Why Am I So Negative About Traditional Book Publishing?
I Got That Question in an Email…
It wasn’t from anyone who had taken a class with us, and I laughed and almost just deleted it as I do most spam emails. Then I looked at it and googled the website that came with it and realized the person was a writer, or in the early stages, and someone had pointed this person to some of my really negative posts about traditional publishing. And this person was honestly having an issue with me blowing up the dreams of having a major publisher sprinkle fairy dust on a book and proclaim they are a REAL WRITER!
So being the real ass that I am, I wrote this person back and said, “Read my bog tonight.”
My credits… Sold my first two short stories 52 years ago. Sold my first novel to Warner Books in 1987 and ended up doing 106 books with traditional publishing. Many under pen names. I had the same agent for 17 years whose company ended up stealing from me. I had great editors and horrid editors over the years. I hit the bestseller lists a ton of times. (Not one bit of that now matters in the slightest.)
When the publishing industry started to change in the mid-1990s, I started getting disgusted at the bad contracts and lowering money and by 2005 I was pretty much done with it all, but thankfully indie publishing came along very shortly after that and I was back writing more than ever.
I have in the 20 years since indie publishing started made far, far more money than I made in the 20 plus years in traditional publishing. (In traditional publishing I averaged about $20,000 per book, so you can do the math.)
Now, here in 2026, traditional publishing will buy all rights from writers who don’t know any better and use the rights to increase the profitability of their bottom line spreadsheets. They flat don’t care if they publish most books or not, even after buying them. And most editors are fresh out of college and being chewed up by the system as fast as baby writers. And book agents are pretty much scams running one thing or another. Just do the math. Not possible to live in New York and have an expensive office off of 15% of what publishers are offering these days.
And it is impossible to make a living in traditional publishing in 2026 for writers unless you started last century and are now aging out.
On the stand in a lawsuit a few years back, a major publishing officer swore under oath that over 50% of all traditionally published books sell less than 12 copies. Under oath and not one major person in traditional publishing pushed back on that in the slightest because they all know it is right.
12 copies.
And besides buying all rights and the author losing their book, the authors get a royalty on full sales of 10% or so. Indie publishers make 70% per sale and up.
And don’t forget the time. Traditional publishing will take years and a ton of rewrites demanded by non-writers to get a book published. (Read my previous posts on the money a week or so ago.) And the traditional publishers will force you to write what they want, not what you want.
Indie publishing you can write what you want and publish when you want. And you get to keep all your rights and make money from them.
Traditional book publishing with thousands of publishers worked pretty well from 1960 to 1995 and then it just fell apart. Those good years are where the myths built up. Now in the last 30 years, traditional publishing and its four publishers has become a sad little echo of the thousands of publishers that came before. Now there are hundreds of thousands of indie publishers, many, many, many making great money and writing what they want to write when they want to write it.
The myth of traditional publishing is still strong among the young. And if the belief is too strong, folks, just let them go. It is their dream.
But the writer who asked me why I was so down on traditional publishing seemed to be hesitating before becoming lost chasing bad agents and giving all their rights away. I hope that whoever sent this writer my way helps the writer into indie publishing.
I have lived for over 20 years on each side of the fence. There is no green grass in traditional publishing. It is just a sad wasteland littered with the bodies and dreams of young and some not so young writers,
You can’t help those whose dreams are based in a 40 year-old myth, but you can help the writers who start to look around and ask questions. I hope this post helps a few, including the writer who wrote me.
14 Comments
LM
The weirdest thing I got from this that I never thought about is that selling say 100 copies is great! Focus on the fundamentals and don’t worry about the sales is generally a good idea but that stat puts numbers to it.
dwsmith
Writers talk about sales like they are just numbers. If you put say 100 sales of a book and you could see each person who bought the book, they were all in a line, then you would get an understanding of how amazing making 100 sales would be, especially for a newer writer. Sales numbers are far more than just numbers, they are people who reached for their wallet and bought your work. Celebrate every one of them.
Martin L. Shoemaker
I’m really behind on marketing. Most of my “marketing” is social media posts, plus maybe Amazon emailing people who read my other books. Oh, and local craft/book shows.
Every one of my circus mysteries has sold more than 12 copies. Even the one that came out last Tuesday. Book #1 is up to 70 sales (plus 223 free downloads as promotion for the others).
If big company marketing can’t beat my marketing, they ain’t marketing.
dwsmith
Maerin, and you realize the marketing you are thinking of is also dated. Have you done a Kickstarter lately? Just saying, no need to answer. And that kind of marketing is free and makes you money as well as more readers.
Steve Perry
“Thus declared Dean Doomslayer Destroyer-of-Dreams,” Steve said alliteratively …
Unfortunately, this mirrors my experience, albeit I have not written nearly as as many books as fast-hands Dean, even though I’m older and started before he did. Trad-pub peaked, I think, just before the Great Recession of 2007-2009, that took with it the traditional publishing midlist and the careers of a shitload of writers.
dwsmith
Midlist went down with the collapse of the distribution system in 1995, and managed to struggle along a little for ten more year before it totally died out. What is interesting is that the term “midlist” is just damned funny to indie writers. (At least the ones who are old enough to know what it means.)
