Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Uh-huh.
The numbers favor the extremes: BAEN puts out maybe sixty new titles a year and their entire 30 year active catalog is maybe 2000 titles. The randy penguin pops out 14-15,000 in one year. They can afford to throw darts all over and, like a stop clocked, be right at least sometimes. BAEN can't afford many misses so they have to really know their market and where it is headed. Their backlist alone probably won't cover their overhead.
On the flip side, Indies don't have the ongoing costs of a traditional publisher; most of their expenses are one-time up-front costs. Whatever long tail sales deliver is almost pure profit (after taxes). And Indies don't need a deep fanbase to survive. No need to be the idol of millions to make a decent middle class income if they build up a catalog of a dozen or so good titles over a few years and acquire a few hundred followers.
Getting noticed is always going to be a challenge (always has been) but with the way the market is fragmenting there is going to be a lot of opportunity in the niches for those that can survive on low volumes. There will be room for "cottage industry" players and a couple giant "carpet bombers" but everybody in the middle is at long term risk.
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Indies need more than a few hundred to make a living--it's more like a few thousand. And they need at least ONE series to fall into a best selling category on a regular basis. I know several indies who have a popular series and can't get traction on their other series. Fans don't always (perhaps even usually) check out an author's entire backlist. It's becoming even less common for readers to cross over (I don't know why this is, but I hear it all the time). I suspect that Baen and other publishers have this problem as well.
I think we're going to see the big guys have issues as well and either another merger or two or some kind of change. They can throw titles at the wall, and many have "ebook" only lines to cap costs, but the bulk of cost is editing and marketing (placement in bookstores and at Amazon). While they can turn'em and churn'em they still need a lot of sales--right now "growth" is stalled and they need growth for their shareholders. Indies and small guys can get by on anything that isn't a downtrend if they manage to get high enough in sales in the first place.
Since I happen to think we are headed into a recession in the US, it's only going to get worse before it gets better (IMO).