Lin Meili Posted July 28, 2021 Share Posted July 28, 2021 Michelle West/ Michelle Sagara has revealed in her recent blog post that her West books will no longer be published by Daw. Sales were apparently not great. Quote I always watched the sales numbers with a certain tension, and that escalated with time. I have always loved my West readers, and I have always, always loved these books — but truthfully, the sales numbers failed to climb in any way. In publishing that’s … not good. Apparently, her books are "too long" to be worth it for Penguin. Quote This has been a stressful couple of months as I’ve tried to envision some way forward. I did try to start again from page zero, to see if I could structure the books to be shorter, because shorter books would be acceptable to PRH. But as this would only be proven true or false when I reached the end, and no attempt I’ve ever made has worked, I gave up on that. She will continue to write and has opened a Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/mswest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Patrek Posted July 28, 2021 Share Posted July 28, 2021 Sad to hear. Publishing is indeed a business and in the end it's all about numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted July 28, 2021 Share Posted July 28, 2021 Yes, that's sad. I'm not familiar with the author, but she seems quite prolific, so presumably, some of her books must have sold well in the past. I've never really worked out what makes some authors succeed and others fail. The quality of the writing does not seem to be a large part of the difference between success and failure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Patrek Posted July 28, 2021 Share Posted July 28, 2021 Selling well in the past means very little in the present. There is no science to success. If we could tell, every book would be a success. Look at GRRM. Other than ASOIAF, everything else he worked on has barely been midlist, it seems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inkdaub Posted July 29, 2021 Share Posted July 29, 2021 This near made me cry. I am now a Patron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Not Appearing Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 I don't know her work but that's gotta be rough. If they're pushing shorter books and she's not inclined, however, she may find self-publishing to be freeing... But she'll probably need a romance pen-name to throw on top of her normal content. That seems all the rage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Meili Posted July 31, 2021 Author Share Posted July 31, 2021 It looks like she has healthy numbers on her Patreon now. Maybe it's not enough, but it's a good start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Considering the average advance DAW paid in the past, and no doubt presently too, for it's average sales authors., West is already probably seen way more than that in her Patreon account. Which is good, but also sad, yanno? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Patrek Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 From her blogpost, it's evident that her sales have been dwindling for years and she would have been dropped long ago if not for Betsy Wollheim at Daw. Those numbers must be low indeed, for I wasn't even aware that she still wrote under the Michelle West pseudonym. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Tastes in sf/f change generationally too. So those who were able to keep going on were kept on, until more of the readership's taste outnumbers the previous taste, and that is very hard for a writer to deal with. It's hard to switch sensibility and code for the newer readers, who also may never have heard of the author, and whose preferences were formed by the angles and attitudes that came later. Note, for instance, how so many readers of fantasy think LOtR is impossible to read and boring, or sf readers now think DUNE is boring, too long and doesn't make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Not Appearing Posted August 1, 2021 Share Posted August 1, 2021 In defense of young folk, LoTR is quite meandering. But that's beside the point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted August 1, 2021 Share Posted August 1, 2021 On 7/29/2021 at 6:46 AM, Inkdaub said: This near made me cry. I am now a Patron. Me too. Actually, the amount that’s been subscribed is, if not a fortune, certainly enough to make it worthwhile for her to keep writing. Patreon could be a Godsend for writers who aren’t bestsellers but have a loyal following of high hundreds, or low thousands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted August 1, 2021 Share Posted August 1, 2021 I don't think her sales were ever that catastrophic; DAW are not a charity case. It doesn't seem to be the situation with, say, Janny Wurts, whose US sales seem to have dropped into the category where the publishers were actively losing money with her (but whose UK sales remain buoyant enough to keep her career going) so they dropped her. Rather, the profit margins on her work were relatively slim and though DAW were happy with that, Penguin Random House were not. PRH don't want to waste their time with marginal authors, they want All Hits, All the Time. It's actually quite dangerous. We saw exactly the same thing happen to the film and video game industries: the B-level or even A or AA levels of titles practically vanished, and everything coalesced into the indie or outrageous mega-blockbuster category, with a huge loss of inventive ideas, new creators getting to stretch their legs and quirky works in the mid-field. Hasbro even has a rule on this, that any line that is making less than $15 million in profit will be terminated and any property making less than $75 million in profit will be kept under review. That's how Wizards of the Coast lost their fantasy book department, despite the fact they were way more profitable than many dedicated SFF publishers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Meili Posted August 1, 2021 Author Share Posted August 1, 2021 1 hour ago, Werthead said: Rather, the profit margins on her work were relatively slim and though DAW were happy with that, Penguin Random House were not. PRH don't want to waste their time with