How To Save $3.4 Million With Self-Publishing
I’ve written before about publishing, self-publishing and the like.
For the business guys and girls here, this will come as no surprise: Don’t get a publisher. Don’t get an agent. Treat your material like a business and actually become a business.
Yet still authors and creatives fail utterly at this.
There’s still the idea that if you’re a creative genius, someone will come and look after you and take care of all the boring business stuff.
Uh-oh.
Here’s how to save $3.4 million dollars of your own money by bypassing agents and dealing with your own publishing set up.
How To Avoid Big Business Embezzlement
Check out this article from a few days ago.
It turns out that some guy at a prestigious New York agency has been stealing money for years from the authors and folks on the books over at Donadio & Olson.
Now, I’ve talked to authors before about shady publishing contracts and they’ll say stuff like, “Yeah but I’d never get a contract with a shady person.”
This case study is exactly why you’re an idiot if you think like this.
I can guarantee that among the high-end authors represented by the agency above – including the authors of The Godfather and Fight Club – that none of them thought that their agency could become embroiled in stealing millions of their royalties.
Yet here we are.
Now, from the looks of it (and who am I to argue?) it’s going to be put down to just the dodgy intern/bookkeeper who has been there since 1999.
At best, this is true and it was one rogue actor and nobody noticed millions of dollars going missing for nearly twenty years.
At worst, well, embezzlement is part of the practice of the agency.
I’m not saying that’s true, but it’s a possibility.
And this provides a good lesson for authors, creatives and anyone who is going to be in business in the next few years.
Control Your Stuff Because Nobody Else Cares
Imagine being an author represented by this agency. You’ve given over your creative property to them, they’re supposed to look out for your interests and instead they lose you a ton of money whilst keeping control of your work.
This is absurd.
Yet people do it all the time. Not just with books, but with their social media, so on and so forth.
Do not hand the destiny of your company – and your legacy – away to some other person.
It is your responsibility.
Ask yourself honestly: All the money that’s been embezzled above… do you think the authors are going to get any of that back?
Sure, the board of directors will point, deflect and maybe recoup some costs from the guy who did the embezzling. But will they pass that on?
Unlikely, seeing as, should it turn out that they’ve been complicit or otherwise inept, they’ll be facing down multiple lawsuits to recover earnings.
Lawsuits which might send them into bankruptcy, at which point all the debts, (so far as the authors are concerned,) are irretrievable and legally wiped.
Meanwhile, there are still people saying, “It’s risky” or “what about the exposure you can get from selling your soul?”
Keep your soul in your back pocket, guys. It’s worth more than you think.