A few months ago I submitted a strong book proposal to an established commercial publisher.

Within a few weeks I heard from them. They were taking the proposal to their committee for a decision, which is a very promising sign. But before they did that, they only had one small question for me:

“How many copies are you going to buy?”

Having been invited to this type of ball before, I regaled them with some of my fancy footwork, evading a direct answer.

I mentioned that I have historically purchased copies of my 12 published books for my clients and seminar audiences, in quantities that have ranged from hundreds to thousands of copies, depending on demand.

However, I went on to say that if that press wanted to publish my current book, they needed to make an offer NOT CONTINGENT on me buying copies.

His imminent offer suddenly vanished.

Ever since Gutenberg invented movable type, there have always been “dressing presses”. These are companies that will gladly print your book at your expense, selling you as many copies as you want to buy, regardless of the literary qualities, credibility, or consistency of your volume.

These presses have generally been despised by the mainstream publishing community, which owes much of its success to the careful selection of authors and their works, based on subject interest, merchandising, and the author’s stature in their field.

But nowadays, it’s getting harder to tell old-school publishers from vanity presses, as my near miss with trade publishing points out.

From my point of view, as a bona fide best-selling author with millions of thousands of books sold, the mainstream publishing industry is mostly history.

You have to be very careful when doing business with an industry that is in rapid decline.

Here are seven indications that things are not what they used to be:

(1) Publishing has always been about gambling and hoping to hit the jackpot. The occasional bestseller has generally made up for books that fail to recoup their publishing costs. But now, the publishers have given a “don’t lose” attitude. They want guaranteed profits from a highly speculative business model. The two don’t go together, so the way they’ve guaranteed they’ll get out is to get authors to commit to promoting and buying their own titles in such quantities that publishers will at least cover their costs.

(2) Author’s advances against royalties are shrinking and many publishers are disappearing altogether. Previously, an author could expect to receive some money up front, which would be a sign that a publisher valued his work and that he was going to do whatever he could to get the money back and make a profit. Today, publishers brazenly claim they don’t pay upfront or offer tokens, tipping deals in their direction, while allowing them to control valuable intellectual property literally for free.

(3) The publishers have made a pact with the Devil, that is, with the bookstores, which they have regretted forever, but which they cannot repudiate. When publishers “sell” their titles to bookstores, they don’t sell them at all in the conventional sense. The books are consigned. Money should flow from retailers to publishers only when books “sell”—they are bought by the public. If books languish on the shelves, they are returned more and more quickly to publishers for full credit. This marketing method makes everyone happy or shy. Only a few small, independent bookstores will allow titles to gradually find their readers, providing shelf space for books they believe in and love. But the bigger chains don’t care what they sell as long as the items sell out fast.

(4) Book publishing is incredibly retro, but not in a good way. It still takes, on average, nine months to a year for a manuscript to go through the editorial process and finally be printed and hit retail shelves. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Hot topics cool off considerably in that time frame, and macroeconomic forces can shift wildly, from seemingly endless expansion to recession, as we’ve seen over the past year, rendering titles irrelevant or spawning as many imitators in one period. of such time that even winning the titles lose their distinctive character. I wrote a book, The 60 Second Salesperson by Gary Goodman, which took too long to hit the shelves. Meanwhile, Spencer Johnson’s one-minute seller came out and took over the market. When my book hit the shelves, it looked like a knockoff. I published Six-Figure Consulting, and in a matter of months my title was surpassed by Million Dollar Consulting.

(5) The Internet is giving away what conventional publishers used to sell for a profit. How can you compete against “free”? This is the question of the decade for all kinds of publishers and content providers. Why attend a one-day seminar at $495 per person when you can get more or less the same content for free or watch videos for a fraction of the price and without ever leaving your chair or office? Publishers were rarely big sellers before the Internet. Now most of them are simply doomed, their weaknesses are exposed for all to see, and they are trying to shift their burdens and responsibilities onto the perpetrators.

(6) E-books and on-demand publishing are growing in popularity and establishing themselves as means of communication. They’re fast and cheap, and there’s really no good reason left to use a conventional editor if these platforms are going to make your work available without intermediation. Anyone can print. Marketing is what requires talent, and if conventional publishers are conversely delegating marketing functions to authors, what good is that to us?

(7) When everyone can be a published author, and these days everyone can be, then the rose will bloom. It no longer has the same cache as before. Similarly, there used to be a lot of competition to appear on TV and radio as a guest expert. With the proliferation of channels, by cable, satellite and through the Internet, where is the difference? Scarcity makes diamonds valuable; just ask DeBeers, which has cut supply rather smartly, propping up prices. If authors, publishers, books, and information itself are no longer in short supply, where are the profits? And where is the credibility of saying “I write books”? If you’re a consultant or a professional speaker, putting that in your bio is probably a given. It’s not going to win you a commitment these days, or higher fees than the next “author.”

When you hear a publisher asking how many copies to buy, or an Internet radio station offering you its own show for a small production fee, you’re actually hearing the leper’s bell: a sign that a looter is on the loose. in your middle

Protect your bag accordingly.