The new publishing business model

[Scott Nicholson]

Actually, Harlequin is already doing this, a semi-subsidized arm that caused an uproar in the major professional writing organizations, who took Harlequin off their approved list of "pro publishers." I don't know all the details, but essentially you pay to have your book go through their process and bear the logo. If I remember right, it ain't cheap.

Scott Nicholson
http://hauntedcomputerbooks.blogspot.com

[rhadin]

I thought the third-party was evaluating whether the books should be published from the slush-pile. If the evaluation occurs after the book is published, how does the the third-party differ from the current review situation? And how does what you are suggesting as a business model differ from a vanity press or self-publishing, both of which currently exist?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by rhadin

If the evaluation occurs after the book is published, how does the the third-party differ from the current review situation?

It doesn't, really. This model removes the publisher's filtering process from the slush pile, (hopefully) allowing many more decent books to be published than the current .00001% (or so) of submitted works.

Originally Posted by rhadin

And how does what you are suggesting as a business model differ from a vanity press or self-publishing, both of which currently exist?

It adds to the current self-pub/vanity process a service bureau (the publishers) that will polish the product, for a price, before it is self-published.

[MaggieScratch]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

Teresa (unknown last name) posted an essay entitled, Slushkiller

Unknown last name? The URL of the site wasn't a clue? The author of the famous and infamous Slushkiller essay is Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who at the time she wrote it was an editor at Tor, one of the few remaining publishers who accepted (and I believe still does) unagented work. Her husband, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, is a senior editor at Tor. Trust, Teresa knows of which she speaks.

That being said, I'm glad Slushkiller was linked, as I had planned to do so.

Part of the problem with the OP is that it seems to assume that the majority of slush is publishable or close to it. Note that in Slushkiller the percentage assigned to such books (which are categories 11-14) are 1-4% of the submissions.

Firstly, one suspects that publishers would prefer to concentrate their energies on books that they think will sell. Publishers provide a great deal more than simple editing and print production. They also provide marketing, meaning they promote the book to bookstores and other retail outlets, which will in turn feature the books and try harder to sell them. In some cases this involves paying "co-op" fees, for instance, for placement on an endcap or in a special display, like the display of the latest books that greets you as you walk into Barnes & Noble. Those books don't get there accidentally: the publisher paid for it. A publisher is not going to waste increasingly scarce marketing resources on books they don't think they can get in bookstores. Therefore, the author has wasted his or her money on these "editing" services.

Originally Posted by Scott Nicholson

Actually, Harlequin is already doing this, a semi-subsidized arm that caused an uproar in the major professional writing organizations, who took Harlequin off their approved list of "pro publishers." I don't know all the details, but essentially you pay to have your book go through their process and bear the logo. If I remember right, it ain't cheap.

Harlequin (and Thomas Nelson as well) are monetizing their slushpile by using a rebranded service provided by AuthorHouse. They steer the "not good enough" books (including categories 1-13 on Slushkiller--meaning the 95 percent that is unreadable or shouldn't be published by anyone, as well as the almost-good-enough stuff) to the rebranded service for vanity publication. The author can purchase editing and marketing services from them, or not; the cost can be prohibitive, and if a book is truly slushy, won't help it a bit. The outcry came because Harlequin has also suggested that they might pick up books from this program that sell well for commercial publication. Many authors have pointed out that, especially in the romance writing community, there are plenty of free resources that authors can use to help them bring their work up to publishable quality, and that it is a conflict of interest to create unreasonable hope of commercial publication in authors who just don't have the talent and ask them to spend a lot of money for something that won't ever happen, and also that the service is extremely overpriced. Also, note that the editing and marketing services are provided by AuthorHouse--not Harlequin.

I think the OP had something different from this in mind--more of an earnest attempt by the publisher to create a publishable book that will be edited and marketed like all the other books they publish. I don't see that happening. If it was something they think would make them some money, the publisher would just buy the book in the first place. Having two different workflows would complicate bookkeeping enormously, I would think.

All that being said, there is a high probability that some of the current methods used by commercial publishers will change. It will not happen quickly, however, and I'm not sure that it will be quite in the method described in the OP. I suspect we will see agents taking over more of the functions currently performed by publishers. They already are doing it to an extent. Some agents will guide a promising author through some rewriting before submitting a book to editors.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

Part of the problem with the OP is that it seems to assume that the majority of slush is publishable or close to it. Note that in Slushkiller the percentage assigned to such books (which are categories 11-14) are 1-4% of the submissions.

