07-21-2010, 12:32 PM | #16 | |
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07-21-2010, 12:39 PM | #17 | ||
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Yes, promotion is an issue. Publishers tend to reserve promotional dollars for the Big Names, and most promotion consists of making sure the author's following know there's a new book out they can buy. To a large extent, promotion for a new author is on the author. But you have to start somewhere. There's an awful lot of luck involved in the process - for whatever reason, a book gets picked up by the market and becomes popular. Consider who the publisher sells to. For the most part, the publisher does not sell to you directly. They sell to retailers and distributors. Their sales force goes out to buyers and presents the house's line, and the buyers decide which titles and how many to order. The prospective reader is unlikely to know your book exists if it never gets put out on a shelf. (And one of the intangibles is the publisher's annual sales conference, where the editors of various imprints do presentations to tell the sales force what they have in the pipeline, so the sales force can tell the buyers. An editor passionate about your book who pushes it in her presentation can considerably boost the books chances, as the sales force will be motivated to give it extra emphasis when talking to the buyers.) Another factor is that different publishers do well with different books. An old friend is a former Executive Editor at a publishing house, who described rejecting manuscripts that she personally loved, because she knew from experience her house didn't know how to sell that kind of book. Ultimately, it's a crap shoot. Publishers buy books they think will sell and publish them and cross their fingers. they're betting that enough books will sell to cover the losses on the ones that don't and make them enough money to stay in business. And it's a very difficult game for a new author to get a seat at the table. You must expect to write and submit for some time before beginning to sell. But if you want to make any money at it, you largely have to go the traditional publishing route. Quote:
The authors tried to interest a commercial publisher, got nowhere, and chose to self-publish. There is usually a good reason why commercial publishers showed no interest. The authors chose to bypass commercial publishing and do it themselves. The tools are certainly there to make it fairly easy, but quality varies widely, and the authors are faced with the problems of finding their market and letting it know they and their work exists. And I don't know of any self published writer making a living, or even part of one, from self-publishing. If they're lucky, they cover their costs and make beer money. The authors are writing for a niche market that is too small for a commercial publisher to profitably address. Depending upon the market, it may be possible to make money, though not a living. This is probably the best real use of self-publishing. The authors are writing as a hobby because they just like to write, and make the books available for those who might be interest, but aren't overly concerned about sales. This is another valid use of self-publishing. The first question I'd ask anyone going the self-publishing route is "Are you writing for money? Do you hope to make part of all of your living doing it?" If the answer is "yes", I wish them luck and advise them not to quit their day job. ______ Dennis |
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07-21-2010, 12:46 PM | #18 | |
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One of publishing's issues is that the decision about what gets bought and put on a retailer's shelves is made by increasingly fewer people. ______ Dennis Last edited by DMcCunney; 07-21-2010 at 01:07 PM. |
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07-21-2010, 12:47 PM | #19 | |
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They aren't perfect - but everything else is worse for getting your books in front of eyeballs. |
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07-21-2010, 12:56 PM | #20 | |
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It does indicate that more people have the ability and willingness to read ebooks and will purchase them if a title they like is available in that format. ______ Dennis |
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07-21-2010, 01:06 PM | #21 | |
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07-21-2010, 01:43 PM | #22 | |
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In the 1970's and 80's, companies like Digital Equipment Corporation were prominent. DEC was once the second largest computer company in the world after IBM , and their VAX minicomputer running the VMS OS was popular and widely installed. The problem was, hardware got steadily faster and cheaper. It became possible to buy a "super micro" for $25,000 to perform that same sorts of tasks done by a VAX costing $250,000. DEC designed a super micro of their own - the Alpha - but sales didn't ramp up fast enough to stem the losses as customers migrated to cheaper solutions. DEC sold off various parts to survive, and what was left was eventually bought by Compaq, which was in turn bought by HP. HP made minicomputers, too, but had eggs in a lot of other baskets, and weren't driven under by slowing mini-computer sales. HP still sells and supports the last OpenVMS iteration of DEC's flagship OS and services shops still running DEC gear, but DEC is long gone. eBooks are an increasing part of the publishing industry. But eBooks are also cheaper than most comparable paper books. Yet the underlying cost of acquiring a title and preparing if for publication is the same, regardless of the form in