Is Publishing Too Top Heavy? | Discussing the Disappearing Midlist 

Sounds like what the film industry is going through - no midlist or whatever the equivalent is, just big-budget, high risk movies.

As readers we could also try to take chances on mid-list books. Books that aren't getting marketing are more difficult to find but not impossible and just because they don't have thousands of reviews doesn't make them bad. I think readers have a fear or a misconception that if a book isn't being marketed as heavily it means it's not a good book.

This explains why there have been so many lackluster YA books lately. Publishers r probably focusing on buzzword stuff that has worked in the past in order to make big sales and forgetting about the substance

maybe this is why i didn't end up reading ANY "big heavy hitter" names in the thriller genre this year and have gravitated towards mid-list. the ideas are just more interesting. the big authors all just regurgitate the same crap cause $$$$$$$$$$$$

I had a conversation with an editor at Tor a few years ago, he fears that the death of brick-and-mortar booksellers could lead to the end of mid-list. Even now, B&N stocks far less variety than it used to.

as someone who's hoping to become an editor, I'm really hoping I'll get the chance to support those mid-tier books!!! I've been thinking about this recently and tbh as a consumer the whole "bestsellers top-tier authors are the only ones who get pushed" really sucks too ://

I always want you to ramble on about depressing things in publishing.

I think all creative media is going through this. I remember almost 10 years ago listening to NPR and them talking about how it's not illegal downloads(it was almost a decade ago) killing the music industry it's them spending millions on few artists hoping they sell enough to make their money back but they don't. I think they said there's no more room for a band like Cold Play. Cold Play had songs on top 50 and 100 lists but was never in the top 15 or 20. They sold-out concerts, but not the big stadiums. They were moneymakers, but never the top. The recording industry stopped backing those types of bands. Movies are going through the same thing if you don't already have a following, you can't get a movie deal with a studio. Even their original "mid-list" ideas of those January- March- the dry period in movie releases- Romcoms and what I call SyFy original movies made for the big screen aren't being made for the 20-25 million they are 100 or 200 million and they're barely making their money back going through international markets. It's like when it became easier to make your own movie and get it out there or record good audio in a hotel room for a musician and they can be playing the coffee shops and small venues and not need to spend $100 an hour for studio space. Right now it is easy to self publish so the big publishers are only focusing on the big names instead of doing the thing that will give them a steady check. I just thought of this: it's like they are all side hustle which will get you more money in the short term, but not steady instead of focusing on the main steady paycheck that allows the side hustle to add money to the coffers.

I literally said today: "Alexa, I need a new video. "

I really love that we're now having this discussion now. I feel like the article from Publisher's Weekly has kind of brought this to people's attention (like me) who didn't know that it was *this* bad. After reading that article, I just sat on my couch and stared at the wall thinking about what I could do differently as a bookstagrammer and blogger to help.

This is very familiar from multiple industries. I work in academia and it's very much the same. You're either a big star or you're nothing. And well... most of us are nothing. I wonder if it's a societal issue as a whole. Widening inequalities everywhere.

Wow. What this comes down to, it seems, is the greed of the publishing industry. How disappointing...

Bruh I’m writing lesbian books for adults. There’s hardly much buzz around those save for a few like Gideon the Ninth and such. I know I’ll likely be midlist if I ever publish, sucks that the publishing market wants to squeeze us, because I know there’s readers who want more f/f romance in adult fiction.

Love the real talk about publishing! For some reason I find it inspiring? Knowing that real people have real thoughts about publishing makes it seem less of an ethereal concept that could never happen to me.

I just want to say that I absolutely love your videos. You're so thorough in your discussions and you talk about the business stuff that no one else really does. You've put a name to things I've noticed but didn't know what to call, and you somehow manage to inspire me to publish even though you talk about the dark, depressing side of things

"Hope is not a marketing strategy." ❤️

GREAT post, just discovered your channel and already hooked. Yes, I remember reading about the disappearing midlist more than a decade ago - but yes, YA has blown up with it, to the point where the popularity of YA goes up while some of the quality is going down.

Excellent video, thank you for creating and sharing!

You're videos are so informative and well planned. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge, opinions and thoughts. It's so interesting because as a Kenyan based writer we have the normal publishing issues to contend with and add on to that trying to prove that a story based in Kenya that isn't poverty porn etc is worthy of publishings time.

