Publishers Weekly: Will the Agency Model Survive?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

The end game could be authors simply publish their books through Amazon and avoid the old line publishers entirely.

Songs seem to be going that way as well with the authors selling direct through Amazon.

Why does an eBook consumer need an old time publisher anyway? What do they do to earn their money?

They decide, based on experience, what the book buying public wants to buy, and generally spruce up the product, and market it.

Not saying that they decide correctly, but they must do okay or would be out of business.

The also provide capitol to publish the books and advances to authors which is essentially a gamble for them. Many books do not sell well enough to pay of the advance, and the costs of editing, printing distribution etc.

The majority of books published are still paper and few new or lesser known authors have the resources to publish and distribute paper books. If all authors went strictly to Amazon they would be depriving themselves of a pretty large market IMO.

If Amazon started publishing massive amounts of paper books, do you think they would just do print runs of everything, good or bad? Do you think they would do a better job of selecting the books they did print as paper books than the traditional publishers? Maybe they would do print on demand, but the price might be higher and the physical quality lower?

Just saying.

Helen

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

They decide, based on experience, what the book buying public wants to buy, and generally spruce up the product, and market it.

Not saying that they decide correctly, but they must do okay or would be out of business.

The also provide capitol to publish the books and advances to authors which is essentially a gamble for them. Many books do not sell well enough to pay of the advance, and the costs of editing, printing distribution etc.

The majority of books published are still paper and few new or lesser known authors have the resources to publish and distribute paper books. If all authors went strictly to Amazon they would be depriving themselves of a pretty large market IMO.

If Amazon started publishing massive amounts of paper books, do you think they would just do print runs of everything, good or bad? Do you think they would do a better job of selecting the books they did print as paper books than the traditional publishers? Maybe they would do print on demand, but the price might be higher and the physical quality lower?

Just saying.

Helen

Amazon Direct publishing already does that. See this link for three eBooks describing it:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...n%20publishing

Authors get a higher cut, pBooks are sold cheaper and printed as purchased - no 50,000 book runs, eBooks appear to get most of the sales.

Two of those publishing guide eBooks are free. Read them and see what they say. It appears this is the wave of the future. The old publishers may be going the way of the old Video Tape publishers - gone forever.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Why does an eBook consumer need an old time publisher anyway? What do they do to earn their money?

I can't reconcile this with the following you wrote two days ago:

I only read history and biography books and am willing to pay the price.

As to what the publisher does for history and biography, they first approve the book proposal. People don't usually just write those kinds of books without such encouragement. And authors can't usually afford to complete the research without an advance or a grant. Grants are fine, but the best history and biography I read usually comes from commercial publishers that offer advances.

Then the publisher works with the author or authors to make the book better. These is from the acknowledgements of a book I finished yesterday, The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel:

Thanks to our army of editors at Penguin for marshalling and honing down the manuscript across three continents and through its multiple forms: Joel Rickett in London, Chiki Sarkar in New Delhi and Emily Baker in New York. Thanks also to our copy-editor, Mark Handsley, for his painstaking rereading of the manuscript.

Maybe someone will say that one great editor is better than an army. Could be. Most publisher thank-yous I read are a lot more effusive!

Hachette isn't a big history and biography publisher, at least in English. Then, neither is, as a publisher, Amazon.

If your model book is written by a lonely author creating pure works of imagination in a garret, indie will be fine. But for the kind of books I most often read, the infrastructure of a publisher is generally needed.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I can't reconcile this with the following you wrote two days ago:

I only read history and biography books and am willing to pay the price.

As to what the publisher does for history and biography, they first approve the book proposal. People don't usually just write those kinds of books without such encouragement. And authors can't usually afford to complete the research without an advance or a grant. Grants are fine, but the best history and biography I read usually comes from commercial publishers that offer advances.

Then the publisher works with the author or authors to make the book better. These is from the acknowledgements of a book I finished yesterday, The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel:



Maybe someone will say that one great editor is better than an army. Could be. Most publisher thank-yous I read are a lot more effusive!

Hachette isn't a big history and biography publisher, at least in English. Then, neither is, as a publisher, Amazon.

If your model book is written by a lonely author creating pure works of imagination in a garret, indie will be fine. But for the kind of books I most often read, the infrastructure of a publisher is generally needed.

