DOJ suing Apple over ebooks.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I would suggest: "no longer difficult to find a small but profitable audience..."

That too--but finding an audience at all is a concern of many authors; profit is desirable but not the driving goal. They're *really* losing the authors who are just as happy with a 5000 person blog following as they would be with a few published titles under their belt. (The fact that a strong blog following easily translates to "$3 collection of this year's blog posts in an ebook" is gravy.) Some of those are excellent writers and journalists with great expertise in their fields, and they no longer need to seek out BPHs to get their messages to the public.

Much like the US TV advertising business could be in the pre-cable days.
Lowest common denominator content for mass audiences. The networks would (and still do) sneer at product that is well received, avidly followed by millions, yet doesn't cover *their* high overhead and expectations.

I loved Rusch's column on the changing face of publishing--that they're not just insisting on "profit" from the indie publishers they're snapping up, but "the difference in profit that used to exist between indie and mainstream publishing," which is no longer likely. Twenty years ago, a self/tiny-indie published author who'd sold 10,000 books would likely be an instant blockbuster if released by a BPH. Now, super-indie success isn't likely to jump tenfold when a BPH puts a logo on the spine. Certainly not if they don't give it the same attention and marketing help they give their other blockbusters.

The BPHs are so worried about "giant" Amazon dictating to them that they are neglecting, even fostering, the development of a thousand low level competitors that are slowly eroding their domination just by taking away thousands of books they will never get to gatekeep. Or even see.

Barring change, irrelevance lies down that road.

Absolutely. They're encouraging their own competition by pretending it can't possibly compete. And by the metric of "returns to stockholders," they're right; the indie presses and self-published books have no stockholders to feed. But by the metric of "public popularity and profits-per-title," they're in trouble.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Some of those are excellent writers and journalists with great expertise in their fields, and they no longer need to seek out BPHs to get their messages to the public.

Having just read, for some time, at both links, I'm not entirely sure that being a druid/pagan automatically translates into expertise across other fields and certainly find considerable bias in some of the articles as written... still, a different point of view but does definitely require extensive other sources/knowledge from the reader to achieve any balance...

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Having just read, for some time, at both links, I'm not entirely sure that being a druid/pagan automatically translates into expertise across other fields

It doesn't. They are experts in their fields, not because they're Pagan, but because they've put considerable effort into learning about a niche field with little support from mainstream academia or publishing.

and certainly find considerable bias in some of the articles as written... still, a different point of view but does definitely require extensive other sources/knowledge from the reader to achieve any balance...

Both blogs are definitely focused on their agendas. Greer (the archdruid report) tries to be as objective as possible, but he does bring his own beliefs & conclusions to the field. He tries to explain why he considers some data more important than others, but is aware that not everyone's going to agree with his evaluations. And while he's written several books, he's not writing "for profit;" he's writing because he considers these important and interesting topics and he'd like to share his ideas & conclusions with others. Profit is great, but he's got no incentive to seek out a contract with a BPH that might restrict what he can write in his blog, or edit his books to remove the "controversial" parts (which would be most of the content).

Pitzl-Waters (the Wild Hunt) is a reporter; he seeks out news of interest to modern Pagans. There's plenty of bias in his reporting--he's not trying to be "fair to all religions;" he's telling one religious group what they want to know about what's going on in the world, and sometimes mentioning why it's relevant or where it's likely to lead. The facts he reports are as accurate as he can get them; the explanations are focused on what his audience is interested in.

The blog started in 2004, and is now one of, perhaps *the*, leading blog for Pagan news. There's no way he'd've gotten a column in a mainstream newspaper or a book contract with a BPH. He, too, is not writing for money, although I'm sure he'd love to earn enough to not need a day job.

There are countless other writers in other fields who have found an audience online. Some have found a way to make money from their efforts; others haven't and don't care. (Or rather, don't mind.)

[stonetools]

Why would thinking of them as venture capitalists make anyone more in favor of them? Most of my experiences with venture capitalists are "organizations that see a chance for profit, throw money like crazy at a project, and abandon it if it doesn't churn out high revenue in the markets they've decided should be paying for it."

(shrug) Call' em "investors" if you dont like" venture capitalist" .What matters is that publishers perform the important role of getting to market books that wouldn't get to market without substantial initial investment-books that educate people about important issues past and present . And a well-educated citizenry is essential to the existence of a free state.

Do you have any statistics that support the claim that BPHs lose money on 7 out of 10 books they publish? I could believe "7 out of 10 don't earn out on the advance," but the publisher doesn't automatically lose money on those--earning back a $10k advance doesn't take $100k in sales. When they've sold enough books to cover $10k + editorial costs + printing costs (which we're assured are a VERY TINY FRACTION of the list price), they've made a profit.