which it's issued, and an editor I know estimates the manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution costs for a title to be about 10% of the total budget for the average book. The cost savings of not having a print edition are nowhere near as large as a lot of ebook fans believe, so there are definite limits to how low the price of an ebook might be. And the biggest limiting factor on book sales isn't price - it's discretionary time. Reading books competes with all the other things the reader might be doing instead, such as watching TV. I don't expect the market for books to significantly expand just because they are ebooks, even if they have no cost at all. People will acquire and read what they have time for. So what happens if publishers wind up selling the same total number of books, but the ones they do sell are cheaper, and yield less revenue and profit? How many publishers could survive a shift to entirely electronic publication? We may see publishers begun as pure ebook publishers with lower cost structures cannibalizing the market and traditional publishers fading away. ______ Dennis Last edited by DMcCunney; 07-21-2010 at 03:53 PM. |
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07-21-2010, 02:54 PM | #23 | |
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As a reader, I want some kind of culling function between me and books. I am not interested in spending time trolling through endless self-published books. The likelihood of return on my time (in the form of good books) is too low to make it worthwhile. That's not to say that traditional publishers don't miss good books or make stupid calls, but they're also trying to appeal to a variety of tastes. With e-books, there's more creative outlet for writers, even if it means only a handful of people read their work. I'm not against that. For my own purposes when I shop, I wish there were an easy way to filter out all self-published books. |
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07-21-2010, 03:48 PM | #24 | ||||
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One experiment I find interesting is smarter traditional publishers starting ebook-only lines. A friend is a freelance editor for an ebook only imprint of a traditional publisher. (She's a former senior editor at a traditional publisher, and commented when she told me about the new gig that she appeared to have more qualifications and experience than all of the other applicants combined...) It's a shared risk undertaking: they don't pay advances, but the writer gets a larger than normal cut of the sale. If the book does well, the author does too. And much of the work is done by freelancers operating from home, so the line has far less overhead in terms of office space and the like, as well as lower headcount expenses because freelancers are paid by the book they work on, not a fixed salary, and don't get fringe benefits. I suspect it may work well, because the publisher is a genre publisher and the ebook line is aiming at a specific sub-genre. They know who their intended market is and what it likes, so there's less of the uncertainty attached to efforts from traditional publishers who try to cover all the bases. Quote:
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If you are trying to make a living writing, ebook/self publishing is the wrong way to go. ______ Dennis |
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07-21-2010, 04:09 PM | #25 |
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Yes, I used "culling" specifically, because many think editing just means copy editing or proofreading (even those are separate functions).
Your experiment probably will work. What's lost in that mix is a training ground for the next crop of editors. If editors are all working freelance at home, you've wiped out learning through direct training as well as by osmosis. I'm not saying today's publishing industry is ideal. It's just that there are tradeoffs in the transition, and we should be aware of them. |
07-21-2010, 07:20 PM | #26 | ||||
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We're still learning how much and what sort of actual face to face contact is necessary for efficient functioning, but there's no reason why junior editors can't be mentored by experienced seniors without face to face contact. What will differ is that it will probably take longer and it will be hard to do it as well. Quote:
Meanwhile, publishers make their living selling books. This gives them an incentive to look for good books to sell and make them better if possible, then actually try to sell them. The culling you mention is a good part of the job. Part of an editor's job is making good books better. The other part in making sure bad books don't get published. The folks who advocate cutting out the middle man in the pursuit of lower prices will get unpleasant surprises if it actually occurs, as the culling won't be done. You get what you pay for. If you aren't willing to pay for things that insure quality, you won't get quality. ______ Dennis |
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07-21-2010, 07:32 PM | #27 |
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I edit for a living and have managed people in far-flung locations. We have plenty of tech and telecommunications. Trust me, there's no way to get nearly the training and learning you would in person. All the same, companies are willing to compromise, under pressure from consumers.
I note all this more as an observer and a reader. I lucked out career wise and timing wise; my livelihood isn't at risk. It's a shame for younger editors coming up. It's also a pain for readers who are willing to pay for quality. Much more crap to wade through. |
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