Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Should E-Books Be Cheap?

Let's look at a recent Time Magazine article about the Amazon Kindle.

Here are the two things I picked out:

First, Amazon is selling ebooks at $9.99 for Kindle, and is taking a loss on this because publishers are charging them standard hardcover rates.

Second, according to small press publisher Dennis Johnson, nobody can make a book that sells for $9.99. You can save on shipping and printing, but that's only a small fraction of what it costs to make a book.

Now, at the risk of annoying print publishers everywhere--and print publishers have been very good to me and I consider myself grateful to have worked with some wonderful publishers--I'm going to politely disagree with the above statements.

The music industry, for all who have been paying attention, has never recovered from the digital mp3 revolution. I doubt the skewed tales of loss from the RIAA are accurate, but I have heard that iTunes is now selling more music than the Walmart, the world's largest music retailer. I also know, anecdotally, that my friends with iPods have managed to fill them with music, and very little of this music was bought. Rather it was borrowed, shared, or stolen.

There are several causes for the profits being down in the music industry. CDs cost too much money, especially when consumers often only wanted one or two songs on a disc. iPods and digital equipment have replaced stereos as the preferred method of music delivery. When fans set up distribution networks, like Napster, to share music, the RIAA tried to shut down these networks rather than learn to use the new technology to their advantage.

Apple finally figured out that 99 cent songs and no DRM is the way to go. But it took them way too long to get to that point, and as a result, we have a healthy, active piracy community. In fact, 13 of the top 100 most visited websites are file sharing sites, and that doesn't include Usenet, Limewire, or eMule.

So let's recap on the things the music industry did wrong.

1. High price.
2. Not adapting to the new method of delivery.
3. Not adequately dealing with piracy.

Hmm. Now if we look at what publishers are doing, we can draw some parallels.

First, in this economy, $27.95 is too much for a hardcover work of fiction. Why do they cost this much?

I've done other posts about the cost of books, and why publishing uses an archaic business model. To recap:

1. Only one out of five books makes a profit (two break even, two lose money.)

2. A fifty percent sell through (books printed vs. books actually sold) is considered by many to be the industry average.

3. The books that don't sell are remaindered (sold at a loss) or destroyed.

4. Retailers take books at a 40% to 60% discount. (we'll include the distributor cut in here as well.)

5. The author earns between 10% and 15% of the cover price.

6. Printing and shipping and corrugation (making boxes and displays) can cost 10% or more of the cover price, depending on the number of returns.

7. Marketing, advertising, and coop all are factored in to P&L.

8. Books have certain set up costs; typesetting, line editing, artwork, etc.

9. That means a publisher earns perhaps 15% to 20% of a book's cover price, and they have to run their entire company on this small amount.

So it seems that maybe it is impossible for publishers to lower their prices.

And yet...

No printing, no shipping, and no distribution (warehousing) costs, along with no returns, actually can save a big chunk of money. The way these costs are broken down make it seem like this is a very small part of a book's price. But, in fact, these are the only set costs, and these are the costs that all other costs are based on.

All the other costs are negotiable.

Publishers make money on paperbacks, which sell for $6.99 to $10.99. So it isn't about price, it's about profit per unit.

Print publishers are basing ebook prices on the profit per unit figures of print books. They have to do this, because if they sell ebooks for less and don't make up for the loss in volume, they will lose money.

But if a major publisher switched completely to ebooks (which may be what the future holds) a new pricing and profit structure will evolve. Costs to the publisher will be much less, and the cost of running a company will be much less.

When the cost of printing, shipping, and warehousing is eliminated, a lot of jobs are eliminated. This saves money.

When the cost of returns no longer figures into a book's profit margin, this saves money.

When books no longer go out of print, this earns money. In fact, every book, rather than one out of five, can be profitable.

When gigantic marketing and advertising budgets aimed at moving print books are slashed, this saves money.

No coop in bookstores, no author book tours. This saves money.

"But what about author advances?" publishers may ask. Tell you what--double my royalty rate for ebooks, I won't take an advance.

What we actually have isn't a situation where ebooks cost as much as print books. It's a situation where publishers must charge the same for ebooks as they do with print books if they want to keep their infrastructures intact.

But the fact is, consumers don't care about publishers, or their infrastructures. They care about books. And they want to pay less for ebooks.

They also want to be able to get ebooks without copy protection, just like they want their songs without copy protection. ITunes dropped DRM because their customers hated it. Will publishing adopt a similar stance?