Do you have any statistics to support the claim that BPHs do in fact make money in the long run on such books? In real life these books are seen as losses by publishers and investors alike and thats what counts.

If they can't be bothered to research which books have a large enough contingent of potential customers, they deserve to eat those losses. I'm not particularly sympathetic to the idea that I should pay more so that books nobody wants to read will get published. If there *is* a market for those books, but it's smaller... production should be pulled back to that size. If it's not economically feasible to print (or ebookize) the book at that market size... it doesn't get produced.

Publishers like everyone else who produces for the market can't predict the future. If you have some kind of strategy for predicting what books will be popular next year, please share it.
Publishers are like major league hitters. They put out the best product they can and hope to get a hit .300 of the time. Its the nature of the business-not a defect in their business strategy.

John Locke. Amanda Hocking. Boyd Morrison. E L James. Selena Kitt. Rich Burlew (webcomic artist who raised over $1 million on Kickstarter to self-publish a print volume).

That's six names. Count that against the hundreds (if not thousands) of names of authors developed by BPHs. Thanks for making my point. Note all are genre fiction writers- and not the top rank either.

No more, though; beginning authors have a choice whether to seek a BPH or self-publish--and any objective view of the merits of each says that neither is "better" for an author's career. However, self-publishing has the opportunity for more money faster.

Or to go in debt faster. Another downside, as Charles Stross points out, is that writers who are marketing, editing, proof-reading, looking for cover art, etc, are writers who aren't writing. CS says that he could be a pretty good self-pubber if he had to be, but he would be writing only half as many books.
Look, its great that the self-publishing route is now a robust option alongside the traditional publishing. But the INTERNET!!! didn't abolish such economic truths as division of labor, comparative advantage, and economies of scale . It only made it easier to publish and distribute digital media-and unfortunately, easier to rip off media content creators .

[stonetools]

As Mr Shatzkin himself has pointed out, in several narrative text categories, and for several publishers, ebooks *already* make up over 50% of the sales volume. He also points out that the expectation in most market is that B&M retail space will be shrinking by 40%. (40% less retail sale volume).

Mr Shatzkin points out that we still live in a world where 80 per cent of all books are still print and that BPHs still have to serve those customers. Most folks around here seem to forget that and think we live in an all ebook world.
If you think you have a better method of inventory management than they have now, then why are you here? Why aren't you making millions consulting for the BPHs?

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Excellent linked article Kenny, superb. Pretty much annihilates a lot of arguments in this thread.

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yep, she's been in this business a while, on all sides. Excellent perspective.

However, I don't agree with this statement of hers:

Those 1300 readers per month hadn’t already downloaded a copy of the book—which, by the way, has to be good, or it wouldn’t sell at those numbers.

Quantity and quality don't usually correlate.

[HappyMartin]

I don't think most of us would like to see the BPH'S fail. I can see the value they add and hopefully will continue to add but it is a bit like seeing an old friend get into a destructive lifestyle pattern. It makes you angry but because you care about it.

I sure hope the BPH'S survive and grow but I think they may need to remove there heads from a dark place in order to do so. I hope they do.

[stonetools]

In that article, Molly Barton, Penguin’s global digital director said that e-book production “costs 10% less” than print book production. “But,” she added, “the largest expense is author payment and always has been.”

Let me say, simply, bullshit.

Either Ms. Rusch is right about author's advances beiing the largest expense of publishers or she is wrong. Virtually everyone in the business press accepts this as being true. Ken Auletta, a Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist, reports it as fact

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...#ixzz1smUjIz6G

Ms. Rusch is entitled to her own opinion, but not to her own FACTS. I'm not likely to credit her opinion, if she is wrong on an important fact.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It doesn't. They are experts in their fields, not because they're Pagan, but because they've put considerable effort into learning about a niche field with little support from mainstream academia or publishing.



Both blogs are definitely focused on their agendas. Greer (the archdruid report) tries to be as objective as possible, but he does bring his own beliefs & conclusions to the field. He tries to explain why he considers some data more important than others, but is aware that not everyone's going to agree with his evaluations. And while he's written several books, he's not writing "for profit;" he's writing because he considers these important and interesting topics and he'd like to share his ideas & conclusions with others. Profit is great, but he's got no incentive to seek out a contract with a BPH that might restrict what he can write in his blog, or edit his books to remove the "controversial" parts (which would be most of the content).

