The other day I heard yet another person make a disparaging comment about self-publishing. This is an interesting prejudice. Are the people making negative judgments simply repeating comments they heard in grad school, where there is a strong sense that the only valuable stories are those published by New York publishing houses? Or are they writers who are so insecure, they can't feel good about their own work unless a New York editor gives them the stamp of approval? Or do they still subscribe to the myth that being published by a New York house is the only way to make money? The reality is that except for the top tier of New York-published writers, self-published writers may well be making more money. For example, 50% of all Amazon bestsellers are now self-pubished. Those writers keep most of the money from sales. For the other 50% of bestsellers, the New York-published writers, their publishers take 90% of the income from sales. So you can see why many self-published writers may be doing much better.
Nevertheless, some additional perspective is in order. First, a qualifier: As regards self-publishing books, I’m not talking about the so-called internet “self-publishing” companies, which, in many cases, should be called vanity presses. By many measures, many of these companies are no good at anything beyond taking money from writers with stars in their eyes. If an author pays a company to publish them—no matter whether a low or high price—that isn’t self-publishing. Are they scams? Ask all the successful self-published authors who've seen their friends get trapped in the no-control world of paying for publication.
Self-publishing is publishing yourself. All the advantages that accrue to real self-publishers are dependent on the author making the decisions. All the decisions. The reasons for pursuing real self-publishing are many and obvious. You have control over every aspect of your book, which means you can pursue the best choices to enable your success. You control the story, the editing, the cover, the formatting, the marketing, the review submissions, the back copy, and—after the book comes out—the fixes and the adjustments. You keep all of the money a publisher normally keeps. You alone are in charge. And you maintain control. More than anything else, it is that control that enables you to find success.
Another qualifier: It is still very difficult to make money in the book business. Self-publishing may allow you to keep most of the money coming in, but it doesn't guarantee that there will be any income at all.
It should be noted that a few years ago, the Author's Guild reported that the average New York-published author makes $17,000 a year. That's pretty much poverty. To make it worse, the average New York-published author is dropped after their books don't hit the bestseller lists. When a New York-published author is dropped ("orphaned" in some parlance), their options are few-to-none. But it should also be noted that many resort to self-publishing, and some of them end up getting wealthy with books that their former publisher didn't want.
The detractors of self-publishing think that you need a big company’s editor to take over all these important parts of the process. In addition to their control, they also take 90% of the income. Technology has made it so more and more authors are abandoning their New York publishers because they see the advantages of keeping that control and keeping the money.
As many know, musicians and actors have had to struggle like writers to cope with big businesses who control their output, their schedule, their very careers. But, like writers, musicians and actors have now taken over their own careers, as well.
Now comes the point of this blog.
Let’s look at the change in the movie business. In the early days, actors, writers, and directors got a contract from one of the big Hollywood studios. This was similar to writers looking to New York publishing companies. But the change in the acting world may be even greater than the change in the writing world.
Perhaps more than anyone else, Clint Eastwood got the self-publishing ball really rolling. He wasn't the first to take over his own career, but he may have been the most successful.
In 1967, Clint Eastwood started a production company called Malpaso Productions. Since its first movie, Hang ‘Em High, nearly every movie Clint Eastwood has been involved with was produced by Malpaso Productions. In other words, Clint Eastwood has been self-published for over 55 years, nearly all of his career. This has given him the freedom to do the kind of movies he wants and do them the way he wants. Owning the production company means he was also able to do his own directing, no small thing, that! In addition to control over his career, he kept most of the money. (There are other directors, such as Woody Allen, who have also controlled their own output.)
This was a new approach in the world of movies. It has worked so well that hundreds of actors and writers and other people in the movie business have followed suit.
Here is a partial list of people who have their own production companies:
Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Will Smith, Elizabeth Banks, Will Ferrel, Kerry Washington, Tina Fey, Tom Cruise, Sophia Vergara, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Tyler Perry, Margot Robbie, Adam Sandler, Reese Witherspoon, Leonardo Dicaprio, Viola Davis, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Courteney Cox, Alec Baldwin, Drew Barrymore, Lawrence Fishburne, Lisa Kudrow, Ben Stiller, Ice Cube, Spike Lee, Warren Beaty, Queen Latifah, Jackie Chan, Natalie Portman, Danny DeVito, Charlize Theron, Ben Afleck, Alicia Vikander, Bradley Cooper, Eva Longoria, Salma Hayek, Robert Redford, Gal Gadot.
How’s that for self-publishing success? In addition to all the actors with their own companies, many actors have produced their own films (a second cousin to having their own production companies.) Jennifer Lopez, Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy, Jodie Foster, Barbra Streisand, Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey… The list is nearly endless.
In a musical addendum, I recently read that the song goddess Joni Mitchell has a $40-$100 million fortune. Yes, she is the greatest. Yes, she is a genius. Yes, her music sold, and still sells, very well. Yes, Rolling Stone called her album BLUE one of the 500 best albums ever recorded. But $40 million is possibly beyond what you'd expect from someone who sold 8 or 9 million albums. So where did all her money come from?
A little more reading explained it. Unlike most of the other musicians from the 1970s on, Joni self-produced all 19 of her albums. She took most of the control of her career away from the record companies. And with that control comes money.
How could any person who consumes entertainment of any kind doubt the appropriateness of creators deciding to take control over their creative output? Kind of a no-brainer, huh?
It gives a new perspective to people who look down on self-published artists, whether actors, musicians, or writers.
