Finally! A research-based approach to marketing ebook fiction. Exactly what I've been looking for. I LOVE John Locke's How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months!
I've been a social science researcher for more than 30 years. In my day job--the one where I actually make money--I am a program evaluator. I work with managers of social programs to develop and implement outcome measures that give them information about how well their programs are doing what they were set up to do.
So in 2006, when I published my first novel, Too Near the Edge, I planned to keep careful track of the results of my marketing efforts. I knew what the outcome measure of success was. How many books am I selling? Answer: not many. Ditto for my daughter Laurel's first novel, Following My Toes, which my business PMI Books published.
Like Locke, we initially did all the stuff the experts say we should do -- signings, press releases, reviews, awards, blogs, website, social networking, etc. etc. The problem was we never sold enough books to validate any of our marketing efforts. Lots of input, not much income.
I searched for more expert advice. But the problem with most of what I found was lack of supporting data to help me sort out what had worked for other authors. And the advice that did have supporting data was virtually all for nonfiction, which is much easier to sell. Now and then I'd read a self-published fiction writer success story, but usually with no clear breakdown of which marketing efforts paid off and which didn't.
Of course back then we were selling print books only, with all the costs of printing, shipping, bookstore returns etc. When ebooks came along, I hoped for more. In 2008, I put both novels up on Kindle. Unfortunately, sales still did not take off.
In February 2011 I published Laurel's second novel, Starring in the Movie of My Life, and in March, my second novel, Too Far Under. Both came out in paperback and on Kindle and I also got all our books up on Smashwords and in their premium catalog. We got good reviews, but still sales were slow.
Then the Amanda Hocking phenomena hit. We could see the impact of pricing. We started experimenting with free and $.99 books. We got some results. So far in June & July, we've sold 1800+ copies of our two $.99 titles. Far more than we usually sell in a year! And approximately 72,000 copies of our 2 free titles have been downloaded.
The numbers are exciting. But seeing this happen made us believe we could do even better. So, how to do it? Beyond the price reductions, we saw no clear path until I saw mention of John Locke's new book where he tells how he did it.
Bingo! Downloaded that book onto my Kindle and read it in one afternoon. Best $4.99 I've spent in a long time. Why? Because he carefully dissects what worked for him and what didn't, and then he tests the successful system on a new harder-to-sell book series to see if it worked there. It did.
Will Locke's system work for me? Maybe, maybe not. But it charts a clear specific path to follow, and this path is one that at least worked for someone. So I'm going to give it a try. And I'm going to keep track of what I do and what results I see. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Showing posts with label The Publishing Industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Publishing Industry. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Book-Selling Business Wastes Energy through Antiquated Business Practice
FedEx reported a worse-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter loss today, which they said is due to higher fuel prices eating into profits. They plan to do as much as they can to reduce expenses. People around the country are also doing what they can to use less fuel. The Federal Highway Administration announced today that in April of this year Americans drove 1.8% fewer miles than a year ago—a decline larger than the only other time in our history that driving declined, which was during the energy crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Yet the book-selling business continues to ship books back and forth across the country over and over again as part of a strange arrangement between booksellers and publishers that allows booksellers to return to the publisher for a full refund any books that the bookseller ordered but has not sold.
Last Friday, NPR did a story on this book-return system that quoted the CEO of Barnes & Noble saying that the returns system is “insane.” That’s certainly the way I see it, especially with today’s rising energy costs and signs of global warming.
Most people have no idea how the book-selling business works. They are stunned when I tell them that a bookstore can order a bunch of books, send them back for a full refund if they don’t sell, and then turn around and re-order them. Bookstores routinely do this. In 2005, roughly 1.5 billion books were shipped to bookstores in the U.S., according to the Association of American Publishers. Of those, 465 million, or 31 percent, were later returned to publishers.
It took me a long time to understand the system, myself. Our stress-management book that we first published in the 1980s was mostly sold through bulk sales rather than through bookstores. Later when I had a book published by a major publisher, I still didn’t know how the system worked. The publisher would send my agent statements of numbers of books sold, which my agent would forward on to me. I began to notice that the total numbers of books sold was going down over time rather than up, so I asked my agent what was going on. That’s when I found out that bookstores routinely order many copies of a book—which show up as “sold” on the publisher’s statement—but then return on average 25% or more of them—which removes them from the “sold” category. To this day, I have only a vague idea of how many copies of that book were actually sold.
