Ex-Random House exec interviewed: ebooks and more

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

True, if it were an *active* BPH exec saying that it would be big news: right on national TV.

"NY Publishing exec gets drawn and quartered in public!"


I'm sorry, but the way the trad publishers are circling the wagons in public these days *nobody* on their payroll is going to come out and say these things. Even (or especially) if they believe them to be true.

I mean; $9.99 as the *ceiling* for ebook pricing, not the floor? Open competition being good? Amazon establishing the viability of ebooks as a business? The New Publishers showing the way to the future? "Bestsellers" getting marginalized? And lets not get to comparing the BPHs themselves to the Euro crisis debtor nations!

That kind of heresy can only come from outsiders or ex-insiders.
Current insiders would be risking their livilihood saying such things today.

The mood out there is getting dark.
Try this one:
http://kriswrites.com/2012/06/20/the...s-in-the-sand/

Yep, and thanks for the Kris link! Can't karma you at the moment, will have to owe you...

From her post and speaking of critics slamming whole genres:

"Usually though, it’s just a matter of taste. My biggest complaint with critics is that they often don’t know how to separate their own taste from a legitimate criticism. Until they learn that, their comments are essentially useless.

No genre deserves to be dismissed out of hand, just like no publishing method deserves to be dismissed out of hand."

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by kennyc

rom her post and speaking of critics slamming whole genres:

"Usually though, it’s just a matter of taste. My biggest complaint with critics is that they often don’t know how to separate their own taste from a legitimate criticism. Until they learn that, their comments are essentially useless.

No genre deserves to be dismissed out of hand, just like no publishing method deserves to be dismissed out of hand."

I find the whole "us versus them" attitudes brewing *among the authors themselves* very troubling. It is starting to remind me of the fanboism so prevalent among console gamers: "my genre is the only worthy one!", "japanese games are all crap!", "no, Nintendo games are kiddie crap!".

As if what somebody else chooses to do with *their* time, *their* effort, *their* life somehow diminishes them personally. Sad enough among fanbois, who are long past the "pimply-faced teenager stage" of cliche, and should know better, but to see that same kind of meaningless internecine fighting among presumed mature and educated adults...?

Hell and handbasket comes to mind...

One reason a visible reminder of sanity from time to time is so welcome.
We need more fearless curmodgeons like Signore Vitale. Salute!

[Freeshadow]

Esp. the 1st quote makes it for me: paper costs returns etc. in a nutshell: ebooks = putting out mid- and backlist stuff without risking ones neck.
Nice to see it said by a professional.
The publishers always went nasty about people buying used - how else were we going to get the older pieces missing in our collections?
Esp. in the cases where they considered a new edition or reprint to be too risky for them in terms of sales. /. returns. Ebooks is THE chance there and they just close their eyes.
Kenny you are right about the karma-worthiness. I sent some already.

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The mood out there is getting dark.
Try this one:
http://kriswrites.com/2012/06/20/the...s-in-the-sand/

Thanks for that link too. In fact the author's sadness about the warlike behaviour of both indies and paper-published fellow authors of her in which she refuses to engage, inspired me to a comment (I do this rarely, as I don't consider myself to be that brilliant, that every blog out there needs my 2¢ attached) It's just that this refusal to flame warfare and sadness about how others behave touched me. Since said comment awaits modertional approval ovef there and I 'd be interested in comments from MRers (especially the authors present here) I'll go and just quote myself:

1st things first: I’m no writer, just a reader. So maybe I shouldn’t even reply here but I do so because I wanted to thank you for condensing so much sanity into a single blog post.
Having said that: I found one of my favourite SF books as en ebook publication. Am I happy about that? Yeah. It was a great read worth standing next to my Asimov’s. The book in question has due to it’s success found it’s way into paper publishing. Am I sad about that? No why. This way it ‘ll reach people who still/yet/whyever are not comfortable with a digital reader. Giving them a good time and more money to the author. Everyone wins here.
I discovered at least 3 long ago started and paper-published series by established authors due to freebie ebook recommendation. Wouldn’t have risked to buy them blindly because of the (IMHO far too narrow) subgenre branding. Some of these weren’t even translated to neither my maternal language nor the language of the country I currently live in. I have them in English now and would never have considered to import them in paper, because of the additional cost, just to try a new author. Again: A new fan and forthcoming buyer won by new paths. Instead of getting frantic about how to publish authors should better keep their main concern focused on WHAT and kick it out every way opening to them – because at the end of EVERY distribution channel there are potential readers-to-be. Pouring oil into flame wars about which is the Right! WAY to publish is as stupid as the Liliputanian war about how to crack ones breakfast egg properly. In both cases the answer is: All which get the content into the consumer.

