Whatever happens, publishers are really screwed -- they're not really needed anymore -- and authors are mostly screwed. The only hope for the author is to dis-intermediate Amazon/Apple/whoever and sell directly to the customer, assuming that becomes normal enough that there is a market for it. If the power remains centralized at distribution sites, the authors are really screwed too.
My own publisher is floundering around too, trying to figure this all out.
It's not quite to that point yet (though it may get there). Most author I know tells me that e-books account for less than 5% of their sales -- certainly that's also my case; the vast majority of sales of their books are still print format.
But... if it gets tot he point where the author is responsible for the entirety of their marketing and distribution, I screwed. Marketing and promotion are not my fortes. In fact, they're not really much of my skill set, nor do I enjoy doing any of that. I enjoy *writing*; I want the publisher to do the vast majority of the marketing and distribution for me.
How much promotion does your published actually do, anyway? Near as I can tell, my publisher does none. We used to need publishers because they owned trucks, but with Amazon controlling the distribution trucks are no longer required.
Here's what my publisher does for me: they pay me advance on royalties so I have some up-front money while I'm writing the book; they give me editorial suggestions as to how to make the work a better work (and usually give me what I consider good direction on that); they copyedit the work to find the mistakes I leave behind (like, in the last manuscript, giving two different dates for someone's birth); they do the design work for the book (because you can't just dump out a text file); they engage a cover artist to do a professional cover, pay him/her, and edit that aspect; they arrange for printing (and pay for it); they edit the galleys; they put together ARCs from the galleys and proofs of the cover and send those out to reviewers and review magazines; they put ads in places like Locus; their marketing talks to the chains and pushes the books to the buyers; if I'm going to be in a city, their publicist will make arrangements for a signing if I'm interested; they hook up my books to the distribution chain and get them in the bookstores...
Most of that stuff (even those things I could do myself) would take an enormous amount of time, energy, up-front money I absolutely don't have, and (frankly) skills that I don't possess. All around, I'm ecstatic to have a publisher.
Yes yes, editors/copyeditors/proofreaders/designers are valuable. But I think we're talking about promotion. So this is what's relevant:
they put together ARCs from the galleys and proofs of the cover and send those out to reviewers and review magazines; they put ads in places like Locus; their marketing talks to the chains and pushes the books to the buyers; if I'm going to be in a city, their publicist will make arrangements for a signing if I'm interested; they hook up my books to the distribution chain and get them in the bookstores...
My publisher does send out review copies, but primarily it's to people I tell them to. With the exception of the few technical bookstores left on the planet, my publisher doesn't sell my books in stores. Booksignings: my publisher decided they were a waste of time years ago. Distribution chain: yes, my publisher has deals with wholesalers, not that that seems to do any good anymore.
The other interesting point you have is the economics of the whole thing: publishers are valuable because the fund the up-front costs of writing, like an author's advance and the salaries of the editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, etc. If publishers are written out of the new economic reality of writing, someone else will have to underwrite the whole process.
This (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/31/clay-shirky-on-infor.html) is related to the last point, on the economics of publishing. Well worth your time.
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http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/01/amazon-macmillan-an-outsiders.html
Whatever happens, publishers are really screwed -- they're not really needed anymore -- and authors are mostly screwed. The only hope for the author is to dis-intermediate Amazon/Apple/whoever and sell directly to the customer, assuming that becomes normal enough that there is a market for it. If the power remains centralized at distribution sites, the authors are really screwed too.
My own publisher is floundering around too, trying to figure this all out.
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From:
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But... if it gets tot he point where the author is responsible for the entirety of their marketing and distribution, I screwed. Marketing and promotion are not my fortes. In fact, they're not really much of my skill set, nor do I enjoy doing any of that. I enjoy *writing*; I want the publisher to do the vast majority of the marketing and distribution for me.
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no subject
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From:
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Most of that stuff (even those things I could do myself) would take an enormous amount of time, energy, up-front money I absolutely don't have, and (frankly) skills that I don't possess. All around, I'm ecstatic to have a publisher.
From:
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My publisher does send out review copies, but primarily it's to people I tell them to. With the exception of the few technical bookstores left on the planet, my publisher doesn't sell my books in stores. Booksignings: my publisher decided they were a waste of time years ago. Distribution chain: yes, my publisher has deals with wholesalers, not that that seems to do any good anymore.
The other interesting point you have is the economics of the whole thing: publishers are valuable because the fund the up-front costs of writing, like an author's advance and the salaries of the editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, etc. If publishers are written out of the new economic reality of writing, someone else will have to underwrite the whole process.
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