Scott Turow: The Slow Death of the American Author (NYTimes)

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Hmm... I wonder if those "industry insiders" use those figures when dealing
with authors and their agents? Have you heard of Creative Accounting?

I can go get quotes from printers myself. Even in small quantities, say a few thousand, a hardcover can be printed for a small fraction of the average cover price. Mass production with automated presses will reduce that by an order of magnitude. Shipping costs you can get from www.ups.com, and again, bulk shippers get discounts.

The percentage for paperbacks is higher, sure, but it's still not that big a percentage. I doubt the printing costs on the average mass market paperback are more than $1.

(It is a near universal truth in the manufacture of physical goods that the suggested retail will be between 6 and 10 times the cost to manufacture. Paper books, being so automated, are probably closer than 10 than 6, but seem to be fairly typical.)

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

When the book buying public comes to not need a supply of pbooks that
exceeds the amount of ebooks they consume, and the production of a
pbook is not a part of the book production process anymore, we may find
less use of such figures. When the author can produce his/her own ebook
and acquire such a following that even the pbook publishing houses take
interest, all on their own, the $35 pbook may find it hard to compete with
the $10 ebook. I wonder if the "industry insiders" will be telling the authors
"Hey we can get $35 a copy for your book, if we make a pbook!, why settle
for what the ebook gives you?".

Luck;
Ken

Any price reduction of more than about 10% for ebooks will - will - result in lower quality. And unfortunately, there is a lot of pressure for bigger reductions, mostly from the public's lack of understanding of what publishers do. Writers do not create books, they create manuscripts. The publisher turns the manuscript in to a book. And puts, on average, about as many man-hours in to the process as the author does writing it.

If you're interested in the views of people who actually write for a living, take at a look at Charlie Stross' blog. There's a recent entry by Charlie on why he doesn't self-publish (he's one of the hottest writers in the sf market right now, so it's reasonable to think he just might have a clue) and the most recent entry (as of right now) is from a guest blogger on why she does. Charlie's entry has links to previous posts that go in to some detail on how a manuscript becomes a book.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

... from my point of view; there seems to be a shortage of ebooks from authors I
have found to provide the reading experience I am looking for. Those authors that
have impressed me cannot seem to produce ebooks fast enough to make it so I don't
have to wait longer than I would like for the next book. That there are a number of
newer authors joining the ones I have always enjoyed, is a good thing from my point
of view. That there may be more that I find annoying, than there might have been
when the BPHs were able to operate as a "Gatekeeper", making it necessary to weed
through many to find the gems - is offset by the fact that the open gate allows me
to see many that I find enjoyable that the gatekeeper would have kept from me, in the
past.

This.
Turow and the old guard bemoing the abundance of new (and old, backlist) content that is coming and staying to stay are assuming that everybody is a potential buyer for every book so that more books automatically means less customers for every book.
They don't consider that there might be unmet demand for certain types of books (soft porn ala 50 Shades) and a surplus of others (even one Snooki book being too many) simply because the gatekeepers are incapable of correctly guessing specialty-market reader interests. The traditional gatekeepers are all about high-volume lowest common denominator stuff and whatever else might appeal to *them*. Any audience not served by those categories has been going underserved.
Now there is at least a chance for alternative voices and styles to find their own natural market; it might be a few hundred sales per book, it might be a few million. The verdict comes straight from the readers' wallets.

Even some of the old guard are reluctantly realizing it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/book...rld?CMP=twt_gu

2. Gone is our confidence that publishers and agents know exactly what everyone wants to (or should) read, and can spot all the material worth our attention. Soft porn and fantasy have emerged as particularly under-represented in the industry’s official output.

(There's ten of those surprisingly realistic--for the source--nuggets.)

[Sregener]

Originally Posted by taustin

Writers do not create books, they create manuscripts. The publisher turns the manuscript in to a book. And puts, on average, about as many man-hours in to the process as the author does writing it.

Really? I mean, really? Having written and tried to sell a book, considering the 7 drafts I wrote (of which 3 were complete typing of each and every word), the reading and editing of those drafts, and whatnot, I put in somewhere in the order of 1000 hours of work. You're telling me the publisher of today puts that much time into each and every book they print?