Pitzl-Waters (the Wild Hunt) is a reporter; he seeks out news of interest to modern Pagans. There's plenty of bias in his reporting--he's not trying to be "fair to all religions;" he's telling one religious group what they want to know about what's going on in the world, and sometimes mentioning why it's relevant or where it's likely to lead. The facts he reports are as accurate as he can get them; the explanations are focused on what his audience is interested in.

The blog started in 2004, and is now one of, perhaps *the*, leading blog for Pagan news. There's no way he'd've gotten a column in a mainstream newspaper or a book contract with a BPH. He, too, is not writing for money, although I'm sure he'd love to earn enough to not need a day job.

There are countless other writers in other fields who have found an audience online. Some have found a way to make money from their efforts; others haven't and don't care. (Or rather, don't mind.)

That's the joy of the disintermediation the web has brought (and is still bringing) about. I am not interested in this content, but like Disraeli, "I'll fight to the death for their right to say it."

The whole paradigm of mass production in based on the concept of "gatekeeping" (which can be new ideas, access to capital, markets, ect.) and using barriers to entry to maintain profitable niches.

The Internet has made this superfluos. The gates remain (with their gatekeepers) but the fences connected to them are down. People are walking around them...

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Either Ms. Rusch is right about author's advances beiing the largest expense of publishers or she is wrong. Virtually everyone in the business press accepts this as being true. Ken Auletta, a Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist, reports it as fact



Ms. Rusch is entitled to her own opinion, but not to her own FACTS. I'm not likely to credit her opinion, if she is wrong on an important fact.

So where do the profits come from for the BHP? Serious question. If they lose on 7 of 10, who makes up the losses?

Maybe the people making up the losses might not want to keep on doing so...

[stonetools]

BPHs that assume they can set the terms for author success are on a long slow downward slide as many talented authors decide that they'd be better off doing things differently. Whether that's "sign with an indie press with more flexible terms and more author control over covers, descriptions, and sales venues" or "publish solo with hired editors" or even "publish solo with no editors for $1, and capitalize on the cheap-impulse market," Penguin (and other BPHs) are going to lose a lot of great authors by not being more flexible in their contract terms.

Authors have bitched about publishers probably since there have been authors and publishers. What's new is that authors now do that bitching on Internet.
Publishers have their own list of grievances against authors, but they don't ( and shouldn't) do it on the Internet (They have to be the adult in the relationship).

The acknowledgments pages of books are an efficiency expert’s nightmare; authors routinely thank editors and publishers for granting an extra year to complete a manuscript, for taking late-night phone calls, for the loan of a summer house. These kinds of gestures are unlikely to be welcomed in cultures built around engineering efficiencies.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...#ixzz1smZDnPej

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Uh, through the conspiracy, those companies *raised* average ebook prices 30%.
30% price increase, 8% profit increase?
Uh, I dunno, but is that supposed to be a *good* result?

But their wholesale prices decreased 30% with Agency model.
($13-15 down to $9-10)

The increases are mostly due to the retailer's cut of the sale. If anything the retailers should be seeing record profits but they aren't yet.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Authors have bitched about publishers probably since there have been authors and publishers. What's new is that authors now do that bitching on Internet.
Publishers have their own list of grievances against authors, but they don't ( and shouldn't) do it on the Internet (They have to be the adult in the relationship).

Now they have a choice to do something other than bitch....

Some will fail and some will succeed. No different than the 7 out of 10 odds. But for those in the middle, who sell some but not a huge amount - the classic midlist author, the deal is better without the BHP.

And that analysis is being very adult...

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Time will tell, but I would hold off on the funeral arrangements for the time being at least.

One interesting fact is people bitch against the BPHs incessantly on the News forum- but buy and recommend their product just as incessantly, if the Recommendations forum is anything to go by. They are doing something right.

Some of BPHs have suffered a major setback with this lawsuit. The biggest one (Random House) was untouched and is thriving. It will be interesting to see what they do next.
I think there will be consolidation: the Big 6 will become the Big 4 or maybe even the Big 1 or 2. But there will continue to be BPHS because they perform an important role that no one else can easily fill.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

But their wholesale prices decreased 30% with Agency model.
($13-15 down to $9-10)

I know that.

The point is that raising prices (thereby reducing total unit sales and reducing their authors' income) to protect their market power in the short term is going to have negative long-term consequences. And among those is the fact that they have effectively legitimized self-publishing among *authors*.

They conspired, sacrificed the author's income, and now face a legal mess.
All for a small short term gain during boom times.

What are they going to do when the boom times end and the market growth levels off? Improvise another magic bullet?