Romance - state of the industry 2016

I'm glad i'm not the only one who's not sure which way to jump next. It really helps to read everyone's thoughts on the state of the industry and how we can maybe build a career. My first Samhain novella came out last Tuesday (yep, four days before the news) and the only reason i didn't have another in the fire is because my editor is on a short leave. I wanted to be sure she'd return because it's another non-binary love story and i want it to stay that way. The rest of my books except for two shorts (one i self-pubbed) are with Dreamspinner. So... that was my attempt to not have all my Romance eggs in one basket. (Second attempt; the first one crashed and burned even worse.)

I really wish i had the funds to self-publish, but i don't. To get the novel i'm holding edited, formatted, and cover art (cover arted? *lol*) would've been around $1,500. Maybe i'd earn it back in a year, but for a wage slave like me that's a long time to wait with a vague hope of seeing a profit. Maybe i could do it cheaper, format it myself and buy a pre-made cover, but the editing is the largest chunk of that. The most important chunk, imo. And the promo would probably do me in. I'm doing a Pride Promotions tour for Torque and even just writing the posts is a lot of work.

I really hope the predictions of a "Big5 or Indie only" world are wrong. The last thing we need is to have only the folks with piles of cash telling stories.

It's all very disheartening. I'm starting to wonder if I'll bother with small publishers any more. It seems pointless when the best you can expect is a couple of hundred sales, and in light of that it's not difficult to see why those publishers are struggling. Especially since juggernauts like Penguin Random House and St. Martin's Press now have e-book only romance lines.

Since Samhain had been one of my dream pubs for forever, them closing down did leave me bummed. Luckily, I think I'm inching toward that point where I could self-pub, if push came to shove. I sort of broke down the "author endeavor" into stages, and I figured the first couple of years should be dedicated to becoming a better writer. I have a day job, so I only have so much time to devote to writing. I still want to spend the majority of it ... well... writing. That's why I'm glad there are still small presses around. I'd rather have someone else worry about formatting/cover/distribution for now. It lets me devote what time I have to writing and (very slowly) building an author platform.

However, I do think something changed between when I joined AW and today. Back then, the idea was "When I write something truly awesome, I would submit it to XYZ dream pubs," Samhain being one of them (this magnum opus has yet to materialize ). Lately, I've been going, "When I write something truly awesome, I'll put my money where my mouth is and publish it myself." That way, I'll be able to control cover art, formatting, distribution, as well as track sales and figure out what promo is working and what is not. Obviously, I'm not there yet. The magnum opus has yet to be written, and I have a day job I actually like. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the pubs I've been working with will stick around until I have the confidence and time necessary to take on the extra responsibility.

It would really suck if, a few years from now, the only choice for authors were between Big-5/6 or indie. At this time, I've made enough off my current books to self-pub if I absolutely had to. I've also learned enough about the industry for the investment to be a reasonably promising one. 3 years ago, neither of those statements would have been true.

I've sold to small presses since I first tried to sell. I've pitched to big houses, including "by invitation" when the editor contacted me, not the other way around. And I'm content with hybrid publishing for the time being -- some of my projects go to Desert Breeze, the small press that's worked most harmoniously for me over the years. Others I self-pub. I hope this mode of dealing with the industry continues to serve me well as it's done up to now.

However (big however) -- like others, I see things changing, and I'm not sure how to best position myself for the changes. I've put all my eggs via self-pub into one basket, mostly because I see authors in my genre moan about single-digit sales through Kobo, Nook, Apple. I've heard of balky loads, covers that are rejected for some batcrap reason, files that go through perfectly but never actually publish, titles that aren't findable on the platforms' sites even if you type in author and title perfectly...the list goes on and on.

I hear everyone about not putting all your hopes in a single platform. However, I do sell on Amazon, pretty low numbers but consistent. I'm not about to try to jump through those other self-publishing hoops if there's less-than-no payback. It's too expensive to try.

My take. I don't know what the industry will evolve into, and I don't know how to market effectively to a changing pool of customers. If anyone comes up with tried-and-true promo efforts, I'm still here listening and hoping after 14+ years.

