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Question: Should publishers just hire writers to write what they want to sell?

Jan 19th, 2010
by gav.

Mark Charan Newton, of Nights of Villjamur said on his blog

Gav – So you’re arguing the abandoning of original fiction and that all publishers should just print work for hire?!

This was in response to:

This is probably going to get me into trouble but publishers should fully commission more books. Not open submissions but come up with ideas of books and elements that they want to see and get proposals then commission work.

And when I said, yes that’s what I meant, I got:

Gav – I don’t think anyone – even readers- would want that situation. It kills art, kills innovation, stagnates the genre permanently. And people would never be challenged?
Publishing should not be utilitarian. It’s bad enough being as commercial as it is!

You see I think that Mark is wrong about having limits on art. You know why? There is a whole industry that continues to reinvent itself continually even though at it’s core it is using the same characters over and over again. And that industry is comics.

Superman has been around for 70 years. The X-Men are going to be 50 in a couple of years time. Spiderman is almost 50. The Batman is 70. But they are still exciting and innovative and there are pages and pages and pages of stories, history, and heritage.

Writers and artists have thrived through this limitations and kept readers entertained for years. So why is it strange to think that if a publisher set out the idea for a novel that an author would turn that into a mechanical and dead novel. Why wouldn’t they use all their skill and imagination to breath life into their work and create something amazing?

This could be that publishers don’t on the whole get onboard during the idea stage. They have an open submission policy that accepts filtered and filtered and filtered fully complete manuscripts until only selecting ones that ‘fit’ their list. So why waste time? Why not put out tenders and pay authors for the first 50 pages of a novel based on their own specification so they can choose one they want to continue. Writers get paid and publishers get something they want to publish.

Each writer would probably tell the story slightly differently bringing their own histories to it and each would feel different. But hopefully one would ‘fit’. Or if non of them fit then maybe the idea is bad and they can look at it again.

I know this is different for more established writers who have their own readerships and ideas but hopefully their readers know what to expect from them and their fan base is large enough to support them.

But why bother with so many people writing and pushing out novels? Well I’m thinking of readers. I’m not thinking of books that are formulaic but more they you can expect certain things from them and more of the elements that we enjoy- thus making them more likely to be commercial and saleable. The marketing teams can present them better to bookshops and bookshops can present them better to readers and hopefully readers enjoy them and want some more.

And going back to comics even with that core of established characters and publishers more and more new comics and ideas are being brought to the fore. It’s just that there is a coherent and overarching eye keeping everything together.

Is it such a mad idea that publishers just hire writers to write what they want to sell?


Posted in: question.

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  • I want to make some comparison to anthologies or other short fiction markets, but I can't seem to get my thoughts in order. Anyone care to add something like that to the discussion?
  • nextread
    Well I leave you alone for a day and look what happens?

    Thanks Simon and Julie for giving the 'inside' view. And for Martin for highlighting that it happens in other parts of the industry.

    Interestingly the view of authors varies. Thanks for popping over.

    I can't think of much more to add. Though here a couple of things.

    Frank, I guess the question is do readers want to constantly be starting from scratch? And do publishers want to be selling something established or something 'new' all the time? And some authors it seems don't run out ideas in their own universes - Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin to name a couple.

    What I did find interesting is that idea that constraints kill creativity. I don't see how that is the case. How many myth retellings have there been? How man stories have come from the same source and the same basic bones? They are hardly start form an original place but the spark of the author is what makes it.

    If most readers buy 'mainstream fantasy' then it's up to the author to take those essential building blocks and turn them into something that the reader can identify with and then be challenged and excited by.

    Though I still do think that there must be a way of helping struggling writers find a better path to publication - a sort of market guide - for reference if nothing else...