I am a mid list type writer. I can already tell that about myself. I write good books. Entertaining books. Not best sellers. So I'm pretty much screwed. 😑

Hi and thanks for another very interesting video....listening to this makes me even more determined than ever to actually get published!! Cheers

Sending you a big dose of optimism. :D Being a Pollyanna by nature, I try to focus on the reason I write (because if I don’t write those stories down, I’ll explode?). Good years and not so good years, but all in all a fun ride (I’m an indie author). I’ve learned skills about editors and computers and software and cover artists and formatting and advertising and marketing and even, yes, writing…that I did not have ten years ago. If all the book outlets in the world vanished into a wormhole, I would become that woman printing spiral bound books out of her living room. I’m going to write, no matter what. I enjoy your videos, and it’s fun to listen to people talk about writing. I wish you all the luck in the world with your book contracts and your sales. You have 57K subscribers (wow!) so we’ll probably never get to chat in person, but keep up the RU-vid vlogs…they’re lovely.

Hey, thanks for sharing this! It's definitely better to know. In the video, you mention "award bait" books. I didn't know that was a thing in publishing, although it makes sense since it's a well known phenomenon with movies. If you're so inclined, I'd be interested in more on that topic :)

Wow, you broke my heart a little! But it's ok. I still thank you for the transparency and honest info you give us. ;)

Watching this video reminded me of the book Blockbuster by Anita Elberse. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a pretty accurate of blockbuster culture in the Film industry. It's hard to see publishing has fallen down this rabbit hole as well...

I've never heard this term before, so thanks for talking about this issue. As a reader (not a writer) this is why I hate the oversaturation that is the publicity (AKA hype) train. The Testaments is the best example of this. Did that single book really need to flood the entire world (slight exaggeration!) upon release? Had the entire world (again, an exaggeration!) not already heard of the author? Why not spend some of that time, money and energy on a few others that seem to be virtually ignored. This is also one reason why I so heavily support and read indie and backlist books. (Oh, and some annoying personal reading habits too!). TFS :)

👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

Oh Joy! More fun stuff to stress about. I mean that only as a half joke. It will be interesting from a business side to see what they do, cause you're absolutely right. You need a steady midlist in all business to keep your revenue stable. Someone needs to drag an accounting into the publishers and show them they'll make more money if they expand their middle. Yay for business and economics. *says with little actual joy, but tons of sarcasm*

This has been a problem recently in the video game industry. But the thing that has been showing some help is going through smaller more independent publishers has helped.

I'm still going to try! Working on drafting in NaNoWriMo right now!

Hey Alexa I was wondering what are good questions to ask an author if you are an aspiring author. I saw your video on what not to ask. Do you have any tips on what to ask? I love your videos

Ugh I felt everything in this video so hard

The quotes you cited were very interesting and yet, at least to me, hardly surprising. Agents advocate for authors, so it makes sense that they most accurately observe changes and the reasons. That the big 5 editors want to basically pretend that midlist is a swear word and hope for the top, not to be too cynical about the big 5, work for the very publishers that want to maintain their status, so of course they're going to want to brag about their top tier authors and screw everyone else. It really is a microcosm for the disappearing middle class; yay capitalism. Really though, this is why a good agent is so crucial in trad pub, because they seem like the second most invested person in an author's career longevity after authors themselves.

Your eyeshadow is so pretty! What color is it?

Thank you Alexa for sharing your thoughts and critiquing this. Also for finally saying it(you said it in such nice terms before but you finally said it!) : They're an idiot. Maybe its an attempt to be dramatic, or try to establish a new norm by asserting their dominance as a top 5 publisher or w/e. Or maybe they're getting stupid in their fat, lazy success :') and forgotten how to do their jobs and why... Who knows! But it's not just stupid, it's reckless. And dangerous. And imo, if they knew it was wrong to say but saying it anyway -- maybe they were trying to sabotage other publishing houses? :// They should name the publisher; it'll give them more pressure to ensure they're not sensationalising. And check themselves!

This reminds me of the video game industry a bit. There’s either big AAA budget games or indies. And the middle realm has kind of disappeared. It’s only recently that a few have resurged, despite most game publishers only wanting massive sales. But not everyone can make a game that makes 3/4 of a billion in 3 days.

in film, all the money is in blockbuster films, and the mid tier movie, like district 9 is gone. i wonder if the big 5 have something similar in mind, but i think its wrong, because then it will be the same few millionaire authors over and over. in film, at least thousands of jobs are working on each blockbuster.

Hi Alexa, thanks for the video! I do have a question though... Do you still think traditional publishing is still a much better way to publish a book as it once was or do you think the gap between traditional and self-publishing has diminished to the point where both are viable options? Thanks!

Oof. This is a hard one, but it's nice to be able to plan according.

I wonder if this is due to the shift in how/why people buy books. When I was younger, it was normal to spend time in a bookstore and just get whatever looked interesting. Now, I basically only buy online (partly due to ebooks, but even for physical books) when I hear about something good coming out.

My dedication for 2020 is to read a lot more self-pubbed books!

And I'm over here not worrying about this in my dark, forgotten corner writing book 1 of my epic sci-fi fantasy furry trilogy, completely understanding it'll probably not make any headway or waves in the overall book reading spectrum, but at least I'm writing a story I love and want to tell. My expectations are rock bottom, so anything above that would be a surprise to me.

