[stonetools]

Some authors are supporting the BPHs. Authors who are making a living away from them, are not. Some of the authors who are making a living with them, aren't happy about their activities. When almost 2/3 of a group of employees (or clients, or whatever authors are to BPHs) would switch to a different company *for the same amount of money*... they're doing something wrong.

One of the things a few authors do these days is pop off on the Internet about disputes with their publishers. Publishers could respond in the same fashion but don't, for various reasons. These author's rants tend to be rebroadcast by folks who have an axe to grind against the "BPHs", . Those folks then go on to talk about widespread author discontent with publishers. In reality, the vast majority of authors are OK with their publishers. They may not LOVE their publishers, but so what-its a business relationship. If another publisher came up with a better offer, I would switch too.

Several BPHs seem to have the attitude of, "as long as we all offer the *same* lousy terms to authors, none of us will have problems signing on enough talent, because there's nowhere else they can go."

Oddly, most of these BPHs seem to have no problem signing and keeping authors-including authors who have had success self-publishing. Maybe those terms aren't so lousy in reality.

They're not eating from the same pot. That's part of the BPH propaganda: that only X people are reading, and they're only willing to spend Y dollars, and therefore all marketing, contract negotiations, and sales venues are a zero-sum game; there's no *gain* in ebooks, just a transfer of income from paper to e-formats.

It's not true. John Locke sold a million one-dollar ebooks to people who would never have bought a paper copy. There's no evidence *at all* that he would have sold 200,000 paper books at $4.99 instead; his ebook market didn't cut into the paper market. Konrath's publishing house believes that his ebooks "need" to be priced at $7-12 to profit; Konrath's self-releases are proving that very wrong.

Ah,but they do eat from the same pot . Both BPHs and self-pubbers do the same thing-they create books. They make money by creating books which other folks-book sellers-distribute and sell in one form or another. Mr. Locke, BTW seems to believe that there is a market for print sales of his books

Self-published author John Locke has signed a deal with a traditional publisher. The print editions of John Locke Books will be sold and distributed by Simon & Schuster, the company announced Monday

In the statement, Locke added, "I applaud Simon & Schuster’s incredible vision, and their willingness to provide a vehicle that allows all readers traditional access to my books."

LINK

No enmity there.

BPHs are invested in selling books to their known market pool. Indie authors are able to look outside of that, to people who never bought books directly from BPHs--both the used-book market that's happy to buy books at $4 or less, regardless of whether those books give royalties to authors, and a large market of mostly-non-readers who will try books if they're convenient enough.

Actually, indie authors-like BPHs-are looking for paying customers anywhere they can-as it should be. Indies are making a bet that their book can find a market on the Internet, and price their books to sell in the hopes of finding that market. Once they find that market, they become attractive to traditional publishers, who may have "passed" on making a bet earlier. The authors and publishers then "make a bet" on the next book, and the publisher is now more comfortable on laying money down in the form of an advance. In that way the publisher splits the risk of future success or failure with the author, instead of the author laying down only his money alone on the next "hand".
FWIW, its not clear at all to me that non-readers are prevented by price or inconvenience from trying books. My experience is that people either like to read, or they don't-and if they like to read, they'll buy books .