    Thanks again everyone.
  • I do think that a lot of publishers are putting a pressure on authors to write more than one novel, but at least publish 3-5 books in series. And in that perspective I believe that publishers are more than willing to guide or push the author to write books that are more mainstream fantastic literature. Perhaps the author would rather like to "invent a new universe" instead of writing about in 3-9 books...
  • Simon
    'publishers are more than willing to guide or push the author to write books that are more mainstream fantastic literature'

    - that just might be because that's what most readers want. Less mainstream fantastic literature is, by definition, less commercial than more mainstream fantastic literature. That's not to say it shouldn't be published but it is to say it won't sell as well. There's no publisher led conspiracy against quirky fantasy here.
  • I do think that a lot of publishers are putting a pressure on authors to write more than one novel, but at least publish 3-5 book in series. And in that perspective I believe that publishers are more than willing to guide or push the author to write books that are more mainstream fantastic literature. Perhaps the author would rather like to "invent a new universe" instead of writing about in 3-9 books...
  • jimjankus
    To get the right answer, you must ask the right question. You ask a good question, but it is flawed because of the word "hire" to mean or assume that writers work for publishers. Maybe some kinds of writers work for some kinds of publishers. A writer of a science fiction novel, for example, is usually not employed by the publisher. The publisher is a service used by the writer, and that makes the writer a customer of the service. It is not logical for a service to limit the number of customers, especially those who are producing the products. It is likewise not logical for the service to limit the number of products. As is, the publisher is not the only service in the process. There is also the distributor. Then there are the bookstores or websites selling the products in various forms - hard cover, paperbacks, ebooks. The ultimate customers are the readers of course who are buying the books as products. Many major publishers limit the number of books published each year, as if publishing more titles will reduce sales of current titles in a flooded market. I believe in freedom of choice. Let the market be flooded. Not all writers can make a living writing anyway, so it is best to have a second profession to pay the bills. To answer your question, as is, writers should be free to write whatever they want. It is good for publishers to keep writers informed about what is currently popular and in demand out in the market. So while it is good to write something NEW or whatever you want to write, it is also good to write what the readers are looking to buy and read if you want to pay your bills.
  • DavidC
    It's what they do now anyway, through selection rather than request. Anyone who's had an editor turn them down (as I have) because a book won't sell, regardless of story quality, knows this.

    The current process is haphazard. An off-beat book will jump into the main from time to time and possibly change the course. But most of the time publishers are just hoping authors will send them the books they want to sell.

    That said, I don't think anyone wants to see more publisher-owned works come out. Authors should own their work. I'm just trying to point out that the system sort of works this way already, depending on how you look at it.
  • This is how it is in television mostly - you get hired for a show that's already created. And often to get a job these days, you have to follow a 'shadow scheme' and write a spec (ie unpaid) script for an established show like EastEnders.

    I love the freedom of writing novels - and as a reader I love the excitement that comes from reading books that bear an author's 'signature'.

    Having said that, there might be something in the idea of more 'franchise' novels, like Niven & Pournelle's Man-Kzin war series, written by different hands. If readers love a particular fantasy series - would they want even MORE stories set in that world, by different hands?

    Michael Moorcock is currently writing a Dr Who novelisation, so it's clearly that case that even very maverick unique talents are happy to be a 'gun for hire' from time to time.
  • Simon
    Depends on the publisher. Depends on the idea. Depends on the brief. Depends on the author.

    Open-minded enough publisher, good enough idea, open enough brief, enthusiastic and talented enough author there's no reason why this couldn't work.

    And indeed it has worked. The author has to take the idea and run with it, make it their own - that's where the essential creative spark comes from.

    And there have been quite enough tired, formulaic and disposable books written and published that were entirely the authors own idea to suggest that, in fact, neither system is in anyway foolproof.
  • I think that Abaddon Books in the UK: http://www.abaddonbooks.com/titles/ are already following this format. They have a number of 'universes', for want of a better word, and then different authors will write books within that universe.

    And the Black Library imprint, which produces tie-in books to the Warhammer and Warhammer 40K games, also commissions books based on what they would like to see published. At the moment the long-running Horus Heresy series is done like this, with a number of different authors again chipping in to the arc of the story.

    In a different genre Little Black Dress does similar for chick lit novels.

    I don't think it is as far-fetched an idea as you represent.
  • I kinda agree with what you're saying Gav, but not to the extent of publishers saying "this is what we want, write it". I'm more of the opinion that a shared setting could be utilised well for authors to come up with original stories, much like Warhammer, Star Wars and Abaddon Books do.

