The making of Regency Books from the awesome Regency Redingcote.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE reading about the making of books. Back in 2001, when I was still in grad school, I was researching a Regency era author. Here’s a link to an article I wrote for Rakehell.com about the price of Romance.
And boy, it probably won’t come as any surprise to authors that publishers in those days took advantage of authors. There wasn’t any need to track royalties because publishers acquired the copyright outright. No license. No advance. No foreign rights. No translation rights. If your book ended up selling lots but you sold the copyright for 5 pounds, you were limited to counting what was left of your 5 pounds because you were never going to see a penny of that sales money. That circumstance might put you in a position to sell your next book for more money. Maybe.
It wasn’t uncommon to pay for publication yourself, if you had the money, or seek a patron. That’s why you can find so many 18th and 19th century books with a lovely dedication to Lord SoandSo, who defrayed or may even have entirely covered the publication costs. I’ve also seen books that were published by subscription, that is, get enough people to buy the book in advance, and voila, you could publish it. Yes, Kickstarter isn’t all that new an idea.
Digital publishing is the first truly significant change to the business of book publishing in centuries, really. For the first time, any author with internet access can put their book into the stream of commerce. Speaking quite literally, it can be done for no money out of pocket, but for time, electricity and possible internet charges. Yes, I know it would be unwise to put out a book with no cover, no editing or proofreading, but it can and has been done.
Authors have always risked anonymity, of course. If you publish a book in the forest of Books and nobody reads it, do the words between the pages actually exist?
For the first time since humans moved away from oral traditions as the primary vehicle for story-telling, ANYONE meeting those minimum requirements (access to a computer and internet) can write and publish a book.
Amazon’s change in percentage paid to the author created a set of conditions where Do-It-Yourself publishing can actually be profitable to the author as well as cheaper for the reader. I am, of course, setting aside all those pesky issues of quality, discoverability and talent, because that’s not quite the point I’m making.
My point is that for centuries publishing has been a business that didn’t change all that much.
And now it has.
So, what would Jane Austen think of publishing today? Would she have self-pubbed Pride and Prejudice?
Jane was a smart cookie and I’ve read she was happy to be able to supplement the family income through her writing. So I think she’d be asking questions and figuring out the pros and cons of traditional vs indie publishing (IMHO there’s no one answer).
Should P&P be marketed as women’s fiction, romance, literary fiction, or something else? Would her target audience prefer ebooks, print books or some mix? Was S&S already published and how did it do? Does she have enough of a name to strike out on her own, or would having publisher clout help? If the latter, what sort of ebook royalty rate should she expect?
Good questions, Elena.
Interesting observation, Carolyn! It is a brand new world!
Food for thought, Carolyn and some outstanding questions, Elena.
I am sure Jane would think long and hard and look at all of her options and then make the best decision for her and her work. In this I think she would probably have been like any present day author!
I still don’t understand why authors get such a small percentage of the sale of their books. Especially in the e-book world. where is the overhead for the publisher. There are no physical production, distribution, or storage costs. I can understand the move to self e-publication, especially for established authors. Why should the person who did most of the work to produce the book get less than all the business woman and woilmiddlemen. I think Jane Austen was a pretty savvy business woman. She would have checked out the new technology and given it a try.
Personally, I’m curious to see how long the ‘wild west’ period of self-publishing will last before a new layer of companies inserts itself and reclaims some of the authors’ percentage. It may be reformed publishers; it may be agents; heck, it may even be Amazon/B&N (because if they end up as the only games in town, what’s to stop them from gradually lowering the author’s revenue share?).
But I agree with everyone who said that Jane would be considering all her options. She was a smart, pragmatic woman who wanted whatever money she could get for her books. Any royalties or perpetual revenue sharing would have looked really good to her, regardless of whether it was our traditional or self-pubbed models 🙂
Fascinating! I wrote two posts about the publishing industry in the Edwardian era here and here, and it is/was rather similar to today’s practices.