Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeD
I'm not sure Amazon will fully take on the role that traditional publishers fulfil. But they can replace them for many authors that are happy to cover those aspects themselves and self publish with Amazon. What remains to be seen is whether publishers will adapt before Amazon or a new entrant does decide to take on that role. It would likely be terrible if amazon did fill that roll though (e.g. with advances to noted authors), as the result would probably be exclusives for at least a limited amount of time.
|
The biggest challenge that Amazon poses to *all* publishers, not just the BPHs, is in royalties. And that is one development that cannot be rolled back.
In turning the Agency Model's 70-30 pricing into a weapon against its originators, Amazon has exposed forever just how little *authors* have lately been getting as a return from traditional publishers.
That is one djinn that ain't going back into the bottle.
The royalty fights are just starting.
Just wait until the "big name" authors' contracts come due for renewal. If ebooks' share of the narrative text market grows any higher, 50% royalties are going to be the baseline for most negotiations, with the implied threat to take the ebooks to Amazon (for 70%) the open fallback position.
This will, of course, bring in Hollywood-style creative accounting and preemptive auditing and...
Its kinda like quicksand: the more the traditional publishers thrash about, trying to protect their high-overhead model, the quicker and deeper they're likely to sink.
I tend to believe that fear and loathing of Amazon ignores the fact that what Amazon does, as a *publisher*, can and will be done by others. And *is* being done by others, and not just B&N and Kobo, but the likes of Open Road, Carina, Mysterious Press, and plenty others to follow.
Some, like Carina, will be appendages of the traditional publishers operating under the new rules of publishing as a service to authors, others will come from the ranks of the literary agents or retailers, and some will be like Pottermore, true partnerships between author and publisher. (Rowling is hardly the only author that is a brand unto herself; I find it innevitable that hyper-prolific authors like Patterson, Roberts, and King will be following in her footsteps in setting themselves up as online ebook destinations/retailers.)
And that, is the real danger to traditional publishing; the loss of the cash cow "bestseller" catalogs they have built their entire business around.
Amazon is rocking the boat, but it is the defecting authors that can sink it. Focusing on Amazon simply highlights the inefficiencies of the current model and just how much better established authors can do without them. Rowling has been either gracious enough or conservative enough to work with her pbook publishers on Pottermore giving them at least a piece of that particular pie, but it should not be lost on anybody that it was done by *her* choice.
That, folks, is as much the future of publishing as what Amazon is doing.