    As a fan of certain authors and settings I'd love to see more written in them, but only if the author wants to do it. I know there is pressure on some authors to write more stories in one of their settings or using characters that are popular, but I'm aware that this can lead to a stagnant genre.

    Originality is the key here and if an author is stripped of that then their craft is essentially taken away from them. The creativity is a major part of the storytelling I enjoy and, to be frank (and no disrespect intended), I don't think editors and publishers should take that creativity away from authors.
  • Well, Gav, I ahve to say that this idea doesn't appeal to me at all. And I believe that such a process will kill the innovation before it is born. We live in a world commercial enough as it is, so I would certainly wouldn't like to see publishing on demand.
    I love to read in my comfort zone, but I break that comfort zone through different types of readings and end up liking different authors and books for different reasons. Publishing only authors that follow a certain line imposed by the publisher will kill not only the innovation, but also the fun of reading. It is after all about discovering new and amazing things, not maintaining a line of books just because it sells. Let me give you an example. I absolutely love Drizzt Do'Urden and I read all the books published in its series. Recently reading the publishing news I saw that R.A. Salvatore signed a new deal for 6 more Drizzt novels. That isn't fun anymore. I mean I enjoy the books, but they already reached too much. The last few novels have nothing new, it is the same pattern and I've started to push these novels down on the reading line just because of this reason. I would happily re-read the first novels, but I find no equal pleasure in the later ones. I know that publishing is a business and the time for art just for the sake of art has passed, but if you bring something like this in it will kill the art instantly.
    Or maybe not, because you can only imagine what boom will bring to the self-publishing industry.
  • julieacrisp
    Hmmm absolute control over the written word?! It's a good job I'm no megalomaniac, I could get quite carried away by that idea. Now there are some agencies that do this - I can think of Working Partners for a start. And this does happen with non-fiction as well, occasionally, where an editor will come up with the concept and hire an author to head up the project.
    But, for me personally, if I wanted to come up with the idea for a book then I'd just write it myself. And that's not what we, as editors, really want to be doing. Any project like this could potentially be horribly formulaic, with little or no original thought behind it. The things that work so well with SFF as a genre are the originality of concept and the execution of that. We may tweak, we may guide, we may even put our foot down occasionally, all – I hasten to add - so that we can make the book a commercially viable project. (By commercially viable I mean successful, accessible to a wide readership and selling a nice amount of copies to keep the author happy) but we don’t dictate what the author can and cannot write.
    The other thing is that this is a genre where passion and enthusiasm are rife. And Hurrah for it! I wonder how much passion from author, editor or, indeed, reader – there would be for a project that was so businesslike and structured.
    Hang on, as a mean old editor – I’m supposed to be arguing for MORE control, aren’t I? Damn…
  • Liz
    This already happens in Real Life - as Martin said. Authors take direction from publishers and agents on what to write next. But it is still the author who writes the novel, who puts in the hard creative work.

    Similarly with packagers - packagers are becoming hugely popular in both America and the UK. To the extent where they have create franchises like Gossip Girl, amongst others. Books here in the UK done by packagers that I know of is Ben Horton's Monster Republic, and Maya Snow's Sisters of the Sword franchise, to name but a few. There are also adult novels that are written by these various authors under one name, for instance the Rogue Angel books published in the US.

    So yes, it happens, where fiction is created for us readers, based on ideas and concepts. It happens when agents shop around various stories and ideas to publishers at the various book fairs.

    But I don't like the idea of publishers dictating what should be written and by whom - where's the creativeness in that? Also, publishers sometimes get things very wrong. I recall some huge splashes where a publisher paid a lot of money for an author's work and it belly-flopped. No one can predict the market - not in commercial fiction or in genre fiction - and readers are fickle and more of them are becoming savvy about what they're buying to read.

    All publishers are waiting for the next big thing, but until they have it, or suspect they have it, like us, they can't predict it. And once they have it, and they ask people to please write more in the same vein, it just becomes copy-cat fiction and where's the fun and excitement in that?

    When you're talking about jobbing-writers like Mark Chadbourn, Christopher Golden or even Mike Carey - all writers of enormous talent and quality - yet who work their butts off in various genres and in various mediums and you can't have anything but respect for them because they are prepared to take on new challenges and bring their own creativity and artistry to subjects they've tackled.

