Quote:
Originally Posted by igorsk
I hear Baen sets a minimum number of copies the ebook must sell in a [some time period] to be considered "in print".
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Now see, this is reasonable and logical. Unfortunately, we're talking about PUBLISHING here. Reasonable and logical do not apply.
I kid, but the Byzantine nature of publishing (from my observation) is Byzantine for a reason: it works. It doesn't seem like it should, there are other ways of doing business that seem like they would work better, but the current system, as twisted and weird as it is, works. Everybody makes money--the publisher, the author, the agent, the wholesaler/distributor, the retailer. They all might want more money, but they are getting something out of it.
I think that's the problem with suggesting new paradigms. However logical and reasonable they might seem, if you mess with the current delicate balance, the whole thing might come apart. It seems logical to say, "Bookstores shouldn't be able to return books for credit! No other retailer can do that!" But if they couldn't do that, the bookstores would go out of business. (What would make sense would be to not allow the big chains to abuse this privilege.) It seems to make sense to say, "Pay authors less advance money and higher royalties on the backend," but if that happened, many authors would not be able to write as their primary job--and if they had to do something else for a day job, they wouldn't be able to write. (I'm struggling with that balance now myself.) There also is a school of thought that the publishers will push a book harder if they have a big advance involved.
There is no doubt that the publishing system needs to adapt, but it's going to happen very, very slowly. Unfortunately it's getting to the point that there is pressure being applied from the outside. The trick will be to make the change without wrecking that delicate balance.