Let's talk about publishers GASLIGHTING authors

this is rachel she just sold her first book to a publisher her advance was 25 000 and she got a two book contract her first book is gonna come out in one year this is monica she also just sold her first book to a publisher and her contract is also for two books but her advance was 250 thousand dollars the first book is scheduled to come out in one year mitchell and monica both have pretty average social media followings they post about their book deals and they both get tons of virtual confetti and congratulations and lots of love from their new publishers a few months later rachel and monica both get their edit letters they revise their books they turn them back in they probably do this a few times fast forward another month monica gets the cover for her book and her publisher sets up a big splashy cover reveal on buzzfeed rachel gets her cover too and her publisher encourages her to ask around and see if any book bloggers might be willing to host her cover reveal six months before the release date monica gets her marketing and publicity campaign from her publisher there's a blog tour there's even a real tour she's going to be featured at several big festivals and conferences and she's going to get to be on panels with a few really big name authors meanwhile rachel receives an email from her editor letting her know that the publisher is going to bump her pub date back just a few months her editor assures her that this is for the best because her book is going to do better in the next season in the summer when everybody's looking for a beach read or in the fall the biggest season for book sales or in the winter because holidays and gifts or in the spring because everybody's buying books for their summer vacation i don't know there's always a reason the next season is better rachel is pretty bummed but she's still really excited about her book release then she realizes that because of how her contract is ordered this means that the next few installments of her advance are also getting bumped she scrambles picking up any extra work she can get to make up for the money that she thought she was going to be getting in the next few months for work she has already completed after months of tours and events monica's book comes out to rave reviews her publishers blast every single mention of her book on all of their social media accounts monica is thrilled but she's also exhausted but there's no time to rest because she's gotta write that next book rachel wants to work on her next book too but since her first book's pub date got bumped her second book's pub date also got bumped and oh that means that money is going to be coming in later than she thought too suddenly that 25 000 rachel got for her two book deal goes from being stretched out over two years to three years well it's not like she quit her day job or anything so it's fine but as her first book's release date finally draws closer rachel finds herself spending all of her time doing whatever she can to promote it her publisher has been encouraging her to grow her social media following and connect with readers that she doesn't have yet because her book's not out and rachel busts her butt tweeting gramming posting all of it she reaches out to dozens of book bloggers and lots of them welcome her to come do an interview or write a guest post on their blog rachel ends up writing 20 000 words of blog posts and while she is so grateful to those bloggers for letting her use their platform to promote her work she can't help wishing that 20 000 words had gone to her next book monica meanwhile she's working on that next book but it's a struggle her first book is really taken off hitting all the lists and her social media following is blowing up too there's already buzz about big awards in her future it's all really exciting but monica is starting to feel the pressure what if her second book isn't as good every time she gets online seeing all the buzz and all the hype just really stresses her out rachel gets her trade reviews and they're great she's thrilled her publisher encourages her to share the news about them on her own social media accounts then she gets an invitation to a book festival in another state amazing she tells her publisher and they say congrats we're not paying for hotel or airfare but if you go have a good time rachel decides it's worth the hit to her income so she pays her way to the festival she has a great time she sells five books monica wins that huge award she can't believe it her publisher is over the moon she is the next big thing and she is terrified to the point where she can't write one day she announces she is taking a hiatus from social media in order to focus on her next book her publisher supports this they promote this they retweet they like they share and monica goes offline her editor is also super understanding and guides her through multiple deep revisions until the book is absolutely beautiful rachel turns in the draft for her second book six months later she gets her edit letter and it ends with the request that maybe could she get this revision back in the next week or so because otherwise if we don't get into copy edits we're gonna have to bump that pub date too rachel sacrifices work sleep and her own mental health to rush that revision and get the book turned in on time monica's second book is released to even better reviews of the first her publisher immediately offers her another two book contract for even more money rachel has an idea for another book too and she's super excited she pitches it to her editor and her editor very gently tells her that sales on her first book aren't that great and the publisher would rather wait and see how book two does before they buy any more books from her because so much is writing on this rachel asks what's the marketing campaign what's the publicity campaign for my second book and the editor says well we don't really have one but you should really focus on your social media following and do whatever you can to get that book out there after all look at how well that's worked out for monica you both started out in the same place with the same number of followers and now monica just tweeted a link to her next book and pre-orders are through the roof i could keep going with this forever following the trajectory of these two women in their careers and how one just is lifted up and the other just spins her wheels but i think you get it so let's talk about gaslighting when i was writing out my thoughts for this idea i really almost started this story with rachel and monica getting the same advance because the gaslighting i'm talking about actually has nothing to do with the money but that's not realistic money matters the more money you make on your book the more time you have to develop your career as an author that said of course not all books can get the big splashy six figure seven figure deals and the publishing industry needs those big breakout hits that rake in the cash that's what keeps the industry going and that's how midlist authors are able to get book deals at all so the gaslighting i'm talking about here is the marketing specifically the social media and the way publishers put the onus of publicity on authors authors who get giant advances tend to also get giant marketing campaigns their social media followings grow exponentially because their publisher launches a six-month book blitzkrieg and yes there are authors who build a massive following first and then they get a book deal but here's the thing we have had at this point years of data telling us exactly how that goes and the fact of the matter is unless you're an actual celebrity big numbers on social do not equal big numbers in bookscan it just doesn't translate to sales yet most midlist authors are constantly being encouraged by their publishers to grow their social media following to form a street team to create a pre-order campaign to design shareable graphics in other words to do all the stuff publishers do for a handful of authors every season i was inspired to make this video after