If you’ve been around for longer than that carton of milk in your refrigerator, I’m sure you’ve heard these words “the midlist is dying” at least a time or two, but in the last two weeks I’ve heard of two publishers who have out and out declared either to many (via press release) or privately (via an agent) that they were eliminating their midlist.
So, what does it mean and why do we care–or do we?
First, what is the midlist? Quite honestly it is made up by most authors you meet on the Internet. It is an author who isn’t just starting out, and who also isn’t at the top of the sales game. I don’t say “best-selling” because honestly that tag is bantered around so much it lacks meaning. An author could label herself “best-selling” or even “NY Times best-selling” and still be mid-list. Because, times change and just because you hit a list once doesn’t mean you haven’t fallen back down into that gray middle…and making one list does not automatically yank you out of mid-list either. I guess it’s like tar–darn hard to shake and easy to sink back into. 
Another way to look at this is slots. Publishing houses have slots, as in A,B,C,D. An A slot author is getting the big support. The D slot author is getting their book published, listed in the publisher’s catalogue and going through the publisher’s distribution. The publisher in other words is putting their betting bucks on that A slot book and letting the D slot book fly as it might. Chances are the B and C slotters are mid-list. Neither the cheapest (in the way of royalties) nor the most expensive (in the way of promotion). But these authors are also missing the ever so alluring scent of possibility. They have been trotted out of the barn a few times and the chances (from booksellers and others view) of them jumping the gate and making off with the big sales prize are slim. That D slot author? They are not only cheap, they are chock full of possibility. Who knows? Maybe they will be the new hot thing. (This is all of course generalizations–the D slot could also be a mid-lister, and a newbie could be bumped to any other place on the hierarchy, but this gives you something else to look at.)
So, with this said, when I heard these two publishers were eliminating their mid-list I thought, “How?” Are they dropping everything that isn’t an A to them? Are they getting out their crystal ball and only buying the “big” books? Or are they just gouging out the middle? Keeping the A’s and the D’s but dumping those darn B’s and C’s?”
And which is better? Should we care?
I can’t say I think either is all that much better than another. But I care and I think you should too. Here’s why.
To write full time, authors have to make money. It’s a hard cold reality of life unless you were born with a healthy trust fund. Now authors can write and have a decent possibility of making a living somewhere in that mid list, but if it was gone–if they went from pennies for their books to big bucks? How would that work? A lot of authors, way more than now, would give up. You write one or two books for $10 an hour or less (after factoring in revisions, etc. and with no health, dental, etc. benefits) okay, because the promise of more is there. But if those stepping stones of the mid list were gone and your only shot was to be “big”? Well, the gamble is a lot bigger. And here’s a fact–writing is hard, not only hard work, but hard emotionally. Your ego can really take a beating. You can love something to death, but if you just love doing it and you aren’t getting paid much to do it–why put it out there to be torn up? Why deal with all of that?
So, my guess is a lot of authors who live on the mid list would just disappear. This would be okay for a while. There is a never ending supply of new hopeful writers, but eventually wouldn’t that get old? There are a lot of really good books on that mid list. (Seriously, none of us believe only best-sellers are good, right? Or even all best-sellers are good.)Â If you could only pick between the new and the big, I truly think you would miss what used to be in the middle.
I know I would.
(p.s. I’m travelling across Illinois today on my way to Ninc. So, talk amongst yourselves. I’ll check in when I can.)
No related posts.
A storyteller never goes away. She just finds another avenue. Storytellers can’t stop telling their stories no matter what. So, if the Big Pubs won’t take them and they have to work a day job too, they’ll go with the flexibility of ePublishing. Although some readers may fall away, most of them will go too and bring new ones in along the way.
Kimber, that may be true for some natural storytellers, whose brains burn with ideas they can’t get down fast enough, or who crave sharing those ideas with others so much they’re not overly concerned with either the delivery method or whether they can earn a living from their writing.
I am not one of those people. On any of those counts.
The premise comes fairly easily, sometimes. The actual story? Never. Nurturing that story idea from seed to fruition, through umpteen rewrites and sleepless nights?
If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d give it up in a heartbeat. Because writing is haaaaaard.