Now, if you're Amanda Hocking and chug a few energy drinks and crank out a book in 12 hours, sure, I can see what you're saying being true. But I think the vast majority of authors put in far, far more time than a publisher ever will. And given the abundance of typos and misspellings I see in the average NYT bestseller, I doubt many are given much time in the editing process.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by taustin

Apparently, he is unware of how little of the cover price of a book is to pay for paper, ink, and getting it in to the store to buy. Generally, 10-15%, according to industry insiders.

Add the cost of returns. Add the higher margin taken by bricks and mortar stores vs eBook retailers.
A significant proportion of pBooks that are printed are never sold, and are ultimately destroyed. The costs have to be spread over the books that are actually sold, not all the ones that are printed.
Every eBook that is 'printed' is sold.
The 'industry insiders' peddling the 10-15% figures are doing so to justify the high price of eBooks. I don't believe them.
At least in the UK, we are starting to see significant differentiation in pBook vs eBook prices.
For example, Neal Asher's latest SciFi book is £8.99 list in paperback, but £4.19 list as a Kindle book. That doesn't seem profitable for the publisher if the additional costs of a paperback are only 10-15%, does it?

[K. Molen]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

That's assuming the library has enough copies in stock so you can log on and immediately reserve it, something that often doesn't happen. I've had to wait months for some books to become available.

Point taken. Although, for me I'd change "often doesn't happen" to "occasionally doesn't happen" but it obviously depends on ones reading habits. Also, it should be mentioned that not all libraries operate the same way. Some have no limit on the number of simultaneous checkouts of the same title.

In general, checking out books from the library is less convenient for Kindle and Nook users than it is to buy it (I'm not sure if Kobo or Sony can download direct from their respective stores).

Good point. I guess I was too caught up in the way I personally do it when I get a book, which is to first bring it in to Calibre to strip the DRM before I move it to my Kindle manually. I do this for both library and purchased books, so for me the process is nearly identical but I obviously realize that the majority of people don't do it this way. (And yes, before anyone has a fit, I make sure to delete the book from my Kindle and my Calibre library once the lending period expires.)

On the other hand, someone who is borrowing a book from the library probably wasn't going to buy it anyway.

I wouldn't say that at all. Prior to getting my Kindle it was extremely rare for me to go to the library, it was simply too much of a hassle. These days, I'd say that about half the books I read come from the library.

Another reason for my increased library use, aside from the hassle being eliminated, is that I don't find the same joy in accumulating a virtual library as I did accumulating a physical library. There are no shelves in my living room to populate with books, only a hard drive, and that's just not the same. So I might as well just borrow the book instead of getting to keep it.

[fjtorres]

Here's another good rebuttal:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2...nt-care-about/

I think there’s no real point attempting to engage Turow on this issue. His hatred of Amazon and fear of change is completely clouding his logic.

What bothers me about Turow’s obsession with Amazon and his opposition to change is not his blatant disregard for the facts (or the definition of words), it’s that he allows this Luddism to become all-consuming, blinding him to the issues that really matter to writers.

Even if we granted Turow his brain-dead thesis, we still have time before Amazon becomes The Great Evil and exclusively powers its website with the tears of exploited writers.

But there’s a bunch of really awful stuff happening right now that Turow ignores, and has been ignoring, since his term as Authors Guild President began.

Among the things he lists as more immediately harmful to authors and aspiring authors are the usual list of publishing scams (at least one of which has ties to the Guild itself), bad contracts, publishers' retroactive rights grabs, the Price Fix conspiracy...

When rumors first broke that the Department of Justice was investigating collusion to fix prices between five of the six largest trade publishers in the US (Macmillan, Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette) and Apple, Scott Turow called for the investigation to be dropped.

He didn’t even want to find out if price-fixing was taking place. Turow, a practicing lawyer, didn’t want to know if federal law was being broken.

When the DOJ determined that collusion to fix prices had indeed taken place, and reached a settlement with three of the five publishers (the other two would settle in time), Turow opposed the settlement.

