Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
(added link to exact post)
The points he raises are
(1) Baen aren't in New York
(2) They use contractors for some functions
(3) They are a niche publisher
(4) Baen uses Simon and Schuster for printing, marketing and distribution.
(1) No publisher has to have expensive office space in New York
(2) Contractors or employees all need to be paid
(3) Yes, they're a niche publisher, but why is that relevant?
(4) Simon and Schuster are going to be charge Baen AT LEAST their fair share of Simon and Schuster's costs.
Big publishers ought to have economies of scale that aren't available to Baen, especially in the ebook field. I think it is reasonable to compare them to other publishers.
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Without going into it point by point, what I read from that post #135 was, "Baen has proven that all of that stuff about costs that the other publishers are spewing is crap, so therefore Baen can't be compared to the other publishers".
Big publishing houses need to be big publishing houses because they've built a business model around the production of paper books that favours that. Once the proportion of ebook sales starts to get into the same order of magnitude as pbook sales, authors are going to start telling those publishers to pound sand. It's inevitable. If an author can sell 1/2 as many books, but get to keep 5 times as much of the take from each sale, and keep as much artistic control over the material as they want by simply not publishing on paper, why the hell wouldn't they?