Random House Explains What Publishers Do

[charlesatan]

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012...publishers-do/

Some videos, and goes into audio book production too.

[tubemonkey]

Now all they have to do is to step up the pace of the transition to digital and to lower prices or they're gonna go out of business.

[rhadin]

The video demonstrates the broad services that a publisher provides that an author who self-publishes has to assume. I think it also demonstrates why most self-published authors fail. The Random House video talks about how the books chosen for publication are the best, but the reality is that many of them are not very good at all. Yet, RH has to make some effort to sell the books in an attempt to recoup its investment. This is the difficulty that self-publishing authors face: if they make a financial investment in their book, can they recoup it? Because most believe the answer is no, they do not make the investment needed to succeed. Because RH can spread that investment over many outlets and many books, it is willing to gamble that overall it will succeed, even if it fails on a particular book. The indie author cannot afford to fail on the one book because he/she doesn't have enough product over which to spread a gamble.

Bottom line is that even if half of what RH says it does it in fact does for most of the books it publishes, it is adding significant value to a book.

[Sil_liS]

These are the people who's salaries you pay when you buy a book published by RH.

[Phogg]

It was very odd.
Not one of those little videos covered the part about refusing to release an artists work in certain markets or formats where the publisher does business.

Shennanigans.

Where is the explanation about how you lose control of your work and the publisher keeps it unavailable?

Looks to be long on self serving propaganda, and really effing short on thoroughness and honesty. A bit of fluff to draw in the marks.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by rhadin

The video demonstrates the broad services that a publisher provides that an author who self-publishes has to assume. I think it also demonstrates why most self-published authors fail. The Random House video talks about how the books chosen for publication are the best, but the reality is that many of them are not very good at all. Yet, RH has to make some effort to sell the books in an attempt to recoup its investment. This is the difficulty that self-publishing authors face: if they make a financial investment in their book, can they recoup it? Because most believe the answer is no, they do not make the investment needed to succeed. Because RH can spread that investment over many outlets and many books, it is willing to gamble that overall it will succeed, even if it fails on a particular book. The indie author cannot afford to fail on the one book because he/she doesn't have enough product over which to spread a gamble.

Great.

And when someone points to those thick heads that institution of venture capitalism exist for a long, long time, and knows a thing or two about risk management and statistics (thank you very much), maybe those geniuses will finally figure out how dangerous is to degrade a book to a "simple" good for sale.

[haydnfan]

I think the video is a smart move. It is easy for anonymous publishing houses to be vilified for their business tactics, but harder when there is a human face behind them. Harder when it shows that it involves people actually doing work to earn their paycheck. I don't think that Macmillan or Penguin would debase themselves by trying to reach out to us. But Random House is a smarter publisher, they are trying to reach out to us instead of push us away. It is a good first step that the publishing industry needed to take.

[tubemonkey]

These videos are propaganda pieces. The old model is dying and they need to get with the times and move into the digital age. That means shedding excess baggage so they can lower prices accordingly. The restrictions and prices they place on ebooks are outrageous.

[kennyc]

It's marketing propaganda in just one more attempt to justify their outmoded system, just as the slave-owners did til the end of the civil war....

As someone else above said, these are the people who are being paid from the work of the authors, not one author praising them or presenting that side of the story, for other side of the coin all you have to do is visit various blogs:

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

http://kriswrites.com/

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/

http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/201...el-j-sullivan/

http://www.barryeisler.com/index.php

[Catlady]

I think RH did a good job with the video. What struck me as odd, however, was that the editors were editing mss. on paper!

[kennyc]

That's the best way as far as I'm concerned. I hate editing on-screen. I generally print out my works and edit it. Then use the edited/marked up copy to enter into the computer, sometimes making additional (usually small) changes at that point.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's marketing propaganda in just one more attempt to justify their outmoded system, just as the slave-owners did til the end of the civil war....

As someone else above said, these are the people who are being paid from the work of the authors, not one author praising them or presenting that side of the story, for other side of the coin all you have to do is visit various blogs:[...]

They seem to minimize the author's role in creating a book. The title of the first video is "Bringing Our Authors' Books to Life".

Writing is all about re-writing, and so that is one of the functions that our editors help and often do in order to make an author's work as clear as it can be.

[J. Strnad]

I thought it was a good video.

I did keep thinking, though: "That office space looks expensive! I wonder how much that person gets paid. How many books is that person juggling at once, and how much time does he/she get to spend on any single book? That's a big warehouse...shipping a million books a day. I wonder what that costs." etc.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's the best way as far as I'm concerned. I hate editing on-screen. I generally print out my works and edit it. Then use the edited/marked up copy to enter into the computer, sometimes making additional (usually small) changes at that point.

Extra step means an extra chance to introduce errors.

[kennyc]

more like extra chance to get it right.

For me it is much easierto miss things on-screen. shrug.