The one thing that comes through is that there is as little visibility into the Guild's operations and goals (other than luddite Op-Ed pieces) as any old-timey closed country club. For all the joking about it being more of a Publisher's Guild the reality doesn't seem to be too far away...

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Sregener

Really? I mean, really?

According to people who make their living at it, yes.

Originally Posted by Sregener

Having written and tried to

But not succeeded?

Originally Posted by Sregener

sell a book, considering the 7 drafts I wrote (of which 3 were complete typing of each and every word), the reading and editing of those drafts, and whatnot, I put in somewhere in the order of 1000 hours of work. You're telling me the publisher of today puts that much time into each and every book they print?

When subsequent drafts are done at the request of an editor/publishers, do you really think they aren't spending significant time one it, too?

1000 hours is 25 weeks, or about half a year. For a relatively new writer, that seems, if anything, lower than usual.

Originally Posted by Sregener

Now, if you're Amanda Hocking and chug a few energy drinks and crank out a book in 12 hours, sure, I can see what you're saying being true. But I think the vast majority of authors put in far, far more time than a publisher ever will.

Those who have succeeded in selling manuscripts, multiple times, do not agree. For some reason, I'm inclined to take their word for it over yours.

Originally Posted by Sregener

And given the abundance of typos and misspellings I see in the average NYT bestseller, I doubt many are given much time in the editing process.

Publishers do a lot more than editing, and most of what they do is not proofreading. (And that was the case when they still did proofreading, as well.) Go read Charlie Stross' blog posts on the subject. He does know what he's talking about, and if he has any bias, it's in the other direction.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Add the cost of returns.

And don't forget to factor in that mass market paperbacks - not returned, but stripped and destroyed - are disappearing, and thus, returns are actual returns, which can still be sold in the future. And also don't forget that royalties on ebooks are generally trending to higher percentages.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Add the higher margin taken by bricks and mortar stores vs eBook retailers.

That's what the rule of thumb is based on, since it's been the rule of thumb for a lot longer than computers have existed.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

A significant proportion of pBooks that are printed are never sold, and are ultimately destroyed. The costs have to be spread over the books that are actually sold, not all the ones that are printed.
Every eBook that is 'printed' is sold.

Having been in the ebook business, I can tell you that's not actually a universal truth, but it's an effect, yes.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The 'industry insiders' peddling the 10-15% figures are doing so to justify the high price of eBooks. I don't believe them.

I don't care. My own experience in business management tells me they're far more credible than you are.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

At least in the UK, we are starting to see significant differentiation in pBook vs eBook prices.

There's certainly a lot of 99 cent ebooks on Amazon. And virtually all of them are self-published crap, as expected.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

For example, Neal Asher's latest SciFi book is £8.99 list in paperback, but £4.19 list as a Kindle book.

When it's available in both formats, and sells a lot of copies in both, outsiders can't tell the difference between one format being that much cheaper to produce, and one format being used to subsidize the other. And frankly, the publishers may not be able to tell the difference yet either.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

That doesn't seem profitable for the publisher if the additional costs of a paperback are only 10-15%, does it?

Profit is a slippery beast. If the ebook sales replace pbook sales one for one, their profits are very likely lower. But that's not very likely. More likely, ebook sales partially replace pbook sales, but many, if not most, are simply additional sales, which is a no-lose scenario once the fixed production costs are incurred.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Here's another good rebuttal:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2...nt-care-about/

This article contains a link to an Author's Guild blog posting regarding Turow's opinion on the Goodreads acquisition by Amazon. The interesting part was not Turow's opinion (which will come as a surprise to no one), but the comments from authors at the end of the posting.

http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy...-can-be-built/

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

This article contains a link to an Author's Guild blog posting regarding Turow's opinion on the Goodreads acquisition by Amazon. The interesting part was not Turow's opinion (which will come as a surprise to no one), but the comments from authors at the end of the posting.

http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy...-can-be-built/

Nothing is stopping anyone else from starting a website similar to Goodreads, and if Amazon changes Goodreads to the point where readers no longer find it useful, someone else will start a similar site pretty quickly.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

This article contains a link to an Author's Guild blog posting regarding Turow's opinion on the Goodreads acquisition by Amazon. The interesting part was not Turow's opinion (which will come as a surprise to no one), but the comments from authors at the end of the posting.

