Barry Eisler Reveals Details of Amazon Publishing Deal
Remember Barry Eisler? He’s the bestselling thriller author who in March turned down a $500,000 deal with St. Martin’s Press in favor of self-publishing.
Last week, at Book Expo America, Eisler announced he’d just signed a deal for Amazon to publish his next book. The traditional publishing crowd sniffed their disapproval over his perceived turncoat behavior.
But as Eisler points out, the point wasn’t to self-publish. The point was to get the terms he wanted. Along came Amazon offering those terms, so he took them. In Eisler’s words:
“…it’s the terms that are important to me, not the means by which I achieve them. If these terms are a destination, self-publishing is undeniably an excellent vehicle for getting there. But it isn’t the only vehicle. And if another vehicle comes along that offers all these terms, plus a substantial advance, plus a retail wing that can reach millions of customers in my demographic… then, as a non-ideological businessman, I’m going to change rides.”
In a recent conversation with fellow author Joe Konrath, Eisler revealed some of the details that drew him to sign with Amazon:
- An advance “comparable” to that offered by St. Martin’s
- “Much better” digital royalties (one source says 70%)
- “Comparable” print royalties
- A three-month turnaround from submission to release
- Full control over the title and cover art
- No DRM on the e-book
- E-book released first, followed by paper
This deal shows that Amazon, as a publisher, is poised to cause major industry disruption, coming to market much faster and sharing royalties more equitably than traditional publishers, while bringing huge distribution and marketing muscle. Great news for authors, not so great for the old guard publishers.
The full conversation between Eisler & Konrath is a tremendously long but fascinating perspective on the current publishing industry and the changes that are occurring.
Tags: Amazon publishing, Barry Eisler, Joe Konrath, publishing deal, self-publishing, St. Martin's Press, traditional publishing
June 1st, 2011 at 12:55 pm
The 70% digital royalty is in line with the 30% cut they take from most digital file sales. What’s surprising to me is the “no DRM.”
June 1st, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Hi Greg:
You get a 70% cut from Amazon on e-books as a self-published, but that’s not the royalty rate an author gets from a traditional publisher on e-book sales. So from Amazon’s perspective, they’re handing out the same money. But for an author looking at signing with Amazon or a traditional publisher, it’s a significant difference.
Amazon has been making DRM optional for authors for quite some time so making it optional on their own publishing program doesn’t seem too out there. What I do wonder is if Eisler got preferred terms because he’s an established author and asked for certain things. Total control over cover art? I wonder if a first-time author would get that in their contract.