Mike Underwood (Angry Robot Books) Talks Publishing

slhuang · Jun 21, 2014

I looked for a prior thread on this article and didn't find it, and it's too good not to share. A guest post over at Chuck Wendig's site:

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/201...g-revealed-or-inside-the-bookish-shatterdome/

He touches on a LOT of different things, and even after hanging out at AW for so long, I felt like it gave me a much better perspective of exactly how a lot of different aspects of publishing work. Most fascinating. And eminently readable.

My favorite bit was the way he envisions a big publisher as a Jaeger:

Going traditional is partnering with a giant Publishing Jaeger built and run by an army of staffers. You’re still the pilot, but when you’re using the Jaeger, you have to sell books things the way Jaegers sell books. You take home less money per copy sold, but you’ve got a lot more people on your side, who are working with you to make the book succeed. The entire army’s goal is to see each book succeed.

[...] Remember the giant Publishing Jaeger? It’s going to be slower than say, a helicopter, by necessity. The reason publishing is slow is that it’s big, and it’s powerful. In order to align the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of employees behind a book as part of a publisher’s season, there’s a ton of coordination and steps to go through to make it a powerful butt-kicking sales machine.

This analogy really tickled me. That we might perceive publishers as slow or having a lot of moving parts, but once the machine gets going they have the power to punch through a kaiju's head and send it right back into the rift -- or, well, get a book out there.

And then he gets into a lot of the nuts and bolts of the moving parts. (He's very positive about self-publishing, as well, and talks about all the many choices available.)

Also on the list: sub-rights, covers, retailers, marketing, networking, pricing, returns, and some of the emotional things we wrestle with as authors. I found it both thoroughly informative and very funny.

BenPanced · Jun 21, 2014

I had to look up "jaeger" and "kaiju" and I still don't understand the context, so it's one great big :Shrug:

to me.

slhuang · Jun 21, 2014

BenPanced said:
I had to look up "jaeger" and "kaiju" and I still don't understand the context, so it's one great big to me.

Oh, sorry -- it's a reference to the movie Pacific Rim. I sometimes forget when I'm posting outside the SFF room . . . *embarrassed* The Jaeger are ginormous robots that we built to punch ginormous monsters in the face. Comparing publishing to a Jaeger is saying that it's big and complicated and can take a while to get moving or to pivot in a new direction, but that's because it's built to be as powerful as possible.

(It's a reference his audience would get, as ARB is a spec fic publisher and Chuck Wendig is a spec fic author, but not the one I should have quoted!)

I assure you the rest of the article is very good and does not depend on knowledge of giant robots.

BenPanced · Jun 21, 2014

Thanks for the explanation.

Liosse de Velishaf · Jun 21, 2014

It's interesting that he uses the term "traditional" publishing...

GeekTells · Jun 22, 2014

Thanks for the heads up, SL. That was a good read.

bearilou · Jun 22, 2014

Liosse de Velishaf said:
It's interesting that he uses the term "traditional" publishing...

I've noticed more and more those involved in the trade publishing business are starting to use the term traditional.

Laer Carroll · Jun 22, 2014

Liosse de Velishaf said:
It's interesting that he uses the term "traditional" publishing...

“Trade” publishing is the correct term. “Traditional” is inaccurate but so widely used that fighting for correctness is akin to jousting at windmills. Moreover, every time you correct someone you run the risk of self-branding yourself as a sour-faced anal retentive, no matter how gently you do so.

Self-publishing, from my reading of the history of publishing, seems to be the older and so more “traditional” kind. Trade publishing as a full-time business came somewhat later.

______________________________________

The part that impressed me the most was that a terrific book could be rejected by a particular publisher for many reasons, one being that a publisher needs to have a mix of different kinds of books. And mine might not fit the mix they needed in the near future.

I recall an interview with an editor at a major house a few years into the Harry Potter phenomenon. When asked if she regretted passing over the books she said, basically, “we could not have given them the right kind of platform. It would have been unfair to us and to the author to accept them.”

Roxxsmom · Jun 22, 2014

Laer Carroll said:
I recall an interview with an editor at a major house a few years into the Harry Potter phenomenon. When asked if she regretted passing over the books she said, basically, “we could not have given them the right kind of platform. It would have been unfair to us and to the author to accept them.”

It makes me wonder whether HP would have been such a big hit if another publisher had picked it up. I suspect a lot of little things play into whether a good book (assuming it finds a publisher at all) becomes a smash hit, just does respectably, or languishes so badly it quickly drops out of print and memory.

There are so darn many books out there, and most of us don't have time to read them all. Running across or hearing about the right book at the right time is so important.

Liosse de Velishaf · Jun 22, 2014

Yeah, the idea that a book just might not work well with a given publisher seems to be hard for many people to understand, but it's a fairly simple concept, really.

JustSarah · Jun 22, 2014

Liosse de Velishaf said:
Yeah, the idea that a book just might not work well with a given publisher seems to be hard for many people to understand, but it's a fairly simple concept, really.

A manuscript might not necessarily be submitted to the right publisher?

I'm thinking of the scenario where someone submits a romantic suspense just to throw something out there, and though they manage to get it on the desk, its rejected because the publisher only reads science fiction.

Mike Underwood (Angry Robot Books) Talks Publishing

slhuang

Inappropriately math-oriented.

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)

slhuang

Inappropriately math-oriented.

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)

Liosse de Velishaf

GeekTells

Tick tock...

bearilou

DenturePunk writer

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

Liosse de Velishaf

JustSarah