    I forget where all of this was going but I think the above is sort of the gist of it...
  • nextread
    @YetiStomper hmmm I'd not sure I'd agree - I know lots of readers that get very excited by their favourite tie-in author's latest book and they will consciously seek them out.

    Interestingly you think that sales and popularity don't make books successful?

    @MarkCN

    I knew this would get your blood going.

    Comics aren't totally different they are creative and passionate and diverse they just do that within some very strong boundaries and really do counter the idea that having constraints 'kills art, kills innovation, stagnates...'

    I just don't see why more publishers with all knowledge that they have don't feed some of that back to the people that they are paying. And giving them some idea of what they want to buy. How detailed that is is up to the commissioning editor. Or should that be development editor.

    And I never said that an audience is mindless. I said that they have certain expectations. And a project with a strong and understandable foundation that can be explained to all involved would surely help get that book into a book shop? And be enjoyable for a reader?

    Is being commercial such a bad thing? And would it truly stagnate a genre? Couldn't all that energy that is spent going through thousands of manuscripts be spent better?

    And can't those aspiring authors get the practise they need by having some constraints? I didn't say they would have to bought at the end.

    Interestingly when I was looking at scriptwriting the BBC didn't accept unsolicited scripts but used those a means of mentoring aspiring scriptwriters.

    So instead of hiring writers maybe more publishers should instead take manuscripts to judge writing quality and then spend more hands on time giving them the skills in order to turn out more quality writing than the current scattershot approach ?

    And interestingly you say that, 'Audiences are not mindless, wanting the same thing again and again, but they will respond to similar-looking covers to inform their buying decisions.'

    So they want the same outside but the inside to be something completely different? I think that's another post entirely.
  • MarkCN
    What I said for Martin. What people online don't realise is that they're a minority. A tiny fraction of the book-buying audience. People don't have the time to read all the reviews to see if a new title sounds interesting. They just see covers that are similar, but that's not the same as wanting the same book. Spend some time in a book shop and talk to people and you'll see that they're up for change, they just don't know where to start. So they buy something that looks more or less the same as what they just enjoyed. You and Martin seem to think readers are binary thinkers!
  • Oh, I'm under no illusions that I am in a minority, all the more reason to want to make that minority bigger!

    It is not that people don't have time to read reviews - that takes the onus away from them - it is that they are not interested in doing so. If you are interested, you make time. It is fair enough that people don't take an interest but then they are fair game for being described as passive consumers.
  • nextread
    Hold on! Wow big fella!

    I'm just suggesting a different way that writers explore their art - being lead from the publisher rather than going blind and failing to find a publisher being commercial, what ever that means, isn't an evil thing.

    If most books are bought blind then why not take the chance of giving something more along their expectations? They must have them or they wouldn't have picked up the book that looked like the other one they read.

    I'm all for educating readers but you'd have to start with persuading Waterstones and WHSmiths that they need to do the same instead of making their next buying choice because something else like it sold well.

    Out of the 100 odd books I've reviewed I'm constantly reading different things but I make that a conscious choice.

    As you've said most readers can't make that choice because they either don't know where to start or don't enjoy the different books they try as they fail to live up to their expectations.

    I'm not sure how you can let readers explore a genre if they don't know what to expect... this isn't an argument for making all books the same it's about publishers giving writers some idea of what they want, either based on what's missing or what readers have continuously bought and enjoyed.
  • Not that I'm not appreciative of the insightful commentary, but is it really necessary? It's always seemed to me that there is no way to plan to be a "breakout" by targeting a key demographic and going for it. I mean, some authors can say "this book will appeal to amputee teenage Cambodian immigrants and I will touch on this and this to make sure that happens," but how often does that actually work?

    You can make the argument that some genres target certain demographics (YA, romance, etc.), but beyond that, it's pretty much out of the authors' hands. This is nowhere more true than in fantasy. It might once have been the domain of a certain subset, but now everyone reads them and they're really starting to be judged on their own merits.

