Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
And that is exactly the wrong thing for the wider culture. If we publish what has the greatest potential to earn out, then all we'll have is celebrity biographies, ghost-written celebrity novels and Dan Brown. Is that the book culture you want? You want mindless pablum for the rest of time, because if profit is the bottom line, then that's all you'll ever get (not that the traditional publishers aren't doing that right now).
|
I don't think it has to be this drastic. Many a small publisher works from POD/small print runs rather than mass market or hardback printing. The reason they do that is because they can't afford to do massive printings/warehousing and so on. If they ever get a big hit or an author that is steadily doing better
they can slowly increase print runs.
No, there is no way to know what the public will love and buy ahead of time--but in this electronic/feedback age, there has to be a way to improve the models. If a single editor can't pick the winners, the expense model has to change. And truthfully, it has changed even before ebooks. In the olden days, publishers used to sort their own slush piles. These days, agents do that work for them--getting a cut from authors for the efforts of networking, selling, knowing the market and so on. Models need to continue changing and they need to include ebooks.
Of course, most importantly, and what started this whole conversation: If there is a customer willing to part with money, find a way to get that customer a product and take their money.
I don't think the model of "buy the hardback because that is what we are selling" will work over the long term. It's possible it may work for a while, and I say that because it worked for a long time with paperback/hardbacks. But I think the audience is more educated about what they want and more used to getting it. We see more than just what a single bookstore or two presents on the shelf. In this age, there are more methods to get things we want as well. It's easier to hear about a book, to find out if your library has it, to find it used and so on. The landscape is changing. Ever so.