You see the term ‘Mid-List’ author thrown around a lot, but we don’t ever really talk about what it means, so I thought I’d share my thoughts about it from my perspective. After all, I am a midlist author, so I probably have some insight.

As with everything publishing, this is just an opinion. Midlist is a word, and while words have meanings, they don’t always mean the same thing to everybody. I’m sure if you ask a publisher, they’ve got a definition that differs from mine. I’m a writer. This is my writer’s opinion, and I’m talking about it here in order to inform other writers. Because when I was starting out, I wondered about a lot of this stuff, so I figure that there are others who wonder about it too.

To define midlist, we first have to define list. A list is all the books that a publisher puts out, often referred to in a given time period, as in ‘this year’s list.’

So logically, it follows that a midlist author is someone in the middle of that list. But this is publishing, so we can’t have anything be nearly that simple.

First off, there’s no actual rank order of the list. The position on the list is a type of judgement based on some combination the expectations for the book’s sales, amount of resources placed against the book, and how important that book is to the publisher. Probably some more things. We’ll come back to that.

Because here’s where it gets tricky. There’s no term for bottom of the list, nor will anybody ever refer to a book (at least not that I’ve seen as an author) as bottom of the list. You’re either top of the list or your mid-list. So then it’s a euphemism for ‘not at the top of the list.’

Why do I say that? Because nobody ever called me bottom of the list, even though I was. The year that my debut novel, PLANETSIDE, came out, I am willing to bet that if you asked people at my publisher to order their books from 1 to 30 (or however many books they put out that year…but 30 is close) then I’d have been number 30. Maybe 29, or even as high as 25…but no higher than that. And seriously. 30.

Now, always take it with a grain of salt when authors deprecate their own position in the hierarchy of the book world (and their is a hierarchy, even if it’s debatable and mostly in our own heads). We are all giant meat bags filled with self-doubt and impostor syndrome. But that’s another post altogether.

So let me provide evidence, and you can judge. a. I got a $7500 advance for PLANETSIDE. I would suggest that no author that Harper Voyager, my publisher, published in 2018 got a lower one. I can’t say for sure. But if I’m wrong, I’m not wrong by much. b. My books came out in mass market paperback, one of the few titles to be in that format. c. Two other debuts on that list in 2018? SA Chakraborty and RF Kuang. You might have heard of them. I’d suggest that they got a little more than $7500 for their books.

Let me be very clear — I’m not at all bitter or unhappy about any of this. I knew the deal when I signed it, and I was very happy to do so. And I’d have put my book in exactly the same place if I was the publisher. I am saying this just to get to the point about midlist.

So why am I called a midlist author when I was at the bottom of the list? A few reasons.

1. My books are at a major publisher, so while I was at the bottom of the list at that publisher, if you consider my advance in terms of all publishers of SFF, I was significantly higher up the list. $7500 doesn’t sound like a lot, but there are a lot of really good authors writing adult SF today who get less. Sad but true. Once again, that’s a story for another day.

2. The list is a moving target. While PLANETSIDE probably started at the bottom of the list, it didn’t stay there. Expectations do not equal outcomes. If you rank order the sales of all the books of my publisher from 2018, I definitely wasn’t 30th. I was probably somewhere in the middle.

3. There’s no practical difference between the middle and the bottom. You’re either at the top of the list, or you’re not. Publishers put the majority of their publicity resources into a few books a year, and if your book isn’t one of them, you get mostly the same package.

This requires another aside. If you get 10 authors in a room, 9 of them are going to tell you that they didn’t get much marketing support from their publisher, so again, take it with a grain of salt any time an author says that.

I’m not saying that. I got support. My book was in stores everywhere. I got trade reviews. I got reviews from all kinds of genre-specific sources. I got an amazing cover. None of that shit happens without your publisher putting effort in, even if you don’t see it.

4. Calling someone bottom of the list is just mean sounding, and authors are fragile hunks of angst and creativity wrapped into one messy package. Midlist just sounds nicer.

5. And moving target part two. While PLANETSIDE was probably at the bottom of the expectations list, THE MISFIT SOLDIER probably isn’t. That’s right, THE MISFIT SOLDIER, coming on 2/22/22, from Harper Voyager.

Do you like how I did that? I snuck in a little bit of self-promotion into the post so that I can bill it to the promotion department*

*There is no promotion department. It’s all me. What I really mean is that I can justify taking time to write this post to myself. Even though exactly one person is going to click on that link. Do it. Click the link. You know you want to.

Ahem.

Sorry, I don’t know what happened there. Where were we? Oh, right. Midlist. So what does it mean and why are we talking about it?