Now that I am publishing fiction, I have learned that if I want bookstores to order my books to put on their shelves, I have to make my books returnable. My printer, Lightning Source (LSI), offers me two choices as to what happens to books that are ordered and then returned. LSI can destroy the returned books (a painful thought) and I will be charged the wholesale cost of the books. Or, LSI can return the books to me, for which I will be charged the wholesale cost of the books plus a $2.00 per book return fee. I have chosen the second option, thinking I would rather resell the returned books myself than have them destroyed and still have to pay for them.
To me, this seems like an inefficient, wasteful way to do business. Not only does this waste energy shipping millions of books around and storing them, but returned books must be processed by hand to remove stickers and determine whether the book is in condition to be sent back out to stores or must be destroyed.
What will it take to change the returns system? Small independent publishers like me don’t have the clout to start a movement to abolish returns in the book business. Major publishers will need to stop accepting returns and most are afraid that doing so would result in drastic cuts in their orders from bookstores. And large publishing houses can easily pay for their returns on the backs of their bestsellers. However, a new HarperCollins imprint (see my April 10 blog) plans to make its books nonreturnable. We’ll see how this experiment turns out.
Meanwhile, we can spread the word about this antiquated practice. If more people know how much energy is being wasted by this book-return system, maybe there will be some pressure on major publishers and booksellers to put a stop to it.
Yet the book-selling business continues to ship books back and forth across the country over and over again as part of a strange arrangement between booksellers and publishers that allows booksellers to return to the publisher for a full refund any books that the bookseller ordered but has not sold.
Last Friday, NPR did a story on this book-return system that quoted the CEO of Barnes & Noble saying that the returns system is “insane.” That’s certainly the way I see it, especially with today’s rising energy costs and signs of global warming.
Most people have no idea how the book-selling business works. They are stunned when I tell them that a bookstore can order a bunch of books, send them back for a full refund if they don’t sell, and then turn around and re-order them. Bookstores routinely do this. In 2005, roughly 1.5 billion books were shipped to bookstores in the U.S., according to the Association of American Publishers. Of those, 465 million, or 31 percent, were later returned to publishers.
It took me a long time to understand the system, myself. Our stress-management book that we first published in the 1980s was mostly sold through bulk sales rather than through bookstores. Later when I had a book published by a major publisher, I still didn’t know how the system worked. The publisher would send my agent statements of numbers of books sold, which my agent would forward on to me. I began to notice that the total numbers of books sold was going down over time rather than up, so I asked my agent what was going on. That’s when I found out that bookstores routinely order many copies of a book—which show up as “sold” on the publisher’s statement—but then return on average 25% or more of them—which removes them from the “sold” category. To this day, I have only a vague idea of how many copies of that book were actually sold.
Now that I am publishing fiction, I have learned that if I want bookstores to order my books to put on their shelves, I have to make my books returnable. My printer, Lightning Source (LSI), offers me two choices as to what happens to books that are ordered and then returned. LSI can destroy the returned books (a painful thought) and I will be charged the wholesale cost of the books. Or, LSI can return the books to me, for which I will be charged the wholesale cost of the books plus a $2.00 per book return fee. I have chosen the second option, thinking I would rather resell the returned books myself than have them destroyed and still have to pay for them.
To me, this seems like an inefficient, wasteful way to do business. Not only does this waste energy shipping millions of books around and storing them, but returned books must be processed by hand to remove stickers and determine whether the book is in condition to be sent back out to stores or must be destroyed.
What will it take to change the returns system? Small independent publishers like me don’t have the clout to start a movement to abolish returns in the book business. Major publishers will need to stop accepting returns and most are afraid that doing so would result in drastic cuts in their orders from bookstores. And large publishing houses can easily pay for their returns on the backs of their bestsellers. However, a new HarperCollins imprint (see my April 10 blog) plans to make its books nonreturnable. We’ll see how this experiment turns out.
Meanwhile, we can spread the word about this antiquated practice. If more people know how much energy is being wasted by this book-return system, maybe there will be some pressure on major publishers and booksellers to put a stop to it.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Author Breaks All the Rules and Makes Millions. What Should We Conclude? Are Book Publishing Rules Outdated?
Arrgh!! James Frey has a new book out. This time it’s a novel. Seems like a good choice on his part after the scandal a couple of years ago when it turned out that much of what he recollected in his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, never really happened. Once his fabricated story was exposed and Oprah called him a liar to his face on her TV show, many of us thought he was finished. “Ha!” we said to ourselves with a certain amount of glee, “If an author breaks the rules, readers will dump him.”
But that’s not what happened. His partially-fictionalized memoir has sold nearly 4 million copies. After the scandal, Random House offered refunds to readers, but only about 1500 asked for one. The Anchor paperback edition is #780 on Amazon today.
