Recently, once again, I was asked to contribute a chapter to an edited collection. This was hard on the heels of completing a draft for another edited collection. And this got me to thinking about edited collections and what a scam they are.
First let me explain how this typically works. A librarian either approaches a publisher with a book idea or the publisher asks someone to take on a book project. That person then solicits contributions from people they know and/or the wide blue yonder; i.e., mailing lists. The editor gets librarians to commit to submitting a chapter, hounds them to get it in when they fail to meet the deadline, (presumably) edits the contributions, normalizes the format among the contributions, and in many cases provides the index as well as any number of other book production tasks. For this work they usually garner 10-15% of net sales.
The contributors? They get nothing. One of the few times I can remember this was not the case was when I insisted the publisher pay my chapter contributors something. And yes, it came out of my percentage. Why, you might ask, do contributors write for free? Mostly for the line on the resume. Most chapter contributors are academic librarians who must publish to advance. If you’re not doing it for the line on the resume then you’re just a flat out saint.
Meanwhile, the publishers take the bulk of the profit, having performed very little of the work. They add the title to their catalog and do their usual publicity efforts, which are often more pro forma than imaginative, and if you’re lucky they will sell enough to be worth the time to edit it in the first place. That’s if you’re lucky.
Oh, and don’t get me started about payment. It can be at least a year after the book comes out before you see your first royalty check — probably more like 18 months. This is because publishers have become very good at playing the float. They take in the money, only report to you on profits quarterly (at most) and often only twice a year, and on a time lag that would be considered outrageous in any other field. By the time they actually pay out royalties they’ve had the money sitting in a bank gathering interest for a significant length of time.
So if you ask me to contribute a chapter to a book and you’re working with a traditional publisher the answer is likely going to be “no”. If you’re self-publishing it, or even providing it for free as I did with my last edited collection, then I’ll consider it.
About Roy Tennant
Most of the edited collections I have been seeing lately are of very limited use. I can generally find more in-depth information in a decent journal article (which tends to be better indexed). Furthermore, the collections tend to cover a relatively broad topic, so I usually end up purchasing the entire book to obtain a single chapter.
This particular person is turning the edited collection into a personal industry – and yet publishers, even ALA, seem eager to churn them out – as are librarians who volunteer to write for them.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1072403.Carol_Smallwood
Most of the books contributors are solicited on discussion lists.
I can not count the number of these that I’ve said no to in the last 3 years or so. And for exactly the same reasons. Not only request for chapters, but requests to be the editor…when it was made obvious that my contributors would not be compensated.
They also want all of your copyright. I pulled a chapter after being told I couldn’t self archive, even with an embargo.