Catherine Walsh says it’s strange that this is her sixth published novel and she feels 'like I’m starting all over again.'Bronagh McDermott/Supplied
This spring, Catherine Walsh is publishing her debut novel, in a sense. It’s the first time you’ll be able to walk into a major bookstore and buy a paper copy of her book How to Write a Love Story, but it’s far from the first rom-com the Irish author has published.
In fact, she’s sold more than 330,000 copies of her books. But unless you’re tapped into the world of Kindle Unlimited – where she boasts more than 125 million pages read and her previous book, Snowed In, reached No. 3 on the Kindle Top Ten – there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of her, or the thousands of authors thriving in digital-first publishing.
In many ways, this world of e-books and audiobooks can feel like a parallel universe to traditional publishing. It’s an entire ecosystem with its own stars and success stories until someone such as Frieda McFadden breaks through. Initially self-published, she was a prolific digital-first author until BookTok turned The Housemaid – released through the same U.K. imprint Walsh started on, Hachette-owned Bookouture – into a mainstream phenomenon.
Walsh believes she wouldn’t have been published in a world without e-books, citing general industry competition and the lack of shelf space traditionally given to romance specifically.
She only got onto Kindle Unlimited – which gives readers unfettered access to millions of titles for about $12 a month – a few books into her career.
“It was a complete game changer. We reached tens of millions of readers instantly,” she says, adding that she now reads almost exclusively on the platform.
Her decision to move into traditional publishing came when she felt she hit a wall in the digital world. How to Write a Love Story is one of a two-book deal with Penguin Random House.
The Globe spoke with Walsh about why she’s still a believer in the digital world, what the transition into traditional publishing has been like and her gift for dialogue.
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How have you found the transition into a more traditional publishing world?
Digital publishing is very fast. I was writing and publishing two books a year, which did not come easily. I’m a lot more nervous knowing how much I depend on retail space. Also, to be honest, finances. With digital publishing, I didn’t get paid until someone bought a copy of the book. With traditional publishing, you get paid upfront. Knowing that the crazy amount of books I have to sell and I cannot do anything about is a little bit terrifying. It’s strange because this my sixth published novel and I feel like I’m starting all over again.
How does the money side of Kindle Unlimited work?
It’s different for self-published authors, but at my old publisher I got paid quarterly with my royalties. With Kindle Unlimited, they have different deals with different publishers, but essentially you get paid 0.0007 cents per page read. That sounds very tiny, and you might think I’m getting 45 cents per book, but that adds up very quickly. I had one book do really well on Kindle Unlimited, and that really did set me up for a few years. If the book does well, an author will probably be financially better off than if they did it with a traditional publisher because the royalty rate is much higher. But equally, if the book doesn’t do well then you risk not getting paid at all.
It also seems that if you wrote a book on Kindle Unlimited and it didn’t hit, you can take another swing at it. Whereas in traditional publishing if your book does badly and you don’t have a contract, that’s it for you.
If the book does badly and you don’t have a contract, you change your name and try again. It’s what we do in traditional publishing too. There are a lot of name changes out there.
Equally, I have had books that haven’t done amazingly on Kindle Unlimited, but they’ve picked up later because readers have discovered them. It’s not taken off the shelf for a new thing, it’s always there.
Is there still an idea that you’re not a “proper” author until you’ve been traditionally published?
One-hundred per cent. I remember I was sitting with a friend and he asked me where he could buy my books. I said, “It’s Amazon only.” And he said something like, “Well, that’s a start.” And I snapped back with some monetary figures. I was furious. There’s a huge stigma. Even when I got this publishing deal, everyone was very happy – and this could just me being defensive – but I felt like, “Well, I was doing really well before!” I think a lot of authors look down on it, not realizing the career and the income you can have. The romance genre would not be where it is now without digital publishing, for sure. Traditional publishing is hopping on the back of that.
It can feel like there’s a contempt for the readers of content that’s mainly flourishing in digital.
Even the readers have contempt for themselves. An example I always use is that I’m very fortunate to receive lots of wonderful reviews from readers, but I would say 50 per cent of those reviews include qualifiers. “Oh it’s just a romance book” or “I just wanted to read something a bit silly.” And I’m like, I poured my heart and soul into that and I worked very hard!
Does being digital-first change the actual book you create?
I don’t know if Sally Rooney would be great on Kindle Unlimited. It’s where your audience is. You want fast and pacy. That’s why thrillers work so well, why romance works so well. I’ve noticed a lot of publishers in the digital space are going shorter. With Spotify and Audible doing these audio-first books, I do know some authors are changing their writing if they know they’re going to be audiobook first.
I noticed that you write in short paragraphs with a lot of dialogue. I wondered if that had anything to do with writing digital-first.
That’s just my writing style. I don’t see anything in my mind when it comes to writing. My editors are always like, “Describe the character,” and I’m like, “I don’t know what they look like!” But I can hear them, so all of my books are very dialogue-worthy. It’s what I love writing. As a reader, I hate a wall of text. I’m lazy.
I understand that romance and thrillers readers are volume readers. Some people you talk to get through multiple books a week.
Multiple books a day! I know people.
Do you think that’s why Kindle Unlimited has been so successful for you and other authors?
As I’ve gotten older, my reading tastes have shrunk. I comfort read a lot now. If I find an author that I like and they’ve written 15 books, I’m so happy.
This interview has been edited and condensed.