Right now, I'm still with one publisher (excepting the shorts in anthologies). I guess I'm not horribly concerned, because there are still viable smaller markets for niche books. One is Sourcebooks, which has been going great guns and has grown USAT and NYT authors.

I've been thinking about splitting what I write--going both darker and lighter. Urban fantasy is becoming a tougher sell. Sales are down all over. Might be time to reinvent.

Thanks for this post. I was also so saddened by Samhain's closure. I write YA,and the kidlit market is quite different, but being in RWA and wanting to write adult market romance at some point, I keep up with this too. I've been told to "just self publish" and "you'll never make any money [doing what I'm doing etc] if you don't self pub" by other romance writers. These are often rom writers who've been in the game for 3, 5, 10 years or longer. It is simply not the same launching a self pubbed romance in 2016 as a new author as it was in 2013 or 2010. There are so,so many authors doing this now, and more doing it well. Also "just self publish" makes it sound easy, which it is not if you want to actually sell books. Right now, i am not at the place where I am ready to contract out for my own editors, cover designers, formatters,a nd with working and volunteering I am not able to do this on my own yet. Small presses have their place and its sad to see them go out.

I've also seen RWA completely change since I joined in 2012. Indie pub authors are now recognized and featured as keynotes at their national conference. Not the case 4 years ago.

Great convo, I will be following for more insight

MsLaylaCakes said:

It would really suck if, a few years from now, the only choice for authors were between Big-5/6 or indie. At this time, I've made enough off my current books to self-pub if I absolutely had to. I've also learned enough about the industry for the investment to be a reasonably promising one. 3 years ago, neither of those statements would have been true.

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Unless mmpb picks back up, I see this scenario happening for those genres traditionally published in mass market: romance, cozy mystery, debut SF/F. After all, it was the industry's treatment of mmpb (booksellers stripping the covers to get their money back from publishers) that caused the book industry to crash in 2008.

But truly, the option for romance writers at least, will be digital-first or self-pub.

Here's an interesting development. Marie Force is taking her famous Formatting Fairies and creating her own imprint. http://jackshousepublishing.com/

Contemporary romance submissions only.
No closed door sex.
No agented submissions.
Works over 70,000 words.
Previously self-published works will be considered.
Two year contract.
50/50 profit share.

That does sound interesting. Thanks for sharing that!

CEtchison said:

Here's an interesting development. Marie Force is taking her famous Formatting Fairies and creating her own imprint. http://jackshousepublishing.com/

Contemporary romance submissions only.
No closed door sex.
No agented submissions.
Works over 70,000 words.
Previously self-published works will be considered.
Two year contract.
50/50 profit share.

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Interesting. I'm very curious to hear what more of the romance pros here at AW think about this venture. Apparently, they aren't calling themselves a "publisher," so then, what exactly are they? Here's a quote from the site:

Why Jack’s House Publishing vs. a Traditional Publisher? If you sign with a traditional publisher, you’ll be one of hundreds—or even thousands—of other authors under contract. Our team will acquire a small number of authors to nurture their careers and grow their readership. We aren’t looking to be the next big thing. We are looking to provide individual care and mentorship to authors on the cusp of breaking out and take them to the next level. Of course there are never any guarantees that an author will succeed in this business, and we certainly don’t offer any guarantees. We do, however, promise to give each of our authors our very best effort for the two years they are under contract to us before setting them free to fly solo—or re-signing them for another book.

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StoryofWoe said:

Interesting. I'm very curious to hear what more of the romance pros here at AW think about this venture. Apparently, they aren't calling themselves a "publisher," so then, what exactly are they? Here's a quote from the site:

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Branding power, IMO. Like James Patterson and his co-written books.

Captcha said:

The two-year term is reassuring, but I'm always wary of places that say "no agented submissions". I mean, I can see them saying agents aren't necessary, but... what's the motivation for not even allowing them? (Maybe they want closer contact with the author in order to screen those that don't have the attitude they're looking for? That's the only positive spin I can think of...)

