Now that's a business model...

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

For a big-name author.

Re-read the article; Alex Shakar reportedly got a $300k advance for his first novel. All he'd published before then were some highly respected short stories.

Also, peruse this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/bo...w/Meyer-t.html

$300k isn't necessarily standard. But if you get that kind of advance and only sell 10,000 copies, should you be surprised if you get the axe?

Or, to put it another way: Let's say you write 1 book a year, accept low advances, and consistently earn $15,000 a year for your publisher. For a small publisher with, say, $1 million in revenues, that's very good and they'll want to keep you happy. For a large publisher with $300 million in revenues, that's a drop in the bucket. They may keep you around, but will they put a lot of resources behind you? Should they?

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

And remember that this is an advance.... If the publisher loses that bet -- that is, if the book never earns out its advance -- whose fault is that?

I don't want to shock you here, but yes I know what an advance is and how it works.

There is no single culprit if a book fails to sell enough to earn back its advance. Authors and agents are demanding high advances, and publishers are giving it to them, and no one really knows beforehand how many copies any particular book is going to sell.

For example, perhaps Alex Shakar would've done better if he started out taking a $100,000 advance and aimed for a higher royalty rate, or chose to be the "big fish in a little pond" at a smaller publisher. Whose "fault" is it that he signed for $300k at Harper Collins?

The reality is that authors, agents and large publishers have collectively priced themselves out of the "long term hold" mentality.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

That's one of the reasons I keep harping on Baen, even those I dislike their politics: They've figured out how to keep the money coming.

So have the larger publishers. And part of it is dropping authors who don't have large enough sales.

There is no single approach that works for all books. It's a mistake to assume that all publishers would do great things if they worked like Baen (or that every publisher should try to turn into Penguin).

Nor, I might add, do Baen's business practices make the slightest difference to me. When I read a book, I'm going to judge it based on its merits, not its provenance.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Lotteries are a tax on people who are bad at math. So is the current state of the publishing industry. They're still acting like the entertainment climate is the same as it was when books were the only game in town.

Oh, please. Spare us the default publisher-bashing.

Publishing has radically changed over the past 30-40 years. The blockbuster mentality is a relatively recent shift in publishing.

Nor is pushing midlist authors to smaller publishers a bad thing for, well, anyone. The big publishers are cutting their costs and getting more efficient. Many authors will be happier at smaller publishers, who can give a midlist author more attention. The only people who lose out here, really, are the agents; with the smaller advances, the agent gets less up-front.

In other words, to the reader this is essentially a meaningless change. I mean, really. Without looking -- who publishes Jack Kerouac? Laura Hillenbrand? Mark Twain's or Keith Richards' autobiography? And even if you do somehow know this off the top of your head (I don't, btw), I seriously doubt that even avid readers know or care.

By the way, books haven't been the "only game in town" for well over a century. I'm gonna guess that the publishers of all sizes might be aware of other media by now.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Oh, please. Spare us the default publisher-bashing.

Yeah, don't bash publishing in general. Just go after the big houses. It's more fun.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

They find good authors and sell their books in paper and electronic formats at a fair price. They pay fair advances to authors who know their books will earn out their advance, so everyone makes money.

The find authors that will sell books. They are not necessarily good authors.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Wow, so we now see the next step in the fall of the big houses.

Yeah, no.

What's happening is that people are assuming that the book business, like movies and music, won't support midlist sales. Apparently that is not the case, because smaller publishers are apparently able to manage this niche.

I.e. the book business is not necessarily taking the same path as other industries, where midlists are allegedly getting squeezed.

That hardly means big publishers are doomed, only that they won't support an author for 10 years before giving up as they might have in 1970. They can't afford to, as those authors and their agents are typically demanding significantly higher advances today than they did in 1970 -- thus drastically increasing the costs to support that author.

Or, to put it another way: Smaller publishers are taking up the role of supporting authors in their development. It's cheaper (and savvier) for a big publisher to wait until an author is selling 60,000 books and then offer that author a big advance, than to keep them on the roster for 10 years while they build an audience and their skills. The author may well stay with the smaller publisher that supported them -- but may not.

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Oddly, as some people have pointed out, this is the exact same steps the music industry took, causing the fall of seven of the ten biggest labels, with the remaining three mega record labels still barely clinging to life.

That's a nice theory, but I don't see a lot of evidence for it.

Recording sales have plunged across the board -- not just for big acts, but for small and midlist as well. The culprits here are natural declines in CD sales (backlist CD sales generated huge profits for years, as people re-purchased recordings in the new format) and piracy.

Nor do we see smaller labels like K, Subpop, Matador, Nonesuch and the like blasting through the stratosphere on a regular basis.

There isn't even a viable correlation here -- it's not like the major labels decided in 2002 that they were going to focus on the big acts. Music labels have pushed big acts for decades; just look at AOR in the 70s. The decline of recording sales doesn't have much to do with the focus on blockbusters.

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Yeah, don't bash publishing in general. Just go after the big houses. It's more fun.

I assume you mean this in jest. Well, partly.

That said, IMO the "zomg big is evil" is an adolescent view of the world. Small companies screw people just as often and/or badly as big ones, sometimes worse. People still like mass experiences and big hits, and a 5-person publishing company is going to have an extremely difficult time generating and supporting that type of enterprise.

And even if you did somehow get rid of today's publishers, someone else will just fill that role, and you'll just move onto the next largest target.

