Comments on: Why In Fact Publishing Will Not Go Away Anytime Soon: A Deeply Slanted Play in Three Acts

By: Jen S

Jen S — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:14:37 +0000

“KRISTINE clocks STRAÜMANN in the head, stunning him, then rips off his testicles, stuffs them into his mouth and sets him on fire while he chokes on them. STRAÜMANN dies. ”

Remind me to never anger your wife! :)

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:41:50 +0000

Some lawyers will take a case and agree to only get paid a percentage of whatever they win. If they don’t win, they don’t get paid. And they cater to clients who can’t afford a flat $300 an hour rate and may not win the case.

Publishing is a lot like that.

It’s a kind of business transaction geared towards people with specialized skills. And it’s structured so that the person with specialized skills is incentivized to make their client succeed. Contrast that to the real-world experiences that commonly happens around print on demand or even vanity press style transactions: they take your money, and have no interest in whether you actually sell a book or not.

Saying old-school publishing is going to disappear because of print-on-demand and electronic publishing/ebooks and (insert new technology here) is like saying no one needs to hire a lawyer ever again because all the law books are available online.

It ignores that specialized skill and experience can’t always be replaced by google. And it ignores that the old-school business transaction for publishing is actually structured to give the publisher incentive to make the author succeed.

By: James Pittman

James Pittman — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:55:47 +0000

You, sir, have made your wife out to be a total badass!! Could you see that she tries out for the inevitable Predators sequal, Predatorseses VII!

By: sashadevlin

sashadevlin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:33:24 +0000

This was inspired! You’re wife is my new hero.

By: biggfredd

biggfredd — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:31:35 +0000

“Macmillan is certainly telling Amazon and everyone else how to sell its ebooks — that is what the Agency model is about, after all.”

Marvel Comics was sure they knew more about distribution and promotion than distributors with scores of warehouses and decades of experience. To this end they bought the third largest distributor, converted them to Marvel only, and put their theories into practice.

The result was 3-12 hour holds on the problem phone line, Marvel lost over a billion dollars, got thrown off the NYSE, and almost singlehandedly destroyed the comic book market.

There’s a reason for specialization.

By: biggfredd

biggfredd — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:51:12 +0000

“Music isn’t just pottery with sounds.”

No, that’s the Break-a-plate carny game.

By: zoewinters

zoewinters — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:47:50 +0000

Jon,

One of the biggest errors people make in starting a business, is overspending in the beginning and running out of cash flow. It’s become en vogue to take out big business loans and to spend outrageous sums of money to start a business, but with the advent of the Internet and no need to buy and stock a lot of inventory in a physical location, the costs drop DRASTICALLY.

Consider the small press publisher whose successful books are likely to sell 500-3000 copies. You can’t HAVE high expenses to make a profit on that. You have to keep low expenses.

Indie authors shouldn’t try to act like they have the expense accounts of big NY publishers, they should be acting like small press publishers and figuring out how to turn a profit on 500-3000 copies sold. If they think that way they won’t lose their house, car, or anything else of major value due to an investment mistake. The idea is to start and build slowly. As you grow, “then” and only then do you amp up your financial investment.

Now I realize a NY publisher has greater reach and distribution and marketing funds etc, but a big corporation and a small business are not run in the exact same way. And an indie author is running a small business. Later, over many years and many books that small business may grow as the author’s brand grows, but I think it’s a mistake to assume that anyone who goes indie is mortgaging their house. You’d be shocked by how little I’ve financially invested so far in what I’m doing.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:28:26 +0000