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Likely because agents are the champions of authors. They'd insist on changes to the contract. While it's possible an attorney was used to create it, often a start-up company doesn't have one on retainer. They should, of course, and shouldn't fear contract edits, but that's often the reason for denying agented entries.

Cathy C said:

Likely because agents are the champions of authors. They'd insist on changes to the contract. While it's possible an attorney was used to create it, often a start-up company doesn't have one on retainer. They should, of course, and shouldn't fear contract edits, but that's often the reason for denying agented entries.

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Excellent point.

As with all new publishers, and I think we can pretty well call them a publisher, the best thing to do is sit and wait. If they're good for their authors, we'll hear about it.

If not... we'll hear about it.

Aside from the "no agented submissions" the other thing I found interesting as I poked around the website was that there are no editors listed as part of the team.


When Gemma Halliday created her own imprint and took on other authors it made sense to me because hers is a very niche market (cozy mysteries).

But Meredith Wild's Waterhouse Press and now Marie Force's publishing house? I understand why people self-publish as opposed to going the trade route. But I'm not sure why people would go this route.

This stood out to me, too: (from the About Us page, under "Meet the Jack's Team" heading)

Melissa Storm, advertising and marketing consultant, will be available to assist authors with specially priced website and marketing packages to supplement our efforts.

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So, they have an in-house (or remote) consultant who will be offering her website and marketing services to authors at "special prices?" I've never heard of this person and it's entirely possible that this is a standard practice within the industry and I'm just an ignorant noob. But it was my understanding that most authors, trade and self-published, were either responsible for creating their own or hiring out for their websites. Am I mistaken? I may have heard it mentioned that publishers sometimes create websites for their authors, but is this something the author usually pays for? Now, maybe it's a positive thing that this publisher(?) has someone on their team who wants to work closely with their authors, but charging authors for this service while also being a member of the "team?" I dunno. Maybe I've just been hanging out in AW's Beware's section for too long.

Back to the OP question, I enjoy writing romance but I also write in other genres and I've taken a step sideways to work on my YA projects for the foreseeable future. I'll keep my toe dipped into the romance pond with a few shorts being published this year, but nothing full-length in this genre.

Samhain wanted to see one of my novels but it's still needing a lot of work and honestly I don't know how much longer they'll be in publishing with the e-market.

Is Samhain even taking new authors? I thought they were winding down.

Mairzy Dotes said:

Samhain wanted to see one of my novels but it's still needing a lot of work and honestly I don't know how much longer they'll be in publishing with the e-market.

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Huh? I sold a book to them last fall, and I was supposed to get my first round of edits in February...but then they let go of all their editors. They're winding down, as Filigree said. I think I can get my rights back but haven't asked yet. My understanding was that if your book wasn't finished edits by February or so, they would not publish it. They were only going to publish the books that were more or less ready to go at that time.

I'm late to this thread but I would like to recommend my own UK based digital publisher, Bookouture . They concentrate on Women's Fiction, in particular rom-com, and Crime, and their rom-coms do extremely well. They land regularly in Amazon uk's overall top 100, even the top 10. Quite a few well-known agented writers have joined us in the past year or so. The latest recruit is one of the UK's best-selling rom-com authors (I won't mention her name but if you read UK romance you will know it) whose books will soon be published by Bookouture in the US. The books are all well promoted and a few authors have already quit their day jobs. I know one or two of you on this thread have already submitted there but I would encourage the others -- it doesn't seem to be at all well-known, and that's a pity. They have excellent editors, most of them recruits from major houses (mine is from Avon).

Captcha said:

The two-year term is reassuring, but I'm always wary of places that say "no agented submissions". I mean, I can see them saying agents aren't necessary, but... what's the motivation for not even allowing them? (Maybe they want closer contact with the author in order to screen those that don't have the attitude they're looking for? That's the only positive spin I can think of...)

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I'm wary about this as well. I don't have an agent, so of course I like open submissions! But, if most of the contracts are fair, the terms are good ... then why should they be wary of having an agent look over the submission? It just seems very odd.