Perhaps the biggest thing I can’t get past when talking about doing legacy publishing deals is that you don’t own your own work. Ok, well, the piddly 17.5% you get from sales sucks too. But, not being to own your own work?
When I signed on Attention! with my publisher, I had all kinds of dreams of big money and big things for it. Of course, I later realized that a lot of promises were broken, which lead me to here, writing about self-publishing.
To this day, over a year and a half later, I’m still upset that I can’t own my work. They have it. They can do whatever they want with it. They can price it how they wish. They can sell it where they wish.
I’m stuck.
So what would I do if I owned it? I’d re-title it. Then I’d redo the cover. Then maybe I’d even break it up into two smaller parts and sell it that way. I’d also reprice it and sell it direct print on demand.
So many options when I have control. But I don’t.
So think twice about choosing to sign with a “big” publisher. It may not be all that it used to be cracked up to be.
Jim, I agree with your forcing the issue of why should anyone go with a trad pub deal these days. Like Kris Rusch has mentioned before many authors aren't thinking.
Heavy hitters out there like Rusch, Wesley Smith and Konrath and others have laid out logically why it doesn't make a lot of sense to sign away your rights to your work unless you are a big name author but many authors are still stuck on the "validation treadmill". A lot of people out there are talking about having one foot in this and another foot in that and I just wonder about that. It doesn't work well for authors who aren't selling tons and tons of books as far as I know. For every Amanda Hocking there's a Kiana Davenport.
When it comes to a trad deal, even with the ugly contracts being handed out, they just can't let it go. Great posts over at Mayer's blog!
What's really interesting to me is when pushed about it the authors that still hold onto the legacy argument get all upset. It's as if they know they're making the wrong choice, and it's silly, and they're almost mad at themselves for it and don't like to be reminded of their bad choices. Makes sense, nobody likes to have their poor choices pointed out.
Ponderous. Thanks for stopping by Victoria.