I just got this newsletter from a large publisher:

We have engaged Attributor, a leading anti-piracy protection service, to monitor the web for instances of unlawful use of its authors’ books and content.

How much do you think that is going to add to the cost of ebooks? And how well do you think it will work, considering DRM and Macrovision and RIAA lawsuits and every other form of anti-piracy protection has failed miserably? And of course, Attributor will be used in conjunction with DRM.

I'd love to see Attributor take on Usenet, which has billions of illegal downloads per day and no way to track them. Or Rapidshare, which is based on password-protected private uploads and downloads using encrypted file lockers. Or any torrent tracker, for that matter. Pirate Bay and Mininova have been sued a gazillion times to no effect. And the private trackers are invite-only---good luck Attributor in getting an invitation.

Do you really want to know how to get rid of piracy? Here's how:

The rules of supply and demand don't work in a digital world, because the supply is unlimited. You don't fight piracy with weapons. You fight piracy with cost and convenience.

Let me state that again, because no one seems to get it.

The rules of supply and demand don't work in a digital world, because the supply is unlimited. You don't fight piracy with weapons. You fight piracy with cost and convenience.

If there were a central hub, where you could easily search for ebooks and get them at a reasonable price, there would be no need to pirate books.

Amazon is not that central hub. The Kindle is too expensive, their ebooks are too expensive, and the Kindle uses DRM and a proprietary format that is difficult to convert. Proprietary exclusive formats don't work. That's why Betamax and DAT failed.

Publishers, if they truly were looking toward the future, would make themselves into these hubs, eliminating the need for Amazon. But they're still focused on dead trees.

Here are some possible future scenarios:

--Publishers learn from the mistakes made by the music industry regarding digital content, and lower the prices for digital books. This could result in more inexpensive digital books than expensive print books being sold, leading to a decline in print sales, and an overall drop in the gross profit of the industry, even if there are a greater number of books sold. But they would survive, and after restructuring, possibly thrive.

--Publishers keep the price of digital books high, in which case more and more people boycott expensive books and support newer and cheaper authors. Readers also begin to illegally download books in larger numbers, as they do with music. Publishing dies.

The goal is to figure out what readers are willing to pay for the ease of downloading a book at a central distribution hub. Will they pay $5.99? Will a percentage of them buy it from another site for $2.99 and then convert it to their desired format themselves? Or will some of them just pirate it?

--Publishers realize their business model is based on printing and distribution, and they radically alter their companies in order to succeed in a digital world. That means becoming their own stores/distributors like Amazon, offering exclusive content.

Wal-mart has proven that “one stop shopping” is what America wants. Why go to a mall, with 50 stores, when one store carries everything from milk to tires to pants to books?

And yet, Green Day didn’t release their latest CD with Wal-mart, and it was still a smash hit. People will go elsewhere for exclusive content if they want it bad enough.

If I were a publisher, I’d consider what books I have under contract, and figure out how to sell them without splitting the money with a distributor/retailer such as Amazon.

--Authors realize that they don’t need publishers. Why should they split revenue with a publisher when they can upload it to the world themselves?

Currently, I'm making $110 a day on books NY publishing didn't want. That's not a lot of money, yet. But the average advance for a novel is still $5000. Between April 8 and June 30, I'll have earned $5000. And my numbers are going up.

--Amazon realizes it doesn’t need publishers, and deals directly with authors. They've already begun publishing print titles, and they've allowed for authors to publish print and ebook titles on their own. Eventually, Amazon is going to start getting some big download numbers for their ebooks, and they'll approach a big author with an exclusive royalty deal.

--A third party ereader is created by a company to compete with the Kindle. It will be inexpensive, able to read a variety of ebook formats, and have upgradable software and memory. This will lead to ereaders becoming as commonplace as iPods, and be the beginning of the end of print.

--Ebooks will become multi-media experiences like DVDs. Books will have author annotations and interviews, be bundled with audio versions, and contain extras such as short stories, early drafts, dictionaries and glossaries, and be directly linkable to forum discussions and book groups. Who would still want paper?

There's a lot to consider when it comes to e-book and the future of publishing. And I may be dead wrong on a lot of these predictions. Hell, I may not know what I'm talking about. Even with the economy, and bookstores losing money, and revenue down, publishers are still alive and kicking, just like they have been for hundreds of years.