Amazon Direct Publishing is probably the wave of the future. I have a hunch they are more modern, better equipped and will benefit authors far more than the old line publishers.

I see no reason why they can't publish history and biography books either.

I used to buy all my songs from 78 RPM publishers. Today I get all of them from Amazon. I really doubt if those old 78 RPM publishers still exist today.

Finally, the old line publishers can evolve and modernize their operations. Then they could exist with Amazon.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Amazon Direct publishing already does that. See this link for three eBooks describing it:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...n%20publishing

Authors get a higher cut, pBooks are sold cheaper and printed as purchased - no 50,000 book runs, eBooks appear to get most of the sales.

Two of those publishing guide eBooks are free. Read them and see what they say. It appears this is the wave of the future. The old publishers may be going the way of the old Video Tape publishers - gone forever.

Pretty sure I addressed the print on demand books. This is a no risk no cost thing for Amazon and of very little value to the author and has no bearing on getting the books to market. No editing, no marketing, no weeding out of the drivel. Just more or less functioning as a photocopier/binding service.

And this has so far proven to be not the wave of the future. It is very old tech and many different variations have been tried and have failed. Have you actually held one of these print on demand books in your hand and found them to be of a quality even comparable to even the cheapest of mass market paperbacks? If so which one?

I am starting to think that you are of the opinion that books are just words and that quality of writing, content, research, accuracy, editing and even the entertainment value are irrelevant. Given that this is true for you, publishers, authors etc. are all alike for you and the cheapest and most convenient must be the best.

Helen

[fjtorres]

FWIW: POD these days encompasses a lot of different quality levels and volumes. It is quite possible for a small or even self publisher to order up both small and large batches of books from the very same printers that the BPHs outsource hardcovers to. Quality? Indistinguishable. And both Ingram and Baker&Taylor accept indie titles for distribution to bookstores big and small as long as the retail margin is broad enough. Some indies even order up small batches of premium leatherbound numbered collectors editions for their True Fans. The margins are lower than ebook editions but the more popular indies are reoorting it is worth their while.

Other publisher functions?
Professional editors, line, story, and development are all available for freelance work. Some are moonlighting via internet, some were laid off by the corporate publishers and found a higher income stream freelancing. Authors talk and word gets around of which edutors are good for what genre.
Formatting? Ditto. Also, some business will sell custom formatting templates for one time fees so an authors books (both e-and p-) can present a uniform, professional "house look". Or "series look".

Over the last four years an entire new publishing industry has emerged and is growing under the shadow of the corporate giants. It is sustained primarily by ebook sales but it is not limited to it as pbooks and audio books are part of the revenue stream. Some license out foreign rights or commission their own translations. This isn't a matter of one or two exceptions. Hundreds and thousands of authors are doing it.

Publishing is simply returning to its roots as a cottage industry, of small family or partnership owned small business, the way it was before the giant multinationals started squeezing them and buying them up. Those hundreds of imprints each BPH stamps on the books? Each was once a standalone business that was bought out, often under threat of bankruptcy. The biggest wave of BPH imprint accretion was in the 80's so there are survivors of that age still active out there.

It's early in the game so many of the new publishers are still ramping up but many are already at the stage where they have hired full time support staff and are moving beyond the output of the owner/founders. Some are coop ventures from three or four authors who combined produce enough material to require full time support.

The plain fact is that the only unique service the BPHs offer midlist and newcomer authors is financing. The highly-touted "advance against royalties" that for most of their authors is all their stories bring them. Strip away all the services the author can obtain elsewhere and all that remains is really a venture capital operation, to be polite. Or a loansharking ring if you're not. I've seen the case for both interpretations.

The BPHs exist because they could more efficiently print and distribute dead tree pulp books into many locations and channels and could control the market through sheer volume of output. But over the past two decades their beancounter focus on efficiency and margins and contract negotiations has created an environment where they no longer control the distribution channel (rather the channels control them) and with the new technology and B2B services industries they have become at best a convenience to business savvy authors.

Take a look at the AUTHOR EARNINGS website. Never mind the numbers; look at the categories. There is a sliver for uncategorized single author publusher and another bigger one for small and medium presses. Many of those businesses are actually one and two author operations set up as corporations because they intend to become tomorrow's BALENTINEs, DOUBLEDAYs, and LITTLE, BROWN.

