Quote:
od premise. Name some examples: great nonfic books that only got written because of advances large enough for the author to live off them to do the necessary research.
Who are the amazing nonfic authors with the six-figure advances? Which nonfic books get TV commercials? (Besides Dianetics. Which kinda doesn't count.)
I'm not saying there aren't any, but nothing comes to mind right off.
|
According to
THIS blog post, the average advance for a non-fiction book from a BPH has $30,000.00-substantially more than for a fiction release. Guess what type of book is likely to get the chop when Amazon starts squeezing?
I think its pretty much wishful thinking to believe things won't work out like Shatzkin said. FWIW, Teresa Hayden, editor at Tor.com and no Luddite or BPH apologist,
agrees.
Quote:
Amazon also wants to have the Kindle edition go on sale at the same time as the hardcover, and it wants to set a single price for the Kindle edition that undercuts the new hardcovers like crazy. This is a major problem. The revenue from hot new hardcovers is what keeps most conventional publishers afloat. It enables them to buy odd books and small books and first novels, and to put real effort into editing and packaging and promoting their books, and to pursue long-term projects like developing their authors’ careers.
In the long run, the Amazon model turns publishers into unfunded R&D labs that are obliged to turn over everything they develop to other companies at rock-bottom prices. It isn’t viable, and it’s not author-friendly in six different ways. Have you ever seen a discussion of how badly messed-up Kindle texts are? Amazon’s business isn’t about books and authors; it’s about selling units at a discount.
I like the agency model. Publishers keep doing what publishers do well. Online retailers step into something very like the role of the bookseller. Market forces continue to exert themselves in normal ways. And after decades of theories and models and way too much discussion, the ebook settles into being what it always should have been: just another repro technology, with its own strengths and weaknesses and price points.
|