Guardian: Publishers respond to "who needs a publisher?" article

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Dave Berk

Another side of the debate.

It seems to be the same false assumptions as the other one -- publishers will nurture writers and choose quality books over books that they think will make an instant profit, publishers will market books instead of expecting the writer to do it themself, publishers will correct all the spelling and grammar mistakes. I don't know if publishers ever did do any of those things or not, but they don't now.

Then he seems to think that a writer needs to sell millions of copies of a book in order to make a living, therefore you need to get it into airports and the like. That might be the case if you are only getting a tiny percentage of the income, but if you're not giving 95% of it away you wouldn't need to sell anywhere near that many.

That opens up the possibility to make a decent income from small minority interest subjects, which can only be a good thing for readers and writers alike. Katie Price's memoirs about doing nothing at all suddenly need to compete on a level field with a book about dodgy dealings within the snail racing circuit. I know which I would rather read.

[GA Russell]

I know nothing about publishing, but I have two thoughts about this.

It would seem to me that the publisher's most important contribution is marketing. I include in that the basic sales pitch that says that this is a book that we consider good enough to invest our money in. I would think that that is persuasive for fiction.

Many on the anti-publisher side (both here and posting comments to the articles linked to) say that the publishers aren't doing their job in this regard. Well sure, if they don't do their job, who needs them?

On the other hand, I don't feel the publishers' imprimatur is necessary for special interest non-fiction. I have certain interests, and if a book looks interesting to me I don't care about the industry's opinions about whether it will sell and is therefore worth investing in.

I have bought from self-publisher lulu.com, and it mattered not at all that publishers didn't bid for the book.

[HamsterRage]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

It would seem to me that the publisher's most important contribution is marketing.

Respectfully, I disagree. The publisher's most important contribution is printing the book. In an electronic world, that's not going to count for much.

Everything else can be done by someone else, probably better.

As to marketing, I can't even remember the last time I saw any kind of advertising for the kind of books I read. I'd be willing to bet that most of the books I've read over the past 5 years have been one of the following:

1. Been recommended by friends
2. Seen on store shelves (or electronic stores)
3. Been recommended on forums

And in most cases, I'm investigating by looking up books on Goodreads.com before I buy too.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

Respectfully, I disagree. The publisher's most important contribution is printing the book. In an electronic world, that's not going to count for much.

Most towns have printers who will print and bind a book for you. I would say the main contribution of a publisher is in chasing up legal permissions (eg for using brand names or song lyrics). but still not something you can't do yourself, and certainly not worth giving away 90%+ of your income.

[GA Russell]

I mentioned lulu.com above, and their slogan is, "You be the publisher." The books that I have purchased from lulu have been well made. My only objection is their price for shipping.

[HamsterRage]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Most towns have printers who will print and bind a book for you. I would say the main contribution of a publisher is in chasing up legal permissions (eg for using brand names or song lyrics). but still not something you can't do yourself, and certainly not worth giving away 90%+ of your income.

Actually, I meant all the stuff around printing and distributing the paper books and getting them space in stores and so on. None of which is a concern with ebooks. Some of that is, I guess, marketing.

Thinking about it now, I can see where 90% of the book marketing might happen inside the bookstores. Since I bought my ereader 5 months ago, I think I've been into a bookstore maybe twice.

[Scott Nicholson]

I don't think the average ereader knew much about the different publishers, or really cared--until the Apple flap and the Big Six boondoggle. Now you can pretty much tell a major publisher because its ebooks are $9.99 and up.

I think it would be funny if an indie priced a book that high and that certain group of people who pay for protection from the unwashed, working-class lit assumed it was "seal of approval" stuff and put it on the bestseller list.

Really, after you've been in the industry a while, you realize the 10 that got accepted are not largely different or better than the 90 that got rejected (of course, the superstars always jump out, but good writing has never been that high on the list, or we wouldn't have Lindsay Lohan jailhouse memoirs)

Scott Nicholson

[meromana]

Originally Posted by Scott Nicholson

I don't think the average ereader knew much about the different publishers, or really cared

Definitely. Before I started to think about the whole self-pubbing question, I never gave a second thought to who had published a book, only who wrote it, what it was about, what the cover looked like...

Originally Posted by Scott Nicholson

...people who pay for protection from the unwashed, working-class lit...

Love it!

[eric11210]

Originally Posted by Scott Nicholson

I don't think the average ereader knew much about the different publishers, or really cared--until the Apple flap and the Big Six boondoggle. Now you can pretty much tell a major publisher because its ebooks are $9.99 and up.

I think it would be funny if an indie priced a book that high and that certain group of people who pay for protection from the unwashed, working-class lit assumed it was "seal of approval" stuff and put it on the bestseller list.

