How to go into circulation

The popularity of a book most often depends on the relationship between the author, the literary agency and the publishing house. If this alliance is successful, the publication can bring the author more than $10,000. The income of book publishers is an order of magnitude greater.

Classics and contemporaries
Among the authors there are recognized authorities. Their names in the plans of a book publishing house are evidence of good literary taste and a serious attitude towards their own image. However, publishing “classics” does not always bring profit. For example, volumes published for Pushkin’s anniversary are still collecting dust on store shelves. In the book publishing business, oddly enough, fashion dictates a lot. Remember the rush of demand in the first years of perestroika for the “samizdat” artists Pasternak, Bulgakov, and Solzhenitsyn who came out of the underground. Then Chase's fiction and Christie's detective stories, Tolkien's fantasy and Stephen King's horror novels came into fashion.
Along with intellectual literature, so-called mass literature began to appear in bookstores. Until recently, the suppliers of bestsellers to Russia were English-language authors. A foreign name on the cover was a guarantee that the book would sell out in a matter of days. Publishers recall that sometimes Russian authors and entire creative teams hid under foreign pseudonyms. They put the production of detective stories and romance novels on the assembly line.
The literary team issued a book every month and were content with a modest remuneration: no more than $1,000 per text per author. In the late 80s, many independent publishing houses emerged and made substantial initial capital from this. This is how the project “Friedrich Neznansky” arose, in which, in addition to the supplier of the plots himself, Friedrich Neznansky, a whole staff of literary staff participated. Many participants in such “cooperatives” later engaged in independent literary activities (for example, Maria Semenova, who grew up “in the Neznansky cooperative,” now writes books in the fantasy genre herself). The creation of literary works using the team contract method paid off from a financial point of view and is still used today. For example, the Eksmo publishing house is forced to periodically refute rumors that Alexandra Marinina is the pseudonym of a group of authors, and not Marina Alekseeva. These suspicions are based on the fact that Marinina manages to write a detective story a month. By the way, such labor productivity is well paid. According to some reports, before the crisis, each book brought Marinina up to $50,000.
Tatyana Makarova, PR director of the Vagrius publishing house: “The team method of work was borrowed from translators. When it was necessary to quickly publish translated literature, a group of translators gathered, and then one of them ‘combed’ everything, leading to stylistic unity. However, no one respected The publisher will never admit that a team is working for the fashionable author. But even if this is so, the personal “I” of the author of the synopsis (collection, review) dominates, his style is preserved. It is a long and difficult task to prove who is really behind the name. expensive work."
The method of collective creativity is also convenient because the publisher is protected from surprises. Real authors can change as often as they like, but the project does not suffer from this - what difference does it make who writes under the promoted “brand”. And if capricious literary talent goes over to a competing publisher, the former “owners” will still have the most important thing - the name. It won’t be difficult to find a new author for it.

Agent network
All over the world, the relationship between book publishers and real authors follows the following pattern: writer - literary agent - publisher. The author presents his work to the literary agent and negotiates with him about promoting the product. The agent, in turn, represents the interests of the client in the publishing house: he negotiates the terms of cooperation and the amount of fees, draws up a contract and is engaged in the “promotion” of his ward. As a rule, literary agents work not only in the domestic market, but also create advertising campaigns abroad. For promising authors, literary agencies organize a tour of all the countries in which their books are planned to be published.
For example, the Moscow branch of the English agency Andrew Nurenberg Associates practically does not cooperate with Russian authors, but promotes its own. Thus, Foreign Literature received an order from the agency to publish the novel Amsterdam by Booker laureate Ian McEwan.
Russian authors in the West are most often represented by local agencies: they know better which door to knock on. With their help, Lyudmila Ulitskaya's novels became bestsellers in Germany and France, and publications are being prepared in England and the USA. The novels of Boris Akunin and Alexandra Marinina are next in line for international fame. It must be said that literary agencies receive decent commissions for their services: from 10 to 35% of the author's royalties.
However, in Russia the practice of attracting agents has not yet taken root: their responsibilities are most often assumed by the publishing house. For example, the publishing house "Eksmo" spent on advertising Marinina's detective stories in the program "What? Where? When?" about $300 thousand. It also carried out an advertising campaign in another 20 countries.

