Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
There is a tendency to look at the overall publishing disruption and cast it as Indies vs tradpub but it isn't. It is about the BPHs vs everybody else. Plenty of smaller tradpubs have adopted Indie economics and workflows and are surviving and prospering. The same reports that show the BPHs shedding market share left and right show smaller tradpub market share growing, especially lately when, unnoticed, many broke ranks with the big boys on pricing.
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Many smaller tradpubs are indeed adapting to the changing market, but in doing so are abandoning the BPH business model which has characterised tradpub. I tend to include these publishers with Indies rather than tradpub. I don't really regard Amazon imprints, for instance, as tradpubs. It all turns on definitions and is not particularly important except for avoiding ambiguity. The real distinction is between those who cling to the old business model and those who have been flexible enough to innovate and adapt to the new. Author Earnings seem to view the significant divide as being Online Sales v. Brick and Mortar sales.
One such more innovative business which could be regarded as Tradpub but is more akin to Indie in a lot of ways was Bookouture. It seems to have succeeded by pricing its books reasonably, carefully selecting its authors and offering them much better terms than the BPH, including a 50% royalty rate. Unfortunately that particular publisher has been too successful, as they were acquired by Hachette UK earlier this year. I'm watching with great interest to see what is going to happen to them as part of Hachette. Unfortunately I suspect that i know.