Reviews, Fees, and Advertising: The Hidden Costs of Publishing

or... Should we pay for reviews? Should we pay for submission fees? Should retail prices of books go up?

Earlier this week, when the publicist for my company (Catalyst Press/Flare Books/Powers Squared) tried to submit a book to Publishers Weekly, we received an unexpected and rather unwelcome surprise: With no advance warning, Publishers Weekly is suddenly charging $25 for publishers to submit a book for possible review. There is no guarantee of a review, but you still have to pay $25 for the possibility of a review.

Given that PW reviews about every ten-twelve books my company submits, that means I’ll be paying roughly $250-300 per actual review.

The PW charge of $25 per submission will be invisible to most authors; it is publishers who will pay that cost. Effectively, we’re all now paying for reviews at PW—unless we simply refuse to submit our books. I’m on an independent publisher thread and that is what many of them are saying they’ll do. The general consensus is that PW doesn’t review very many of our books to begin with, and our profit margins are so slim as it is, it isn’t worth it. Some even questioned the value of reviews, a question I’ll address in a future post. (Spoiler alert: I think there is a lot of value in reviews, but I understand why publishers are asking the question.)

The other invisible part of it, for authors at least, is that for as long as PW has been around, publishers have bought advertising so that PW will be more likely to consider our books for review. Again, this is an invisible cost to authors, and a frustration for independent publishers with extremely slim profit margins and no advertising budget. Despite PW’s assurances that it is not a requirement to buy advertisements for a publisher’s books to be considered, this under-the-table arrangement that everybody knows exists no matter how many protests are offered is proof positive of the old adage: one hand washes the other.

Alongside the PW news, a very popular digital submission service Edelweiss also raised its prices this year, for the first time in many years. Edelweiss is an online platform where booksellers, librarians, reviewers, and journalists can access digital review copies of books they’re considering stocking, purchasing, or reviewing. Publishers by and large are dependent on Edelweiss for widespread reach across the industry. While Edelweiss offers a way for publishers to receive discounts if they are submitting multiple titles throughout the year, this is another added cost for reviews, one most of us feel we can’t do without.

Look, I don’t blame PW—or Edelweiss. What this says to me is that they’re not making it work through advertising. They’ve got a shortfall in income and need to make it up somehow. The book business is hard.

To be clear, I don’t LIKE paying a $25 fee to submit a book for possible review to PW, but I *understand* why they’re doing it. I also am reasonably certain that it won’t be long before all the other trade magazines follow suit, and we’ll soon be paying a few hundred dollars to trade magazines just to submit books for possible review. Again, this is evidence that the system overall is not profitable enough to sustain it.

Publishing is a bit of a dinosaur business but things do change. On the same email thread, one publisher mentioned that it used to be anathema for publishers to charge submission fees to authors submitting their books for possible publication, but now many publishers do. Similarly, book reviews used to be “free” (if one could ignore the advertising aspect of it all, which I mentioned above); it won’t be long before none are free.

I launched Maverick Independent Book Reviews this past year, a book review service. It works very simply: An author or publisher pays a fee, uploads their manuscript, and I assign a reviewer. A few weeks later, the publisher or author is guaranteed an honest, professional review, published on our website, archived forever, and promoted via our newsletter, on our Goodreads feed, and on our social media. One writer who received a promotional email about it wrote me a rather angry reply, saying she would *NEVER* (capital letters and italics hers) recommend a paid book review service, which she found *DISGUSTING* (again, capital letters and italics hers.)

I didn’t respond, though I wanted to say, “I get it. In an ideal world, all reviews would be free.”

But they’re not. Even when it appears they’re free, they’re not free, because of advertising—as pointed out above.

This raises valid questions.

Should publishers charge submission fees? Should review publications charge submission fees? You may be in the camp that says no. And every reader I know is in the “no” camp for the following question:

Should publishers raise the prices of books to account for our rising costs?

My answer to all of the questions is yes.

Publishers should charge submission fees. (I don’t yet but it’s been on my mind).

Review publications should charge fees (but these should come with a guaranteed review, not a guaranteed positive review but a guaranteed review).

And publishers should absolutely raise the prices of books.

I know nobody will like it. I don’t like it either. But if we value books, and my guess is that if you’re reading this essay then you do, we should pay what they’re worth. We should make sure publishers can keep publishing books, especially given the rising costs of everything from printing to shipping to marketing and publicity. Not to mention time.

Let me make a comparison.

You can buy a dress at Temu or Shein for $10 or $15 bucks. It looks pretty on the models in photos but when it arrives to your house, it doesn’t fit well, or it rides up your backside in weird ways, or its coverage of the bust is awkward, and also, not to be discounted, the whole purchase is accompanied by an icky feeling that you are probably supporting slave labor somewhere in China.

Or you can buy a dress at Boden. You’re going to pay $150, maybe $200, but damn, it looks great when you put it on, it feels great, the material is quality material, it fits well, and it isn’t going to fall apart after a few washes.

Most readers have no idea of the time-intensive labor as well as the editorial, production, and marketing costs that go into each book. An author spends years writing a book. An author-editor team spends another year or more polishing that book. The production team spends several months getting the book ready to be printed, while the marketing and publicity team takes six months to a year to publicize the book before it hits the bookstore shelves.

The time and effort it takes to write and publish a quality book is Boden-style quality, not Temu or Shein quality. The money it costs to produce an excellent book is simply not cheap. I’m not saying you should pay $150 for a book, but it’s worth quite a bit more than $10 or $15. And you already know it. We all know it. We should all be willing to spend a little more on the things we value.

I value reviews from PW, which is why I’m willing to suck it up and pay the submission fee, for the most part. I value the service Edelweiss gives me so, again, I’ve signed up for one of their larger packages. And I value books, which is why I’ve devoted my life to creating them, so I’m quietly raising prices when and where I can so that my publishing company can keep producing them.

As readers, writers, and fellow publishers/editors, my guess is you value them too. Hopefully, you’ll keep buying books, and spread the word that it’s worth paying a few dollars more for these life-sustaining, entertaining, and thoughtful contributions to the world.