Big companies are going to be a part of the economic and cultural firmament for the rest of your life -- and there are no guarantees that their replacements will be any better. You might want to keep that in mind when you root for their destruction.

[Steven Lake]

Kali Yuga: Yes, it was a pun. I figured a little humor was appropriate for the moment. ^_^

As for the "OMG Big is Evil" mentality, while not necessarily true, it does seem like an exorbitant number of the bad things that happen come from the big companies. So I can understand the mentality. People tend to generalize on a lot of things, and I'm guilty of that as well, but there are some generalizations out there that are pretty accurate, "Big is Evil" being one of them. Again, not "all inclusive", but certainly accurate.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

As for the "OMG Big is Evil" mentality, while not necessarily true, it does seem like an exorbitant number of the bad things that happen come from the big companies. So I can understand the mentality. People tend to generalize on a lot of things, and I'm guilty of that as well, but there are some generalizations out there that are pretty accurate, "Big is Evil" being one of them. Again, not "all inclusive", but certainly accurate.

Since they are big they will do more things. And since they are big you will hear about bad things. So I would say it is unclear if it is accurate but maybe there are some empirical studies of the subject?

[Rhynedahll]

The dinosaurs were big, and they had their hey day, but eventually the world moved on.

IMHO, the day of the giant publishing conglomerates is fading.

Diversification took the steam out of the big three TV networks and I think that the diversification taking place through ebooks will eventually break the big 6 publishers business model.

May take a few years, but I think it is inevitable.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Rhynedahll

The dinosaurs were big, and they had their hey day, but eventually the world moved on.

IMHO, the day of the giant publishing conglomerates is fading.

Diversification took the steam out of the big three TV networks and I think that the diversification taking place through ebooks will eventually break the big 6 publishers business model.

May take a few years, but I think it is inevitable.

Why?

We had diversification before. The current state with very big publishers is a very recent thing. So what have changed making it viable to go back to how thing were?

[HPOliver]

Do you recall the days of neighborhood grocery stores, independent banks, mom and pop hardware shops, and small retailers of almost everything under the sun? For those of us who dwell in the major metropolitan areas of this country, those were far better days.

True, things were less convenient back then and I suppose we paid more for the items we purchased, but there were some significant benefits also, not the least of which being that you, as a customer, represented a larger percentage of a store’s customer base—say 0.1% as opposed to 0.0001%. In other words, what you thought and bought mattered a whole lot more to the business owner.

It is my fervent hope that e-publishing represents, at least to some small degree, a return to the days of independent businesspersons who were willing to share the pie with their competitors, rather than basing every decision on eliminating those competitors. If that’s what’s happening, it might well mean the end of an era when agents and the will of the masses determined what we read.

H.P.

[Ken Maltby]

One factor that may be effecting the scope and pace of epublishing impacting (perhaps
someday replacing) the current publishing structure, is the public's adoption and the
availability of the technology required to support it. You don't need a device to read or
a computer network to acquire a paper book. You do need those to be an ebook
consumer. Despite the efforts of our government schools, there are still more people
equipped to read a paper book than those with a device to read e-books. An author
has to consider the limits of the ebook market as well as it's benefits.

The good news may be that the number of those equipped to obtain and read ebooks,
is on the rise, as the cost of the required technology steadily declines. Still at this
point, they/we are only a tiny fraction of the reading public.

Luck;
Ken

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

The good news may be that the number of those equipped to obtain and read ebooks, is on the rise, as the cost of the required technology steadily declines. Still at this point, they/we are only a tiny fraction of the reading public.

Ken, I expect that after this Christmas they/we will be a significant fraction of the reading public in the US, if we define "reading public" to be those who read general fiction.

I believe that the reading public is a very small percentage of the general population.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by tompe

The find authors that will sell books. They are not necessarily good authors.

So a good author is one who ... doesn't ... sell books?

Ah, yes, the "literary" authors, who are so Special and so Refined that the poor peons of the world can't understand them. Only the Special and Refined people can understand how great they are. The people who support Art. Y'know, Art like the kind Jack the Dripper made. Art-house movies may be Special too, but there's a reason nobody makes a fortune (or, usually, even a living) off of creating them.

And, the last I looked, a publisher's job was to find authors who will sell books. Publishing only those Special and Refined authors who don't sell books is a quick ticket to the unemployment line.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

So a good author is one who ... doesn't ... sell books?

Ah, yes, the "literary" authors, who are so Special and so Refined that the poor peons of the world can't understand them. Only the Special and Refined people can understand how great they are. The people who support Art. Y'know, Art like the kind Jack the Dripper made. Art-house movies may be Special too, but there's a reason nobody makes a fortune (or, usually, even a living) off of creating them.

And, the last I looked, a publisher's job was to find authors who will sell books. Publishing only those Special and Refined authors who don't sell books is a quick ticket to the unemployment line.

I did not say anything about literary authors. Baen publish mid-list books in SF. There are a lot of SF authors that are much better than most of the Baen authors. Technically better and overall better as writers. And who will sell much more copies than the mid-list books Baen are selling.

Dan Brown sell a lot of copies but are not a good author or writer. But somebody selling book can also be a good author. What I said do not imply what you think it implies. (You have made the common mistake of thinking that an implication is an equivalence).

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by Doug Huffman

We read a lot. E-books have removed the physical space considerations - she had insisted that my number of p-books not increase beyond my quite static collection of classics and reference material.

I hate that in a spouse ...

[Fbone]

I believe these executive decisions are made to please the shareholders. They demand fast growth and big profits so their stock prices rise for quick gains.