Lou Aronica is a New York Times bestselling author and former publisher of Avon Books and Berkley books. So, why did he recently launch an innovative publishing program (more of a partnership than a traditional publishing house) for literary as well as genre fiction? Here's more from Lou:
Jennifer Haupt: A few years ago, you co-wrote a bestselling Book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. Has launching The Fiction Studio changed anything for you?
Lou Aronica: Launching Fiction Studio Books was an important step for me in terms of professional satisfaction. I was already pursuing two of my passions with my writing career and with the book imprint The Story Plant that I've been running since 2008 with literary manager Peter Miller. However, since my early days in publishing (I got my first publishing job in 1979), I've wanted to create a writers collective, a place where I could lend what I've learned in thirty-plus years in the industry to a group of dedicated and talented writers. The feel is very different from The Story Plant, where Peter and I have investors to answer to and a more defined program. With Fiction Studio Books, which I own solely, I can publish anything I love. This is very liberating, and very exciting to me.
JH: Did launching The Fiction Studio have anything to do with publishing your own novel, Blue, last January? Was that novel pitched to bigger publishing houses, or was it your intent all along to publish it through your own independent publishing house?
LA: This entire thing started because of Blue. After spending six years writing it, I pitched it to a few publishers, but I realized quickly that the novel didn't fit neatly into most established publishing programs because they wouldn't know how to position it. It's a novel about family dynamics, but it is also a fantasy novel; one of the viewpoint characters is a man in his early forties, another is his fourteen-year-old daughter, and a third is the twenty-something queen of the bedtime-story world they created when the daughter was much younger. I understood the problem, but I also believed there was an audience for it and that I knew how to reach that audience. Therefore, I needed to publish Blue myself.
I looked around at the available self-publishing options, and none were exactly what I wanted. I decided to approach National Book Network to ask if they'd be willing to take on this single project, something they didn't normally do. That's when it dawned on me that I could use the publication of Blue as the foundation for something larger.
JH: How much faith did it take to launch a publishing house with your own debut novel? How has that worked out for you so far?
LA: Some would suggest it was a brazen move. Could I really be the Publisher and one of the authors? This was, after all, not self-publishing anymore, but an entire publishing program. The unique nature of the program allows for this to work, though, because Fiction Studio really is about a collection of invested authors sharing ideas and opportunities. It was also good that Blue was the first book in the program, because it allowed me to work out a number of kinks without any other writer suffering.
Things have turned out great so far. We've just published our tenth book, and three of our titles (including Blue) have already been in the top 20 on the Kindle bestseller list while others have seen some very nice sales. We have a great almost-daily blog to which most of the writers are contributing, and the sense of community I'd hoped to build is developing.
JH: Blue is about a fantasy world created by a young girl and her father, and how this fantasy world holds the secrets to their purpose as well as the future of the world. How much faith do you have in the power of fantasy and imagination to change the real world?
LA: An enormous amount. Not to sound like a bad self-help book, but all positive change starts with imagination. The willingness to employ fantasy plays into this. I'm not talking about unicorns and wizards, of course, but a willingness to suspend disbelief to consider extraordinary possibilities.
JH: Your mentor in the publishing industry was Ian Ballantine, who first brought paperback books to the U.S., then founded Bantam Books and Ballantine Books. Ballantine was at the forefront of a paradigm shift in publishing. Tell me about how you see the current shift in the industry, specifically in regards to the control that fiction authors have over their novel's destiny.
LA: Starting a program like this wasn't feasible until the recent breakthroughs in digital publishing. Prior to that, the barriers to entry were too high for a small company, and the costs and risks too dear for everyone involved. The monumental growth in the e-book market and the advances in print-on-demand technology have made this possible.
Digital has changed everything. Book publishing had always been hugely expensive (because of the cost of manufacturing, distributing, warehousing, and fulfilling books) and hugely risky (because, since booksellers bought on consignment, you could spend all of this money - plus the cost of promotion - and sell very few of the books you printed). Even before e-books became a dominant format, readers were showing a preference for buying books online. With the introduction of the Kindle, the Nook, the iPad, the Sony Reader, the Kobo Reader, and many other devices, this preference has accelerated considerably. What this means is that most of the costs and risks have dropped dramatically because you don't need to print, distribute, warehouse, and fulfill, and because e-books aren't sold on consignment. It's still very possible to lose money publishing a digital book, but it's far less likely than it once was.
What this means for writers is that they don't need to wait around for the blessing of a major publisher. New writers can find their own audiences, and established writers can retain much more of the revenue generated by their sales.
This is especially meaningful for novelists. Over the past decade, I've seen big publishers take fewer and fewer chances on fiction because it has always been riskier to publish fiction than nonfiction and, for a variety of reasons that we don't need to get into here, margins were getting tighter for publishers. Many established writers with modest but dedicated readerships found themselves without contracts, and many excellent new writers found themselves unable to get started. These writers can now seek smaller publishers, like Fiction Studio Books, that can accomplish what only big houses were once able to accomplish, or they can publish themselves.
JH: How is The Fiction Studio different from traditional publishing? How does the author have more control? More responsibility? (Do authors pay to have their books published?)
LA: Fiction Studio authors definitely don't pay to have their books published. I find the model - and there are quite a few examples of it out there - where the publisher generates income before the author has a chance to earn a penny deplorable. There's no incentive for these publishers to publish books effectively, so they tend to be factories. Fiction Studio authors are responsible for delivering a publication-ready book. That means that it has been professionally copyedited and proofread and that it has a high-quality cover on it. How they go about doing this is entirely up to them (the pay-for-play publishers charge a manuscript preparation fee that includes this while providing a considerable profit for the publisher in the fee). In exchange, they receive an overwhelming percentage of the income generated. The model is much more one of a collective than a traditional publishing business.
