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Much easier to save money by not publishing at all!
Considering authors an "expense" rather than "the core source of the business" is one of the issues that's gotten BPHs into their current problems.
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Heh, cute. Unfortunately, in the real world, author's advances are an "expense" - the biggest expense of all, despite much snark about executive salaries and perks. The BPHS should be thought of as venture capitalists who "bet" on various authors and projects and share the risk with them by advancing them money and resources (editing services, etc) against future profits ( royalties). Most of the times these bets lose money, sometimes they pay off ( mid-list authors like Charles Stross) and sometimes they pay off big ( Laura Hillebrand, Stephen King). most of the time you never hear about the losses (7 out of 10 of all books) . Essentially, consumers are bitching about the pricing of the winners while not even considering the expenses of the losers, which the BPHS have to eat.
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They don't develop new authors now--they want instant blockbuster authors. Their business model doesn't fit with today's publishing world, and they're trying to change the world instead of the model.
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Almost every living author that you've ever heard of was introduced to the public through the BPHs- including one JA Konrath ( quiet as its kept). As to the new business model, it seems to be based on the idea that the author should take all the risk, do all the work, and price the product at a fraction of the price of books put out by the BPHs- all in search of a market- ebook only - that is still a fraction of the total book market. Not surprisingly, most new authors still prefer to pursue the " old business model" whenever they have a choice.
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Not without an assured customer base. If they'd stop thinking of books as produce that expires three months from the release date, they could plan for long-term sales for books that have high initial costs. Since they're assuming that all the money invested in a book needs to be made back in less than a year (even for books that take 5 years to produce)... I won't be surprised to see a lot less fact-based nonfiction on the market in the future.
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Ah, the old long-tail concept. You should understand that this is an academic hypothesis that is by no means established in practice. Glad you agree that fact-based nonfiction is likely to decline in the future.