Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
I do think that there will always be a place for publishers. Frankly, few authors want to do it all themselves. They just want to write and not do the chores. (back in the late 90's, the famous efficiency expert, Peter Drucker, wrote an essay on knowledge workers and productivity. His point was to make a knowledge worker productive, you keep them focused on their main expertise and have someone else do the chore work)
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I agree with you on this. There will always be a place for publishers, but not as we have known them. Some of the more innovative publishers now are leading the way. I don't know all of the characteristics that they will have. However, some do seem to be apparent. They will pay authors much higher royalties. Small advances if any will be the norm. They will probably gain new authors mainly from the ranks of the successful self-published, and will need to offer sufficiently attractive terms. Many such authors may well find it attractive to be able to concentrate on their writing and work with well established professional teams, and be prepared to sacrifice some of the 70% royalty rate they could receive from Amazon for this. Bookouture for instance was paying I think something like 50% rate before it was taken over by from memory Harper Collins. I'm not sure what has happened since but am not optimistic Others will no doubt resist such offers and prefer to pay a flat or hourly fee to professional service providers such as proofreaders, editors, cover designers etc. and keep self publishing. RIghts grabs for every conceivable format and life of copyright licenses or assignments will not be common. Most publishers will likely remain relatively small, though Amazon will remain a big player and I expect Baen to survive and prosper.
It has never been the case that the big publishers offered no value. But the price for those bundled services was the authors loss of their work for the whole of their life plus 70 years or thereabouts, and their surrender of control. But before self publishing took off there was little alternative. The large publishers largely do not seem to have adapted and they are running out of time if indeed they have not already. It is amazing to me that they have responded by raising their prices, dumping their midlist and making their terms for those surviving and new authors even more draconian.