Mr. Nobody, thanks for the reply. It is a very interesting point. However, part of its conclusion doesn't make sense to me.
I know that discussing the business side of publishing as it specifically relates to King is not popular in the forum (although he has discussed some aspects of his business in the past), but I must point a couple things out (I'll have to be forgiven as I am a pundit on the media industry).
It seems to me that an agent would try to get a maximum amount of cash for every story, or that there would have to be some negotiated non-monetary benefit for the agent's client. I say this because agents are agents -- they have one job, and they are aggressive about it. King being at the top of his field must have very skilled, very aggressive agents (I'm sure he, being human like anyone else, can feel the pressure to take a lot of money for his product, even if he doesn't want to). $1,000 is, literally, nothing to him. And if it is nothing to him, it is nothing to the agent. I'm not saying that what you are saying isn't accurate...it probably is the right analysis. I'm only saying it makes no sense to me. An agent might instead offer (or push for) a different model -- sell on Amazon, something like that. It's almost as if King uses his stories in their first publication as a vehicle of charity (there would be nothing wrong with that, by the way; perhaps that is what he is doing -- supporting markets such as this).
As for the bigger mags, I don't know -- why wouldn't some major publications, ones that are being disrupted by the digital age, want to publish a King story? I would think there would be some ROI on that. I could see, perhaps, King selling a story to The New York Times for $25,000 as an experiment. Just make it print only, and have a copyright-claim strategy in place for when the story is pirated online. That might help the Times, and $25,000 would be more like it in terms of the value King brings to the table.
I could also see Barnes and Noble offering King a lot of money to print a little pamphlet containing a 5,000-word commercial tale. Sell it at the stores (which are having a hard time right now). Or, with every $50 purchase, people get a code to download the tale from his website.
Again, I'm sure you're correct, but this is why such a move doesn't make sense to me. King I guess doesn't think about money that much (although, let's be honest, he loves money as much as we all do), so maybe he just wants to write stories and get them out there for people to read. However, he could release anything he wants, at any time, for free, to this website, and then monetize the content later on with a properly-published anthology that contains a couple stories not previously placed in other markets as an added-value premium. Because he doesn't do that, and he has agents, is why I wonder what the strategy is behind the scenes.
Not opening up a huge debate on the topic, just felt like writing this afternoon (and I hope I have explained myself properly). One small postscript, though: I do slightly disagree with the notion that most markets, especially smaller ones, wouldn't publish something by King based on his brand equity alone (hope that's okay to say).
Thanks again for the thoughtful reply...
You're right in what you say about agents being agents, of course; their whole reason for being is to place the work as well as they're able and (ideally) get top dollar into the bargain. It doesn't always work out that way - sometimes the better deal
isn't the one carrying the biggest fee - but, yeah, you can call it the rule of thumb.
Now you'll understand that I don't know the ins and outs of any deal SK (or another top author) might make or have made on their behalf. There's an even chance that people at my end of things don't know the half of what the Big Names (and sellers) can and/or do get, so i
t could well be that there is a premium on top of the regular fee from the top-end outlets. I'd be a little surprised, though, and the reason is this: we're all SK fans...but how many of us would or do rush off to buy a magazine or e-zine just because one of his stories appears? I know I don't. Some of that is availability/access, but mostly it comes down to cost. If I took a peek and saw there were one or two stories there by other authors I like, I might be tempted - if I could afford it. Otherwise...well, I know that, at some point, there'll probably be a new collection published. Again, I don't know but I imagine a fair number of others around here are like me (just as there will be some who simply have to read it there and then). Granted we're a small group compared to his wider readership, but we are at least a handy test sample (and are probably more likely to seek out anything new).
What that means for the outlet is that sales barely ripple. It must also be borne in mind that some people don't like SK. Indeed, some people
really don't like his work and may avoid an issue with him in it (strange I know, but then people are). It's possible that any possible bump is cancelled out by lost sales from those who, even at a distance, see 'STEPHEN KING' on the cover and think "I'll pass this time".
So, perhaps when it comes to the short stories, SK just hands them off to the agent not in the expectation of them getting an increased fee, but just to get them into print and take the hassle out of getting it to land somewhere (which, take it from me (though if memory serves, you don't have to), is a time-consuming and fairly soul-destroying process).
Even if the agent did what they would do with a book publisher come deal-time, the most an outlet that usually has a $1k ceiling could or would do is maybe go to $1,500 (I doubt they'd go for a £1k plus 10% of profit on sales deal or something like it, because then other authors or agents could get wind of it and demand the same). If $1k is nothing to SK then 20% of £1k isn't likely to ruffle his agent's tail feathers either, and 20% of £1.5k? Well, it's $300 instead of $200. Big deal.
No, I think in the case of short fiction they both see it's not where the money is, at least not now, so the agent would act as more of a handler than in the more traditional cheerleader/shark role (and here I'll say that a good agent is worth their weight in gold, despite the bad press they generally get (and especially these days)).
As for the smaller markets - yep, anything's OK to say if done in the right way, so no worries there. And I agree that a small market would absolutely jump at the chance to publish an SK original. It'd be like Christmas to them.
I don't think they would (or would be able to) offer more favourable terms, though. But there I am only speaking about what I'd have done, back when I put an issue of a magazine out (and prepared another) as a favour to the actual editor/founder. What my eye would have been on is how the greater exposure would work for the mag going forward and, assuming there was one, how the little windfall could be spent (split between putting something in the rainy day fund, maybe offering increased payments to authors (hopefully attracting other names, which would help improve overall quality or length, all of which would help maintain or hopefully boost sales) and so on).
(Good idea re: B&N, too. Go pitch it to them!
)
Unfortunately, especially with short stories, Steve sends them directly to his agent to shop and they both forget to tell me when a deal has been made. I'll be adding it to the Library and putting out a news story today.