Hope is on the side of faith, strategy is logic so yeah igy. I'm sure it'll be ok. Just needs traction.

Is there someone who has break out ot the middle list or the posibility is a fairy tale?...Sometimes I feel that all we, the midlisters, want get out of that place but the top sellers are or debut or bestsellers since I remember.

At a publishing conference, Joanna Penn heard a publisher say they preferred their authors compliant or dead.

As an avid lifelong reader I have to say it's been five years since I bought a newly published book. Most new books don't interest me in the slightest, so my annual book budget is mostly spent on older books on the secondary market. I have purchased new books from authors who self-publish but I've given up on traditional publishing houses. I see no point in purchasing popular books that I won't enjoy reading.

I think the midlist is still around in certain genres. For instance, Romance and Mystery. Publishers that specialize in those genres do develop midlist authors. In fact, almost ALL their authors may be midlist, but they have a lot of steady sellers and that seems to work for them. Maybe it's because those genres have a lot of series -- you build your brand over a series, and can end up making decent money over time. Maybe even better than the authors who have a big debut, but then... crickets. I think of midlist authors as the "character actors" of the business. They have steady work over time. Maybe that's actually better in the long run (?)

How do we find good mid-list authors? The top tier authors are in newsletters and ads everywhere. So I wonder how we can turn the market toward "Support Mid-listers" in the same way there is a lot of hype around supporting self-pub authors.

Are the mid list authors now going to self-publishing?

What's changed since this video was made?

To what degree does this apply to other genres besides YA? I work in bookselling and I'm a fantasy writer with an eye on publication and it seems, from what I've seen, that this doesnt really apply in other genres. For example, I write adult fantasy, and from what I've seen that genre has a thriving midlist, arguably doing just as well as it ever has been

Just thinking outside the box a little, please do not take offense, but I wonder if publishers and agents are pricing their authors out of the market. I know prices go up because of transportation, graphic design costs, survey groups, paper, etc, but consumers look at prices when they are making impulse buys on trying new authors. Two examples that have affected my purchases, a new author whose debut book was a hardcover at $33, wrote down their name and waited for 2 years. The second was one book series started at $6 for 350 pages and later books became $10 and $13 for 290 (roughly ) pages.

Alexa, do you think this is partly due to book prices and the stagnant wages of the "ya generation", causing them to be more choosy or even leaning more toward ebooks and libraries? Do you think publishers taking a hit and lowering the price of books would bolster more readers and mid tier books? And by that I mean authors getting a higher percentage as well. Because let's face it, authors are some of the most voracious readers. Isn't that how trickle down economics is supposed to work?

As a hybrid author, I think authors have to know in the end they have to promote and can't count on anyone else to do it. Publishers are contracting more books, and it's like when you have too many kids, one is always going to get more focus depending on their needs. The others just learn to survive the best they can. Lol

The midlist almost appears to be a self sustaining entity that survives with little to no effort from the publishers. However, I have to wonder if the Midlist market is starting to dwindle? If Midlisters are supposed to or expected to market their own book/brand, perhaps many of them have opted to self publish, which is getting easier and easier. If they have created a following just by having one or two titles traditionally published, then why not branch out on their own? Many even publish under their own publishing company names. Big publishers may very well be shooting themselves in the foot. I'm likely wrong, but it is worth consideration.

writers could skip the corporate conglomerate publishers and organize together like a law firm. They would need to work up independent distribution channels. It might be helpful to do live events to build an email list and sell merch, books and DVDs. posturing as a protest movement might help. The biggest hedge funds who set priority's for the big conglomerates who own the traditional publishers feel no nostalgia for the good old days of intellectual curious competitive publishing markets. They own publishers to 1. suppress criticizem of themselves. 2. cross promote their other property's (give their best CEOs and talking heads a ghostwriten best selling book as a present and as advertising for other products. 3. return on investment. A "healthy" midlist that supports professional career writers isn't their sweet spot. Training the market to buy books with reality tv stars on the cover and expensive marketing campaigns is a lot more comfortable. Crushing the midlist publishing market means the can pay the ghost writers less because they have fewer alternatives.

It sounds like agents hold all the power. How do you conquer the ‘ego’? They’ll kick out a query because they don’t like the font. I submitted my first query yesterday. I knew i was at the beginning of the process and my inexperience would show, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Anyway, i made a mistake in the cut/paste process but didn’t notice it until I submitted it at query manager. Since you can’t edit at this point my only other option was to withdraw and correct. So i did. I figured if anybody looked at it it should be done correctly as not to waste their time. Query manager responded it wont get looked at if you withdraw. What’s up with that? I resubmitted an hour later. Why is this a big deal? It’s like there is a secret book of rules the writer has no idea of. Isn’t part of their job to find new talent and content? JK Rowling isn’t going to submit a query. All the top sellers are already repped. How can they find the next big thing if they won’t look at what other fish are in the pool?

