Hundreds of thousands of new book titles get published around the world every year. In the UK the majority are published by commercial publishers, who need to sell enough copies at a profit in order to keep in business. But do all published books make a profit for their authors and publishers? Certainly not. Indeed, I know of book titles that have sold fewer than 20 copies over time: clearly such books lend credence to that hoary old saying: “[Publishing] ... the most pleasing way to lose money ever devised.” Brief legal bit: authors own all of the rights to their intellectual property: copyright as it’s known, was always a property right in English common law. Where a publisher accepts a manuscript for publication the author either sells or more usually grants or ‘licenses’ their copyright to the publisher by means of a publishing contract. In return for being allowed to sell copies of the published work for profit, the publisher will usually pay a proportion of those sales revenues back to the author in the form of a regular royalty payment. A time-honoured process, and the bedrock of the publishing industry. There are perhaps four main routes to market for such books. 1. Manuscript is complete: publisher accepts it To many people this seems the most obvious way forward. One writes what one believes is a sure-fire best-seller. A literary agent or editorial director at a publishing house agrees; the author gets a lucrative contract, perhaps even a cash advance; the book gets published, and everyone dances merrily away from the book launch party as everyone’s bank balance swells. Such scenarios certainly do occur. [How it works: Author has a manuscript ready to go; a publishing contract is signed with a publisher; author usually receives a percentage of sales receipts in the form of a ‘royalty’ payment, often twice a year.] 2. Author is commissioned to write something specific This has always been a ‘thing’ since printing was developed in the fifteenth century, and it has become the norm in many parts of the publishing ecosystem. It makes perfect sense in a commercial world: the publisher wants to have a book on their lists, say, on the Kings and Queens of England. The publisher has a fairly specific idea of what they want: the book might be part of a series and therefore the manuscript needs to conform to series style; or they might want it written in a specific way, for a particular type of audience; a certain length, etc. etc. The only realistic way in which the publisher can get exactly what they want is to ask a reputable author to write it, in effect to order. [How it works: Publisher issues contract and ‘commission brief’ to author, perhaps via an agent; author might receive a one-off payment, or royalty, or perhaps both.] 3. Literary agent acts as intermediary Perhaps most common in fiction publishing (fiction publishing represents less than 20% of the UK market by sales volume, by the way), this is where an agent acts as an intermediary, perhaps spotting writing talent and supporting that author to prepare a manuscript for a specific publisher, in effect acting as a commissioning editor while also coaching the author in terms of writing style and quality. [How it works: Author and agent both have stake in sales success of book; mostly likely, both parties receive a percentage of sales revenue by way of royalty; author might well receive a cash advance in anticipation of future sales.] 4. Self-publishing: yes, self-publishing can be profitable Where an enterprising author sees market potential in their work, there is no absolute necessity to hand over that potential commercial success to a publisher. The principal things of value that publishers can bring to an author’s work are a) editorial expertise and b) marketing/sales reach. Thus, if an author entrepreneur is confident of their text, and is able to create sales channels themselves, then publishing the work in their own name – self-publishing – can make a lot of sense because the author retains all of the sales revenue and full control of the process, including editorial, design, cover, retail price, etc. For profitable books, this can work. [How it works: Author retains copyright; most likely the author pay for the parts of the publishing process they cannot do themselves, e.g. typesetting, or design, or editing – Lexisbooks can help! Author pays all costs, and retains copyright and all sales revenue.] Unprofitable books Of course, some books never make a profit for anyone. Some large commercial publishers play the odds: they publish a dozen books, and if one of those turns out to be a runaway success it can subsidise those that never quite made it. If a publisher makes too many duff guesses, then it could spell financial ruin, for there is no surer way to lose money than to print thousands of copies and see them lanquish – at high cost – in the distributor’s warehouse. A third category: not for profit What if a book falls into the category of “wow, that is worth publishing, but goodness me the market for that is tiny”? One recent example I typeset serves as an example. It was an enormous tome of local history about a Yorkshire town. Perhaps fewer than 100 locals will ever buy a copy of what turned out to be an almost 1,600-page two-volume tome. The text is a masterpiece of scholarship, a work of record, hugely worth publishing so that for decades to come people can refer back to it. Those 100 sales will never cover more than a tiny proportion of the costs of production; yet it was published successfully to critical acclaim. Such books – and I could give dozens of examples – are never really designed to make a profit. Yet they deserve to be published, and can be. One just needs to be cunning about how it is done. Look out for my forthcoming blog piece on tried-and-tested ways to get such books to market.