http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy...-can-be-built/

There is a real schism emerging between the people in the writing business (especially the genres) and the people in the book business. Turow's publishers solidarity has earned him a lot of disdain among a lot of writers. Especially the ones that *don't* have the comfort of six- and seven-figure contracts.
Instead, there are a *lot* of writers like this:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...f-publish.html

I started in the usual way, with traditional publishing, and had six science fiction novels published by New York houses between '95 and 2003. My work garnered good reviews and there were a couple of awards, but despite my best efforts no meaningful amount of money was going into the family coffers. Economically, I was wasting my time. Emotionally I was inhabited by a deep, dark sense of failure, with no viable means to turn things around. So circa 2000 I more or less walked away from the field for almost ten years. I did not stop writing entirely, but it was close.

In 2009 I woke up to the ebook revolution.

In the end, it's the total revenue that matters. Ten thousand copies sold of an original novel is not going to impress a traditional publisher or lead to meaningfully higher income for me. But working on my own gives me a bigger cut of the list price. So if I manage to sell online ten thousand copies of TR:FL at list ($7.99 ebook/$16 trade USD) in 2013, I'll have made a nice (but not spectacular) annual income.

To a lot of writers, self-pub is the difference between a book that delivers maybe $5000 in royalties (off 10000 sales at $10) which is noise to Turow, and that nice income cited above from the same number of sales.

Or, like these folks:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/hugh...t_for_writers/

Turow may or not be accurately defending the interests of the big contract authors but there are a lot of writers who eagerly embrace the changes he decries. Hence the pushback.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by taustin

He's referring to the fact that copyright (and patents) are allowed for specifically in the Constitution. He is, in addition, dead wrong in his interpretation. The constitution does not protect authors as a profession, it allows them, which is to say, it allows copyright as the cost of having a large public domain. Copyright laws isn't interpreted the same as it used to be, really, but he's just flat wrong in his take on what the Constitution says.

Yeah well, he is a lawyer, but but my interpretation is closer to yours than it is to his. This is a guy who has gotten very fat and happy under the old system. He has no reason to welcome the changes coming down the pike He is entitled to his fear filled opinions. I just don't share them.

[Sregener]

Originally Posted by taustin

But not succeeded?

Back in 2004, when I was actively trying to make it as a writer, I attended a writer's conference. Included was a critique from a publisher. Mine came back, "This is perfect as it is." The manuscript was submitted. The editorial board (the people in the business because they love books) said, "We have to sign this guy now." The publishing board (the people who count beans for a living) said, "We don't know how to sell this. No."

1000 hours was an estimate, and I was being conservative with it. Writing for me was a particularly painful experience. I agree with the author who said, "Writing is easy. Just sit down at the keyboard and open up a vein." Working a 40-hour week as a writer was impossible for me. I found a 90 minute day of actual writing enough to drain me physically and emotionally.

But you're saying that the typical publisher, not counting editing, spends 25 workweeks preparing a manuscript for printing? Maybe an internationally known author, if we're going to talk about all the promotions and stuff they do. But for the average writer? I can't imagine what it is they do, nor do I really care anymore. Call me jaded, but I think the gatekeepers are stupid.

The day may come when I release my work to the world as an ebook. The biggest problem I see is that due to changes in my life, I no longer have the emotional resources to write. So I'm not going to create a brand and be a continuing interest at this point. That day may come, it just isn't now. And when that day does come, it'd be great to have a ready-for-publication work in my pocket to start with.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Sregener

And when that day does come, it'd be great to have a ready-for-publication work in my pocket to start with.

For right now, the path to indie success seems to run through a multi-title catalog so that satisfied readers can jump back in and pick up another title.

I hope the day comes soon, though; my experience as a reader is that some of the most memorable books come from the less prolific writers. Most turn out to be labors of love and well worth the toil that went into them. It can be frustrating to find a jewell and look for more only to find there is no more.

The book industry has a lot of crimes to answer for and their particular style of "promoting culture" is right at the top of the list.

[CWatkinsNash]

ALA President's response: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/op...temail1=y&_r=0