This post is in response to Michael Levin’s Huffington Post article, “Why Book Publishers Hate Authors,” in which he asserts an antagonistic and frankly distressing perspective about how publishers feel toward their authors.
This is a timely piece, and one that’s so far received a lot of high-five-style comments (except from a select few commenters who actually work in publishing), because authors are trying to wrap their minds around why their work is not getting acquired. Or, if it is, why their books aren’t selling well.
Levin suggests that publishers despise their authors, which is ludicrous. Publishing is changing (and has been for the past decade), and authors are freaking out because their fantasy about getting published doesn’t match up with today’s reality. Many authors have a concept of getting published that’s nostalgic of an early twentieth-century publishing model that no longer exists. Back in the 1930s and ’40s there were fewer publishing companies and books being published, and mediocre writers did not aspire to publish. Today everyone thinks they can and should be an author. I personally advocate for this in my work with my clients, and when I speak to groups, but it doesn’t mean that every writer is writing the kind of book that “deserves” to be published by a traditional press.
Authors who do get published traditionally can sometimes have very high expectations. I know this from my years in the publishing industry. Everyone has the dream of being a bestseller, and authors typically come into a publishing house with zero concept of what’s actually involved in getting their books pre-sold (meaning the quantities major accounts agree to take before a print run is even set). Authors don’t understand that major accounts pass on their books when there’s no confirmed publicity, and that they’re competing with many many other books for a very limited amount of shelf space. They are distressed when their books don’t do well, and everyone likes to talk about how much publishers aren’t doing for their authors. But let’s consider how much of a broken model book publishing actually is.
Publishers risk a lot when they sign an author. That’s just a fact of publishing, and Levin’s write-up about how publishers want their authors to fail, beyond not making sense, can only stem from entitlement or personal disappointment or both. Publishers that give advances to their authors are automatically in the hole for the amount of the advance. Then add in the cost of staff, the cost of producing the book, and the cost of marketing and publicity. Even for a low-cost book, the publisher is putting out thousands.
Let’s take a Seal Press book by way of example. A typical advance is $10,000. The cost of production may be somewhere between $6,000-$10,000 (much higher for high-design books). Then there’s the printing of the book—another $4,000-$7,500 (depending on the print run). Then there’s marketing and publicity costs. On the low end they probably spend $2,500. On the high end much much more. Then there’s the cost of the staff and overhead and a million other things to run a business. And they have to take returns if and when the book doesn’t sell!!
Any author who doesn’t think they should have to work their asses off when someone is giving them an advance on their book is living in last century’s model. There are very few authors who are actually making a full-time living at being an author. If you think this isn’t fair, I suggest a reality check. It’s not that publishers hate authors—far from it; but they do get frustrated when they invest so much money on books that mostly fail. Again, it’s a broken model. But this doesn’t mean they blame the author. When over 80 percent of all books fail to earn out their advances, that would be a lot of blame and a lot of finger-pointing. Publishers know that these failures to earn out are simply part of what the industry deals with—and has dealt with for a long time. It’s very disappointing to publishers and editors alike when a book they bring in doesn’t do well. I have looked at royalty statements over the years and felt sick over them. Who in their right mind would look at something that didn’t perform as well as they had hoped and feel glee? Mr. Levin paints industry professionals as so sinister, when in fact they’re mostly idealistic book lovers who go to bat for their authors time after time after time, even as book sales are on the decline.
There is some truth to the a few of the points Levin makes. For instance, he writes:

“Today, any time an agent or acquisitions editor considers a manuscript or book proposal from an author, the first place they go is BookScan to get sales figures. These numbers used to be proprietary to the house that had published the book; now they’re out in the open for all to see. And if an author’s sales numbers are poor, no one thinks to blame the house for failing to market the book. The author’s career is essentially over. One and done. Next contestant, please.”

It’s true that editors check Bookscan numbers, but Bookscan numbers only represent about 70 percent of all sales, and they don’t capture specialty sales. And you’d be shocked by numbers that publishers consider “decent.” A book that’s sold 5,000 copies, for instance, shows a pretty solid performance. And my experience with publishers (both those that I’ve worked with and those I’ve done business with—small and big houses alike) has been positive in terms of the publisher/author relationship. I also know a lot of publishers and a lot of editors, and they’re actually quite protective of their authors. For every story I’ve heard of an author’s career ending because she was unable to earn out her advance (and yes, this does happen, though I again point back to the broken model and the fact that $100,000-plus shouldn’t be thrown at first-time authors), there’s been another story of a publisher that went the distance for their author, signing their next book or advocating for them in some way despite a “failed” attempt. More than blaming their authors, publishers blame the culture. We live in a culture in which fewer people are buying and reading books. I’ve made the case in the past that digital books are saving publishing, because technology is bringing more readers.
If you ascribe to Levin’s belief system, I can promise you one thing: you will never get published. It doesn’t behoove you as an author to go into your publishing relationship feeling like you’re a victim, or like your publisher is out to get you. Publishers love to work with authors who have a positive attitude, who are go-getters, who are willing to try as hard as they can to get the word out there about their book. So authors who protest, “But I don’t want to do social media,” or who say things like, “I thought the publisher was supposed to do that for me,” really are acting a bit spoiled, in my opinion.
Getting published is a privilege. I have always felt this way, and authors who come into a publishing relationship with entitlement seem to be coming to publishing with a sense that they deserve to be published. Most authors I’ve worked with, I’m grateful to say, have not exhibited this sort of behavior. But some have. I have worked with authors who never said thank you, who expected so much and gave so little, and who seemed to believe that the publishing staff was at their disposal, even though we had forty other authors we were attending to.
Aspiring authors out there, do not buy into this idea that publishers have begun to hate authors. Publishing professionals are awesome people. We hold onto hope that every book will succeed. I believed in every single book I ever acquired. There was not a single book I ever brought in that I believed (or for that matter hoped!) would fail. And I believe that most editors and publishers share in this sense of possibility. Book publishing happens to be one of those industries, that while riddled with problems, also witnesses magic. Breakout books happen. There’s no such thing as buying your way to becoming a New York Times bestseller. Good writing stands on its own. And anyone can become a bestselling author—and there’s no recipe for it. But you always want to start with a good attitude. I believe that people like Michael Levin, who clearly want to see book publishing’s demise so that they can say “I told you so” are no friends to authors.
Keep dreaming big, but don’t dismiss how hard you have to work for it. Remember the truism that anything worth having is worth working hard for.

Read more about publishing and the true future of book publishing in my book, What’s Your Book? A Step-by-Step Guide to Get You from Inspiration to Published Author