Firstly, one suspects that publishers would prefer to concentrate their energies on books that they think will sell.

Actually, I'm not assuming that the majority of slushpile books are good... merely that more than .000001% of them are good, and that the present system isn't rescuing enough of them for consumers.

I realize publishers only want to print those books they think they can profit from. However, they are publishing so few, only those with the absolute highest chance of a good return, that other books that might make a passable return are not even being considered... in other words, publishers pick the sure things, but a lot of potential also-rans are being lost.

This model is simply designed to rescue some of the also-rans. Yes, it will also result in some bad stuff being released, too... but the third-party post-filtering services should be enough to keep most of those at bay.

And it's not as if all of the bad stuff will be released by this model... there will be plenty of potential authors who won't go through that extra work, just as they don't now, and their works will still sit. (Along with some good works too, unfortunately, though I guess it's hard to get up sympathy for a great book you've never seen.)

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Actually, I'm not assuming that the majority of slushpile books are good... merely that more than .000001% of them are good, and that the present system isn't rescuing enough of them for consumers.

Out of all this discussion I think one issue isn't really being taken into account. The current system is releasing more books than anyone could read anyway. Do we really need more books?

Sure... it doesn't feel great if you are an author on the out side looking in (as you are Steve). I wonder if your position as an author who has been rejected is perhaps making you think this would work.

So.. Steve.. as an author... would you pay all this money to have your books edited and typeset (or whatever term you want to call it for ebooks)? You still do your own sales, which you are doing, your own marketing, which you are doing, your own fulfillment... which you are doing.

So, let me reiterate... as a customer I have no lack of good books. When I look at the LibraryThing early release books available every month and realize that this is probably a small portion of what is being release each month it is daunting. If the amount of new books coming out were increased 100 fold... it would be paralyzing for me to pick on a few books to read each month.

BOb

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

It adds to the current self-pub/vanity process a service bureau (the publishers) that will polish the product, for a price, before it is self-published.

But this already exists. There are lots of people who provide these services, in fact, they are often the same people that the publishers hire. All you are doing is adding another expense layer because the publisher-service provider in your concept would need to make a profit as would the editors they would hire.

Even vanity presses offer these services -- the more you are willing to pay, the better the quality of the service you will receive.

I don't see how this is any kind of new model; at best it is an expansion of the existing model, and an expansion that won't fly any better than the current system does.

Until you get past the hurdle of authors being unwilling to foot the expense, there will be no change.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

This model removes the publisher's filtering process from the slush pile, (hopefully) allowing many more decent books to be published than the current .00001% (or so) of submitted works.

But the publisher's filtering process can already be easily circumvented; that's what self-publishing is. So far I see nothing that makes this "new model" a "new" model as opposed to the current model just being called new.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Out of all this discussion I think one issue isn't really being taken into account. The current system is releasing more books than anyone could read anyway. Do we really need more books?

That's a pretty classic 640k statement...

Also, tagging (for the semantic web, even) and reviewing is something which croudsourcing is very good at.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Out of all this discussion I think one issue isn't really being taken into account. The current system is releasing more books than anyone could read anyway. Do we really need more books?

To give it a number: more than 400,000 titles were published in the UK and US in 2009.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Out of all this discussion I think one issue isn't really being taken into account. The current system is releasing more books than anyone could read anyway. Do we really need more books?

Not by numbers, but some niches are vastly under-represented because mainstream publishers promote what's sold well in the past.

The "erotic/romantic fantasy" niche has exploded online recently, but didn't have (doesn't have?) a large print following because publishers assumed there was not enough demand for it. They were apparently wrong.

I do not believe we need more erotic fantasy books, but there could be other genres being ignored because they don't fit into a publisher's current categories.

[MaggieScratch]

And, as has been pointed out several times, there are already mechanisms for getting these books out there. Once the publishers see there is a market, they generally are not behindhand in exploiting it. For instance, the popularity of Ellora's Cave led mainstream romance publishers to start publishing erotica.

Also, I think readers are a lot less picky about what they are willing to read for free than they are about what they are willing to pay for. Popularity of free stuff on the Internet does not necessarily translate into big sales figures.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me for publishers to take an author's money for editorial services and then not market the book. If the author is willing to pay for editing and marketing the book, then those services are already available, and they don't really need the publisher.

Publishers are businesses. The purpose of a business is to make money. If the publisher thinks a book will make money, they will sell it. If not, they will not. It's really not a hard equation.