But I do think e-books are the future. And I don't think print publishers know how to handle that.

There was a recent announcement that Simon & Schuster was joining forces with Scribd, an ebook download hub, and offering their catalog of ebooks for 20% off print cover price.

I wish S&S much success, but I don't predict it. 20% off the print price is a insignificant discount. Maybe if they slashed prices to a few dollars each title it would catch on, but I don't believe Scribd is a big enough hub yet, and it doesn't get nearly the traffic Amazon does.

But because I'm a cutting edge early adopter who can predict trends (ask Barry Eisler), I offered my ebooks on Scribd 15 days ago, at the same price they are available for on Kindle, less than $2 each.

In 15 days, I've sold zero books. Compare this to over a hundred books a day I sell on Amazon.

Scribd is not the future of epublishing.

If I were Simon & Schuster, or any big publisher, I would digitize my entire backlist and sell it on my publisher website for $2.99 a book, splitting royalties 50/50 with the author, and advertising the hell out of it in print, radio, and TV. Scribd, Amazon, and other e-tailers could have the titles for slightly more, factoring in their mark-up.

I would also invest heavily in new ebook reader technology, perhaps partnering with Apple or Google or Sony, to make a cheap, better competitor to the Kindle.

But I don't predict either happening anytime soon. Publishers, like oil tankers, take a long time to change direction. That doesn't mean publishers aren't smart--they're some of the smartest folks I know. But being smart, and being willing to scrap a business model you've used for fifty years, are two different things.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds. But as an author, I'm emboldened that with enough titles under my belt, in the future I might actually be able earn a living uploading my own books digitally, rather than depending on someone else to sell my books for me.

And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who believes this.

239 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 239 of 239
David J. Montgomery said...

And Kilborn, too. I mean, come one. KILBORN! He's not even a real person!

Surely people aren't going to let some sick, twisted corner of Konrath's mind become a more successful writer than they are.

Live the dream. Keep hope alive!

Anonymous said...

Zoe, Good for you. The last thing there needs to be is another allegorical vampire tale of teenaged angst!

Anon 4.0 :)

JA Konrath said...

David, there are more NFL players than fiction writers who support themselves at their job.

I liken landing a big publishing deal to getting hit by lightning, which is 1 in 400,000.

Agents decide to rep less than 1% of what they're submitted. Then they sell less than 20% of what they rep, and most of that is sales from their already established clients, not new ones. And I've heard editors reject 90% of what agents give them, and of the 10% they accept, they only make offers on 2 out of ten because most others get shot down at the acquisitions meeting.

The odds of getting a big deal are insane.

JA Konrath said...

You haven't shown one reason why the Kindle and ebooks will make self-publishing a better option for writers than before.

Self-pubbed books aren't on an even playing field as traditionally pubbed books, Peter. That's why they never made an impact.

1. Self-pubbed are more expensive.
2. Self-pubbed aren't on bookstore shevles.
3. Self-pubbed, except in rare cases, look and feel inferior to trad pubbed books.

With Kindle, self-pubbed can be cheaper (or at least price comparable), they are sold at the same store as trad pubbed, and with good cover art, formatting, and product description, they can be indistinguishable from trad pubbed.

The transition in the recording industry from CDs to MP3s didn't destroy the major record labels, either.

No, but it became even harder for new bands to find a major label, and the RIAA continues to whine about how much money it is losing to piracy. I'm guessing the numbers are inflated, but there iTunes and downloads still haven't reached the sales of the CD industry at its peak, last I heard.

If ebooks begin to supplant paper books, traditional publishers will follow suit.

So far, they can't. It's simple numbers.

Readers want ebook prices to be low. Publishers are refusing to do that, because they can't make enough money off a low price. Amazon's $9.99 ebooks prices are at a loss for Amazon, because publishers won't lower their hardcover prices.

If ebooks become more popular than print, why should writers split their income with publishers?

David J. Montgomery said...

"David, there are more NFL players than fiction writers who support themselves at their job."

Less than 1600? Maybe. Anyway, I never said a big contract or a big book deal. Obviously that's the dream, but most writers aren't going to get that. I don't think that's a realistic benchmark.

But even if we go with your lightning number -- 1 in 400,000 -- that's 488 times more likely than winning Powerball. Not really a comparison.

JA Konrath said...

I've compared publishing to a lottery before, but the comparison is because both involve long odds, luck, and hoping for something to happen. I don't think it's a bad comparison.