I did a blog post a number of years back titled “What’s a backlist, daddy?” Same thing. All books are now new to readers when they find them.
Frontlist, backlist, midlist, territories, and so on are just dead terms in indie. Hey indie writers, can you imagine signing a contract where the sales of your books were only limited to North America and the rest of the world was ignored? Yup, traditional publishing is a world that really, really needed to die as it has done.
J.D. Coker
It’s funny too how I just started publishing my novels in January and with just in person events I have probably made more than most first time authors. I received the money shortly after ordering them at cost from Amazon and then selling them at the events for a premium price of 19.99-24.99 for my print. That’s great margins. As a rule since I’m new I only go to events with low table costs and low travel (under 3hr drive so I don’t have to get a hotel).
I was blown away when I sold almost to everyone who approached my table that likes sci fi. I even had people leave and think about it, then come back and buy. Covers, being friendly, and a fun sales pitch must have done it.
My ebooks are 5.99 everywhere and I give a very small discount for a 3 book bundle, 14.99 which is only a 17% discount on my website. No bundles at the retailers until I make sure I can have the same price. I want the discount buyers to stay away, only looking for fans. People pay $8 for a cup of coffee. Readers who are looking for good books have no problem with the above prices, won’t even blink an eye on it.
I don’t really care about Amazon or retailer sales websites even though I have my books up there. That phrase alone makes people in my writing group gasp.
That’s all extra money, even Amazon, just icing on the cake. I’m focused on my direct sales through Shopify. All roads point to there for me where I keep 97% of my money and I have all of the customer data! I also am learning that average order value and life time sales of a customer is important.
What can I do to get more of a customers money (special editions, etc). So much you can do on a Shopify store compared to the online retailers. Not enough writers think like business people and I’m just learning all this. Insane what you can do when you compartmentalism the business and artist side, which can be very hard to do.
None of the retailers give you any of the data and only care about you if you happen to catch the algorithm. And you can also integrate email lists to Shopify. That’s a true business when you have a full list of customers with contact info. I’m so hyped about my career, all I need to do is keep publishing fun novels and never stop learning!
dwsmith
Fun stuff, JD, and with your books wide, if a buyer at a fair likes your book when they read it three years later, they will find more of your work. Nice feedback loop that is tough to trace.
And don’t pay attention to “algorithms” because interestingly enough, readers are not that, they are individual people with tastes. If you do your job as a writer and tell a good story they like, they will find more of your books. And that’s how you build readership.
Mitzi Szereto
I have to agree with you. The last few years have truly been the worst. Reduced advances (if any advances at all), royalty paid on net (and that’s if we can believe our royalty figures in the first place!), interns doing the jobs that should be done by proper professionals, publishers “forgetting” to register our copyrights, and yes, editors straight out of college who can’t string a sentence together. Throw in the agents and what’s left? Someone’s lining their pockets, and it sure as hell isn’t the author. Nah. We’re just here to be screwed over.
dwsmith
Mitzi… So when you have a vast new world of indie and all the fun out in this big world, why even stay in traditional at all?
Sarah Stegall
Dean, thanks for telling it like it is. It’s so discouraging to me, as a hybrid writer, to see young writers at conferences and writing groups tying themselves in knots trying to figure out how to fulfill a dream with no foundation in reality. Talking to them is pointless. They are hypnotized by visions based on TV or movies are other fantasy storylines. They are like moon landing deniers or people who think ship captains can marry people at sea. They are like dream is so attractive, and the reality so banal and ugly. Writers are optimists and want to believe things will work out, but the truth is that you have to be a writer, editor, cover designer, layout artist, etc etc etc these days. Thanks for showing us all how it’s done.
dwsmith
Sarah, when indie publishing started 20 years ago for real, I thought hybrid writers (doing both traditional and indie) would be a way of the future. Sadly, didn’t work. One side of the equation (traditional) rotted so much as to be worthless and so many thousands of opportunities sprouted in indie, there was no time or reason to do both.
Edward Perez
You Sir! Are the reason why I’m writing. You Sir! are the reason I’m writing my way. (They should take that Sinatra song and make it a battle cry for writers, Ha!) You know which song I’m talking about. There was a time when I was all about getting my story to a trad. I’ll cut the long form for the word. I’m to lazy to write the whole four syllable world. And yet here I am, writing more about that word. Ha!
I digress. When I came upon your view on trad. I thought to myself. Hey (I slapped my head) whattya doing? He’s right. Just write. Just put it out there. With all the flaws it might have. Publish the book. I did. And it was the best choice I made. Now, I’m not making money from the books. That’s not the point for me. Although I’d love, love, to be successful at my writing. The point was to get my book out. Get it published. The next one comes faster and easier. The writing becomes bolder and easier to put down.
Thank you for what you do. I very much appreciate your over 50 years of wisdom. E.J. Perez
dwsmith
Thanks, Edward. Writing what you want to write seems to be a major secret of writing. And it is great fun as well.