marginal authors, they want All Hits, All the Time. Dire if true! But you could be right since she says she could have been retained by Daw if she could write shorter novels which apparently make more profit. I really hope she writes the next huge blockbuster fantasy series and PRH regrets letting her go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Patrek Posted August 1, 2021 Share Posted August 1, 2021 If we use the Mark Lawrence metric for book sales (Goodread ratings x 7 for novels that are only a few years old), you'll see that West's sales are pretty dismal. Keep in mind that Daw keeps a lot of low-selling authors on their roster because they've been with them for years and years. Michelle West used to sell well during the 90s and early 2000s, when bookstores stocked her works. For various reasons, she has all but disappeared in the last decade or so. True, the market keeps changing and that probably hurt her as well. She hasn't been considered midlist in many a year, so it's not necessarily shocking that PRH would want to drop her. I reckon that other SFF authors from Daw and other smaller imprints will suffer the same fate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ants Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 Nooooo!!!!! !@%!%^!^ Probably my #1 author. This is devastating. I love her Esaylien books, although I do think her last series did get a bit bogged down. It was 8 books, and probably should have been 4. But her prose is absolutely beautiful. She invokes images in the mind as you read it that (for me) are reminiscent of Tolkien's grandeur. Often the fighting is more like dueling than fighting, with a weight of history pressing down on the battle. They're full of speech but that is because an enemy is partly to be savoured, not simply overcome. Unfortunately, the overarching events in the world have not been resolved, which really sucks. There are currently 3 series of around 16 books set in the world which have detailed the ongoing war against Alasarkar. But the final war has not yet been even started. I've never heard of patreon, I'll have to look into what it is. I assume her Cast series and the world of Elantra is 'safe', which is at least something. This really makes this day a sucky day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterweedstrover Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 Out of curiosity, what is her average word count (per book) that it is too long? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Patrek Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 Ir occurs to me that her fans should be encouraging readers to give her books a shot. A Patreon is good for her existing fan base. West/Sagara has an extensive backlist and if people bought her novels it would go a long way in allowing her to keep writing more. Just saying. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 8 hours ago, ants said: I've never heard of patreon, I'll have to look into what it is. Patreon is effectively a combination of Blog and Kickstarter. The writer writes blog entries (either private, to patrons only, or for everyone to read) and uses the subscription money to fund their ongoing writing project. Sometimes the writer might put up an exclusive short story every month or provide news and updates, or not do anything special and it's just a way for fans to support their favourite author whilst they get on with work. Quote Out of curiosity, what is her average word count (per book) that it is too long? ~200,000 words or thereabouts. That's not mega-long. A Game of Thrones is 300,000 words almost right on the money (A Storm of Swords is 420,000 words and considered very long; The Lord of the Rings in its entirety is about 460,000 words), so 200,000 words is about 500-550 pages in paperback. However, with the cost of printing and recording audiobooks, longer books do represent a significantly greater investment over shorter books, and the pendulum has swung back in publishing in general in favour of shorter books. If you're not selling at least Joe Abercrombie numbers (and even he's shorter than he used to be), you can forget about books of that size. I suspect that's why Steven Erikson's latest is, by his standards, quite short, given his sales profile has dimmed in recent years (though some early reports that the new book has done so well it sold out a print run and left several venues clamouring for stock; good if true). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterweedstrover Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 1 hour ago, Werthead said: Patreon is effectively a combination of Blog and Kickstarter. The writer writes blog entries (either private, to patrons only, or for everyone to read) and uses the subscription money to fund their ongoing writing project. Sometimes the writer might put up an exclusive short story every month or provide news and updates, or not do anything special and it's just a way for fans to support their favourite author whilst they get on with work. ~200,000 words or thereabouts. That's not mega-long. A Game of Thrones is 300,000 words almost right on the money (A Storm of Swords is 420,000 words and considered very long; The Lord of the Rings in its entirety is about 460,000 words), so 200,000 words is about 500-550 pages in paperback. However, with the cost of printing and recording audiobooks, longer books do represent a significantly greater investment over shorter books, and the pendulum has swung back in publishing in general in favour of shorter books. If you're not selling at least Joe Abercrombie numbers (and even he's shorter than he used to be), you can forget about books of that size. I suspect that's why Steven Erikson's latest is, by his standards, quite short, given his sales profile has dimmed in recent years (though some early reports that the new book has done so well it sold out a print run and left several venues clamouring for stock; good if true). Surprised about Erikson. More people have been talking about his series recently so maybe the trend will switch. But yeah, anything over 200k needs to be selling well, for any genre outside of epic fantasy that length is pretty long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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