Thanks for your patience, along with my sincere apologies should I have failed expected linguistic standards of this place: English is tertiary language for me.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

I'll go and just quote myself:

Quote-worthy indeed.

And you are right: there is too much concern over what roads are taken and not enough on the end point. For writers, the goal is to get the story to readers--for readers, to encounter new narratives. How the story gets to the reader matters way less than getting it before them.

And, for writers, how they make their money matters way less than making enough to support themselves and their craft with a reasonable surplus to justify the effort. As Ms Rusch continually points out, writing is as much a business as an avocation to most, and the business side does matter. (And history has shown that mixing emotion and business rarely leads to good results.)

Combine that with Signore Vitale's suggestion that the industry needs to focus on opportunity instead of spreading fear and discord and a way to survive the industry disruption becomes clear: look for ways to get the most books before the most readers in as many ways as possible.

Hopefully the sound and fury is just a temporary phase, cooler heads will prevail, and we can all get back to finding good reads.

[stonetools]

Here is a quote that everyone skipped over:

What do you think about the DRM applied to electronic books to prevent them from being copied and what do you think about piracy?

First of all, we have always had piracy. Some piracy we knew we had, some piracy we didn’t know we had. I would say that the digital medium lends itself to piracy, but practically speaking, no! Theoretically speaking, yes! Who is going to scan a book and put it on the web? To what end? It can happen, but it is going to be incidental, it is not going to be the rule. Forms of piracy will always happen even though they are definitely against the law. Publishers will always defend their rights in court if necessary. However, I do not think that there is going to be a threat to intellectual property. Of course you have to remain vigilant and you have to enforce copyright rules, but some form of piracy, alas, will always be with us. DRM is a good step in the right direction that helps prevent worse things to come. So, it is positive.

just balancing things out here.

Guess he is not as super duper wonderful and far sighted now!

Signed,
Kaiser Soze

[BeccaPrice]

I would say that the digital medium lends itself to piracy, but practically speaking, no! Theoretically speaking, yes! Who is going to scan a book and put it on the web? To what end? It can happen, but it is going to be incidental, it is not going to be the rule.

clearly he hasn't visited torrent sites or pirate sites. Apparently lots of people scan books in and upload them.

[fjtorres]

DRM is something that will be with us as long as there are library ebooks for checking out so there is nothing inherently evil about it.
More, the vast majority of consumers really, really don't care about it either way.
Too busy reading to fret about it.

(Has anybody actually checked the d/l count on the latest tools? Low 5 digit range.)

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

clearly he hasn't visited torrent sites or pirate sites. Apparently lots of people scan books in and upload them.

Yes, people do scan books in. They've done it for decades.
But I'm not sure that "lots" is a particularly big number. Especially these days. I'm think a few hundred or even a few thousand of those hobbyists aren't going to be making much of an impact in the flood of content coming to market.)

The scanner crews are still out there for the occasional Potterish release and working the backlist but most *english language* torrent listings I've seen (David Carnoy's infamous "2500 ebook Kindle books", http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-18438_7-20033437-82.html, for example) seem to be composed of DeDRM'ed commercial titles. (I'm no expert in the darknets, though. Others might know better.)

And the publishers may talk big, anti-piracy-wise, but their (lack of deeds) suggest they really do see it as a nuisance factor. And, let's face it; their is more than enough good, legally free stuff around to keep most mainstream readers busy anyway.

I sort'of see a cool detente there; current ebook DRM is at most a mild annoyance to readers that care about it at all and piracy is just minor noise in the exploding ebook sales boom.

There are bigger issues afoot.

[Freeshadow]

Those who don't buy drm don't need the tools.
I always found epubs made from scans even if a drm epub already existed