We’re talking about it because when you’re a midlist author, nobody ever tells you what that means until you walk into the wall.

At some point, every midlist debut author asks for something from their publisher and gets told no. (Okay…not everybody. Sometimes their agent tells them no before they ask. But seriously…everybody.) This happens because it’s usually unclear what to expect, and as a debut author, you’re really excited about your book and you want to give it every chance to succeed, so of course you want everything. You see other authors getting things, and you just assume…hey, that’s a thing I can get. And so you ask for it, and get told no. It’s only natural.

For me, with PLANETSIDE, the thing I asked for was a cover reveal. Because…have you seen that cover? I love that cover. The publisher spent good money to get me that cover, complete with original art by Sebastien Hue. Multiple people told me they picked up the book specifically because of the cover. So of course we’d want to highlight that, right? Here’s what happened:

Me: I’d love to set up a cover reveal
Editor: We don’t really do that

My thoughts at the time: WTF do you mean you don’t do that. I literally saw a cover reveal for THE POPPY WAR yesterday. What you mean is, you don’t do it for me. Yeah, I was mad about it. Because it seems like a simple enough thing to do that doesn’t cost a lot of money, and remember, as a debut author, you’re all up in your feelings and there’s a ton of pressure to get sales, and it’s just a lot. Even looking back at it, I don’t regret how I felt, because I think it’s totally normal to feel that way.

My thoughts now: What my editor really meant was that coordinating a cover reveal is harder than you think because of the way covers get released to sales outlets, and as a publisher, they think that the time and effort is better spent on other promotional endeavors. Cover reveals are more about making the author feel special–giving them their day–then about actually generating sales. Now…one can agree or disagree on the efficacy of cover reveals. But knowing what I know, whether I agree or disagree, I understand where they’re coming from.

As an aside: If you’re an editor and you’re reading this, you’d really be doing your authors a service to tell them what to expect and not to expect. Alas, there aren’t many editors reading this. But there are some agents. So, then, agents: you’d really be doing your clients a service to sit them down and explain some of this, even though you yourself don’t really know what to expect as far as publicity from any given publisher. Because every publisher is different. I know people who have been with smaller publishers, gotten smaller advances, but had official cover reveals. Different publisher, different thoughts on how to best sell a book. Which is why it’s confusing.

So how do you even know you’re on the midlist? Well…are you on the top of the list? I’ve never been on the top of the list, so I can’t say for sure, but I think you’d know. Certainly you saw your advance check. That’s a sign. Here’s how I figured it out. RF Kuang promoted her book at San Diego Comicon with our editor by her side. I did not. (Again — not a complaint. Because of course she did. Did you read THE POPPY WAR? It’s amazing. In fact, stop now and go read it, and then come back. I’ll wait.) And that’s how publishing works. Big books like hers pay the rent and allow publishers to take a shot on books like mine. And that’s how I knew she was on the top of the list.

But it’s not always obvious. It’s especially not obvious to readers. I’ll give an example using four books that I have read and loved. NOPHEK GLOSS, by Essa Hansen, THE RAGE OF DRAGONS, by Evan Winter, VELOCITY WEAPON, by Megan O’Keefe, and THE UNBROKEN, by C L Clark. Just looking at those four books, what do they have in common?

What percentage of people know that all of those books are published by Orbit? Probably a good number. After all, the publisher is right on the spine, and it’s easy enough to find out.

Okay. What percentage of people know that all of those books were edited by Brit Hvide? A smaller number, right? I’d offer that most readers don’t even know who edited the book they’re reading right now. I know because I’m a nerd like that.

Now…where do those four books, which all released within a couple of years of each other, stand in relative order on that editor’s list? Which is at the top and which is at the bottom? I have no clue. If I had to guess, I’d say the two fantasy books are higher, just because fantasy sells more than SF in general. But I really couldn’t say. And sure, I’m friendly with several of the authors of these books, and I actually provided advanced blurbs for two of them, but I’m not ‘hey, how big was your advance’ friendly (Note: That’s *really* friendly).

I say all that only to point out that while it matters to us, especially as debut authors, it doesn’t really matter to the outside world all that much. Your average reader thinks: that book is in Barnes and Noble. It must be big. So a lot of this angst? We do it to ourselves.

And then there’s the phenomenon where authors want to seem like their book is important. How many authors do you see talking about being on the bottom of the list like I did here? Not many. Because if you seem important, maybe you’ve got a better chance of reviewers choosing your book. Maybe more people will buy it because they think it’s the book right now. I totally get it. I certainly wasn’t as honest about my position on the list back then, when I thought it mattered (or when it did matter more), as I am now. I did all that stuff.

So what’s different now, with my fourth book coming out? What have I learned?

