One of the better predictions in the Year of the Metal Rabbit is that the publishing industry is among the businesses that will be “generally profitable.”
A visiting Singapore-based publisher could not be any happier after hearing that prediction.
“There’s so much going on. I’m very happy that I’m working in a company that’s expanding and successful,” Nick Wallwork, John Wiley & Sons Professional & Trade (P&T) Asia publisher, said at the sidelines of the recent Dialogues@Starbucks.
The current year spells an exciting time for the publishing industry, particularly in Asia. This optimistic is attributed to growth in China and India. He said there is a growing middle class in the region that translates to more consumption of the products in the publishing industry.
Founded in 1807, Wiley is one of the world’s most respected nonfiction publishing companies, with annual global revenues of nearly $1.7 billion in 2010 and nearly 5,000 employees worldwide.
The scope and breadth of its global print and electronic publishing is vast. Wiley specializes in resources for a professional and trade audience; scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly products and services for researchers and practitioners in research-based professions; and educational materials for undergraduate and graduate students, teachers and lifelong learners—available in print and a variety of digital formats.
Wiley’s P&T division, which Wallwork is a part of, publishes over 1,000 new titles every year, making it the world’s largest professional business publisher.
Publishing process
Wallwork describes the publishing process as “tough.” When Wiley considers a book for publication, it not only considers the quality of the book and its global appeal but also the ability of the author to promote his or her work.
If Wiley agrees to publish a book, it will invest a lot of money in typesetting, editing, paper, print, binding, warehousing, distribution and marketing, as well as formatting for the e-book edition, he said.
“We have to be extremely confident that an author will deliver both before and after publication before we offer a contract,” he stressed.
Wiley is very strict in its selection of books to be published. In fact, it only publishes about 50 titles a year in their Asian program, “so competition for those places is extremely intense,” Wallwork added.
While Wiley often actively pursues authors to write books on specific subjects, the company also welcomes proposals from previously unpublished authors, provided they are well-suited to its “list.”
Once Wiley receives a book proposal with strong potential, it is subjected to an intense screening process involving external reviewers and discussion within its global P&T team. Only when the team is confident that the book meets all its strict criteria for publishing will the author be offered a contract.
Since it takes about six to nine months for an author to write a book, and three to four months to put it through production, one of the biggest challenges is predicting what will be a hot topic a year down the line.
“Get it right and you can have a bestseller. Get it wrong, and you can have a lot of returned books sitting in your warehouse,” he said.
According to Wallwork, most authors get paid on a rising scale of royalties. For first-time authors this would typically start at 10 percent to 12 percent on the first few thousand copies, then rise in increments according to the number of sales.
Publishers might also pay a small advance against royalties to cover the author’s expenses. The more established or famous the author, the higher the advance they can command.
For ghost writers, or professional writers who are packaging a title for them, the compensation is on a work-for-hire basis and similar to the usual rates paid to journalists.
Impression on Filipino writers
Wallwork is extremely impressed with the energy, efficiency and quality of Filipino writers. In fact, Wiley said the company often uses Filipino writers for ghost-writing projects where English-language skills and ability to work with demanding clients are greatly appreciated.
Wiley has already published a number of Filipino writers over the years and are in constant search for new ones. “As well as individual authors, we have also used Filipino writers for ghost writing on a number of projects,” he added.
Wallwork, in fact, singled out Filipino writer Cesar Bacani as “the only author in my entire career to deliver an almost perfect manuscript.”
Joining Wallwork in the Starbucks discussion were award-winning Filipino writers Dean Francis Alfar and Criselda Yabes.
As a fictionist, Alfar loves writing short stories. What he has learned is that one needs to keep being published constantly so that people will eventually recognize him or her, and the readers can associate the author with a particular kind of story or fiction.
“And they start looking for you. I don’t go and submit a ton of stuff but I have editors that look for me in different countries inviting me, soliciting stories,” he said.
He mentioned that, being a Filipino, it is so easy to fall into a trap of parochialism. But it turns out that there is a lot of support for writers not necessarily having to do with one’s nationality.
“Your story is what you’re selling. A story is a story. It’s competing in the world stage. Eventually, you’re there. You’re able to get published,” he added.
In his case, it has to be disciplined writing. One needs to have an inventory.
Alfar admitted that he wears multiple hats. Aside from being a writer, he is also a businessman. He is into publishing, runs a design agency and conducts the marketing.