The Empire(s) has been in control for a generation but now the Jedi are back to lead the rebels.

It's really a whole new ballgame.
The old rules and assumptions no longer apply.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Pretty sure I addressed the print on demand books. This is a no risk no cost thI am starting to think that you are of the opinion that books are just words and that quality of writing, content, research, accuracy, editing and even the entertainment value are irrelevant. Given that this is true for you, publishers, authors etc. are all alike for you and the cheapest and most convenient must be the best.

Helen

You hit the nail on the head. The history and biography books I read are mere compendiums of words. I never look for authors, pictures or covers. I look for subject matter and buy the most pages I can get for the buck.

Actually, I place all my eBooks of interest to me in an Excel spreadsheet and sort by Pages per Dollar. Then I buy the highest ranked to read. The more pages I can get for the same price determines which eBook I actually buy. Pages of End Notes count equally as other text pages since the more notes tends to make the information more reliable.

Most of the eBooks I read run from 600 to 1,000 pages each and many are sets of 2 or 3 eBooks each of that length. I rarely buy an eBook of less than 400 pages.

I find candidates for my spreadsheet by authors being interviewed on TV, documentaries I watch on TV, looking at the Book of the Month Club site for interesting books, reading the NY Times email I get daily, and reading about them at other internet sites.

Thus, the Amazon model fits me perfectly since they supply the number of pages and price for me to enter in my spreadsheet. Hype from old line publishers is totally irrelevant to my selections.

[pwalker8]

One of the major value of publishers (at least for the consumer) is windowing out the dross. For a while several years ago, Baen Books ran an experiment of allowing certain fans to read through the slush pile (i.e. reading through the unsolicited manuscripts to see if there was anything remotely decent). Needless to say, the vast majority is dross.

Amazon has this issue. The vast majority of self published books is pretty bad. Amazon doesn't seem to particularly care all that much about quality. Their business model seems to be more oriented to people looking for specific books or authors.

Baen Books has (or had) such a loyal following because they provided books of a known quality and type. If you are an author of the type of book that Baen Books use to publish, then you got a built in audience. I suspect that Tor is well on it's way to the same support over the past several years. Many of the major genre imprints provide the same thing for their authors, a built in audience.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

You the nail on the head. The history and biography books I read are mere compendiums of words. I never look for authors, pictures or covers. I look for subject matter and buy the most pages I can get for the buck.

Actually, I place all my eBooks of interest to me in an Excel spreadsheet and sort by Pages per Dollar. Then I buy the highest ranked to read. The more pages I can get for the same price determines which eBook I actually buy. Pages of End Notes count equally as other text pages since the more notes tends to make the information more reliable.

Most of the eBooks I read run from 600 to 1,000 pages each and many are sets of 2 or 3 eBooks each of that length. I rarely buy an eBook of less than 400 pages.

I find candidates for my spreadsheet by authors being interviewed on TV, documentaries I watch on TV, looking at the Book of the Month Club site for interesting books, reading the NY Times email I get daily, and reading about them at other internet sites.

Thus, the Amazon model fits me perfectly since they supply the number of pages and price for me to enter in my spreadsheet. Hype from old line publishers is totally irrelevant to my selections.

Hum, that might explain some things. Not all authors have the same quality, attention to details or for than matter accuracy. Most of my reading is either genre (SF&F, mystery or adventure for the most part), or related to specific subjects (mostly History, though some science, law and economy). When researching a new subject (say for example, Roman History or WW II), I tend to look for the best regarded books and best authors. I pay for quality, not quantity. It doesn't matter how many pages a book has if the author's main source for Roman history seems to be the HBO series Rome or his main source for the facts about Iwo Jima was John Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima.

[crossi]

Used to be when looking for books first sort was by books by BPHs (because that's all that were in bookstores), then I looked for authors/series I followed, then browsed genres I liked or looked for books on a specific topic I wanted.

