Hachette Book Group causing major hassles

[lobby]

I'm surprised that the following question hasn't been asked already:

"Exactly what is the role of a publisher in an internet distributed environment, and what do they receive payment for?" (they don't print, pack, ship or stock the book anymore....)

In time, authors will "publish" their own works directly or via web-based stores without any need for a publisher other than for the physical versions. Contracts will eventually be amended to reflect this.

There'll be a long and hard battle from publishers between where we are now and the above scenario.

[Gaurnim]

I can't remember in which thread it was mentioned (maybe a thread about Baen), but the publisher also selects which books to produce and edit.
And this selection is an important part of the process, as, if I remember well, most of the manuscripts proposed are refused or need important editing.

[pilotbob]

Publisher also markets the books. They usually take the risk too. The pay the author up front for the book. They pay to have it edited. They pay to have it printed. They market it to distributors and other buyers. They establish relationships with reviewers, etc.

Don't confuse publisher with printer. Probably most publishers don't even do the printing, they send it to some print shop.

BOb

[jchestnutt]

Originally Posted by lobby

"Exactly what is the role of a publisher in an internet distributed environment, and what do they receive payment for?" (they don't print, pack, ship or stock the book anymore....)

In time, authors will "publish" their own works directly or via web-based stores without any need for a publisher other than for the physical versions. Contracts will eventually be amended to reflect this.

There's an essay over at the Baen Free Library that discusses this a little bit.
http://www.baen.com/library/palaver7.htm

Here's the relevant section (it's talking about the cost of books in general, and what the publisher's costs pay for).

The other major category of costs is what you can call the publisher's overhead. That includes everything that a publisher has to do to stay in business: cover his payroll, his office expenses, mortgage or lease on his building, etc., etc. And, although this is not usually considered an "overhead" expense, you have to include in this an average profit rate which allows him to keep going.

This is the category that I find so many people who are advocates of the wonders of e-publishing or print-on-demand tend to get absolutely pie-in-the-sky about. Ultimately, a lot of them seem to think that the publishing/editing side of this industry is basically the equivalent of medieval robber barons demanding tolls from innocent passers-by -- so they can all be gotten rid of.

Sorry, that's nonsense. I don't care what format books get published in -- traditional paper, print-on-demand, or electronic -- you simply can't eliminate the costs of publishing and editing as such. That's because these costs are necessary, not optional.

What a publishing company does, in essence, is this: They do all the work for the public of finding the writers who are worth publishing and making sure that the product is up to snuff by the time it appears for public consumption. That's putting it crudely, but pretty accurately.

People who think you can bypass this process are, frankly, living in a dream world. I'll be blunt. There is so much lousy writing being produced out there that SOMEBODY has to weed through it. What a publisher does is provide that service for the public. That means that the average reader does not, time after time, have to wade through the "slush pile" to find the books worth reading.

But that's just the start of it. Because there is no sharp line between "good stuff" and "bad stuff." When you get to the "gray area" -- which, by the way, includes almost all books written -- you start entering the editing/prepping stage of the business.

I'll use myself as an example. Compared to most authors, I write very clean and polished final manuscripts. (I'm not guessing. I've been told that by editors and production managers with lots of experience.) But no manuscript of mine -- not one -- has ever gone through the production process without getting a fair amount of "prep work."

The first stage of it is editing, as such. When I was a less experienced author, this involved a lot more work from my publisher and editor than it usually does today. But it still involves a fair amount.

Again, I'll be concrete. My latest novel, The Tyrant, is the 13th novel of mine which has come out in print. In addition, I've written a number of shorter-length pieces -- ranging from short stories to short novels -- which have appeared in several anthologies. My editor, Toni Weisskopf, read through the manuscript of The Tyrant carefully. This takes many hours of work -- which has to be paid for, and at the salary scale this level of professional experience is going to get. Toni Weisskopf cannot eat air nor pay her mortgage with virtual money.

Based on Toni's editing, we made a number of changes in the text. Then the book had to be prepared for publication. That meant, first, that another skilled professional -- Nancy Hanger -- had to translate my simple word processing manuscript file into a format suitable for publication -- in either an electronic or paper format. (Actually, what happens nowadays is that everything gets put into an electronic format first, and is then modified for the specific needs of Webscriptions and the printer.)

Nancy Hanger cannot eat air. She cannot pay her bills with virtual money. Note, furthermore, that the cost of her labor -- as with Toni's -- is fixed. Whether the manuscript Toni and Nancy work on winds up being produced in a mass print run or -- theoretically, if Baen did it, which they don't -- for a print-on-demand edition, or for a purely electronic edition, it DOESN'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE. The cost is essentially the same.

That's also true for the next stage in the process, which is the proof-reading and correction of errors. Once Nancy has a good "final" publisher-ready text, Baen prints up copies of it and it is distributed to professional proof-readers. (The author gets sent a copy also -- these are called "page proofs," by the way -- and smart authors always proof-read. An author is likely to catch some continuity lapses which a proof-reader might miss because they're focusing on the actual text.)

Again -- it all costs money. And -- again -- the expense involved is basically fixed. It doesn't matter if those hours are spent proof-reading the latest Tom Clancy or J.K. Rowling title, or a title which is going to have very modest sales. The cost is FIXED. Nor can the publisher stint on it, either, because this is part of what the public is paying for. The public will insist -- with its pocketbook -- that any professionally-produced title meets at least minimal level professional production standards.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by tompe

Some bookshops in London sells US versions of sf books. I do not see anything rational in that I am not going to be able to buy an English language ebook not available in Sweden from were I want since I can do that with paper books. Just another reason to buy the paper book and download the ebook.

Or forget the 'buy' part, if they refuse to sell you the one that you want, that being presumably capitalism and all. There's certainly zero lost sale argument.