The 'level playing field has lumps in

Recently I was involved in a discussion about a relatively new publisher that was inviting writers to submit their children's books for consideration. It's said to be a respectable, small publisher—I hadn't heard of it before, so can't give an opinion on that. But it was asking people to buy a book before their own work would be considered for publication. That's not really how conventional publishing works, so it's worth thinking about.

Generally, people submit their work to the publisher and don't pay anything to do this (not even disguised as a book purchase) and the publisher decides whether it wants to publish it or not. If it does, the publisher pays all costs of production including editing, design, layout, illustration (if there are illustrations), printing, distribution and so on. The author pays nothing. Repeat: NOTHING. The author is a provider: the author provides the text for which the publisher is going to have to pay. Usually, the publisher pays an advance, anything from a few hundred to a few thousand pounds depending on the book, the author and the publisher. And later, if the book earns enough money through sales, the author might get more money in the form of royalties. Some books are sold for a flat fee: the publisher pays the author a fixed sum and that's the end of it. You see the flow of money here? From book-buying customers to publisher, from publisher to author. Never, ever, ever from author to publisher. Do you think farmers pay Sainsbury's to take their apples? No.

Many small publishers can't afford to pay an advance. The author gets nothing until copies of the book have been sold and enough time has passed that the publisher can't delay payment any longer (cynical, moi?) and then, with no advance to earn out, the author should be getting some payments immediately. ('Immediately' being a good deal more than a year since the writing of the book was done.) I have written for some small independent publishers that use this model and I will do again because I support the publishers. Sometimes it turns out badly and the publisher doesn't pay because they can't — the need to pay the electricity bill or the printers is always more compelling than the need to pay the writer. What can we do? We can refuse to write another book for them, but that doesn't affect their day-to-day trading like no electricity or no printing does. For one book written for a no-advance publisher I have made the princely sum of £2.11. Not because the book didn't sell but because I've never had royalties beyond the first few weeks. (Royalties are calculated half-yearly. If your book is published a week or two before the end of an accounting period, your first statement is for a few days' sales.) Writing for a no-advance deal is always a risk. Paying (by buying a book) for the outside chance to write with a no-advance deal is a step too far, in my view.

But... Lots of people want to be (traditionally) published writers. Lots of people will go for a deal like this and they have every right to. Among the arguments people made in favour of this publisher and its offer (using the term loosely) was that people are writing because they want to and not to make money so they don't care about the deal. I find this troubling, though I'm willing to listen to counter-arguments. If you are writing for fun, you have another source of income. Suppose your book sells well and the publisher actually pays the royalties. Do you still want to write for fun? Might you one day like to be a professional? How does your later demand—need—for a decent contract sit with your earlier stance? Are we treating these no-advance publishers as a kind of training ground? This is fine for your starter book, perhaps, but you'll need a publisher with a more commercial model if you want to live by this business. And you won't be that sought-after thing, a promising debut, if you've sold your first book for a song. Or given it away. I'm not saying don't do it, but think about it carefully. Will you ever want to make the transition to professional writer? (A professional writer is someone who makes their money by writing—the label is not a reflection of the quality of anyone's writing.)

There are dangers with this starter-publisher model, though. The more prevalent and widely accepted no-advance deals become, the narrower the band of people who can afford to be writers. If you went to work tomorrow, but weren't paid until two years later, life wouldn't be easy. I'm not dividing this along conventional diversity lines because it's actually just an economic division. If you don't have another source of income (job, partner, inheritance) , you can't afford to persevere with your writing at a sufficiently intense and dedicated level to improve and succeed in a realistic time frame. Publishers won't wait forever for book 2. This is not about the people still learning their craft, but about people who have got there and are producing publishable work. If you have to look after your kids and earn money, there's not going to be much spare time for writing.

The point of the advance system is to give people money to live on while writing their book (though advances are so low these days it's not really possible). Without it, people who are poorer will be under-represented, their voices won't be heard and—more importantly—the readers who would want to listen to those voices will be denied the chance to hear them. Because books are for readers. Our desire to be heard as writers is just the same selfish 'notice me' impulse that everyone has; we don't have a right to be heard. What is important is that readers get to hear the voices they want to hear, voices that resonate for them. That can be BAME voices, the voices of disabled writers, LGBT+ writers—but also the voices of the urban poor of whatever colour, rural voices, the voices of single parents, and so on. It is not disadvantaged writers who should be at the forefront of our concern but disadvantaged readers as there are for more of those. But that concern translates into making it possible for impoverished writers to earn money from their work if people want to read it.

So when a publisher invites writers from all backgrounds to submit their work for consideration, that's a good thing. But it would be a far, far better thing if those writers could actually be enabled to do it by a fair deal (and certainly NOT by having to pay for the privilege).

I have not named the publisher in this post and I would ask that the publisher is not named in comments. The buy-a-book-no-advance deal was a jumping-off point for considering a wider issue in the publishing industry. I don't have an answer to this problem, but that's not a reason to avoid talking about it. We need new, young publishing companies and inevitably they don't have much money. Maybe the royalty rate should be higher to compensate for no advance?After all, they only have to pay the royalties when they have got some money in from the books. Maybe people have better suggestions.

Anne Rooney

Shortlisted for Royal Society Young People's Book Award 2018
Winner Judge's Award, School Library Association Information Book Award, 7-12, 2018