If not Powerball, than the local Pick Six.

Anonymous said...

I've read all this and learned one thing: Some people really love the sound of their own voice.

JA Konrath said...

I've read all this and learned one thing: Some people really love the sound of their own voice.

Is that all you've learned? Didn't you learn about how I consider anonymous pot shots to be cowardly?

Joe Menta said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe Menta said...

And, hey, all you bloggers out there... no matter how useful and entertaining your blog is, or how many enthusiastic comments and responses you get, you really should just pack it in. After all, if what you're doing was REAL writing, some newpaper editor would have long ago picked up your efforts as a bi-weekly column. After all, if your stuff wasn't rubber-stamped at a cluttered editorial desk or slick corporate conference table, you're just playing in the sandbox.

You can probably see where my loyalties lie in this thread.

Zoe Winters said...

Peter,

I was on the internet in 1997.
I'm not arguing the it wasn't “big” then. I'm saying it's MUCH bigger now.

It's irrelevant to my personal success if everyone else can do what I'm trying to do. I don't need 50,000 people to be able to do the exact same thing. I only need to have the success pattern modeled for me a few times to show it's possible. I have, and so that's all I care about.

I also think you are misunderstanding me. I'm not involved in a get rich quick plan. It's more like a “Get a moderate teacher's level income very slowly” plan. Not all that sexy when framed that way, but yeah.

I also resent the “starry-eyed writers” because it makes me and others like me look naïve. I consider myself far from naïve when it comes to this topic. I spent a lot of time weighing pros and cons, crunching numbers, looking into exactly how hard this is.

You saying the time, effort, and money required to self pub and do it well is greater than that required to seek a literary agent... well that may be so, but it also takes more time, effort and money to start your own cosmetics company than to sell Mary Kay or Avon. But what does that have to do with anything?

Self-pubbing is right for some people, it's wrong for more people. And please don't argue hypothetical money and success with me. The odds are astronomical to GET a NY contract, let alone get enough contracts strung together to create a career. (plus I've said about 30 times I'm not “interested in a NY contract at this time” either you didn't read that and I don't blame you the thread is long, or you don't believe me. Either way, it is what it is.)

It's both unfair and illogical to argue with me from the perspective of a hypothetical NY contract. The small amount of money I've made so far self-pubbing, is better than the large amount of NY money that is only hypothetical. You have to GET a NY contract before you can make the money. Even then, you probably won't get a 2nd contract, and the money isn't that good for a lot of NY pubbed authors.

Go to http://www.publishren.com if you're interested in seeing this better spelled out. I have a post about it today.

Average annual income for published authors is $10,000 a year, and in the same time it would take me (if I was lucky and interested) to GET to NY, I could be making that much on my own. Is it unlikely for me to wildly succeed as a self-pubbed author? Sure, but it's unlikely in NY too. And if you lose your contract, you're screwed.

Plus in 5 years I'll have 5 books out... backlist.

And a $5,000 advance, are you kidding me? I will have to sell 1100 print copies to make that. (not counting any e-sales which might subtract from that number) I totally believe I can do that. And my goals are higher than that.

And please don't insult me with the struggle to sell 100 copies to friends and family, I've already sold 1500 copies on Amazon Kindle, as well as had thousands of other downloads elsewhere. And I'm barely started.

100 copies. Pffft.

And no, it does not actually make sense to buy the cheapest ticket with the biggest possible prize. What I'm doing is not a lottery. It's a long shot to make it “big” but it isn't a long shot for me to start earning the average that a published author makes. Real money in my hands, is better than hypothetical money.

The average small press book sells 500-3000 copies (that's average, i.e. mediocre baseline, not the best, not the worst.)

The average self pub book sells under 150 copies. Gee, wonder why? Because most of it as others have outlined are crap, put up on lulu.com by people with little writing or marketing talent. It shouldn't be a shock that bad poorly marketing products don't sell.

Zoe Winters said...

David: really, no one could misunderstand the odds of NY publishing enough to think it's like a lottery?

From a NY pubbed author:

http://www.jackiebarbosa.com/2009/06/20/hard-knock-life/

I've heard these statistics trotted out elsewhere.

Further... Nathan Bransford, a well-known literary agent has himself compared getting and keeping a NY contract to a literary lottery. And he's IN the business acting as a popular agent.

If NY pubbed authors and literary agents are wrong, then how can anyone else know?

Zoe Winters said...

