DOJ suing Apple over ebooks.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by plib

No. I don't.

I mean authors like Bernard Cornwell, George R.R Martin, David Weber, John Grisham, Diana Gabaldon, Eric Flint, John Ringo, Lee Child, Mary Higgins Clark, Nora Roberts/J.D Robb, Rachel Maddow, James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Michael Connelly, Stephen King, - add as many more as you like.

They don't need the BPH any more. Once their current contracts expire they can self publish and hit just as many Amazon best seller lists as they do now. Even the up and coming indies know they have more muscle in negotiations than at any time previously. What was it that it took a major publisher to hook Amanda Hocking? $2 million? And she was one of your indies who was presumably incapable of "using correct spelling, grammar and punctuation", who they only managed to catch at the top of the curve.

If the BPH want to catch/keep popular authors then they're going to pay through the nose or they're going to lose them, because they're not the only game in town any more. Either way their profits are going to take a major hit. They probably will survive in some form, but not in any way close to their present structure.

And books using "correct spelling, grammar and punctuation" will continue to be written. Just as they were long before the BPH ever existed.

Well, just as an aside, Janet Evanovitch has been raking in advances that are so larcenous that there is some speculation that her new publishers are actually losing money publishing her. When her old shop, which paid her $40 million for four books of decreasing quality refused to pony up $50 million for the next 4, she walked out.

Granted she might make more as an independent, but that's not guaranteed. According to her former publisher, her last few books only sold about 919,000 copies, so her after costs commission would have to be more than $12.50 a book to match her current PBH advance.

Author's like that are one of the reason the industry is in the toilet, in my opinion.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by rhadin

That's a statement based on wishes not fact. Amazon should be able to sell its Kindle for $19.99 and make a profit. That statement has as much validity as saying that a publisher plus the author plus the retailer can all make money selling no book for more than $9.99. A bold statement unsupported by any factual basis.

I know that a lot of ebookers make the statement but repeating it a million times doesn't make it true. It MAY be true, but no one has yet PROVEN it is true. All of us base our pricing statements on pure conjecture. I admit I do not know that a Random House cannot be profitable selling all of its books at no more than $9.99, but I do know that when I was the head of a small publishing company in the early 1990s, we couldn't.

Pricing and costs are a convoluted mess, but one thing I found was the complexity of a fair pricing formula increased by the square of the number of formats you offer. Just e-book? Easy peasy. E-book and paperback? 2 formats, 4 times as complex. E-book, paperback and hardcover? 3 formats, 9 times as complex....

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I do understand that it's a *massive* business shift, for companies with a great deal of inertia. However, it's not like this exploded out of the blue... ebooks have been around for decades, and commercially available for over 10 years. The BPHs have certainly had time to notice, "hey, there's this new marketing option suitable for our content that we're not really set up to deal with; how should we fix that?"

Instead, they've decided to go with, "this new marketing option could damage our meat-and-potatoes, the hardcover book sales. Let's keep it as limited as possible."

Which, ah, worked somewhat for several years... but it turns out there are plenty of people *not* making millions on hardcovers, who are willing to explore the new marketplace.

So very true. Again, this sort of thinking is highlighted very well in regards to the entertainment industry.

First comment made after losing their High Court of Australia appeal by AFACT/MPAA is to demand that federal copyright legislation change to suit THEIR anachronistic business model, rather than using the whole defeat as a chance to make changes internally.

Nope not going to happen...

[kacir]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

At first I thought you were talking about "The Road"...

Well ... It seems there are several books that fit the description ;-)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by kacir

Well ... It seems there are several books that fit the description ;-)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Author's like that are one of the reason the industry is in the toilet, in my opinion.

You may be right.

But I would say that BPH execs that sign those kinds of *contracts* have something to do with it.
The name of the game, as the BPHs play it, is "LEVERAGE". They rip-off the authors without it so its only fair they get ripped-off by the ones that do have it. Turnabout and all that...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by sabredog

So very true. Again, this sort of thinking is highlighted very well in regards to the entertainment industry.

Oh, it happens all over in all sorts of businesses.
Especially the ones that end up in Chapter 7 liquidation.

Some folks simply refuse to believe that if they don't obsolete their own products somebody else *will*. Ostrich-think, I guess.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

You may be right.

But I would say that BPH execs that sign those kinds of *contracts* have something to do with it.
The name of the game, as the BPHs play it, is "LEVERAGE". They rip-off the authors without it so its only fair they get ripped-off by the ones that do have it. Turnabout and all that...