    Really, it's always seemed to me that writing is more akin to a shotgun than a sniper rifle. You just point at something, pull the trigger and hope the ensuing mess is pretty.
  • This is an interesting debate, and one which I don't think necessarily demands an either/or answer.
    Similar to your comics analogy, Gav, there was the tradition of the sweatshop pulp fiction houses of the 40s and 50s - writers-for-hire turning out quick, cheap and cheerful adventure stories, often for a "house byline". While no-one would say this is great art, I don't think there's a huge amount wrong with it if it provides paid enjoyment for jobbing writers and if there's a market for it - as there was with the pulps.
    Also, to some extent, there's a tacitly unspoken system such as this in place already. New writers will try to sell their magnum opus and more often than not quickly find that although it may well be excellently written, it isn't commercial. If writers then get an agent, they often find they acquire a wider knowledge of the market they're working towards - especially in genre fiction. Thus a writer might get an inkling that publishers are buying vampire fiction, or epic fantasy, and might either consciously or sub-consciously start writing in that direction.
    Not to say writers should wholly write for the market, because that way lies artistic suicide, perhaps. But an awareness of the market, and trends, is essential, surely, for any writer hoping to make it as a professional and get paid money for what they do.
    I noticed on a recent web page from an American agent that they specifically asked for submissions in pretty well-defined areas - even down to outlining plots that they'd like to see.
    And work-for-hire companies such as Abaddon in the UK have specific series that writers can pitch towards - post-apocalyptic etc.
    The existence of this market doesn't, I'd like to think, preclude the original novel with startling new concepts sideswiping us all. But only if the market is prepared to take a chance on it in the first place.
  • Publishers already do this for pure commercial fiction. They will have lunch with one of the authors from the stable who has a good track record and say "hey, yummy mummies are big at the moment, could you you make your next chick-lit novel about that?" and the author will go off and knock up an outline. There is craft in this but no art which is why it only happens explicitly with critically invisible fiction (I'm sure it happens more informally elsewhere).

    Obviously it would be a terrible to idea to extend this idea if you had any interest in art. Since few within SF do, perhaps it is a goer.

    I’m not thinking of books that are formulaic but more they you can expect certain things from them

    I think there is a bit of an irony gap between the start and end of this sentence.

    Audiences are not mindless, wanting the same thing again and again, but they will respond to similar-looking covers to inform their buying decisions

    Here too.
  • MarkCN
    Not really. It's a simple guide for the with so many books around. You see it all the time when you work in bookselling. For the majority of buyers (I'd say nearly two thirds) who walk in stores and don't spend their lives online, it's the only way they can possibly be informed. There's a subtle difference, you just have to look hard enough.
  • MarkCN
    Comics are totally different - and, actually, sure there are a few key franchises, but a lot of it is original work too. The equivalent does exist - it's called tie-in fiction, but even that isn't a case of "let's publish exactly what the audience want" above and beyond the demands of any other publisher - that is, an appreciation of the market place. And tie-in books can be creative and very good - I'm a champion of such literature.

    Now publishers are already buying books with a commercial appreciation as it is, but you're going on to suggest some X-factorisation of literature. But also, I think this is patronising to the audience, who are also up for different reading challenges.

    And what is also pretty important is not everyone can actually write well. That's why publishers look at manuscripts and not pitches all the time. They want good writing - yes, even tie-in publishers - and good writing can only come about by writers writing, and practising writing. Now sure, from time to time a publisher might approach a writer to say, I want X, Y, Z - can you do it? But they'll probably know that writer can at least string a sentence together.

    But - and this is the most important thing - it's the cover that is most essential in selling a book to a new reader. Not the content. Audiences are not mindless, wanting the same thing again and again, but they will respond to similar-looking covers to inform their buying decisions.
  • This is essentially what Star Wars/Lucas Books does but without the brand name recognition. They are very successful but I have a feeling its because of the clear expectations and tremendous setting already available. This scenario also reduces author prestige. Star Wars authors may have a lot of sales but they aren't as well regarded or as well known as other authors. The books are Star Wars first and the author's work second. I don't know how this would necessarily translate to the idea you put forward but it's the closest analog available (moreso than comic franchises IMO)
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