However, at present it’s my job; I depend on my writing income to support my family (since I’m not holding my breath about the lottery
). But there’s only so much of me to go around. If I were to suddenly find myself out of contract, and could not quickly sign with another advance-paying publisher, I would have to go find another job. Probably Out There in the Real World. And trust me, if I have to go work full time *and* do the Mom/Wife thing? There’s not going to be anything left for writing. Maybe some people can hack it, but I can’t.
As for e-publishing…I couldn’t afford to switch to a no-advance model and be without that income for however long it took for me to a) write another book and b) that book to be published. Yes, I understand that it takes far less time for royalties to show up after publication for e-books than print, but it’s still not a bada-bing, bada-boom thing.
In any case, until — as Jordan said below — at least half the reading population is buying e-books (which ain’t gonna happen until a LOT of the e-reader/format issues are worked out), I’m simply not seeing e-publishing as a viable alternative for ME. As an adjunct, for a book that hadn’t sold elsewhere, maybe. But not as a substitute for print publishing.
I get the e-publishing model, I understand why it works so well for many authors, and I’m all for any delivery method that gets stories to readers. But for one thing, I do not write nearly fast enough to earn the same amount in e-publishing as I do writing 2-3 series romance titles for Special Edition. For another, the PG to PG-13, “real life” stories I write are — still — not exactly hot sellers as e-books.
I completely agree about the “adapt or die” thing. But for many authors who have to take the financial aspect into consideration, “adapting” to losing their contract might well mean choosing a path that no longer includes writing. Or at least to drastically reducing output, and/or publishing via a delivery method accessible to far fewer readers.
“If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d give it up in a heartbeat. Because writing is haaaaaard.”
Would you REALLY?
Everything done at a certain level is hard.
I play in business and at my level, it is hard (18 hour days, 6 day a week hard).
That doesn’t mean I don’t love it.
That doesn’t mean I’d give it up if I won the lottery (if that were the case, being a simple girl and having been given the gift of making money grow, I would have given it up already).
You have a true gift with words, Karen.
Would you really not use that gift because you had a pile of cash?
Thanks very much for the kind words, Kimber…but that gift does come with a price. Especially in this genre where you’re expected to produce at a pace never even dreamed of in mainstream, to meet deadlines whether the words are there or not. For the naturally prolific author — those truly blessed writers with hundreds of stories to tell — this can be a good thing. For those of us who have to go in after our stories with a pickax and miner’s helmet, not having sufficient time to let a story take shape on its own is hugely stressful, because we so often find ourselves writing in what feels like a void.
I’m not saying it’s easy for anyone. Getting the story from head to page is always a lot of work, no matter how prolific a writer is. But having a way with words — which for me, by the way, is the result of much, much rewriting and tweaking and swearing when the thought is there but the words aren’t — isn’t the same as being a storyteller. Which was my point. Alas, stories simply do not pop into my head, begging to be told.
There’s also the constant struggle to find the balance between staying true to your core readership while not repeating yourself…and boy, does that get trickier when you’re on book twenty, or thirty, or more.
Granted, some authors might not care. I do. As do most of the authors I know. But common wisdom says taking a break to recharge — unless you’re in the Beloved Author league — can be hazardous to your career.
A slight aside: I didn’t start writing seriously until my early forties, so this isn’t a lifelong thing with me. I have, however, been involved in the arts in one form or another all my life, both in the art studio and on stage. My degree, in fact, is in costume design, although I entered college as a drama major with visions of a Broadway career dancing in my head. But I’ve always known when it was time to switch gears — when I couldn’t live up to my own expectations. If/when that happens with my writing, I will move on with no regrets, as I’ve moved on before. Writing is what I do at the moment, but it doesn’t define me.
So, to answer your question…should a huge chunk of change land in my lap, I’d definitely at least go on hiatus to refill the much depleted well. Whether I’d write for publication again, I don’t know. I’ve proven to myself I can finish a book, nearly forty times over in fifteen years, and I’ve already met my personal goals. But perhaps, given the chance to let my brain lie fallow for a while, a story *would* come to me, perhaps something radically different from anything I’ve done before.
Or perhaps I’d go back to painting, or finally whip my long neglected voice into shape. Or go back on stage. (I couldn’t play Maria any more — either one! — but I could pull off a damn good Auntie Mame, still.