Challenging starting writers, he posed the question, “How do you get people to pay and buy your book.” He said people will pay for what they choose to pay for, and they would pay for what they like and quality.
“Yes, there will always be pirates but there will still be people who will buy for content,” he said.
For Yabes, she has never done any research on her book readership. At first, she would just write and get her work published. She would not care about the kinds of readers her books land into.
For her first book on military that was published in 1991, she made an updated version in 2009 thinking that nobody would get a copy. But it was sold out.
“Sometimes there are really things that you don’t expect to happen, and it really depends on the writing,” she said.
Alfar argued that even before the advent of the digital age, there will be people who would love to read and people who would not bother to read. “There will be always people who would pick up the paperback and people who would happily buy the hardcover. Things have not changed.”
According to Alfar, it is just that the delivery systems that are in flux and publishers and authors are in the process of trying to find a way to address the new needs of the emergent market.
With the advent of blogging, everyone became a publisher, he said. “Everyone started publishing content but not everything is good,” he noted.
He also noticed that hundreds, if not thousands, of bloggers cannot maintain their online journals but those who write very well and have developed a readership, continue to produce content.
“With the microblogging, with the Facebook statuses, and with all things brought about by the digital age, what we have here is a case of ‘always available, forever and ever,’” he said.
As everything can be found in online and some in digital form and everyone is given liberty to go and search, Alfar sees the need of finding ways how to monetize this phenomenon.
“Without business, there is no income for the author,” he said.
While it is good to say that the Internet is free and content should be made free, Alfar argued the livelihood of so many people is being screwed by pirating their works.
“What if someday people will just say, ‘You know what, I don’t want to write anymore because it’s not working out for me, I can’t support my family.’”
As a result, there will be just endless recycled content. “We have to owe to people who are content-producers, to support them by buying.”
Winning an award
For Alfar, awards such as his 10 Palancas, are good to have. “Honestly, my first Palanca, I was not on Earth anymore. But all my awards, they are relevant for that particular time.”
He said that by the time one was awarded for something, the work was done a year ago or a long time ago. It was a big deal for him when his novel won the Palanca because you can count the past winners from this category with your fingers and they are all known as established writers.
“I never consider myself part of the establishment. I’ve always been a maverick. I have no mentor. I fight academe,” he added.
For him, the awards serve to look good on the résumé and encourage him to write more. “It’s like a pat on the back.”
But he argued that if one plans to depend his or her living from entering competitions and hopefully win in the end, Alfar emphasized that it will not work.
“P30,000 as cash prize divided by 12 months? No Starbucks for you then,” he jokingly added.
What is more important for him is getting published in the first place. Worth more than any awards are letters from people who tell him that they read his book and made them laugh and think or moved them.
“Because it means that in some levels it [the book] communicated,” he said.
He noted that winning an award has nothing to do with selling books. There are more authors who did not win an award but would sell more books.
At the end of day, it is about getting your books in the hands of your readers, Alfar stressed. More important is to keep writing and finishing it, working through your inventory.
In addition, what is more important for him are his readers more than being critically praised. He said the critics will get a copy to review for free unlike the readers who will shell out money and buy a copy.
“I would rather sell a book than get critically praised. It doesn’t mean that we will not work our asses off to make the best work,” he said.
As for Yabes, winning an award serves as an affirmation that you are doing the right thing.
What makes an award-winning work?
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Yabes noted, adding that one does not write for recognition but more important, one has to write what is really close, personal to him or her. “It sounds corny but it’s true. Write what your heart is saying,” she said.
Judging for many writing contests, Alfar said that a story has to be fantastically well-written for it to win an award. “It means that when I look at your manuscript, I want that to be copyedited. When you’re competing for the English category, be sure that you have good command of the language.”
He added that the judges are not there to be editors and they are not there to be forgiving. They are there to plow through over 200 or 300 entries and decide who gets to win the prize.
Looking for anything thematic, in particular, was not so much a consideration for the judges but simply a story well told.
“We can be dazzled by language and technique but we will be more dazzled by a story well told. For creative nonfiction or essays, we look for that is told well, well written. A narrative that is engaging,” he said.
It becomes the responsibility of the writer to polish his or her work.
“Write the best you can before the deadline, make sure you have enough time to polish it, have someone to look at your work, send it and forget about it.”
In Photo: Dean Alfar gives a lecture during the Dialogue@Starbucks and Nick Wallwork (right) of Wiley & Sons talks to some attendees at the recent Dialogues@ Starbucks.
