The end of publishing as we know it...

[sleigh]

Those of you who are writers or who are interested in writing and the publishing business, should read this speculative article about the changing face of the publishing industry...

A fair amount of gloom 'n doom ("...there will, no doubt, be a lot of editors for whom even this diminished era will look like the last great golden age..."), with some hope that new twists and new ideas will save the day ("The kind of targeted, curated lists editors would love to publish will work even better in an electronic, niche-driven world, if only the innovators can get them there. Those owners who are genuinely interested in the industry’s long-term survival would do well to hire scrappy entrepreneurs at every level, people who think like underdogs....")

I sometimes imagine that -- as a 'traditionally published' writer -- I'm a dinosaur lumbering through a forest, wondering what all those hairy, furry, little mammals are up to...

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I sometimes imagine that -- as a 'traditionally published' writer -- I'm a dinosaur lumbering through a forest, wondering what all those hairy, furry, little mammals are up to...

Really? I think genre publishing is a quite different and rather saner thing. I mean, do you get $100,000 advances? I certainly don't. And that's what they're talking about as a minimum.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

$100,000 is completely reasonable when you are talking about a book that takes two years or more to write.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It would be. But we're not talking about art subsidy but business making a profit. It would be quite unreasonable to pay that for books that have the sales figures my books have, and my books often earn out the reasonable advances they do get. Which is what I was saying, genre publishers seem to have a more realistic idea of what they're doing and where their market is, so that article didn't make me feel like a dinosaur at all.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

You're right...some books will not pay $100,000. But I would hate for us as genre writers to become used to thinking that our labor is not worth a higher salary, if we could earn it.

I do think that the traditional publishing and distribution system limits your sales and other so-called "midlist" authors, because they cannot risk printing a large number of books unless they are pretty sure they can sell them. Meanwhile, fans have trouble finding books by their favorite authors because they are so quickly out of print. Alternate business models for publishing and the new global information economy will probably help that situation a lot, connecting readers with books they like without the intermediate risky step of printing a lot of expensive paperbacks and setting them in eyecatching locations.

Or at least I hope.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I often find it infuriating that I can't buy a book that's been out a year or two in a manner that gives the author any money, unless that author is extremely popular.

I have even gone so far as to contact authors (go go SFWA Directory) to ask if I can buy the books from them if they have a copy lying around, rather than give up and give money to a used bookstore and... most of the time they don't even have copies.

This is helping authors how? :P

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I know that feeling, both as reader and author. In general, the shelf life of books in brick-and-mortar stores seems to approach that of lettuce...

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

From a "standard of living for the poor author" context, you're right. From the "My job is to make a profit from this book" viewpoint, not so much...

My sales figures, given the standard 8 - 10% royalties, don't justify six figures in the advance. I've had books earn out well over their advances, but not that high.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

No, I don't get six figure advances -- though if someone wanted to offer one, I'd happily accept. :-)

But I do think that the standard publishing model under which I've been selling books for the last few decades will be undergoing some relatively rapid change -- even in genre fiction, which I agree is rather saner than the mainstream model. I see several of my (often younger) peers experimenting with different models in order to reach their audience -- look at what Baen Books is doing. In that sense, I feel 'dinosaur-like' at times.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

I think most of us authors are overthinking things. Sure, a shakeup in the publishing industry is going to be shaking up authors in the short term. But in the long term, you ask yourself...do people still want to read books? The answer is hell yes. So, as writers, we watch, and wait, and let the business folks figure out the new business models, and when they want books written, we are ready. Things are going to get a lot better for writers when the new world order is established. :-)

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Some days I'm that optimistic. Others, I'm not. :-)

[daedala.livejournal.com]

The furry little mammals are biting ankles. That's what they do.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

The problem I have with articles like this is that I want to shout, "Well DUH, Captain Obvious. Everyone I work with could have told you this fifteen years ago." [ETA: I wish to clarify that "captain obvious" in this sentence is not you, but rather the author of the article!]

A coworker and I used to have a private joke, which she had first heard from someone at a place where she worked before. Any time someone in editorial did something that defied logic, we would say, "Well, you know all those editors are on crack."

As papersky indicates, the genre editors are generally sane. But the "mainstream" or "literary" editors are, in many cases, so freaking disconnected from reality, it's a wonder they can tie their own shoes.

The best statement I ever heard with regard to advances and bidding wars was this: "If you win an auction, all it means is that you're risking more money than your peers think it's worth."

More editors need that tattooed on the inside of their eyelids.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Ah, heck, I play Captain Obvious at least three times a day, and often enough in my posts -- go on, you can say it! :-)

I love your statement on winning auctions. The only trouble is that it's human nature to respond "Yeah, but I'm right and all my peers are wrong."

Heck, we writers do it all the time: we get fifteen rejections for a story and we send it out the sixteenth time because damn it, it's a great story and all the editors who rejected it are wrong... :-)