Sweet couple
Of course, it is profitable for a publishing house to invest money in venerable authors or promising young writers. The question is how they can find each other.
The easiest, but not the most effective way for a beginner is the advertising services of the Russian-language magazine "Copyright Exchange" and its Western analogue Copyright Exchange International. These publications are organized by the Publishing Service agency with the participation of the Association of Copyright Holders. In the general section of the catalog you can place brief information about the book by paying 50 kopecks for each sign. An advertisement in the “Introducing the Author” section will cost 1800-5800 rubles. In an international magazine, prices are 20% higher. In this case, the chances of success are minimal.
Publishing houses, as a rule, come into contact with famous authors on their own initiative. For example, an alliance arose between the publishing house AST and Georgy Weiner. Alexander Ivanov, head of the AST publishing house: “It all starts with a phone call. The parties put forward conditions, including financial ones. Much depends on the image of the publishing house. If the publishing house is large, this is a guarantee that a famous author will agree to work with it. Of course, the author is interested in a large circulation and an extensive list of works. Most often, he offers a so-called long shelf (old books in addition to new ones), while expressing wishes regarding the design, format and cover of the future book. We first of all grab the new ones." .
Sometimes a writer manages to “promote” a name on his own. Thus, Victor Pelevin was known in literary circles as a translator of Carlos Castaneda and Arthur Makin. And in 1993 he received the small Booker Prize for a collection of short stories. But he still does not give interviews, does not pose for cameras, and has promised not to appear on television until he is 40 years old. The secrecy with which Pelevin surrounded himself works for his popularity. Nowadays, each new novel is published in 100,000 copies, and this does not count reprints. The Vagrius publishing house, with which Pelevin has been collaborating for several years, is pleased with its choice. Tatyana Makarova, PR director of the Vagrius publishing house: “Pelevin himself can create myths. He doesn’t even invent anything, he lives like that. We didn’t promote him. Our only merit is that we opened him to a wide range of readers.”
A little-known author, even if his future fame seems indisputable, is risky to print in large quantities. In the West, everything is solved simply. Before the book is seen by readers, it will be printed in a tiny circulation (1-2 thousand copies) and sent to “book” newspapers and magazines. Depending on the reaction of the specialized press, the first novel of a potential star is published in a larger edition or not published at all.
In Russia, there is a different technology: a wave of favorable reviews in regular media on the eve of the launch of a printing press helps to reduce the risk of book publishers to a minimum. There is reason to believe that these publications are usually organized on a financial basis. For example, the publication of Marina Yudenich’s first novel by the Exim publishing house was preceded by a dozen enthusiastic articles in a variety of publications. It’s interesting that all the reviews were published almost simultaneously and were full of compliments. For example, one of the journalists found that Yudenich’s style was similar to Bulgakov’s.
When selecting new “stars,” publishers pay special attention to the author’s fertility. Alexander Gavrilov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Book Review”: “In order to interest a publisher, the author of future bestsellers must storm publishing houses and literary agencies not with one novel, but with several. Seriality is an indispensable condition for success. The fact is that the publishing house spends on advertising the first book obviously more than it plans to earn from its sale. Investments can be $100-300 thousand. The publisher expects to receive income from the sale of subsequent books."
Publishers' advertising expenses, as a rule, are recouped in large circulations. Each publishing house has its own “clip” of profitable authors. Vagrius has Dotsenko, Taranov and Voloshin. Eksmo has Marinina, Koretsky and Leonov. AST has Topol and Voronin. In addition, the publisher has a reserve of three to five names, which are released in 20-30 thousand copies. And these circulations increase as the name becomes known. In this case, the publishing house risks losing “its” author. According to Natalya Dranova, general director of the Machaon publishing house, poaching popular authors is considered bad form in the book publishing business, but it happens quite often. Tatyana Makarova, PR director of the Vagrius publishing house, has a different opinion: “It’s normal when an author starts looking for another publishing house. At some point it begins to seem to him that he has reached such a height that he deserves more. If he leaves, the publisher is offended, but the author can be understood as a human being. As a rule, everything is decided by the question of money.”
Of course, authors prefer the publishing house that will provide large circulations and, accordingly, substantial earnings. However, experts admit that, compared to Western ones, royalties in Russia are meager: at best, the author can count on 8-12% of circulation sales.

How to print a global bestseller
In order to attract world best-selling authors to cooperate, a publishing house needs to make much more effort and money - first of all, acquire a license to publish a particular book. Its cost can reach up to $10,000. If there are several applicants, the license holder holds an auction. In this case, the one who pays the most wins. The reputation of the publisher also plays an important role.
For example, today only two publishing houses have the rights to publish Philip Kotler’s books in Russia. Viktor Shtonda, general director of the Williams publishing house: “We were the first in Russia to publish Kotler’s Fundamentals of Marketing with a license. Before us, from the beginning of the 80s, this book was circulated pirated.” Another publisher of the popular economist is the Peter Publishing House, which published his book “Marketing Management.”
The head of the editorial office of economic literature at Peter, Lolita Volkova, said that it was very difficult to “get” Kotler. In order to please him, the management of “Peter” sent Kotler a 10-page letter. During its preparation, Kotler’s psychological characteristics and preferences were taken into account, which the authors of the letter “calculated” by reading his texts. After this, “Peter” received the right to enter into negotiations with the English owner of the book license. Negotiations lasted six months, “Peter” was among the participants in the auction and won it.
Having received the right to publish Kotler, "Peter" was forced to pay the author a huge advance payment - almost as much as the publishing house expected to earn from the sale of his book. But the battle for the famous author did not end there. The publishing house invited Kotler to St. Petersburg for an international marketing conference and managed to print a copy before his arrival. At the presentation, the author had a line of people lined up for autographs. Kotler was struck by another evidence of his popularity in Russia - the campaign “The Book is a Source of Money’99” held by the Kommersant-Dengi magazine. The essence of the action was as follows: readers of the magazine were asked to give examples from the activities of Russian companies to four books by foreign authors, including “Marketing Management” (see material on this page). It turned out that it was she who inspired the authors to create the largest number of examples. As a result, Kotler also decided to publish his new book in St. Petersburg. And already on more favorable terms for the publishing house.

May you live happily ever after
The most ideal type of cooperation between a writer and a publisher (for the publisher, of course) is when the author pays for the publication of a book or its advertising. For example, the author of the book “Virtual Economy and Surreal Existence” Alexander Potemkin himself created an advertising campaign for his book. The participation of the Infra-M publishing house, where “Virtual Economy” was published, was limited to advice. For example, on the recommendation of publishers, Potemkin placed 200 advertising posters in bookstores. In addition, he paid for advertising on radio, in print media and the placement of banners on central streets. And I don’t intend to limit myself to this. Such an author is a real find for any publishing house.
OLGA LIKHINA, INGA ZAMURUEVA

"Auto". Appendix No. 166 dated 09/07/2000, page 17

Themes:

Literary awards