Publishing Industry Myth (half-truth) #1

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

What I'm trying to point out is that reading the slush pile and other editorial works are only one expense in modern publishing. When somebody figures out how to peel that expense out and make it self-standing, the rest of the edifice will collapse.

Actually, few publishers nowadays bother to sort through the slush pile.

I'm not clear on what "one expense" you're trying to "peel out" and "make self-standing." If you mean sorting through the slush pile, that expense is pretty much gone without any negative impact on the publishers, as that role is now pushed onto the agents. In fact, one can even say that this is a change to the publishing industry's modus operandi that cuts their costs and makes them more efficient. Go figure.

If you mean "editing expenses," professional freelance editors have been available for years, and many novice writers hire them (at their own expense) for manuscript reviews prior to sending the book on to agents, as do self-publishers.

As it stands, in 2008 over 275,000 new books in the US alone were published, and 47,000 of those were fiction. And that doesn't include on demand / short run, which was another 280,000 titles.

Further, despite the hopes and dreams of the media populists, big hits are still, and will almost certainly continue to be, very important.

No one can afford to act as a gatekeeper, or find quality works, without some kind of commercial incentive and a revenue source. Far too many books are getting published for that to work -- and as the cost to self-publish drops, the number of new titles will rise, leading to more competition for readers' attentions. Furthermore, since nearly 130 new fiction books are released per day, it's going to require significant resources to rise above the fray and get noticed.

Most writers won't have the funds or expertise to get their works noticed, let alone write book after book without the large advances discussed earlier in this thread. Even writers who are capable of doing so rarely choose to go it alone. For example, writers like James Patterson or Stephen King are more than capable of working without publishers, but are making a free choice to continue working with publishers. I wonder why.

I.e. if you expect the publishers to wither and die any day now, I think you will be sorely disappointed.

Originally Posted by RSE

To be quite frank, fancy New York addresses, literary parties, big executive salaries, have nothing to do with selecting and polishing books, e or p. Nor to agents have anything to do with writing a book.

Uh huh. Where, pray tell, are you generating this detailed cost analysis? The comics page, perhaps?

Seriously, you're attacking a caricature, not the reality. We are talking about publishers, not investment bankers or Hollywood execs.

Originally Posted by RSE

The biggest problem for current writers is existing art. Why buy (and pay a premium) for new art when older art is so plentiful?

Because readers want new writing.

I concur that there is some competition from older books, but if I were writing a fiction book, and I was fooling enough to worry about the competition , I'd be a little more worried about the handful of megastars and rising above the other 47,000+ other new fiction books than a bunch of backlist titles.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DD1509

Net-net - any publisher who decides to embrace the electronic market place is likely making more money per book on electronic offerings than they ever did via hard or soft cover publishing...period. They are simply taking the advantage of a higher-profit medium and unfortunately mixing the higher-profit medium into their lower-profit medium.

Their fixed costs for electronic publishing are much lower than their costs for hard/soft over publishing. Don't let them kid you. But since their system is mostly based in the older, hard cover/soft cover world, they must still mix their high costs with the lower costs of electronic publishing. It equals a better product margin but it will not get increasingly better into they stop selling the lower margin hardcover books via their current costly distribution system.

For example, a publisher who sends a title to electronic publishing saves money in all of the following areas for every electronic version sold (of course not every book will be sold via this method). The question is which method really supports the other???

But let's assume the following for publishers who sell electronic copies:

No printing
No binding
No hard covers and no hard cover artwork
No distribution costs to other houses/re-sellers/no middle-men
No distribution of a lot of heavy products
No storage for a lot of heavy products

These items alone likely cost the publisher about 20-25% of their income on a given book, So when they decide to go electronic, they save approximately 20-25% immediately.

Of course, they will tell you that this is not true. Their hard cover efforts are what really sell a book. Their advertising, their promotion, their book-signing efforts, their advances and payments to the author and all of that.

Net-net - now that Steve Jobs changes the pricing schema, publishers can easily make more with electronic offerings. The bigger question is are they taking care of the authors in a similar manner?

I disagree with some items on your list on e-books.

There will still be cover artwork (for the ads on e-sites) or are you willing to buy from a plain square box with the title and author?

Distribution. Who runs the server farms and Web sites. That is called distribution. The product is just very light Publishers are not normally Retailers.

Advertising (may be co-op) still needs to be done or how will the masses know the book exists (in any version)
There needs to be a middle ground in this model. Attributing all production and distribution costs again, separately is either foolishness or possible fraud.
Cover has images (possibly the same and Layout, possibly different aspect ratios. (remember those VHS boxes and DVD jewel cases for the same movie)

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Actually, few publishers nowadays bother to sort through the slush pile.

I'm not clear on what "one expense" you're trying to "peel out" and "make self-standing." If you mean sorting through the slush pile, that expense is pretty much gone without any negative impact on the publishers, as that role is now pushed onto the agents. In fact, one can even say that this is a change to the publishing industry's modus operandi that cuts their costs and makes them more efficient. Go figure.

If you mean "editing expenses," professional freelance editors have been available for years, and many novice writers hire them (at their own expense) for manuscript reviews prior to sending the book on to agents, as do self-publishers.

As it stands, in 2008 over 275,000 new books in the US alone were published, and 47,000 of those were fiction. And that doesn't include on demand / short run, which was another 280,000 titles.

Further, despite the hopes and dreams of the media populists, big hits are still, and will almost certainly continue to be, very important.

No one can afford to act as a gatekeeper, or find quality works, without some kind of commercial incentive and a revenue source. Far too many books are getting published for that to work -- and as the cost to self-publish drops, the number of new titles will rise, leading to more competition for readers' attentions. Furthermore, since nearly 130 new fiction books are released per day, it's going to require significant resources to rise above the fray and get noticed.

Most writers won't have the funds or expertise to get their works noticed, let alone write book after book without the large advances discussed earlier in this thread. Even writers who are capable of doing so rarely choose to go it alone. For example, writers like James Patterson or Stephen King are more than capable of working without publishers, but are making a free choice to continue working with publishers. I wonder why.

I.e. if you expect the publishers to wither and die any day now, I think you will be sorely disappointed.



Uh huh. Where, pray tell, are you generating this detailed cost analysis? The comics page, perhaps?

Seriously, you're attacking a caricature, not the reality. We are talking about publishers, not investment bankers or Hollywood execs.



Because readers want new writing.

I concur that there is some competition from older books, but if I were writing a fiction book, and I was fooling enough to worry about the competition , I'd be a little more worried about the handful of megastars and rising above the other 47,000+ other new fiction books than a bunch of backlist titles.

Some readers want new <current> writing. But why are there reader of Jane Austin, Raymond Chandler, Zane Grey, Poul Anderson, Arthur Conan Doyle, ect...? If you haven't read Chandler, for example, does it really matter if it was written 60 years ago? Hemmingway summed it up perfectly - "Either you're doing something new, or you're having to beat dead men at their own game".

Makes me think about Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad about the Egyptian mummy....