1. It is what it is. I’m getting ready to sign my third contract with Harper Voyager. Both they and I know the value of each of those contracts, and there wasn’t a ton of debate, because we all have the sales numbers. We debated about what I should write, but not much about what they should pay me to do it. My position on the list is a lot clearer.

2. I know what to expect. Having done it a few times now, with a few different publicists (good young publicists tend to move around, because publishing doesn’t pay their entry level employees enough…but that too is a post for another day) I know what to ask for and what not to ask for.

For example: I specifically asked my publicist to check with Library Journal on their review for THE MISFIT SOLDIER. Why? Because I know they reviewed (very positively) my last three books, and so I expected that they would do this one, too, and I think it’s important. She checked, and they are. They’re just behind.

Things I can ask for: (This will vary by publisher, but I’m providing my own things as an example)

a. For the editor to send advanced copies to other authors at my request, regardless of how big or small those authors are
b. For the publicist to send advanced copies to specific reviewers that I request, regardless of how big or small they are
c. For marketing to create social media graphics
d. For the publicist to propose pitches that I provide for guest posts to sites that are beyond my own reach
e. Answers to specific questions, such as the one mentioned above about Library Journal

Things I’m not going to get:
a. Support to do physical appearances at book stores
b. Paid advertising
c. Answers to things I don’t ask

Am I happy about all of this? I don’t know. Does it matter? The thing is, I understand it, and that makes it easier.

3. It’s not personal. When you’re a debut, it feels personal. But it’s not. The publisher is managing their limited assets to try to sell as many books as they can across their entire list. Maybe you are getting more than your share of that. Maybe you’re getting less. Odds are good, though, that you’re getting exactly your share. You just feel like it’s less because you don’t know what your share is, and nobody tells you.

4. Nobody tells you things. True as a debut, true now. The only difference is that I know to expect it. As a debut, when you don’t get the advance reviews that you want–the ones you see other people getting–it’s easy to think that you’re not getting support from your publisher (see #3 above…personal). The chances are very good that nobody is going to explain to you why you’re not getting those reviews. It’s just not a conversation we have. What I know now, having no advance reviews? There’s a pandemic. Advance reviewers are behind, just like everyone else, and they make their own choices. My publisher sent my book in, and those reviewers will choose it or they won’t. It has pretty much zero to do with my publisher and their level of support for my book.

5. I focus more on what I do get than what I don’t. First and foremost, I get great editing. I’d offer that your editor tries just as hard with mid-list books as they do with top of the list. Sure, there’s more pressure on the top of the list. Sure, if there’s a priority of time, it’s going to go to them. But generally speaking, your editor is trying their best on every book. And editing matters. A lot. More than all the other stuff a publisher does for you, in my humble opinion.

And the publisher is doing a lot of stuff you don’t see. People in sales who you don’t even know are out there working to get your book shelf space. They’re pitching buyers. I don’t even know what they’re doing. But they’re doing it.

Beyond those, knowing what to expect from the publisher, I know better what to work on myself. I did a cover reveal, because I wanted to. But I didn’t ask the publisher for it. I set it up myself and then told my editor what I was doing. He was all for it, because I did the work. I can do that now, since I’ve got contacts that I didn’t have when I debuted. Did it sell any books? Almost certainly not. Did I get to show off a cool cover on which I spent way too much time debating fonts? Yes.

6. I know better what I can do myself. Here’s a secret — and it’s so big that it could probably be its own post: Everybody needs content. Offer to provide it and you’re going to find a LOT more doors open than you think. As writers–especially as debuts–we’re used to hearing no, and I think that conditions us not to ask for things. But when you pitch a guest post to a genre-appropriate website? Get used to hearing yes. When you ask to be a guest on a writing podcast? Get used to hearing yes. It’s simple math: you’re providing free content. And there are more podcasts and websites and venues that require content than there are guests. So reach out and make your pitch. Will you get some no’s? Maybe. But seriously, maybe not, unless you’re talking about the very largest websites.

7. Your publisher generally wants you to be happy, within the constraints of their resources. My personal example of this is how much work my editor has put into my covers. He’s gone out of his way to help me get great covers (and once again, I LOVE the cover of THE MISFIT SOLDIER. Did I mention that that book releases on 2/22?) I even got to pick the artist (Jeff Brown). Why do I get great covers? I don’t know…you’d have to ask someone at the publisher. But my take? Because it’s something within my editor’s control–at least to some extent, and he genuinely wants his authors to be happy with their covers.

I’m sure there’s more. Let me know if stuff like this is helpful, and what you’d like to hear about from the perspective of an author on the midlist.

Tags: midlist, Publishing