In the future I can see not only searching by author and series but by specific editor instead of just BPH books. In the past no one paid any attention to who edited a book but in the future they might get a following like that of authors as they gain a reputation in their specific genres. They certainly can do the same job they do at the BPHs of weeding out dross as well as editing books. And certainly an author I like who went indie will still write books I like.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Hum, that might explain some things. Not all authors have the same quality, attention to details or for than matter accuracy. Most of my reading is either genre (SF&F, mystery or adventure for the most part), or related to specific subjects (mostly History, though some science, law and economy). When researching a new subject (say for example, Roman History or WW II), I tend to look for the best regarded books and best authors. I pay for quality, not quantity. It doesn't matter how many pages a book has if the author's main source for Roman history seems to be the HBO series Rome or his main source for the facts about Iwo Jima was John Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima.

I have no way to judge the quality of authors. Thus, I use the total page count which includes footnotes. I find serious historical treatises simply have more pages. There is simply no competition between a 1,000 page book and a 100 page book no matter the fame of the author of the 100 page book.

For example, I am reading the 3 volume work on Churchill by Manchester now each volume of which is about 1,000 pages. There is no way even a 400 page book on the same subject could compete with the volume of information in the 3,000 pages.

I also watch a lot of historical documentaries on Netflix. The consultants for those documentaries can be tested in what they way when I watch them.

If I enjoyed a book by a particular author and he also has other works containing large numbers of pages, I also would add them to my excel spreadsheet.

Fiction is probably different where plots and character development are essential.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

You hit the nail on the head. The history and biography books I read are mere compendiums of words. I never look for authors, pictures or covers. I look for subject matter and buy the most pages I can get for the buck.

Actually, I place all my eBooks of interest to me in an Excel spreadsheet and sort by Pages per Dollar. Then I buy the highest ranked to read. The more pages I can get for the same price determines which eBook I actually buy. Pages of End Notes count equally as other text pages since the more notes tends to make the information more reliable.

Most of the eBooks I read run from 600 to 1,000 pages each and many are sets of 2 or 3 eBooks each of that length. I rarely buy an eBook of less than 400 pages.

I find candidates for my spreadsheet by authors being interviewed on TV, documentaries I watch on TV, looking at the Book of the Month Club site for interesting books, reading the NY Times email I get daily, and reading about them at other internet sites.

Thus, the Amazon model fits me perfectly since they supply the number of pages and price for me to enter in my spreadsheet. Hype from old line publishers is totally irrelevant to my selections.

Well if you are satisfied with this method more power to you. I read fiction based on the author and select new authors based a blurb that makes the book sound interesting or a personal, MR, or blog recommendation . Non fiction, I tend to ignore the author and choose books by searching for something on a subject or a friend's recommendation (or a catchy title).

Number of pages makes no difference. Some authors can tell a story in 150 pages that is a lot more satisfactory to me than some 1000 page books. Some authors write books that I enjoy so much that I wish they would go on forever. It is about enjoyment for me in both fiction and non fiction. I will struggle with a difficult non fiction book on a subject I am interested in if that is all there is (Knuth comes to mind) but I prefer a well thought ought and well explained book to a long book filled with difficult to decipher facts and studies.

So what traditional publishers have done for me in the past and still continue to do is provide me with books that I like.

I have never paid attention to who published a book when buying one and have bought many books before ebooks from very small publishers and even directly from authors.

I don't actually care who publishes a book but looking at the books I have read in the last three+ years (803) that I have marked a read in calibre 90% are from traditional publishers.

This is because I have been reading for 60+ years and have a very long list of authors I know I will enjoy.

I do read books by new authors and some of these are Indy. And I don't check out who publishes it before buying.

Overall my satisfaction level with books is very high with books published by traditional publishers, big or small and not nearly so high with self published, although in the time before ebooks when books could not be marketed for a minimal cost it was equal.

So this is what publishers have done for me and do even more so today. They give me a reasonable assurance that I will find the book I am buying is worth reading and not just words on a page.

Helen

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by [COLOR="Green"

Spam post deleted and member banned.

Bee-you-tiful!!!!
Says all you need to know about agency.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Bee-you-tiful!!!!
Says all you need to know about agency.

You blame agency for a banned post? That's a bit of a reach.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You blame agency for a banned post? That's a bit of a reach.

I'll go out on a limb here and say no one is that stupid (except maybe you ), and furthermore, I hypothesize that the fact his post was edited by Dr. Drib may be a clue as to what happened.

Spoiler:

He quoted someone who was banned for their post, and the mods removed quotes of the post as well.