Do Authors Need the Oldpub Golden Ticket?
One of the most persistent—and pernicious—misconceptions in publishing insists that the path to cultural influence runs through Manhattan. Unless your novel wins the imprimamtur of the Big Five, they say, you may as well lock it in the closet. Your book won’t get media buzz. It won’t be stocked in airport bookstores. And forget any hope of seeing your characters on the big screen.
That line is the refuge of the acquisitions editor and the literary agent. But recent events have made the absurdity of this zombie meme impossible to ignore. Because no, authors don’t need the oldpub golden ticket to make an impact.
Screencap: MeatCanyon
Chuck Dixon, the comics legend who created the first Batman villain this millennium to make the rogues’ gallery A list, just got the first novel in his pulpy action series adapted into a feature film.
A Working Man, originally indie published in 2014, was produced without the help of the New York publishing cartel. No literary agents. No marketing interns. No frustrated litfic-authors-turned-editors deriding Middle America in Brooklyn coffee shops.
Instead, we have a veteran storyteller, an indie press, and an audience hungry for real entertainment.
And audiences responded accordingly, making the underdog A Working Man more profitable than Disney’s much-hyped remake of Snow White:
Screencaps: IMDb
Contrast Dixon’s Hollywood success with epic fantasy king Brandon Sanderson. His list of best sellers is longer than most authors’ entire bibliogrpahies. He was hand-picked to finish Robert Jordan’s mega-series Wheel of TIme. And even though WoT at least got a streaming release, Sanderson still hasn’t gotten a movie version of one of his books. Yes, his works have been optioned, but to date they’re all stuck in development hell.
That isn’t a knock on Sanderson; it’s a damning indictment of a system that can’t manage to capitalize on its most bankable authors.
Which leaves us with a lingering question: Why can’t oldpub deliver on what many think is their one competitive advantage?
Related: The Lie of the Legacy Deal: Why the Big 5 Won’t Make You a Star - or a Living
Because the old institutions are dead. They’re just not broke.
Yet.
The Big Five aren’t kingmakers anymore. They’re content farms for Netflix adaptations of IPs that hit it big in the prior century—adaptations no one watches, by the way.
Oldpub’s business model is built on backlist sales to libraries and college book stores. New authors get table scraps. And unless you already have a built-in audience or check the right demographic boxes, your odds of breaking through the gates are slim to none.
But more importantly, the culture has shifted. The gatekeepers remain, but the walls have fallen. You don’t need permission to publish. You don’t need validation from a dying industry. And you certainly don’t need to give up all rights to your work forever just for a pat on the head from people who hate you.
Chuck Dixon proved it. He built a novel—and now a film—franchise outside the system, and people noticed.
The next generation of cultural influencers won’t come from Clarion workshops or even LtUE panels. They’ll come from indie presses, crowdfunding campaigns, and author-owned platforms. The new drivers of culture will build their own audiences to bypass the rotting husk of a publishing industry that’s still waiting for the 90s to come back.
And they’ll hold onto their IP rights all the way.
So, no. You don’t need a Big Five deal to make a cultural impact.
In fact, these days, oldpuhb is more of a career roadblock than a fast track to success.
Special thanks to the Pulp Archivist for bringing up the key examples I missed!
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Dark fantasy minus the grim plus heroes you can relate to battling vs overwhelming odds