Anon, So people aren't allowed to have an in depth discussion in public that requires more than pithy little quips to get their views across?

If we all post as anon, will you consider us less full of ourselves?

I wish I *could* make what I say shorter, I know it's LONG and people get tired of seeing my name, but in order to carry on a discussion, I need the space to address people's points. Otherwise, a discussion is meaningless.

Robert Burton Robinson said...

Zoe,

I appreciate what you're saying and agree with pretty much all of it (unless I missed something in these 200+ posts).

I wrote three novels: BICYCLE SHOP MURDER, HIDEAWAY HOSPITAL MURDERS and ILLUSION OF LUCK, two novellas: FLY THE RAIN and SWEET GINGER POISON, and fourteen short stories and posted them on my site for free. That got me hundreds (if not thousands) of fans and a lot a great comments from around the world.

What it didn't get me was any significant income.

I self-published three of the books via LSI and have sold a few hundred copies. But obviously that's not enough to make it worth the effort.

A couple of years ago I sent queries to two agents. Then I realized that no agent was going to be interested in my novels because they're too short (56,000-63,000 words) and they don't have a killer hook that nobody in the world has ever thought of before, etc.

Besides, even if you do everything the way they want it, your chances of getting published are ridiculously close to zero.

Then a few days ago I read Joe Konrath's post about his success with his books on the Kindle store, and decided to give it a try.

After just a few days I've already sold nearly 100 books and I'm just getting started. (Thanks, Joe!)

The nice thing about Kindle eBooks is that you can price your books low enough to draw interest. Once people read your book, if they like it they might post a good review, which will help future sales.

On the negative side, if readers post enough bad reviews, you're book is dead. But that's how it should be, right?

I think this is gonna be great for authors.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4.0

I don't know anyone who can live off a $5,000 advance.

Bad economy means even less of a chance to get that 5k. I hear advances are now 2,500!

Anon 4.0

Zoe Winters said...

Hey Robert,

Be sure to get your print book linked to your kindle book in Amazon.com (I don't know yet if this happens automatically or if you have to do something to make it happen.)

One good thing is, all your reviews for either version will show up on each version. Plus, if you start moving up the charts in the kindle store or in other categories outside the kindle store, it will say "other versions available" beside the book so if someone who doesn't have a Kindle stumbles upon it, and they want a print copy, it's right there, with a click.

Jude Hardin said...

Agents decide to rep less than 1% of what they're submitted. Then they sell less than 20% of what they rep, and most of that is sales from their already established clients, not new ones. And I've heard editors reject 90% of what agents give them, and of the 10% they accept, they only make offers on 2 out of ten because most others get shot down at the acquisitions meeting.

There you have the vetting process in a nutshell. To break it down even further: only a minute fraction of the ones who finally make it to print ever achieve any measurable level of success. That is in terms of $. So, to me, anyone who approaches this game with notions of actually making a living at it is utterly insane. It's not about the money. It can never be about the money.

It's about the respect, the glory, the booze, the chicks. It's about walking down the street knowing you were the one in 400,000 who made it through. Mostly though it's about the chicks.

Zoe Winters said...

LMAO Jude @ "It's about the chicks" hahahahahaha. That's great!

Stacey Cochran said...

I just completed an interview with Robert Burton Robinson and discovered that this blog and yours truly served as the inspiration for his psychopathic villain in ILLUSIONS OF LUCK.

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

And I will now reveal for the very first time the identity of that real-life novelist. It’s YOU, Stacey. The inspiration for my evil, twisted, but highly intelligent villain was Stacey Cochran. Are you surprised, Stacey?

When I first began to post “Bicycle Shop Murder” on my website, I discovered J.A. Konrath’s blog, “A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.” That’s where I learned of you, Stacey, a regular commenter on J.A.’s blog. There you talked about writing ten novels and about your thousands of rejection letters from agents and publishers. (J.A. Konrath had a similar story, but he had finally secured a publishing contract.)

But Stacey endured the rejections. He would never give up. He would just keep writing and encouraging other writers to fight the good fight. And now it is paying off. Stacey is having great success with his Kindle versions of The Colorado Sequence and Claws.

So, I started thinking: What if a guy had everything in the world he could possibly want but a book deal? And what if after being rejected so many times, he decided to take a new approach and go directly to the public by posting his book online? (Much the way I did.) And what if he believed he had a supernatural kind of luck? And what if he decided to push that luck to the limit, doing whatever it took to get what he wanted, daring the god of luck to fail him? And what if he was a psychopath?

