We Lost a Member of our Family Today
If you go to the Double Edge Press Homepage, you’re going to find something missing. We’re down one title.
Although we still retain the rights to Shall Die by the Sword by T.S. Beckett, it will no longer be available in print. We’ve yanked it from distribution.
99% of this decision was due to lack of sales, and even more troubling, a high return rate on the sales that were made. I blogged previously of how one bad title can eat up the profits of other titles that are selling well. The other one percent of the decision making process was due to the author in this case.
I understand a bruised ego when a work doesn’t do as well as expected. I understand wanting to have your book given the best shot possible in the marketplace. But neither of these things excuses bad-mouthing the publisher that took a chance on your work when no one else was willing to, and who has placed a great deal of time, effort and revenue into giving it that shot. If you must bad-mouth, then do it privately to your family and friends. Don’t blog about it on your blog, and, one can only imagine, write about it on any forums you may be visiting.
We don’t have a ‘reputation’ type clause in our contracts forbidding writers from having the right to voice their experiences with us, whether good or bad, perceived or real. But we certainly retain the right to discontinue our efforts in marketing and distributing their work, especially when the sales record is so entirely negative to begin with, and especially after we’ve already have put in three years of good faith efforts.
For the most part, our parting was cordial and without rancor. He was our first author, even before my own work, and in such a position he realized far more effort and investment than several of our other books combined. At some point, as a publisher, however, I must draw a line as to how much further time and money of our limited resources are to go into making yet more changes in a work that, frankly, just is not going to sell.
There are many lessons here for both me as the publisher and for Mr. Beckett as the writer. For writers in general, I would say the lesson that can be learned is that no matter how disappointed you may be in a first work’s poor performance, just write another book. Try to do better. Keep working at your craft. And do not, do not, abuse your publisher. Just turn your work in and hope that we all have better luck with your next title. After all, we are on your side. We want you to succeed as much as you do. That’s the only way we get paid.
If you alienate your publisher to the point that they don’t want to pick up your second title because they can only foresee a long stream of additional headaches and demands similar to what they have already experienced with publishing your first book, don’t continue ramping up your complaints and demands to an even higher degree. They may very well discontinue printing of your first book altogether.
At least I can say that our other writers, even the ones whose books thus far have performed less than stellarly have retained a professional attitude, have gone on to write further works, or are in the process of writing further works. For the most part, we have a good family of writers.
As for the one that has left us, we’re going to miss him (in an odd, melancholy way), and we wish him the best of luck elsewhere with his future writing.