He has a new publisher, HarperCollins for his novel, Bright Shiny Morning, (how's that for a symbolic starting-over title?) released yesterday. It’s a book that would embarrass most indie and self-publishers.
Entertainment Weekly calls it a “slack, self-indulgent mess,” that lacks a coherent story, and “never achieves narrative momentum.” They give it a D+ and criticize the publisher for lack of editing. The Los Angeles Times calls it “a literary train wreck without even the good grace to be entertaining,” and says the book gives a superficial, lifeless portrayal of Los Angeles.
The writing is characterized by run-on sentences with little regard for punctuation guidelines. Here’s a sample sentence:
Yet, Frey reportedly got a $1.5 million advance for this novel, which had an initial printing of 350,000. It’s #25 among books on Amazon today. He was the focus of a USA Today cover story yesterday, and appeared on the Today show.
So much for the importance of quality. If this were a self-published book, it would be held up as a horrific example of all that’s wrong with self-publishing. We independent and self-published authors are told and told that our books need to be as good as or better than traditionally-published books, that they must be well-written and carefully edited if they are to have any chance to compete in the marketplace.
Well I’m through listening to the old guard pontificate about the high standards of traditional publishers. I’m thinking I’d sell more books if rather than spending my time rewriting to improve my book, I instead engaged in some hugely scandalous, sleazy behavior that would get me noticed. Then I could ignore all the writing rules, write pap and get a big advance from a traditional publisher.
But that’s not what happened. His partially-fictionalized memoir has sold nearly 4 million copies. After the scandal, Random House offered refunds to readers, but only about 1500 asked for one. The Anchor paperback edition is #780 on Amazon today.
He has a new publisher, HarperCollins for his novel, Bright Shiny Morning, (how's that for a symbolic starting-over title?) released yesterday. It’s a book that would embarrass most indie and self-publishers.
Entertainment Weekly calls it a “slack, self-indulgent mess,” that lacks a coherent story, and “never achieves narrative momentum.” They give it a D+ and criticize the publisher for lack of editing. The Los Angeles Times calls it “a literary train wreck without even the good grace to be entertaining,” and says the book gives a superficial, lifeless portrayal of Los Angeles.
The writing is characterized by run-on sentences with little regard for punctuation guidelines. Here’s a sample sentence:
“Instead of using his real name he started using the name of his site the more it was printed and repeated the more it was recognized the more people came the more people wrote about him the better stories he got.”
Yet, Frey reportedly got a $1.5 million advance for this novel, which had an initial printing of 350,000. It’s #25 among books on Amazon today. He was the focus of a USA Today cover story yesterday, and appeared on the Today show.
So much for the importance of quality. If this were a self-published book, it would be held up as a horrific example of all that’s wrong with self-publishing. We independent and self-published authors are told and told that our books need to be as good as or better than traditionally-published books, that they must be well-written and carefully edited if they are to have any chance to compete in the marketplace.
Well I’m through listening to the old guard pontificate about the high standards of traditional publishers. I’m thinking I’d sell more books if rather than spending my time rewriting to improve my book, I instead engaged in some hugely scandalous, sleazy behavior that would get me noticed. Then I could ignore all the writing rules, write pap and get a big advance from a traditional publisher.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Mainstream Publishing Takes A Giant Step
Unexpected news came out this week from NYC publisher HarperCollins. The company plans to launch a new book imprint that won't accept returns from bookstores and will pay little or no advances to authors. The new HC imprint is an experiment that will try to fix everything that’s wrong with the publishing business, according to the 51-year-old publisher who will head it—Robert S. Miller, founder of Disney’s Hyperion adult books division.
Wow. Fix everything that’s wrong with the publishing business. That’s a big chunk to bite off. But HarperCollins seems to have more of a future orientation than many mainstream publishers. I visited their website and found the following self-description, “Consistently at the forefront of innovation and technological advancement, HarperCollins is the first publisher to digitize its content and create a global digital warehouse to protect the rights of its authors, meet consumer demand and generate additional business opportunities.”
So HC is already using POD printing, at least for their backlist. Now they’re going to experiment with eliminating other sacred cows of the publishing business.
Instead of paying author advances, the new imprint will share its book sale profits with authors, possibly offering a 50-50 profit-sharing. It also plans to release electronic books and digital audio editions of all its titles.
The changes this imprint plans for bookstores are huge. Not only will the books be non-returnable, the imprint plans to focus its sales efforts on the Internet rather than paying for premium display space at the front of bookstores.