[ardeegee]

There was an introduction by Harlin Anderson in Dan Simmon's collection Prayers to Broken Stones that has always stuck with me since I first read it 20 years ago, and I've been thinking of it while reading this thread-- I've finally gone back and found the quote that most applies:

"Understand: I do not believe "anyone can write." That is to say, anyone can slap together words in some coherent sequence if s/he had done even a modicum of reading, and has at least a bare grasp of how to use language. Which is talent enough for writing letters, or doctoral theses, or amusing oneself with "creative endeavors." But to be a writer—not an "author" like such ongoing tragedies as Judith Krantz, Eric Segal, V.C. Andrews, Sidney Sheldon, and hordes of others I leave to you to name—one must hear the music. I cannot explicate it better than that. One need only hear the music. The syntax may be spavined, the spelling dyslectic, the subject matter dyspeptic. But you can tell there has been a writer at work. It fills the page, that music, however halting and rife with improper choices. And only amateurs or the counterproductively soft-hearted think it should be otherwise.

When I am hired to ramrod a workshop, I take it as my bond to be absolutely honest about the work. I may personally feel compassion for someone struggling toward the dream of being a writer, who doesn't hear the music, but if I were to take the easy way out, merely to avoid "hurting someone's feelings"—not the least of which are my own, because nobody likes to be thought of as an insensitive monster—I would be betraying my craft, as well as my employers. As well as the best interests of the students themselves. Lying to someone who, in my opinion (which can certainly be wrong, even as yours), doesn't have the stuff, is mendacious in the extreme. It is cowardly, not merely dishonest. Flannery O'Connor once said, "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."

Similarly, I take it as my chore to discourage as many "aspiring authors" as I possibly can."

So, the reason I'm so anti-"open slushpile" is because I think that good publishers should be not only a promoter of good writers but also a preventer of bad ones.

(This coming from a former aspiring writer who long ago realized that my love of reading did not equal a talent for writing.)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Well, okay, I'll admit that it may be just me: Out of those "400,000 books" being produced per year, I find myself interested in and buying very, very few of them (on the order of 4-6 books per year, in a good year). So maybe I'm really the only one looking for books that aren't being printed for me.

And though I haven't been rejected (you can't really say you've been rejected when they refused to even consider looking at the book!), I do have the feeling that there are probably better authors than myself who have been similarly snubbed, and could use a better outlet for their work.

(I also take it as implied that there are those who believe that, since I have not been vetted by a reputable publishing house, my work must therefore also be c**p, QED, and therefore my opinion on the matter isn't worth much... which I suppose negates the point of the previous paragraph thoroughly...)

To answer Bob's question: If a service bureau came to me and said, "If you pay $X, you can expect a Y-Z% return on investment in terms of sales for our services," and assuming I had the $X (and believed their figures)... yes, I would consider such a service. I would especially consider it if their services included things I could not do for myself. I have, so far, never received a credible offer like that, which is why I've never used one.

It clearly seems to some that I am simply proposing this model out of some deep-seated desire to ransack the present publishing model that has done me so little personal service in the past. Not really: Considering I have, and use, the tools at hand to successfully self-publish, I'd think it would be evident that my suggestion was intended to benefit others who are not so fortunate or able to self-publish as I... especially those who are better writers than I, whose works are left undiscovered in the current system.

And I've been careful to make it clear that I am not disparaging the publishing system's core services... just that they might be redirected in a way that would help get more good books out there, and in so doing, maybe help to revitalize an industry that is struggling through hard and unsure times.

To be clear: It really doesn't matter to me what the publishing industry does, since I'm operating outside of their influence.

Well, it was just a thought. After all, if we don't discuss ideas, how will we know what is and isn't workable?

[Steven Lake]

Steve Jordan: In regards to your first post, POD and Pay to Publish (PTP) already do that. And the current system is just fine as is. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. IE, It's taking the dreks (as one person called them) and pushing them to the bottom of the stack while (in most cases) pushing the cream to the top. The only thing they really need to do is to change how the filtering process works. IE, instead of taking submissions, they should just let all authors start out in PTP or POD, wait and see how they do, and if they do good, sign them. Same with agents. It'll reduce the publisher and agent workload by leaps and bounds while ensuring that only the "good" authors get picked up. Right now the workload at the publishing houses is causing too many "dreks" to get through because the editors are overworked.

At least that's my idea. Now whether anyone would do that remains to be seen. One thing for certain, it'll make those wanting to hit the top work harder and get better, which in the end benefits us all. It'll also make the wannabes who only want stuff handed to them and don't want to work for their spot at the top just up and quit, leaving room for better authors. That's just my 2c.