Really, after you've been in the industry a while, you realize the 10 that got accepted are not largely different or better than the 90 that got rejected (of course, the superstars always jump out, but good writing has never been that high on the list, or we wouldn't have Lindsay Lohan jailhouse memoirs)

Scott Nicholson

Now this gives me an interesting idea. When I finally finish with my novel and try to publish it, maybe I'll make up a pair of officious sounding names. Let's see -- Safron Books, an imprint of Millstein and Johnson? That sounds good. Then I can price it at $9.99. I wonder if this would be a way to get around some of the snobs. I bet it would. Even if it gives you only a few extra percentage point bump in sales, why not?

[mdmorrissey]

I'm with GA Russell. Viva Lulu (here and here). Smashwords is another one for ebooks, which I will explore either when I have something without formatting problems or when I become an expert in epub creation. In the meantime, I will be glad to switch to a traditional publisher if one discovers me. I do not have the energy or desire to spend a year or so "marketing" my books to publishers.

On the big picture, I don't think paper books will disappear but they will be drastically reduced -- namely to books you are likely to return to repeatedly (e.g., reference books). For one-time reads, ebooks are definitely the future, and it's going to be hard for the "industry" to make money out of this. I for one will not care a hoot, since I am one of the overwhelming majority of authors who have little or no financial gain at all from their writing. What's so terrible about that? Rather: if it's terrible, that's what's wrong.

Still, there is an argument for DRM or similarly protected publishing and whatever role publishers might play in that process. But the future (I hope) is with PUBLIC LIBRARIES! My god, here we have the technology in our hands to obtain any book anywhere in the world in an instant and at no more real cost than an email, and people are falling all over themselves trying to figure out how to choke it so third parties (i.e., not primarily the producers of the product, the authors) can profit! No! Sell the books in paper and eform to libraries and let that be the income for both "publishers" (whatever is left of them) and authors. Or just open it all up and put it in the Gutenberg Project. What the heck. If you're a hack you'll disappear anyway, and if you've got anything to contribute you'll float up to the top anyway by some as yet undiscovered means. At least the current corrupted and dumbed-down means of "discovery" as determined by the publishing industry will no longer control our lives.

[basschick]

my mom belonged to 2 writers groups until last year. over the years, most of the people in her groups were published, and usually by larger publishers. i sure never noticed any support or marketing of any of their books. usually the publishers would dump some paperbacks into a chain and that was it. one of the writers, who published a number of romances and her publisher even requested that she write more, had that publisher pay for economy class air fare and hotel to tour her book, and once she got a standee put in a few walmarts. you wouldn't believe how little money she made, and considering she wasn't paid to tour, it's amazing that she made such a small percentage of each book.

as far as any other attempt at marketing by the publishers, neither the lady i just talked about nor the other published writers saw any of that except that their books were available for sale. most of the marketing they did themselves, and not amazingly they didn't see that many copies sold. if they hadn't loved writing, they could have made more money hourly being paid by the piece to stuff envelopes in their homes.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

Actually, I meant all the stuff around printing and distributing the paper books and getting them space in stores and so on. None of which is a concern with ebooks. Some of that is, I guess, marketing.

Thinking about it now, I can see where 90% of the book marketing might happen inside the bookstores. Since I bought my ereader 5 months ago, I think I've been into a bookstore maybe twice.

It must be getting close to 10 years since I went into a book shop. They didn't have the book I wanted, so I bought it online. Haven't really been back in one since.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by meromana

Definitely. Before I started to think about the whole self-pubbing question, I never gave a second thought to who had published a book, only who wrote it, what it was about, what the cover looked like...



Love it!

My copy of Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny says "FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF STAR WARS" in big text at the top of the front cover.

[jhempel24]

Scott Sigler is a big example of getting yourself out there and making the big publishers take notice. Back when Ancestor hit #7 overall on Amazon with nothing but guerilla marketing with his fanbase. This is the first Ancestor, not the HB that came out in May. The big publishers pushed Amazon to make people CONFIRM their order or they would pull their books etc, because they weren't getting a piece of such a hot seller.

Based off of this he got his book deal and hit the New York Times Best Seller list. But with Crown Publishing anyway they don't do a ton of marketing, it's left up to the author to get his stuff out there. And Sigler gives his stuff away for free and STILL hits the Best Seller List because he has such a large group of people that follow him, and want to support his career. Podcasting seems to be the way things are happening. And from what I understand alot of bigger publishers don't like it at all!

I could have gotten some info wrong here, but it's as close as I can remember in some of his conversations, and during his Tailgate Tour.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

On the big picture, I don't think paper books will disappear but they will be drastically reduced -- namely to books you are likely to return to repeatedly (e.g., reference books).

I don't know, if I'm going to reference something, I don't want to flip through a massive tome. I want to be able to make e-highlights in it and key word search. Plus, by the time a reference book is published, the information is typically already outdated.

Check out this thread.