I'm going to self-publish Farisa because the book is too massive (280-310K words) to ever break in to TP, but I have to give you props for separating your opinions of TP's usefulness (and I agree that it can be the right way to go for some people) from TP's fucked-up culture (death of the midlist, debut obsession). As bad as TP's culture is, TP does a lot of good for the world and it would be missed if it went away. It takes a lot of courage to criticize powerful people- a lot of people in TP feel exactly the way you do, and tell me this, and have observed the things you have- but are afraid of blacklisting themselves by saying it. For example, you've done a lot to reveal that "buzz" is designed to appear organic and authentic but is often just another commodity that the big capitalists can turn dollars into. As for the midlist... I think self-publishing, for better or worse, is the midlist, and the midlist is self-publishing. Publishers either want loss-leading prestige books or bestsellers, and the interesting work over the next 20 years is going to come from elsewhere. This is already happening in other media; it would be a shock if it didn't happen in the book world, too. The power-law distribution of returns will always exist to some degree, for mathematical reasons, but there are ways to make it more sane and more meritocratic. Right now, the self-publishing ecosystem is in its infancy and traditional publishing has a 200-year head start... but that will change.

Never in my life have I checked any type of list over a book. I do often check user reviews. Obviously, I am not everyone! Like the movie industry, I will never listen to critics but I will let a promotion or advertisement point me in a direction but I still put the book or movie though my stringent testing system. So book lists are just fiction to me.

Let's not forget one important thing: it always boils down to the book. I was among the lucky few who broke out in indie. Now I'm hoping for the same to happen in traditional. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. My publisher is giving me good support. I received a better than average advance, and they always return my emails. So far, so good. They sent me to a major trade show and have been aggressively promoting the book. But it will really come down to whether or not the my story is something readers truly love. That means it has to be great, not good. Riveting, not interesting. Enthralling, not entertaining. It has to be so awesome that people can't wait to tell their friends about it. As much as I hope this to be the case, I won't know for a couple of months.

Hmm... Do mid-list authors want to become literary? I would have thought it would be the other way around. Or at least, if we assume literary authors garner fewer sales and make less money, I can't imagine any mid-list author wants that. Do you want to become literary? I suspect with all of this stuff, it comes back to what makes traditional publishers the most money. Perhaps they have found a way to lower the risk of investing a lot in a small number of top-list authors, and therefore it makes the most financial sense to commit so much to these big investments.

Honestly I'd rather be a flop in self publishing than traditional because at least I own the rights... but I honestly want to be in libraries and think my stories can be successful... I'm just worried about risking losing my story to someone who will drop it and not let be publish sequels...

Good to know. Im an aspiring writer, so the book im working on may or may not have a chance in the future.... If the midlist is decreasing now, then when the industry and all the other greedy dumb, and 'hope'- full stupid ppl finally take a step back and realize they need these middle buffers that can give publishers a decent paycheck.- maybe by that time, i have a chance including 1000's of others. *yeaaaay*

It sounds like they're trying to dig their own graves. I'm surprised. But also not. If that makes sense.

Publishers have become very mean spirited compared too the past and refuse to take on any risk, which eventually will become dysfunctional. Most will not even look at unsolicited manuscripts. And just about every hugely successful writer has been rejected by them tens of times before they got a break.

So what you're saying is that authors and agents need to never sell to the big five anymore and let them die out, then repeat the process when the next big publishers get stupid because of their power.

Here's what's happening: the midlist is alive and well and maybe doing better than ever. The catch: it's mostly in self-publishing, and it works on different math. The thing is, in self-publishing, you can sell a third of the books and still make the same amount of money due to the better royalties. A self-published novel that sells 3,000 copies in a year is doing very well. A traditionally published novel that sells 3,000 copies in a year is a failure. 3,000 copies at $3.99 a copy is $8,550 for the author based on current Amazon royalties. And that's not counter Amazon Prime page reads. If the books costs about $1,000 for line-editing, formatting, and cover art and another $500 was spent on advertising and marketing, that still leads the author with $7,000. And the usual advance from a traditional publisher is now about $5,000 or less. Do the math.

Self publishing is better in some ways because authors do their own promotions. And who is going to care more about your book than yourself?

Omg... Writing YA sounds awful!

the top of the list is not high risk, it's low risk. The bottom of the list is the true high risk.

😰🔫

Sounds like neo-liberal capitalism...

I'm really not a fan of these videos. Eighteen minutes of babble talking about stuff you've already covered. What's happened? I've watched your videos for a while, and recently it seems that you've run out of things to say and you're just pumping out videos for the sake of it. Please tell me I'm wrong or better... Show me.