The pros and cons of royalty-paying indie/e for authors

The Pros and Cons of Royalty-Paying Indie Press
by Brenna Lyons

Why e-books? What are the pros and cons of royalty paying indie press, when compared with NY conglomerates? Basically, these pros apply to most indies, e-publishers included. Since POD print books and e-publishing have much in common, I’ll just use my standard answer for indie press, as a whole.

Pros for authors-

e-Books are a growth market. While NY conglomerates are just now experiencing the first, meteoric rise in sales indie did ten years ago (tripling or more of their sales every year in e-book formats), indie has settled into the second stable growth cycle, double-digit rises cumulatively every year.

Faster response time (on average) than NY conglomerates. Anyone who has spent 6-18 months or more waiting for answers from a NY agent will recognize why this is important, especially for prolific authors.

Usually allow electronic submission, which saves on paper, ink and postage.

Indie presses don’t pigeon-hole authors into a couple of core genres or subgenres. Many authors who move from NY to indie or branch out to include both, from a start in NY, state this as a main reason for the move.

Indie press allows reprints, if there seems to still be an audience and viable life left in the project. For anyone released from a NY house, this allows the books to keep selling in indie.

Indie press allows authors to write untried markets that have a crossover with what the publishers already do. In fact, some NY presses, like Kensington, have openly admitted that they use indie as their test market for new subgenres. Dark romance, erotic romance and paranormal romance all got their big push from indie then were adopted by NY conglomerates.

Indie presses allow authors to write outside the box, outside the accepted “genre lines” in the NY conglomerates. At the same time, indies aren’t afraid to state precisely what new markets are, without trying to redefine existing markets with expectations. NY is working on that one.

Indie presses allow authors to write in markets that are not giving the return NY demands of their markets and NY has therefore discontinued…but that still have an audience. For years, NY has said that Regency is dead. It’s not dead. It’s alive and living large at publishers like Awe-Struck, recently acquired by Mundania Press, LLC.

Indie press encourages representative art and blurbs, not copycats, that authors have input on. If you’ve ever been given a cover that doesn’t match your book at all, you’ll understand this. If you’ve ever read a copycat blurb that sounds like ten other books released that month, you will too.

Indie press gives individual attention to authors and encourages mentoring in learning to market, etc.

Indie contracts are written in plain English and easy to understand. EPIC offers a sample contract and contract red flags to watch for in indie contracts.

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an indie/e that said “agented submissions only,” though there are indies that are “by invitation only.”

On average, the contracts hold the author to a short period of time, allowing the author to move on from a bad situation or to larger markets, without the fuss of breaking a contract or paying buy-outs, though the buy-out feature in indie/e is also a plus.

The contracts are renewable, and the book can sell in perpetuity, making more sales, every time a new book releases from the author. Your books don’t lose “shelf time” at the end of 6 or 8 weeks.

Choosing indie/e does not mean you’re giving up print. Most established indie/e publishers now offer print for some (if not all) of their titles.

Royalties are paid more often…usually monthly, quarterly or semi-annually…the first two being more common. If the press pays publisher site sales monthly, you will still receive third-party sales quarterly, in all likelihood, because that’s when the resellers pay the publishers, which means smaller payments two months out of three and larger on the quarterly pay-out.

Authors get a larger percentage of each book sold than they would in NY. The minimum expected royalty rate on indie e-books is 30% of publisher site sales and 15% from third-party resellers. The average is between 40%/20% and 50%/25%. Speaking personally, a publisher has to make up with serious volume for me to even consider a contract under 40%/20%. At the moment, I have one that is. On the contrary, I haven’t heard of NY e-book lines going this high. The highest I’ve heard of, so far, tops 20%, but not by much. If there is one, I would love information about it.

Your books sell worldwide (save where the internet is blocked) from day one. There’s no messy negotiations to get the e-books overseas, though you may negotiate foreign language sales in indie.

In some cases, your print books also sell overseas immediately. Some printers have bases of operation or connections overseas to allow this.

A few indies have started translating their titles automatically for foreign markets.

*Markets like Fictionwise and Amazon DTP allow authors to sell reprints that even indie/e feels doesn’t have enough life left in e-book (Amazon CreateSpace, Lulu, LSI, BookSurge, etc. for print).

Cons for authors-

At this time, it’s a much smaller market than mass market enjoys. That will change with time, especially since your book can remain selling, as long as you and the publisher agree to it.

Though some authors in indie/e make as much or more than a NY midlist author, most do not. However, keeping the book on sale indefinitely allows you to continue making money.

There is no advance at most indie/e publishers, but with monthly or quarterly royalty payments, it’s not really necessary, like it is in NY.

There are some people who will not consider your indie/e publishing credits valid credits, but more and more, they aren’t the people who decide if you sign a contract in NY or even in indie press.

Even with the crop of reading devices, we are missing a durable, low-cost device that will read a wide variety of formats (or a universal format that everything can read)…maybe with eInk technology. It’s coming, though.

If your indie uses POD technology to print books, the publisher has more hoops to jump through to get books into the brick and mortar bookstores than the NY conglomerates do, even when the conglomerate is also using POD tech.

Likewise, it may be more difficult to get a signing in a chain book store, but not impossible. And indie authors often find that their best signings come at stores that relate to their audience or subject matter…a woman’s clothing store for romance or Hot Topic for paranormal/fantasy.