even one that has put out some respected novels, to get space in Waterstones (things may have changed recently, but this used to be a case of pretty literally paying for it). However, they have made a good job both editing my work and producing good covers. I am frequently told how good my cover art is, and I’m very grateful for that.

So in that way, I am a “proper author”. I sometimes remind myself that I have achieved one of my big goals in life and am very fortunate to have been able to do so. And I couldn’t have achieved that goal without the traditional publishing route. However, I am not a proper businessman. I’ve said it before, but I think that the qualities expected of an author these days are contradictory: six months of introverted genius scribbling in a garrett, followed by six months of jolly self-publicity. I doubt many people have both of those. I also have a full-time job and don’t have the time or inclination, as well as the skill, to self-promote like that. Obviously, the standard publishing model works for me like that, in that someone else can do the promotion, one way or another (although I do pitch in. I’m not amazingly charismatic, but I’m hardly a recluse).

So all in all, as the range of options widens, authors need to ask themselves what they actually want. The definition of success becomes increasingly a personal one.


Two more points: first, a lot of articles like this are essentially horror stories or stories about sharp practice or when it clearly went wrong. On the other hand, some decisions are just better than others, which doesn’t mean that the alternative is useless or corrupt. It seems to be that, for obvious reasons, some self-published writers tend to feel the need to rescue the idea of self-publishing from pure vanity publishing, and in certain quarters (not here) that means doing down the industry. Publishing has certainly got some incompetents and dodgy dealers in it, but it isn’t fundamentally useless, otherwise it wouldn’t be here.

I’d make a further point about the pursuit of money. In the 1980s and 90s, horror was a big genre, and a lot of it was supernatural sub-Stephen King type stuff. I’m sure that a lot of authors who are now unknown or have moved on to other things made a decent amount of money from not-very-great horror stories. But many of these books simply weren’t any good, and are now forgotten. Likewise big fantasy novels. It is possible to make money out of second-rate derivative books, but you will always be riding someone else's coat tails unless you bring something new to what you're writing. That new element will almost always rely on your own creativity.

But it seems to me that the books that do really well – the ones that make a lot of money and, at the very least, are reckoned to be quite good – aren’t cynically written. I don’t think that either Harry Potter or A Game of Thrones is especially great literature, but it’s clear that their writers take what they’re doing very seriously and try to produce something that doesn’t just tick the boxes to get them cash. I suspect that the way towards that kind of success often involves putting several familiar elements together in a convincing way, to product a new way of looking at familiar material.
 
But it seems to me that the books that do really well – the ones that make a lot of money and, at the very least, are reckoned to be quite good – aren’t cynically written. I don’t think that either Harry Potter or A Game of Thrones is especially great literature, but it’s clear that their writers take what they’re doing very seriously and try to produce something that doesn’t just tick the boxes to get them cash. I suspect that the way towards that kind of success often involves putting several familiar elements together in a convincing way, to product a new way of looking at familiar material.

I think this is an especially relevant point. Despite all the talk of money, shmoozing in London, mega-agents and endless series set in the same imagined world, a true author is always sincere and believes they are producing something of artistic merit. I was working at Waterstones during the meteoric rise of JK Rowling, and even then I was struck by her unusual attitude to fame and fortune. I have huge respect for her integrity, intelligence and wit. She is an exceptionally rare case of how to cope with massive - and very likely unwanted - fame. She clearly loves the Harry Potter world, but has also managed (goodness knows how) to balance her fans wishes with her own literary ambitions.

Great post Toby by the way. :)
 

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