Novel Advances 4: Odds and Ends
Today I’m just getting off my chest those things I still want to say in response to Mr. Wolven’s article but couldn’t find a place in the greater narrative for.
None of my previous ranting should be understood as blanket condemnation of the $0 advance. Sometimes there are good reasons for it. For instance, cash flow–or lack thereof. Many small but respectable presses presumably find themselves with just enough money to do a good job publishing and promoting a book or pay a reasonable advance but not both. As such, they pay very small advances or none at all. I have nothing against them beyond the vague disappointment that one can’t make a living getting published that way.
Which is my main personal grump against Mr. Wolven’s brave new publishing world. Royalties are not a salary. They’re not a wage. You can’t schedule around them. You can’t pay the rent with “my royalty check is coming next month, I hope.” You can pay the rent with “here’s some money.” This is why I have a tendency to respond to any argument against advances kinda personal-like. Like, dude, you don’t want me to make a living? Is that it? Which may be a touch extreme considering Mr. Wolven is only arguing against advances for first-time novelists; presumably he’s OK with a second book earning an advance in proportion to the success of the first book. But still. Like I said. Why make it even harder?
One thing I don’t disagree with Mr. Wolven about, and that’s the folly of amateur self-publishing via Lulu and then charging friends and family money for the result. He posted an earlier article with a fairly strong argument concerning that practice, which I won’t belabor here. Go read it.
At the same time, I wholly approve of using Lulu as a fund-raiser (cf. Stories of Strength), a way of making out-of-print materials available to a guaranteed audience (cf. KenzerCo), or a way of just having the manuscript in book form for kicks and grins. Of course, Lulu suffers from the same circumstances as any self- or vanity-publishing scheme, which would be the tendency of some amateur writers to use the lack of editorial gate-keeping as a way to stay in denial about their real need to improve their craft. But that’s hardly Lulu’s fault. Lulu, unlike some (whose names start with a “P”), doesn’t encourage such foolishness, except perhaps by being the most author-friendly and accessible self-publishing model currently in existence.
So. What was I saying? Um.
One last thing I do want to say, and this is important. In his article with which I’ve disagreed at such length, Mr. Wolven makes it sound like publishers, having little self-serving incentive to publish a first novel from an unheard-of author, are doing new writers an undeserved favor by picking up their books. But here’s the thing. Without first-time novelists, publishing is dead. Those authors Mr. Wolven mentions as being proven quantities–Zadie Smith, Kim Stanley Robinson–they may sell by the metric ton but, sadly, they won’t live forever. No industry can rest on the laurels of its current success stories for long. There will always be a need for new success stories. And every publishing house worth its imprint wants, yearns, aches without respite to find that next success story. First-time novelists are their hope for the future.
Publishing a brand-new writer may be a risk, but it’s a risk that’s necessary to the survival of the industry. And, let’s face it, the advance paying model is better suited than the consignment sales model to attracting tomorrow’s breakout bestseller.
And that’s all I’ve got to say.
For now.
April 29th, 2007 at 8:35 am
[…] advances. Oddly enough, this doesn’t cause me to run screaming for the hills. As I said in one of my posts responding to Nick Wolven, there are legitimate reasons to omit the advance. Flying Pen Press specify that […]