The result of all those “what ifs” is Lucky Larry. Thanks, Stacey, for giving me the seed of inspiration for this character. You might say that Lucky Larry is Stacey Cochran gone over to the dark side. (evil laugh)


I am both disturbed by this and deeply flattered...

You've got to read the excerpt of of his novel on Amazon describing Lucky Larry. That's me!!!

Zoe Winters said...

OMG that is freaking awesome! Is that really what the book is about? If so, I'm so reading it.

Stacey Cochran said...

@Zoe,

I thought so, too!

BTW, drop me a message through staceycochran.com and I'll email you the phone # for Friday's interview. I think Sam Landstrom will be joining us.

Zoe Winters said...

Hey Stacey, I just checked Landstrom out, Metagame looks REALLY good. I'd love to read it, but I don't have a Kindle. :( Wish he had a print version too.

Stacey Cochran said...

So, I started to upload my novel CLAWS to the scribd.com store late last night.

Joe, have you talked about scribd.com elsewhere on this blog?

And does this mean we could call ourselves "Simon & Schuster" authors if we publish and sell via Scribd?

Anonymous said...

"Stacey Cochran said...
I just completed an interview with Robert Burton Robinson and discovered that this blog and yours truly served as the inspiration for his psychopathic villain in ILLUSIONS OF LUCK.

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

And I will now reveal for the very first time the identity of that real-life novelist. It’s YOU, Stacey. The inspiration for my evil, twisted, but highly intelligent villain was Stacey Cochran. Are you surprised, Stacey?

When I first began to post “Bicycle Shop Murder” on my website, I discovered J.A. Konrath’s blog, “A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.” That’s where I learned of you, Stacey, a regular commenter on J.A.’s blog. There you talked about writing ten novels and about your thousands of rejection letters from agents and publishers. (J.A. Konrath had a similar story, but he had finally secured a publishing contract.)

But Stacey endured the rejections. He would never give up. He would just keep writing and encouraging other writers to fight the good fight. And now it is paying off. Stacey is having great success with his Kindle versions of The Colorado Sequence and Claws.

So, I started thinking: What if a guy had everything in the world he could possibly want but a book deal? And what if after being rejected so many times, he decided to take a new approach and go directly to the public by posting his book online? (Much the way I did.) And what if he believed he had a supernatural kind of luck? And what if he decided to push that luck to the limit, doing whatever it took to get what he wanted, daring the god of luck to fail him? And what if he was a psychopath?

The result of all those “what ifs” is Lucky Larry. Thanks, Stacey, for giving me the seed of inspiration for this character. You might say that Lucky Larry is Stacey Cochran gone over to the dark side. (evil laugh)

I am both disturbed by this and deeply flattered...

You've got to read the excerpt of of his novel on Amazon describing Lucky Larry. That's me!!!"

Totally fascinating, incredible stuff! I thought I'd post it again, just in case anyone missed it!!!!!!

Please keep us informed of your every move!!!!!

Simon Haynes said...

"If I were Simon & Schuster, or any big publisher, I would digitize my entire backlist and sell it on my publisher website for $2.99 a book, splitting royalties 50/50 with the author,"

This is exactly what my publisher is doing: http://www.fremantlepress.com.au/books/1092

(That's AUD$ on the site, not USD)

JA Konrath said...

This is exactly what my publisher is doing: http://www.fremantlepress.com.au/books/1092

It's a burden, being right all the time. But I'm man enough to handle it. :)

PBI said...

Excellent post!

Amie Stuart said...

>>Take a bestselling author that makes 3 million on a two book deal.

About 100k copies?? And isn't there usually a royalty jump in HC??

Anonymous said...

After all, if what you're doing was REAL writing, some newpaper editor would have long ago picked up your efforts as a bi-weekly column.

Uh Mr. Menta....have you taken a look at the state of newspaper publishing???

Can you say "Video killed the radio star," boys and girls?

I knew you could

Anon 6??

Ron at CM said...

The traditional industry won't collapse but it will certainly face changes. Divisional VPs might live in Queens instead of the Hamptons, like with the music industry's A&R guys living in Tarzana instead of Malibu.

As with film aficionados who prefer John Cassavetes to Will Farrell, there will always be those audiences who don't want their books to have a variation of exactly the same scene when they get to page 150.