Rip off in what way?

What seems to be missing from all the claims about how publishing works is that the publishers pay and take a risk. For a lot of books they publish they loose money. And for some they earn money. The reason they want to sign multiple book deals with authors is that the first books usually do not earn any money. So they need to have a contract for more books to maximize the chance of earning money on a writers books.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tompe

Rip off in what way?

What seems to be missing from all the claims about how publishing works is that the publishers pay and take a risk. For a lot of books they publish they loose money. And for some they earn money. The reason they want to sign multiple book deals with authors is that the first books usually do not earn any money. So they need to have a contract for more books to maximize the chance of earning money on a writers books.

Uh no, on virtually all counts.

They pay the creators of the works only a small fraction of what is earned. The risks are their own, it has nothing to do with the author. They lose money because of stupid decisions and bad bets. It's their own fault. They want to sign multiple book deals to lock the author in, regardless of anything else, another one of those 'betting' things, but they can't lose because if the author's work sucks then they just go with it, no loss. If the author wins big then they only pay a pittance percentage to the creator and pocket the winnings while retaining all rights to the authors works.

You are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

[stonetools]

Much easier to save money by not publishing at all!
Considering authors an "expense" rather than "the core source of the business" is one of the issues that's gotten BPHs into their current problems.

Heh, cute. Unfortunately, in the real world, author's advances are an "expense" - the biggest expense of all, despite much snark about executive salaries and perks. The BPHS should be thought of as venture capitalists who "bet" on various authors and projects and share the risk with them by advancing them money and resources (editing services, etc) against future profits ( royalties). Most of the times these bets lose money, sometimes they pay off ( mid-list authors like Charles Stross) and sometimes they pay off big ( Laura Hillebrand, Stephen King). most of the time you never hear about the losses (7 out of 10 of all books) . Essentially, consumers are bitching about the pricing of the winners while not even considering the expenses of the losers, which the BPHS have to eat.

They don't develop new authors now--they want instant blockbuster authors. Their business model doesn't fit with today's publishing world, and they're trying to change the world instead of the model.

Almost every living author that you've ever heard of was introduced to the public through the BPHs- including one JA Konrath ( quiet as its kept). As to the new business model, it seems to be based on the idea that the author should take all the risk, do all the work, and price the product at a fraction of the price of books put out by the BPHs- all in search of a market- ebook only - that is still a fraction of the total book market. Not surprisingly, most new authors still prefer to pursue the " old business model" whenever they have a choice.

Not without an assured customer base. If they'd stop thinking of books as produce that expires three months from the release date, they could plan for long-term sales for books that have high initial costs. Since they're assuming that all the money invested in a book needs to be made back in less than a year (even for books that take 5 years to produce)... I won't be surprised to see a lot less fact-based nonfiction on the market in the future.

Ah, the old long-tail concept. You should understand that this is an academic hypothesis that is by no means established in practice. Glad you agree that fact-based nonfiction is likely to decline in the future.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Uh no, on virtually all counts.

They pay the creators of the works only a small fraction of what is earned. The risks are their own, it has nothing to do with the author. They lose money because of stupid decisions and bad bets. It's their own fault. They want to sign multiple book deals to lock the author in, regardless of anything else, another one of those 'betting' things, but they can't lose because if the author's work sucks then they just go with it, no loss. If the author wins big then they only pay a pittance percentage to the creator and pocket the winnings while retaining all rights to the authors works.

You are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

What, it seems you are confused ot totally wrong.

Of course there is a loss paying an advance and publishing a book that does not sell. So how can you claim that there is no loss? And there should be a loss even without an advance if the book does not sell enough.

Of course when you are investing you loose money on some authors and make a small profit on some authors and on very few authors you make a big profit. That is the nature of how it works. Talking about " pay the creators of the works only a small fraction of what is earned" is then totally irrelevant. For a lot of books they pay more than what is earned.

[stonetools]

Part of the reason the indie craze is so centered on genre fic, is that publishers have often shoved genre fic to the sidelines. There's never been as much of it as genre fans wanted, and it often ran out of print quickly. Now, the market is glutted with genre fic because there is immense customer demand for it--and finally, the authors have a way to fill that demand.

If there's not swarms of literary fic being released on the indie marketplace, it's because there's limited demand for it. Customers are not lining up to throw money at lit-fic authors.
__________________

The reason why indies write genre fiction is because lets face it its rather formulaic and easy to write as in:

Jets blasting, Bat Durston came screeching down through the atmosphere of Bbllzznaj, a tiny planet seven billion light years from Sol.