reading cason calendar's blog post on social media expectations last week and i'm going to link it in the description below please read the whole thing it's great but for now here's my favorite part this should be the baseline expectation for everyone that no author should ever have to commodify themselves and their energy and their time for the sake of publishing and for the sake of capitalism our only job is and always will be to write anything else should be what we give of ourselves freely because we want to not because it's necessary this was a basic understanding but the rise of influencers of fake fame via social media has shifted our focus away from our words and our stories and to desperately clinging for every bit of attention we can find thinking this attention equates to our success as authors it doesn't side note cason also gets into looks and how that plays a role in how and how much publishers will market their books and yes i mean physical looks like attractiveness and here's where racism and sexism and ageism and all the isms come into play i have a lot more thoughts on this but i'm gonna save them for another video this is about the gaslighting and the bottom line is this publishers know as well as we do that a robust social media presence ultimately does not move books so why are they gaslighting authors debut authors and midlist authors who are struggling to revive their careers by telling them they can help their book sales by putting their precious time energy and resources into a diy publicity campaign based around social media especially because isn't that their job yes not every author can get a massive advance or a book tour or flights and hotels for events i totally get it but can publishers not give all of their authors a tweet a shout out on the gram a shareable graphic or two because as cason says in their post the reason most authors go through the incredibly painful process of finding a literary agent and going on submission to get a book deal rather than self-publishing their novel is because they do not have the time the money the skills or the desire to package and promote their books themselves that's what traditional publishers do except they don't anymore not for 95 of their authors and it's not just social media the gaslighting happens elsewhere too let's talk about festivals and conferences for a minute i spoke to the head organizer of a major festival conference i'm gonna be really really vague here but a big event that happens annually attracts tens of thousands of attendees and gets like big big big name offers this organizer let's call her phoebe told me about a conversation she had with a midlist author let's call him chandler and she said something about how it would be so great to have him at the event next year and chandler was like that's weird i actually asked my publisher to pitch me for the event this year and they said you turned me down and phoebe was like yeah your publisher definitely did not pitch you for this event and chandler was like could i be more pissed off so yeah his publisher straight up lied to him and phoebe told me that this is not a rare occurrence she's actually seen it happen a lot i had always assumed that these types of big festivals and conferences only accepted big best-selling or award-winning authors nope turns out a lot of these event organizers would actually love to balance out their panels with a mix of big name authors and minimalist authors because then they can connect the readers who attend their events with authors they might not have heard of it's the publishers who are keeping those midlist authors from the events and giving all the events to those few authors and just for a second now let's go back to monica one of those lucky few she got that tour she got that publicity and her career took off and that is great it's awesome when that happens but remember how overwhelming it was for her how for months she couldn't even find time to write because she was constantly traveling and touring and doing events and speaking and signing books and meeting with readers it sounds glamorous and in some ways it is but man it is also exhausting even if you're an extrovert and how many authors are actually extroverts it seems to me that if festival and conference organizers are happy to have a mix of big name and midlist authors and big name authors would be happy to scale down their intense tours just a little bit just to give them some room to like rest and recover and write maybe and midless authors would jump at the chance to be featured at one or two of these big events that wouldn't cost publishers anything it would just take a tiny bit of redistribution now i have complained about traditional publishing in previous videos and one thing that i have always neglected to say and i'm gonna say it now before i forget is this i know a lot of people who work in the publishing industry both professionally and personally i know editors and marketing folks and designers and publicists and they are wonderful people who love books and love authors i think it's easy to hear these types of stories about traditional publishing and start picturing the staffs of these big houses as just being made up of greedy misogynistic homophobic racist sock puppets but they're not obviously as with any industry you're gonna find some jerks but by and large this is a problem with the system not the people and yes people can change the system and there's a lot that can be done to fix this from within step number one stop gaslighting authors by telling them to grow their social media followings when you know that isn't going to do a dang thing but i got into this topic with a marketing director once she is a friend not someone who has ever worked on my own books and i kind of went on my rant about this and she laid out for me what things look like from her side how amazon and booksellers and just capitalism in general can kind of pin publishers in so that stuffing all their resources and hopes and prayers into a few books per season is just their best bet for survival i get it i hate it but i get it so you know maybe let's make this step number two step number one stop the gaslighting we aren't going to pitch you for that book festival second be more transparent we aren't going to send you to that festival because we're already sending monica third if at all possible offer another low or no cost opportunity we aren't going to send you that festival because we're already sending monica but maybe we can get you an interview on joey's podcast anyway i don't work in the publishing industry i'm just an author and i'm sure there's a lot more to this that i just don't see and i don't understand but i do think that as authors aspiring or published we can encourage and push change by gently politely calling out the gaslighting when we see it we can define our own social media and diy publicity boundaries and make them clear and stick to them and not feel guilty about it we can ask our publishers what's my marketing and publicity campaign for this book because we all deserve one even if it's a small one and most of all we should remember that we did not buy a lottery ticket and win a book deal we wrote books we created saleable products and without those products the publishing industry quite literally would not exist so maybe we have more power than we think those are my thoughts what about you let's chat in the comments and i will see you guys friday with another vlog [Music] bye

Channel: Michelle Schusterman

Views: 4,818

Rating: 4.991919 out of 5

Keywords: michelle schusterman, authortube, writing a book for the first time, how to become a published author, traditional publishing, traditional publishing process, traditional publishing steps, traditional book publishing process, book community tea, traditional publishing model, traditional publishing vs self publishing, publishing advice, social media marketing for authors, social media for authors, publishing advice for new authors

Id: nxfAp1ZA1bE

Length: 15min 52sec (952 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021