WW Talk-Small Publishers by Steve Scholl

Willamette Writers – Steve Scholl
(Saturday, March 5th -2011)


Object: Give info about publishing side of business. What they want from from writing. Nitty gritty of publishing pipeline. How to respond to changes in the digital world.

History: Agent, Publisher -> Owns Whitecloud Press
80’s – Originally academic career – originally on track to get PHD – in Islam – his specialty.
Tracking for professorship.
Quit graduate school since he had to compete with hundreds of PHD’s.
First step towards being a small publisher.
1st job:
At Crossing Press (still around). – Works on gender.
Bought 10-speed Press – Later bought by Random House.
Started company doing spiritual reality. (Descriptive rather than prescriptive ((converting)) ).
All religions.
Friend: Juan something – Worked on translations of a religious book. Arabic – material in Arabic.
Steve had horrible translations.
With Juan and another scholar came up with great translations.
Broke new ground:
1st Printing – Wanted 20,000 copies.
Got talked down to 7500 copies.
Still has some left.
(Says he was naïve).
Started a Small publishing company – 15 novels a year.
Created Whitecloud Press – Specialized in 12th to 15th century Islam. No interest in contemporary politics.



Aside – Question: Formatting - How to send in documents:
Most people have submission guidelines for what they want from writer.
He wants bare text – nothing artistic. Even no tabs at end of paragraphs (have to be taken out).
Courier Font. Flush left. One space. One period.


Publishing – Work both sides (publisher and writer). Has to be an act of passion.
Business Side: He had no clue at first.

Publishers aren’t in competition with each other. Others with similar themes and subjects are good
assets.
Publishing Pipeline: False impression of “Write it and they will Come”.


Business Side of Publishing (see handout)

Start: Inside Publishing House – All publishing houses have own department. Begins with writer. (Writers are critical to the process).
Manuscript goes to acquisition editors – 99% of time they say “no.” (Especially small publishers).
For Many Reasons:
1) Writing not strong enough.
2) Bad fit with their company.

White Cloud: He does all jobs. Staff of 5 people with different tasks.
Acquisition Editor: He looks at quality and topic (for a good fit). Also looks for marketing plan and a sales platform.
1) His mantra: Marketing side the deciding part.
Eg. A writer who’s an introvert. Loves the book but won’t take a gamble since she won’t promote.
2) Keeping doors open hard.
3) Publishing a book for him like rolling dice.
a. He risks large money as a small publisher.
b. He himself lucky he had enough books that made it to balance out the flops.
i. Some will bomb.

As of recently: Now out of gambling:
A collaborative process on books known to be successful. (From platform?)
Process of how book makes it into world.
Comparison: Random House – Sells 600 books a season. White Cloud – 6 books a season.
Big publishers make money on bestsellers to make up for rest.
Rich get richer and poor get poorer. Days of publishers doing book tours is over.
His advice: Think of self as a musician: Tour, tour, tour.
Publisher can’t love your book more than you do.

Once book okayed: Publishers in charge of editing, production and design (covers?) Designing books that convey the most important information.
Lots of talk about who needs publishers with self-publishing.
1) His process collaborative – self-publishing not.
a. He gives writers feedback.
2) All books need editing.
a. Publisher will do editing different and better than an independent editor
i. (Again, collaboratively)
b. His company can’t afford in-house editors so he works with a set of free-lance editors.
i. They will give him the feedback he needs.
3) Any publisher worth his salt will be involved in process. Why you need a publisher.
a. Help writers.
b. Getting book to every possible place.
c. Big risk for publishers.
4) Other problem with self-publishing: won’t get as good of distribution.

White Cloud: With any commitment every book is the equal of New York publishers in quality.



Distributors: (Next stage in pipeline).

Offer sales reps and other services.

Random House – Big enough to do by self: Don’t need distributors
White Cloud: 9 Books this year. 4 in spring. Send sales reps to bookstores. (Amazon, Barnes and Noble).
Book Stores take orders from distributors and not publishers.

3,000 independent publishers: Ingram – biggest wholesaler – does 80% of distributing.
His company: Originals go through PGW. All later books go through Ingram (saves on costs).
Returns: back to PGW or Ingrams.

Aside: Book Stores worst way to sell books. Book stores buy through distributors and wholesalers.

When he first started, 99% of his sales were through PGW. Now it’s 20% with 80% going through Ingrams.
His job – To diversify with other distributors than PGW.

Example: Bloomsbury in Ashland – can’t afford to buy individual books from publishers.
Bookstores – Consolidate

Fiction: He says hampered a little. Non-fiction – exist more ways to sell than bookstores.

