Taken from this thread:
Becoming a "midlist" author...
Oh, Ghod. "Confessions of a midlist writer" again.
Here's a word of advice for that author: Frontlist money + backlist sales does not average out to midlist.
And poor Jane Austen Doe! Five books in ten years? What's she been doing with her time?
$150,000 advance, with all the promotion that goes with it, yielding only 10,000 sales, means that the book wasn't just a "disappointment," it was a smoking hole in the runway. It's hard to see how she managed this unless readers hated it, and told their friends that they hated it. Or perhaps the publisher bound the copies in decaying codfish. But ...
Current status: Out of print. Small but loyal cult following; 10 years later adoring fans still show up at readings, clutching well-worn copies, eager to tell me how book changed their lives.
So here's some practical advice for her: The book's undoubtedly reverted by now. Find a high-prestige small press that's willing to take it. Get it back into print. Don't insist on an advance.
Second book: Ghost writer for celebrity. Hint for Jane A. Doe: The sales weren't for your golden words, they were for the "author's" name on the cover. Practical advice: This is a good gig. See if your agent can get you one of these per year. Treat it as your day job.
Attempted book: A short-story anthology? Srsly? Hint: Don't do that.
Third book: That money you spent on a publicist was wasted. Also: rather than fiddle around with screenwriters and such, write another book.
Speaking of money, don't be an idiot with money. The kid doesn't need Nikes when Keds will do.
Book Four: $80,000 advance. Why are you wasting time and money on publicists? Write another book. And, if you're doing this to be recognized by total strangers on airplanes, then ... maybe you should reevaluate your priorities.
Book Five, $50,000 offer. Why are you complaining again?
Never, ever forget: The Reader is King. Readers aren't liking your books. Choices: Write different books, or write the same books under a different name.
And what is the moan? An average of $40K per year. That's right around the median US single-person income.
I see that she's complaining that publishing is now a business. The article was originally published in 2004.
News flash: Publishing has always been a business. You can find Raymond Chandler making the same complaint in the 1950s. You can find H. P. Lovecraft making exactly the same complaint in the 1920s. Get with the program -- and write books that the public actually wants to read.
Other reactions from actual mid-list authors:
http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/405207.html
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/002699.html
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Jane Austen Doe did do one good thing: She inspired Scalzi to write this:
Even More Long-Winded (But Practical) Writing Advice
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Okay, definitions:
The frontlist consists of the books that are in the front of the publisher's catalog (where the bookstore buyer starts looking at the offerings). The closer to the front, the bigger the push. These are books that each have a full page in the catalog. The backlist is the books that are listed at the back of the catalog. Previous years' books that are still in print, perennial sellers, that sort of stuff. Generally just a listing of titles and authors, because the bookstore buyer presumably knows what those books are, and how they're selling in each store.
The midlist is everything in the catalog that's in the middle, between the frontlist and the backlist.
That's all it is.
One reason the midlist has been "vanishing" is that the publishers have been splitting their offerings into more and more lines and imprints, each with their own catalog and their own frontlist. The same or greater numbers of books are on offer, but fewer of them are in the middles of catalogs. It isn't the vanishing midlist, it's the expanding frontlist.
There are other possibilities. Our first adult novel wasn't frontlist, backlist, or midlist. It was offered as an "off-list special."