) Because I have many loves, most of which have been neglected while writing all these books. 
Not that this hasn’t been a terrific, gratifying ride, but if it were to end tomorrow, I would simply say, “That was fun. Next?” and go on. 
Harlequin/Mills & Boon do sometimes reprint stories by bigger name authors and make the name a selling point, but on the whole it seems as though Harlequin/Mills & Boon mostly promote (a) the company name and image, and (b) lines of books rather than individual authors, so I wonder if this squeezing of the midlist is more likely to affect single-title romances than category romances.
On the other hand, perhaps there are economic factors, such as advances, that might make them cut back on the midlist too?
You’re right, HM&B is a whole ‘nother animal. Not that they don’t drop authors from both category and mainstream imprints if the numbers get too sucky, but they really don’t have a “midlist,” per se.
And for most of us schleps, esp. in category, the advances are fairly modest. There is a cap within each line, based on how well the average book in the line earns out. Those advances are generally well below that figure…which is why they’re one of the few still financially strong publishers in the biz.
The other thing about Harlequin is how much they generally support their authors, moving them around between lines and imprints and not dumping an author if one book tanks. They do realize a host of factors influence a book’s numbers, not only the content. While my first Red Dress Ink did very well, my second bombed, for reasons that had nothing to do with me (i.e., they laid down 10K less units than I’d *sold* of the first book). That hardly spelled the end of my career, since I’ve written nearly 15 more books for them since.
There’s definitely an advantage to writing for a company that *is* so diverse: If one line goes belly up, the author is almost always given an opportunity to write for another. Not everyone takes advantage of that, of course, but I know several authors who’ve moved almost effortlessly between several lines during the course of their careers.
How things work for authors who *only* write for MIRA and HQN (the single title imprints), though, I don’t know. But a generally solidly selling category author can weather the occasional blips and dips in her sales record without too much worry.
“The other thing about Harlequin is how much they generally support their authors, moving them around between lines and imprints and not dumping an author if one book tanks. They do realize a host of factors influence a book’s numbers, not only the content.”
I’m really glad they feel that way, because it always seems very unfair when authors are affected by factors entirely outside the author’s control.
(Seriously, none of us believe only best-sellers are good, right? Or even all best-sellers are good.) If you could only pick between the new and the big…
You’d be stuck with Sarah Palin and her 1.5 million copy first print run.
Hence why I decided to focus at first on e-publishing. (And some of my books have made it into print as well.) I can’t replace my husband’s income yet, but the income I make from e-publishing is enough I can write full-time and work from home. He retires in a couple of years, so I’m scrambling to “write more, write faster” to build my backlist.
Once I dropped the *hand dramatically draped across forehead a la Scarlett O’Hara* “I want to see my words in PRINT-print!” mentality, I set my mind to having the best of both worlds – making money AND getting to write for a living – and started e-publishing.
Would I like to be “traditionally” published? Sure. Meanwhile, instead of gathering rejection notices from agents and publishers, I’m banking royalty checks, paying my mortgage, writing my fingers to the nub, and when I get around to trying to “traditionally” publish again (I do have a teen paranormal project I want to try to sell that way) I can say look, I have a proven track record, I have an established reader base to draw from, I have networking contacts in the industry, I have a marketing plan… Etc. Things agents and publishers want to see in addition to a good book.
Look at writers like Lora Leigh who started out e-pubbed and worked their way into “traditional” markets.
It’s a smart career move, as long as a writer does their research and treats writing like a business so they don’t screw the pooch career-wise.
That’s why I decided to start my career in e-publishing and make a name for myself and create a following.
Writing is a business and you need to keep writing to keep having new pieces to promote.
Published is published and I’m having a grand time!
This is so interesting! Thanks for explaining it – I didn’t ever really understand it in these terms. Wow, I would really miss the midlist. What a tragedy!!
I’m confused as to what the large print publishers are doing. They supposedly are concerned about eBook yet they’re driving readers to it by eliminating variety and unique, fresh voices.
Combine that with the A list authors understandably playing it safe with storylines/characters and these same authors releasing 6 books a year (too much of a great thing) and you have a print disaster.
I guess I should be happy because I read mostly eBook and I’m an eBook author but I’m not. I want them to do well.