Lets apply this formula to fantasy:

Cautiously, Bethe Derlanga pulled at the reins of her dragon and dismounted at the gate of the keep of Bbllzznaj, stronghold of the Dread Lord Saureg

Crime/mystery/ thriller

Brakes squealing, Biff Daniels pulled up at the gate of Don Pelicano's mansion

and so on.
Romance?

Betty Dunn sighed in delicious anticipation as the fangs of her vampire Highland lover touched her throat

You plug in whatever variations you want (LGBT? BSDM?) and there you go. That stuff is relatively easy to write (but hard to write really well) and needs no research or in the field investigation ( a la say Murio Puzo's The Godfather )which is why the bulk of indie writers produce it . If you happen to hit on the right variation ( Fifty Shades of Grey) success is yours: if you flop, , you don't lose much except time spent to writing.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by kennyc

They lose money because of stupid decisions and bad bets. It's their own fault.

I guess someone must know the formula for identifying only winning authors before their books are published. If someone does, they could make a fortune as a consultant. Alas, for most of us it is hard to be certain that next year's reading trend will be dwarves who squeeze pimples rather than vampires who suck blood.

I admit publishers are fools for paying authors any money as an advance, but the even bigger fools are the authors who choose to accept the advance payment and sign a contract. I don't recall ever seeing or reading about an author being forced to accept an advance from a publisher and sign a contract at gunpoint, although I wouldn't doubt making that permissible is next on the NRA's agenda.

I suppose in the ideal world, they way it would work is that publishers would give every author a huge advance but not require them to sign a contract because the authors could be trusted to use that advance to hire their own editors and designers and publicists and marketers and arrange all the book tours and signings and make sure that every distributor has sufficient copies and negotiates with the printer and arranges for warehousing, etc., and then when they make it big, they would voluntarily pay the publisher back for its generosity, with a bit of interest, so the circle isn't broken.

How foolish of me to think in terms of pbooks and ebooks. The smart author wouldn't bother making a pbook available because the ebook market is, at 20% of book sales, domineering. And the truly smart author would not only not make pbooks available, except possibly as very expensive POD books, but would sign an exclusive contract with a retailer like Amazon so that their book is available only to a portion of the ebook market and is not available in libraries either.

Yes, you have convinced me. Publishers deserve 100% of the blame for all the ills in the publishing world and for keeping authors from becoming the new Dan Browns.

[stonetools]

I guess someone must know the formula for identifying only winning authors before their books are published. If someone does, they could make a fortune as a consultant. Alas, for most of us it is hard to be certain that next year's reading trend will be dwarves who squeeze pimples rather than vampires who suck blood.

The reality of course is that picking winners is rather like hitting in the major leagues: you take the best cut you can and hope to make a hit .300 of the time. Unlike in baseball, the fans never see the misses so they assume its easy to predict the hits.

An exercise for such people is whether they predicted the success of Seabiscuit or Twilight ahead of time. My guess is 0.00 per cent of Mobile Readers predicted the success of these bestsellers when they first came out. Ken Auletta ( who actually in the business and knows whereof he speaks)

Good publishers find and cultivate writers, some of whom do not initially have much commercial promise. They also give advances on royalties, without which most writers of nonfiction could not afford to research new books. The industry produces more than a hundred thousand books a year, seventy per cent of which will not earn back the money that their authors have been advanced; aside from returns, royalty advances are by far publishers’ biggest expense. Although critics argue that traditional book publishing takes too much money from authors, in reality the profits earned by the relatively small percentage of authors whose books make money essentially go to subsidizing less commercially successful writers. The system is inefficient, but it supports a class of professional writers, which might not otherwise exist.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...#ixzz1shKfeqah

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The reason why indies write genre fiction is because lets face it its rather formulaic and easy to write as in:



Lets apply this formula to fantasy:



Crime/mystery/ thriller



and so on.
Romance?



You plug in whatever variations you want (LGBT? BSDM?) and there you go. That stuff is relatively easy to write (but hard to write really well) and needs no research or in the field investigation ( a la say Murio Puzo's The Godfather )which is why the bulk of indie writers produce it . If you happen to hit on the right variation ( Fifty Shades of Grey) success is yours: if you flop, , you don't lose much except time spent to writing.

You must pick some really bad SF&F to read or be totally prejudiced as your descriptions don't correlate with the thousands of SF&F titles I have read over the past fifty years... whatever...