Be it electronic or paper small presses and indie publishers will be around. Who knows, we may all end up with better product when more people are exposed to what they might really like instead of what Madison Avenue tells them they're supposed to like. Getting Led Zep to license their music for Cadillac commercials certainly didn't make it a better car...

After all, trad pub DID publish Paris Hilton (can you imagine this as the end of your gene pool?) and almost published OJ Simpson.

Stacey Cochran said...

It's a burden, being right all the time.

I know exactly what you mean.

And for Anon, since s/he's such an excited fan!!!

I did three interviews today.

Barbara Martin said...

Brilliant post!

JA Konrath said...

There was so much about self-pubbing in this thread that I decided to blog about my opinions and advice.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2009/06/should-you-self-publish.html

Victory Crayne said...

It would be interesting to hear from some agents and editors on the subject.

I'm a professional independent editor and can attest to the value of a writer getting his book professionally edited before he tries to sell it.

Your book is your "product." Why try to sell a product that is tarnished or has flaws you cannot see yourself?

I've written an article "How to Critique Fiction" that is widely used in critique groups. Writers go to crit grouops to get feedback on the quality of their writing.

But fellow writers are often weak mentors. I've been doing critiques and mentoring of writers for many years. If you want to get good at something, you must work at it for a long time. I've put my time in and can almost always spot places in a manuscript where it could be strengthened and improve its sales potential to a publisher.

BEFORE you try to sell your "product," have an expert like me go over it to help you improve its quality.

If more self-pubbers did that, a lot of the junk out there would be rewritten and become much better.

Victory Crayne
www.crayne.com
Independent Editor, Writing Coach/Mentor, Ghostwriter, Writer, Public Speaker

"You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke." - Arthur Polotnik

Joe Menta said...

Obviously, THAT's my point, Anonymous. The newspaper industry is flying apart like a detonated carpet bomb... and print books aren't faring much better. As obvious as it that a successful blogger not worry about the need to be "rubber stamped" by the newspaper industry to validate the worth of his or her writing, it should be just as obvious that one shouldn't need the validation of traditional print publishing to validate the value of one's book. For the first time in history, it's viable and easy to just put your work out there yourself and see how it does!

Al Kalar said...

Good analysis. The eBook industry is in its infancy, but fast approaching the "tipping point" (where sales justify better, cheaper equipment and most formats get shaken out). When it reaches the tipping point (10% market penetration?), it should take off like VCR's did in the 70's and more recently DVD's.

When that happens, more authors will publish FIRST electronically and then maybe in paper.

Titles will no longer go out of print. Royalties will be better than paper. And the selling price will be lower.

AKW Books (akwbooks.com) is already positioning to ride that wave. We keep our quality high (the writing must be top-notch and no porn / erotica), and already pay a 50% royalty. Our contract is the best in the industry from a writer's point of view.

I expect other e-publishers will follow suit.

Like you, we're still waiting for that "magic" distributor (not Scribd -- yet). In the meantime, we sell what we publish and try to stay away from Amazon and their profit grabbing ways.

Peter Trapasso said...

Whew. I finally made it all the way to the end of the comments.

Great work all.

JA - Thank you for providing this inspirational blog for us to learn from.

Zoe - I am enjoying "Kept" on my iPhone using the Kindle Reader app.

Speaking of self-publishing, there is a 1-day conference coming up on Saturday 7/18 in San Francisco.

INSTOCK
The Conference for Self Publishers

http://www.instockconference.com

I will be there and if you are in the area should check it out.

cheers,

PT

Anonymous said...

I would like to argue about when the rot started in the Music Industry.

It was not Mp3, but CD that started the damage. A CD cost twice what it should have, when they come out. This is a matter of public, and legal record.

Everyone now knows that every time they hand over their cash for a disc, they are getting screwed. The extras on a DVD are mostly stuff they have made to promote the film anyway.

For almost the first time in history, books can be pirated, and it looks like the publishers are going to handle it badly like the rest of the Media industry.

Think about what you are paying for a Kindle file. The Author has already done all the work, and they want you to part with the same amount as for a book.

What they should do is publish all the 'Maybes' as ebooks, and as part of the contract if you sell a certain amount you get a print run. Then sell them cheap, so people will try new authors. Have a meal or buy an untried author's book, or skip a coffee for an ebook?

Derek Murphy said...

Fantastic, smart post. Thanks a bunch.

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