Should E-Publishers Pay Advances To Their Authors In Order To Be Considered Viable?

Oh look, RWA has redefined ‘vanity publishing’. I guess they must have finally found a lawyer with a higher IQ than a tadpole. *g* Just kidding of course. *g*

*Ahem* I digress…

As a lowly reader, it makes perfect sense to me. Seriously.

I think E-pubs should pay advances, because if they did, they’d be less likely to accept any old drivel.

Don’t faint, but this part of the RWA statement got a big old Yay! from me:

Though we know some RWA members disagree, when determining whether a publisher is a Vanity Publisher, RWA believes it is important to look at distribution of books.


When a publisher does not pay an advance and does not become involved with marketing and distribution, it is, in reality, acting as nothing more than a consignment dealer for the book. Providing this kind of service requires little or nothing of the publisher, and the responsibility to market the product and drive traffic to single distribution point falls upon the author.


There is nothing two-sided about this kind of arrangement, no give and take where both sides involved incur risk and both stand to gain. In this situation the author incurs all of the financial risk in attempting to market a product.

On an earlier blog post, Angie opined that if Samhain did start paying advances, they wouldn’t be able to take the risks they do now, in terms of the wide variety of books and genres that they currently accept. I’m not so sure that’s altogether a bad thing.

I think Samhain are pretty savvy when it comes to signing authors, but I know that there are plenty of e-pubs out there who seem to take any old crap (I think a lot of us know who they are). I think this happens because some of these publishers don’t have the same level of investment or risk factor, that an advance-paying publisher does. Look at Triskelion and Venus Press, as prime examples. Those buggers totally sodded off, and left their authors high and dry as a nun’s c*nt.

As per usual, I’ll completely ignore the bigger picture, e.g., what it means to publishers like EC and Samhain, and concentrate on the only bit that interests me. *g*

So, waddaya think, should e-pubs pay advances or not?

And actually, do you truly give a crap either way?