What I’m confused about is what these publishers will do when their big A names die. I mean that literally. Nora and Dan and Stephen could fall of a bridge tomorrow.
Where are they going to get their big name A authors to replace them when they haven’t built any newbies via mid-list?
I think this is yet another example of how those new big publishing conglomerates work (or better said not work) that are run by money crunchers not publishing experts.
We will all lose. Readers who won’t have any choices any longer and publishers because readers will go other places to find what htey want to read. Morons!
I’m with Kimber. I don’t know how the publishing industry would be able to survive if it drops all of those B and C midlisters. What if they focus on the A writers who then write books no one buys? Hype only gets you so many extra readers, and after that, you’ve got to pony up some quality. If the 3rd and tth Harry Potter books had completely sucked, I don’t think there would have been huge midnight parties for Books 5, 6 and 7 no matter how many glowing reviews books 1 and 2 had received.
Too, what if the Next Big Thing – and the focus of all of those A writers – is something only a certain niche is interested in? The market becomes glutted with stuff and those who never liked it to begin with are forced to go to the e-world to find reading material to their taste. If print publishers are afraid of e-publishing eating up all of the pie, they sure don’t seem to be taking the right steps to slow down the feast.
“If print publishers are afraid of e-publishing eating up all of the pie, they sure don’t seem to be taking the right steps to slow down the feast.”
Preach it!
Like Kimber said, I think adapting is smart. BUT until there is a universal way of reading ebooks there isn’t going to be a huge or even small crossover for midlist authors and their readership.
I started in e-publishing and thought I’d be able to carry my readership over into my print work. I’m sure I brought some of them, but since it was a change in genre (ie erotic romance to urban fantasy romance) most did not follow. So I think it’s dangerous to believe that only ’some’ of your readership would fall away going the opposite direction. There are still a LOT of readers who do not read ebooks. Until those numbers reach at least 50/50, you’re going to see a lot of midlist authors leave the business. They might be storytellers, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to keep writing.
I’m with Tymber and have high hopes to follow those who have gone before her and done the same.
On the other hand, where would we be without out the midlist? I should think what we’d have to chose from would end up being rather unbalanced and I for one love variety.
And I could not have said it better than this Lynn – “Too, what if the Next Big Thing – and the focus of all of those A writers – is something only a certain niche is interested in? The market becomes glutted with stuff and those who never liked it to begin with are forced to go to the e-world to find reading material to their taste. If print publishers are afraid of e-publishing eating up all of the pie, they sure don’t seem to be taking the right steps to slow down the feast.”
The midlist is migrating to epublishing.
Head on over to Kindle Boards (kindleboards.com) and look at the Book Bazaar. There are many authors over there who are writing solid midlist titles (RJ Keller, Maureen Miller, Ed Patterson, LK Campbell, Lee Goldberg, Dave Dykema, Stacey Cochran, Kristan Tsetsi, myself, and a hundred more), and they are selling well on the Kindle Store. The most successful of the bunch are eventually scooped up by the legacy publishers (Boyd Morrison, John Rector, etc.).
So . . . the large publishers appear to be developing a model that lets the writers prove themselves in the emarket first (at their own expense and using grassroots marketing).
There will be a mid list, but we’ll have to go online to find it in the future.
Lots of great comments! I think Karen and Jordan pretty much said everything I would have said.
Lori, checking in from the Novelist Inc. conference in St. Louis…
While the post is good, there is a minor error in the understanding of what it means to be mid-list. The frontlist titles are the bestselling authors and the titles of great current/timely interest, but that D author is not the back-list. Back-list refers to those books previously printed but still for sale (or newer editions of public domain titles). Your D author is just the low end of the mid-list.
Did I use the term back-list? If so it was a typo…I don’t see it looking back, but maybe I’m missing it now. Back-list is just that, an author or house’s back-list of books. Books that were published previously. It has nothing to do with mid-list. All authors with a publishing history have a back-list, no matter their size.
I think I just talked about slots.
What I’m talking about (mid list moving to ebooks) . . . independents are publishing to Kindle and selling successfully. Lots of great books are never picked up by the mainstream publishers; in the past they all sat in desk drawers collecting dust, but now they find a home on Kindle.
http://ireaderreview.com/2009/08/22/3-kindle-indie-authors-deserving-book-deals/