I’m late to the debate, as usual. Many things to catch up on.
Mr. Scalzi, your story is amusing and proves that given total control over place, character and dialog, you have the skills to make any position reasonable.
I don’t think publishing is going away anytime soon, either. But not because of cover art, proofreading and editing. Frankly, to judge by some of the books I’ve read recently some publishers aren’t bothering to provide that anyway. (I’m pointing at YOU, ibooks. The 2002 trade paperback edition of Greg Bear’s “Blood Music” {ISBN 978-1-59687-106-9} was horrible. And you, Nation Books. Publishing Peter Biskind’s “Gods and Monsters” with typos galore. {ISBN 1-56025-545-5} Be ashamed)
You hint at the single important service publishers provide to authors in your story, but you don’t develop it.
In journalism school, the 101 course professor always asks the students, “What is a newspaper’s purpose?” The answers range from practical (“To tell people what happened”) to liberal (“To help the oppressed”) to Fox News (“To spread their Godless homosexual liberal agenda.”) Once the students quiet down, the professor informs them they’re all wrong. The purpose of a newspaper is to make money.
A publisher’s purpose is to make money. Selling books just happens to be the chosen business model.
Publishers make money by taking on risk for authors. The publisher evaluates submissions, decides which are the ones are worthwhile risks, and buys those manuscripts. Then, to manage the risk, the publisher brings in copy editors and proofreaders to fix up the words. It puts on some cover art and design to catch the eye. And then the publisher arranges publicity, etc., and throws the book out the door.
The company’s not doing that to perfect a piece of art. The publisher wants it to sell.
(Individuals within the company may be doing it for art and/or quality. There’s no reason to sell their motivations short.)
Just like an insurance company, the publisher can spread its risk across a variety of investments. Profits in one area cover losses in another. How many first-time authors has J.K. Rowling covered?
The deep pockets to take on risk is what separates you, the individual writer, from the publisher. There’s no reason you can’t hire professional editors, proofreaders, artists, publicity agents, etc. All you’d have to do is risk mortgaging your future (and house, and car, possibly cat) on the chance your book will sell well enough to pay you back.
Whatsa matter, chicken?
Yeah, me too. Most people would be. So publishing isn’t going away. It’s actually a valuable service.
But that doesn’t mean publishers have the pricing model right. I haven’t bought an e-reader because I’m not going to buy the books to fill it. Also because color screens are coming. I like color.
There are other models for electronic distribution than charging $9.99 or $14.99 for a book. It’s a hard sell when it’s more expensive than the paperback. The paperback requires manufacture, shipping and storage. Electronic distribution requires bandwidth and some electricity. Is the additional overhead for convenience? Digitally-delivered music is cheaper than physical CDs. Why can’t books be?

By: silbey

silbey — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:21:57 +0000

But Amazon did have an unspoken contract with Kindle buyers: you pay $260 for the Kindle, we will sell you $9.99 ebook versions of bestsellers in perpetuity

I’m pretty sure that that “unspoken contract” and $3 will get you a latte at Starbucks.

By: kejia

kejia — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:29:45 +0000

@silbey #329

a God-given right to get a book at a certain price.

To be fair, I don’t think anyone
thinks that Amazon is a God.:) But Amazon did have an unspoken contract with Kindle buyers: you pay $260 for the Kindle, we will sell you $9.99 ebook versions of bestsellers in perpetuity. So when one made the decision to buy the Kindle, one compared the upfront cost of the Kindle to the expected savings on hardcover books.

How long would it take to break even? I looked at Amazon bestselling hardcovers that were published in the last 30 days and were published by major publishers.

Title/ Publisher (Price: Retail, Amazon, Kindle)
Game Change /Harper Collins ($27.99, $13.00, $8.61)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks / Random House ($26.00, $14.30, $9.99)
On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System / Hachette ($28.99, $14.00, $9.99)
Worst Case /Hachette ($27.99, $14.00, $8.55)
The Politician: An Insiders Account of John Edwards… / Macmillan ($24.99, $12, $8.55)

Total savings for five books: $21.81
Average saving per book: $4.362
Cost of Kindle: $260
Number of books to break even: about 60
If you buy 5 books a month, you break even in a year

If you wanted immediate gratification, and the choice was an independent bookstore or Amazon Kindle version.

Total savings for five books: $90
Average savings per book: $18
Cost of kindle: $260
Number of books to break even: about 14.5
If you buy five books a month, you break even in three months!

By those calculations, Kindle owners who have bought 60 books have already broken even. But there is still that unwritten expectation that books would never rise above $9.99. I don’t agree with other points made by outraged Kindle owners (e.g. our legal eagle torgeaux), but I understand why they are upset.