The Indie Author’s Bad Bargain with Ad Algorithms, Part 1

Once you decide you’re OK with producing value (out of something *or* nothing) and asking a fair price for it, you have a new problem on your hands.

You have to get people to *notice* it.

Hence advertising—another capitalist evil we all love to hate.

It would be a worthy exercise to do a kind of taxonomy of advertising from most intrusive and exploitative to most helpful and respectful. Probably success short term lies toward the front and success long term lies in the middle and the far end ideal doesn’t do much good at all (though I bet the experiment is still worth making, depending on your product).

I may return to this, but for now I’m going to stick to my title issue, because it illustrates so well the intersecting challenges of capitalism, creativity, and the web.

Until very recently—maybe 15 years ago—publishing was effectively a gated community. Technically you could self-publish, but there were several dealbreaker problems with this:

1) A well-developed sense of shame at not getting past the gatekeepers, which was undoubtedly fostered by the traditional publishing industry (thus “vanity publishing.” As if traditionally published authors aren’t vain!).

2) Exploitative prices and unjust rights deals within the self-publishing industry taking advantage of authors’ vanity, insecurity, or drive to see their works in print.

3) Virtually no way to market your work, since bookshops couldn’t find it in their catalogues and would naturally distrust its inability to find a proper publisher. Also, till recently, no internet.

Then we had a number of tech revolutions that changed up the landscape for creatives. From what I gather, it was all but devastating for musicians, who are only just now beginning to emerge from the crisis with the rise of NFTs. Sounds like Hollywood is finally beginning to feel the pinch, too, as subscription TV has soared.

Indie authors—as they rechristened themselves—came through pretty well, though. Here’s why:

1) It used to be, if you wanted to produce a physical book, you had to own a printing plant, or order a print run, then cover storage and distribution costs. Once services like Lulu and CreateSpace (now Kindle Direct Publishing) came along, you could bypass both capital investments. A smaller print run, as small as a single book, was a risk that a lot more authors could afford to take. The ROI was much better, too—as opposed to maybe 6% of the profits (*after* your advance) from a traditional publisher, you could get 70% from Amazon. Whatever you may think of that monopolistic behemoth, it was a way better deal for authors than what came before.

2) And then, it turns out, you didn’t even need to print and distribute books at all. Indies were the first to see the potential of the ebook space, and in time the audiobook space, too. The formatting is much simpler by necessity and therefore less costly even to hire out. Delivery is instantaneous. The backmatter can prompt readers to leave a review or buy the next in series. Even *better* than print books, honestly, and no cut for the cost of paper, printing, and delivery!

As it turns out, this wasn’t quite the heavenly ideal it was thought to be at first. More on that later.

3) As indie authors rose in wealth and prominence, so did the supporting gig economy. The retraction of the traditional publishing industry pushed toward this outcome from the other direction—not enough work as publishers consolidated. Nowadays you can hire anyone from a dirt cheap newcomer looking to acquire a reputation to a veteran expert creating bespoke artwork and typography on places like Reedsy and Fiverr, which also offer vetting services and arbitration. There’s no reason now not to have an indie book that looks indistinguishable from a traditionally published one—and is just as good in content. Yes, of course, indie publishing generates stinkers. So does traditional publishing! Indie has the edge, though, in that it can cater to extremely niche tastes that would not be worth the investment to a corporation but is eminently worth the investment to the solo author generating in that field.

4) And finally, to crown all the advantages, is how the internet has made advertising possible for an author going it alone. In fact, not only is it *possible* for *indie* authors—it is *necessary* for *traditionally published* authors. A traditional publisher won’t even consider you anymore unless you *already* have a platform—and since you already have a platform, they expect you to get busy working it for sales. This, despite the fact that you see so little additional income from your best marketing efforts because of the tiny cut your contract allots you. Whereas you can direct sell through, e.g., Payhip, and lose only a small transaction fee, otherwise pocket all the profit that very same day.

Now for some fair disclosure:

I have a handful of books published traditionally. They are church and academic presses. I never had the slightest expectation of making any money off them. Even $25 a year is a delightful surprise. You publish with those presses for credentials on your CV and reputation, not money. This is largely underwritten by the patronage system that is academia. I have often wondered how scholarship would change if there was a different kind of financial reward system. There *is* one, but it is far from a free market. A topic worth exploring in the future.

In 2020 I was shopping a memoir. I queried about 20 agents. Two were nice enough to say “no” directly, the rest didn’t respond at all. Then the pandemic struck, and I realized that the panic was going to make an already conservative (in the sense of “we’ll only do in the future what’s worked in the past”) industry even more conservative. Further reflection showed me that I knew my market better than anyone else, so there was pretty much nothing a traditional publisher could add to my prospects. I was game to learn the design and business side of things, so I launched Thornbush Press.

https://www.thornbushpress.com

This definitely qualifies as an indie press. I’ve published six books of my own under the imprint and one by another author. She gets a much, much better deal with me than she would’ve with a traditional publisher. My small size actually gives me the financial freedom to offer a better package—after all, I’m not sustaining offices or equipment or a staff.

You can see where my sympathies lie pretty clearly. But I face the same problem as every other author/publisher: getting noticed.

And the same temptation to make a deal with the devil… as the next post will detail.