Returns: Book goes out pipeline. Ones that don’t sell, come back to him through pipeline.
1) They won’t pay him for them.
2) If books come back damaged, he still has to pay for them and can’t sell them again.
3) 25-50% of books come back.
4) Books returned – he has to sell at cost ($1 or so) – doesn’t make money on them.
a. Those that never left warehouse – unmarked and not scuffed

Show Me the Money or the Perils of Publishing: (Second Handout):
How Money Works:

Gross: $16 per book.
62% ->PGW
White Cloud makes as little as the distributors.
Author – Publisher relationship: Often authors ask you if you can do marketing for them.
White Cloud – Doesn’t become profitable until sold 50,000 or 100,000 copies.
Example: Joyce Carol Oates kept her day job.
Very difficult for a small publisher to make tons of money.
Says if you’re in it to make money, forget it.

He started only taking ones he knew would make money original time he owned White Cloud in 2004.
Looked for authors with less risk -> Collaborative Publishing -> Have authors take some of the risk.
1) Author tells him what he will do for him as far as marketing.
2) Then tells him how many books he needs authors to sell themselves?
Different from self-publication – With collaborative publishing book goes through some editing and marketing process.
Sends to marketing person at PGW. -> To sales rep -> Sales rep says whether or not they can sell it  then goes to author.
Author Makes commitment to do a lot of the stuff
Good thing: New author gets 60-80% of royalties. Used to be 12-15%.

While out of White Cloud – 2004 to 2010: White Cloud published:
1) 1 Book – 2008
2) 0 Books - 2009
3) 2 Books – 2010
4) Will be 9 books for 2011
a. (All collaborative in all senses)

During Recession: White Cloud changing how to make sure books sure sell.
No longer have standard contracts – Each contract is now different for the individual.
He won’t self-publish but he will work with self-publishers as a service for pay. (Editing, etc.) But
he won’t sell them himself.

Rights: (With agents):
Example: “Franciscan”- Author interested in the bones of St. Francis after he died. Vatican wouldn’t let author look at his bones. Went from non-fiction to fiction. Sold in 17 languages. 1 million copies outside of America. (Eg. foreign rights)-> what a publisher can do for somebody. – He’s had success with rights.
Serial Rights – Publishers like to have too
But he says don’t give in to them – keep at least some of them. Don’t give them all up
but publisher needs to get compensated too.
In general now : 50-50, 60-40, 70-30. Different for each book.
Don’t want either side to feel like they got screwed. Best deal for
Both.
Electronic Rights – Old days he gave away electronic rights – now he doesn’t.


Ebooks: Deceptive when comparing with hardcover sales. Many very inexpensive – good for classics.
Problem: Start from 0.
Good: Can read on computer.
White Cloud – best ebook sold 1000 copies on ebook format. Sold 5,000 in paperback.
Sales on Amazon –Deceptive: Includes free books.
Formats: 1) Kindle 2) Others
To create an ebook is still not free. The technology still costs money.
Still need to protect from theft too.
All publishers have their own costs.
Amazon: ebooks at $9.95
Now enhanced ebooks.
IPADs – now can do music as well as books.
Ebooks still cheapest to produce. (Plus has advantage of being able to be enhanced).
Ebooks didn’t come from recession. Caused by technology.

Small publishers have a hard time making money. Have to make money to stay open. Foreign money an extra.
There’s always a middle person.
Eg. White Cloud uses 3 different foreign rights agents.
On a book he sold 100,000 copies of, he made $20,000 after everyone else got their cuts.

He says publishers are a necessary part of the system to get author published. Whereas selfl-publishing in the wrong hands can be disaster.

Example: 1 of best reasons for self-publishing – To get book picked up by somebody (publisher?)

Days of advances almost over: For him, they’re completely over.

Small publishers can work closer with authors than large publishers. Give more and different things to author.


Novels: Harder for author to market. Why he does more non-fiction than fiction.
 Tour, tour, tour. On your own dime. (Even for big publishers). Set up public events, that you pay for.
o Bookstores not good anymore.
 Example: His Reno trip. Went for other reasons but scheduled a stop at Barnes and Noble. Disaster. Only 2 people showed up.
 Eg. Children’s books: Author needs to get out of bookstores and into libraries and schools.
 Speaking: Try to get hosts to pay to bring you there; or give a place to stay (somebody’s house?)
o (And income if possible?)
 With collaborative publishing, he tries to help author with this.
 Get very expensive business cards.

Non-fiction books: Can use to supply credibility to self  become regarded as an “expert”.
Can make money from being an expert.
Books can create money-making events.
He says no big difference between sales of fiction and non-fiction.

Question: How do you make sure agents and publishers are honest about the royalties they give you?
1) Royalities cut twice a year.
a. The idea publishers save aside 15-20% for then/
b. Many times you don’t get them right away.
Eg. Sell through distributor. Sell in March.  Might get paid 6 months later.
c. Many times will delay payment to author.

Small publishers: One of worst things is to get too much success too early. Not capable of printing enough copies.


Aside: Photography Books – very expensive to print. (Has always been that way). He makes author pay for part of publication.

Question: About Print-on-Demand:
He says it helps immensely for everybody.
Problem: Quality not as high. Still needs improvement.