Quote:
Originally Posted by Fbone
That's true. They can't afford to wait for the long tail.
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I don't follow the Baen boards like I used to, but I suspect that Baen will be gobbled up by a larger publisher within a couple of years. This is based on general work I've done in finance and the industry in general.
I don't think Baen's prices are too high--they were below average for a long time. Visibility is the problem for them, small publishers in general and indies. Yes, some indies do very well, but it's a numbers game with any product and a visibility issue. It's much harder to get visibility now than a few years ago. Adverts help, but even the adverts companies are going under, changing their name, revamping requirements. There's been extreme pressure the last couple of years to have at least one book in a series free (part of the time or all of the time). That puts pressure on authors and companies to make up the loss in other books, which pushes prices higher. And make no mistake--a free book is a loss. Even if it leads to other sales, the amount of time put into it by the author and the small pub cannot easily be made up by adding a dollar to the price of the subsequent book in the series. Writing, editing and advertising two books is generally a two to three year endeavor for many authors/companies.
I did a post on my blog a while back discussing how books were going to get shorter overall (word count). I already see it in my editing business. Even indies need to write faster (or perhaps especially indies). Knowing they have to put a first book free often means a novella to introduce characters. And this doesn't work as well as a full novel to attract readers to a series. But even to get attention on a full book or novella, the indie is losing money advertising it exists. The time lost is quite large. Authors writing for small companies don't get paid any royalties until acceptance and then sales. They need to have a huge backlist to generate even a modest income (this is for the average author, not necessarily the few best sellers out there.)
Baen and other small publishers are in the same boat with indies. How to get the word out when Amazon's algos don't help much (if at all. I don't know if Baen has any kind of agreement with Amazon. I know that Samhain apparently tried to get better placement and efforts failed. The erotica publisher that went under last year had the same problem.)
People have become jaded by reviews so fewer people review books. That hurts visibility too.
It's a very tough business environment right now. I'd be very surprised if Baen can stand alone in it--I'd be happier if they did, but I think they may get bought up.
I also expect to see some consolidation in the companies that do distribution (smashwords and d2d and other companies in that line).
It will be interesting...