Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well, if you can find these books...

Also, what people forget always is that a publisher develops a writer and makes him better. If this process is eliminated without something to replace it with we are going to miss out on some good books.

There might be more books to choose from but I am finding it harder to find really good books in the genres I read (SF, Fantasy and crime).

This hasn't been true for a long, long time. The days of publishers spending time to develop a writer are gone. If a writer's agent isn't coming to the door with a manuscript that's 99% ready to go, the writer is unlikely to get published.

[DiapDealer]

Yep. The days of a Lester Del Rey-type editor taking a fledgling writer under their wing and teaching them how to write highly-marketable SFF were gone before ebooks. I'm mostly OK with this. There's no doubt they knew their business, but that sort of mentor/apprentice relationship also results in a lot of same-same books being published. Stagnation abounded.

[tompe]

I was thinking about developing from good to very good and I do not think that is gone.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by tompe

I was thinking about developing from good to very good and I do not think that is gone.

When you say "developing", what does that actually involve on the part of the publisher?

My understanding is that no real development happens for existing authors. They'll edit your manuscript (usually), provide some marketing (more and more rare), but that's it. The explosion of indie publishing isn't happening just because anyone can publish (although that's part of it), but also because there's less and less value coming from the publishers who expect authors and their agents to do more of the heavy lifting that they used to do.

Part of the reason to that you might find it harder to find really stand-out genre fiction is because agents tend to be extremely conservative in what they'll agree to try and sell. Because agents have to do more of the work, many won't take a chance on risky works, only works they think the publishers will like. This has the effect of creating a bit of sameness in genre fiction.

[crossi]

Also "Publishers" don't do editing. Some specific person employed by them does. These may be anything from excellent to just average in ability, possibly less. And those editors aren't hatched in creches in the basement of the publisher's buildings. Those budding editors hired by the publishers could just as easily work for themselves and hire out their services. Do you really think that the only way to get a book professionally edited is by going through the BPHs? It is a perfect career for a laid off or retired experienced editor who wants to work part time at home. Lots of talent available even outside of the BPHs.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

When you say "developing", what does that actually involve on the part of the publisher?

Well, working with the author to make the book better.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well, working with the author to make the book better.

With all due respect to everyone involved in this discussion, on this front, I'd like to add that I spend a lot of time doing nothing but working with authors that come to me with rights-reverted books, backlist books, new direct-to-ebook series/novels, etc. Almost all of these "backlisters," as I call them, were BPH pubbed. As many of you know, we work with enormous names, famous names, less-famous names, and so on and so forth, so it's a wealth of experience.

And they will all tell you precisely the same thing: for one thing, the midlist isn't "dying," it's dead. It's died a terrible, horrible, long, drawn-out death. If you're a genre reader, particularly sci-fi and fantasy, this will be painfully noticeable to you. Why? Because the money put into midlisters just didn't earn out. Not in a big enough way to compensate for all that alleged "writer development." Now, if you are submitting to BPH's (and even imprints thereof), the questions you get back are, "how big is your platform" and "how far into your [final] editing process are you?" No serious developmental revisions are expected.

The Annie Lamotte days--when her beloved editor would tell her to go rewrite a book--are reserved for gigantic sellers and for those wee not-gigantic sellers (as Lamotte was herself) that are beloved of the PH, if not by the public. Those who work in that rarefied air: literature. But thousands--literally, thousands--of midlisters have been thrown out into the streets.

if your reading tastes are for literature, rejoice: your authors will probably still get some--not a lot--development and coaching. If you read genre fiction, fuhgeddaboudit.

For example, if anyone here remembers what Charlaine Harris and Laurell K. Hamilton were, status-wise and readership-wise, BEFORE they were widely discovered--solid midlisters--that group is essentially gone now. This is spectacularly true also over in Mystery and Suspense. I know of an author who, within the last few years, had a book come out in hardcover, from a BPH, and that book was nominated for BOTH an Edgar and a Macavity--that was dropped by his/her PH. Dropped. Not enough big-time sales, it seems, and s/he doesn't even need much editing. (Same author has had the last laugh, though; we produced a new series for him/her, direct-to-digital, which was then picked up by another BPH imprint, direct-to-the-front-table at B&N, and as of last week, has been picked up by NBC Prime for a new TV series that's going into pilot as I write this. But, the moral of the story remains: midlister, until now. 20+ years of being a solid, reliable, suspense-midlister.)

Writers previously pubbed and editors have been talking about the midlist death spiral for at least a decade now; one such example, from 2004: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/...postcount=2227 . When this was first talked about, BTW, it was "chain bookstores out to kill the midlist," mind you, before anyone decides that somehow, this is ALSO Amazon's fault...

So, the idea that BPH's are essentially nurseries for good writers to become great writers, are incubators for talent...that's just not true any longer. Worse, there's a new and (to me) unpleasant sentiment, amongst many writers, that they just don't NEED that development time. They don't need the 10K hours, they don't need critiquing, editing, etc. I see that daily. They just don't want to put in the work, the time, the months, the years. It's all instant gratification. And I see myriad ms's come in that are good, but NOT great. They'll never see that thin air, at Amazon, the first-page of sales results, because they didn't have an editor, or even a solid critique group.

