Will this startup end traditional publishing as we know it?
Here's what everyone's missing in the Authors Equity discussion.
Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of complaining that the publishing industry doesn’t seem all that eager to innovate. We’re at a flex point, a time when the old ways aren’t working (New York Times reviews and celebrity book club picks no longer guarantee bestseller status, BookTok’s power seems to be waning, etc.), and in many sectors, that’d mean it’s time to disrupt. Try new things, throw spaghetti against the wall, but above all else, don’t just keep doing the exact same thing and then being dismayed when it doesn’t yield results. (Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity?)
And yet…when I heard about the launch of Authors Equity, a new publisher that’ll forego advances but give authors much higher royalty rates than trad publishing (they call it a “profit-share model”), I felt…concerned. The small but mighty team (made up of former Big 5 execs) has already lured in Tim Ferriss, James Clear, and Louise Penny, per a buzzy New York Times profile.
At first blush, it all sounded gloomy to me1. Witness these mega bestsellers drifting away from their publishers—authors who keep the lights on at their imprints, who sell so well that acquiring editors have the discretionary funds to toss advances toward books that probably won’t turn a profit. Without those backlist dollars pouring into the company coffers, will midlist and debut authors be screwed?2
Enter: Jason Feifer, an old friend who happens to be the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, as well as a podcaster, consultant, speaker, and newsletter writer. He’s also—relevance alert—the author of the indispensable Build for Tomorrow and the sweet rom-com Mr. Nice Guy, which he cowrote with his wife, Jennifer Miller. Jason’s a genius at taking the 10,000-foot view, so over beers at a neighborhood bar, I asked him what he thought of Authors Equity…and his reply turned me into the little mind-blown emoji:
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