So, I concur, on one front with Tompe; once upon a time, in ye olden days, the BPH's and imprints had a real purpose in their development processes. Of course, "young" (read: new) writers still had to be in the 2%, to even make it over the transom. But nonetheless, young talent developed through tutelage and seeing what great editing could do for them. "Editors" in-house at places like Random House really existed. (Think Jack Nicholson in Wolf, sorta). But those days are GONE.

So, while you may wish to argue about how Amazon's alleged monopsony may affect the "good of the public," don't think that they're somehow killing off the benefits of trade-pubbing. Trade pubbing's big remaining benefit is advances; that's it. The old marketing machines, etc., that newer authors could rely on are pretty much dead, unless they knock it out of the park with the next Gone Girl. I wish--I really do--that it wasn't true. I've seen a lot of my favorite midlisters disappear from the shelves (and naturally, hope that they'll end up at my doors), but the Death Spiral is responsible for that. If anything, I would think that Amazon's very existence--the advent of web-ordering, etc., instead of "ordering to net" might help benefit those very midlisters, in maybe reversing the Death Spiral.

Now, THAT would be a true benefit.

One last thought about the Spate of Hate:

Spoiler:

Yes, to whomever posted that one note: I find the glut of "Amazon hate" that has shown up not just here on MR, but across the Net, extremely interesting to watch. The timing of it being what it is, I frequently wonder just how much of it is planted. I don't mean by those hardy souls who repost here; but just how much of it is Hachette and Crew feeding stories and planting orts to the news-starved online media, much as certain governments feed PR trash to the "news" to regurgitate as fact. Rather than those same "news organizations" doing their own research. It wouldn't be hard to do, you know. It would be EASY. Given the manpower, and some money, it would be child's play to feed ongoing, vituperative bile into "news" organizations, feed the maw that is PRWeb, et al, and see it all come out the other end, regurgitated as independent "stories." It's obvious, when reading the Net, that people seem less able to parse the difference between "fact" and "opinion;" I don't know if that's new, or simply more obvious, now that millions of people are at one's fingertips through the miracle of the Web. Confirmation bias being what it is...as I said, child's play to "substantiate" the corporation-hate and inflame the anti-business, anti-Amazon sentiment even further.

I am particularly mindful of this when I think about the passing of Ben Bradlee, whom, I hope, wouldn't have fallen for this type of self-serving codswallop--assuming arguendo that it is, indeed, occurring.

Hitch

[Leyor]

Originally Posted by Hitch

With all due respect to everyone involved...

Very solid post, seldom I feel enlightened by a forum post. Thank you.

[Ninjalawyer]

That was a great post. Thanks for that.

[eschwartz]

Thank you Hitch, that was very enlightening. +1 karma.

Thanks for the link and the anecdote.

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by Leyor

I won't profess to like really good books, I love Fantasy and Science-Fiction and read these genres almost exclusively.

IMHO, Science Fiction and Fantasy are the ONLY really good books! Other than a few reference books, I need, if every other book was SF and Fantasy, I would be ecstatic.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Thank you Hitch, that was very enlightening. +1 karma.

Thanks for the link and the anecdote.

Thanks, guys. ;-)

Hitch

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Trade pubbing's big remaining benefit is advances; that's it.

Right on the money.
Not much to add, except that:

1- Typical midlist advances these days run in the low 4 figures. I've seem reports of offers in the $1500 range. Which might have been reasonable in the early '70's but these days it won't pay the bills for a month (after taxes, agent fees, etc) much less the 12-18 months it takes for a tradpub title to come out.

2- Even the fabled "six-figure" advances breathlessly discussed by the traditionalist apologists come with so many caveats and accounting tricks that no midlist writer can actually make a living off tradpub contracts.

About the hate spew, I've recently discovered that while there is a concerted anti-Amazon campaign going on, there is a deeper root to the hate. The root is, as pointed out repeatedly, elitist class warfare of which Amazon is merely the latest target. In fact, most of the FUD being dished at Amazon now has been flying around for over a hundred years. Every last one of the "Amazon is going to bring on the bookopolypse"charges is recycled and has been leveled at mass market book retailers for the last hundred years, from Dept Stores like Macys, to newstands, pharmacies, mall bookstores, and even the big box stores.
And I do mean it literally: the exact same accusations in the exact same words.
"Devaluing books"? Check.
"Books aren't products"? Check.
"They're trying to monopolize bookselling"? Check.

There is a whole century of that crap coming from the exact same circles.
The names change, but the blather is 100% the same.

I'm currently reading RELUCTANT CAPITALISTS by Laura J. Miller and laughing my head off at the carbon copy arguments from the teens, 30's, 50's and 60's... Practically every single decade.

The book is old, up to 2006, so Amazon barely rates a mention.
Amusibgly, Special snowflakes have a long history of failure behind them; every single target of their hate spew has gone on to prosper and succeed despite the apoplectic sputtering.

Worth a read. Very educational.
(But buy it used: the ebook and pbook prices are (ironically) too high.

http://www.amazon.com/Reluctant-Capi...=UTF8&sr=&qid=

[Kiya]

Originally Posted by Hitch

With all due respect to everyone involved in this discussion,
Hitch

Thank you Hitch. I always find your posts enlightening and interesting.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Kiya

Thank you Hitch. I always find your posts enlightening and interesting.

Thank you, and you're most welcome, Kiya.

Hitch