Not surprisingly, authors whose books are published by traditional publishers aren’t looking favorably at this HC experiment. Criticisms that I’ve read on group discussion lists and blogs include:
But I think HC’s new imprint is great news for those of us who are small, independent presses and /or self-publishers. It goes a long way in blurring the lines between us and them. The publishing business is morphing into a new entity as quickly and quietly as the faces on one of those websites that lets visitors click and combine two faces into one new one. Sure this is a small imprint that plans to release maybe 25 titles a year, according to articles announcing the move in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. But is a move by a major publisher. HarperCollins’ revenues top $1 billion annually.
This trial run will surely make the old guard sit up and take notice. Now some authors published by an imprint of a major publisher won’t meet the criteria for awards, reviews, and conferences that require that authors receive specific levels of advances for their books and that the books be returnable. And who knows, HC may decide to use digital printing for some of these non-returnable books. If so, these authors wouldn’t meet some minimum-print-run requirements. How long can the old guard stick with these criteria when a major publisher is ignoring them?
And this could be the beginning of the end of the inefficient return system favored by bookstores who can order huge quantities of new titles and then send them back if they don’t sell quickly. If we didn’t have that system, books sold would actually mean books sold. When we get a big book order, we could rejoice instead of living in dread of having dilapidated books bounce back at our expense. And booksellers who have purchased the books they have in stock are probably more likely to hand-sell them.
Stay tuned. The tipping point approaches.
Wow. Fix everything that’s wrong with the publishing business. That’s a big chunk to bite off. But HarperCollins seems to have more of a future orientation than many mainstream publishers. I visited their website and found the following self-description, “Consistently at the forefront of innovation and technological advancement, HarperCollins is the first publisher to digitize its content and create a global digital warehouse to protect the rights of its authors, meet consumer demand and generate additional business opportunities.”
So HC is already using POD printing, at least for their backlist. Now they’re going to experiment with eliminating other sacred cows of the publishing business.
Instead of paying author advances, the new imprint will share its book sale profits with authors, possibly offering a 50-50 profit-sharing. It also plans to release electronic books and digital audio editions of all its titles.
The changes this imprint plans for bookstores are huge. Not only will the books be non-returnable, the imprint plans to focus its sales efforts on the Internet rather than paying for premium display space at the front of bookstores.
Not surprisingly, authors whose books are published by traditional publishers aren’t looking favorably at this HC experiment. Criticisms that I’ve read on group discussion lists and blogs include:
- This shifts the risk to the author away from the publisher. If your book doesn't sell, you don't make a dime.
- Bookstores won’t stock these books unless they are by big-name authors. Why would the bookstores treat this HP imprint any differently from other publishers who don't take returns?• Bookstores will order fewer of these books, which means fewer will sell and authors will make less from their books.
- This is not a new publishing model, it’s a scam on authors.
- A 50-50 split of profits is complicated because it depends on how “profits” are defined.
- The larger the advance, the harder the publisher works to recoup it. Publishers who lay out nothing for a book have no vested interest in pursuing its success.
But I think HC’s new imprint is great news for those of us who are small, independent presses and /or self-publishers. It goes a long way in blurring the lines between us and them. The publishing business is morphing into a new entity as quickly and quietly as the faces on one of those websites that lets visitors click and combine two faces into one new one. Sure this is a small imprint that plans to release maybe 25 titles a year, according to articles announcing the move in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. But is a move by a major publisher. HarperCollins’ revenues top $1 billion annually.
This trial run will surely make the old guard sit up and take notice. Now some authors published by an imprint of a major publisher won’t meet the criteria for awards, reviews, and conferences that require that authors receive specific levels of advances for their books and that the books be returnable. And who knows, HC may decide to use digital printing for some of these non-returnable books. If so, these authors wouldn’t meet some minimum-print-run requirements. How long can the old guard stick with these criteria when a major publisher is ignoring them?
And this could be the beginning of the end of the inefficient return system favored by bookstores who can order huge quantities of new titles and then send them back if they don’t sell quickly. If we didn’t have that system, books sold would actually mean books sold. When we get a big book order, we could rejoice instead of living in dread of having dilapidated books bounce back at our expense. And booksellers who have purchased the books they have in stock are probably more likely to hand-sell them.
Stay tuned. The tipping point approaches.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Amazon Power Play
This Monday, Amazon unleashed a firestorm with its announcement that it will now require that all print-on-demand (POD) books be printed inside Amazon's own fulfillment centers by its own print-on-demand subsidiary, BookSurge. Why? In a March 31, “open letter to interested parties” Amazon justifies its decision as follows:
As an aside, I have to say I find this shipping-everything-in-one box justification strange. I recently ordered (in one Amazon order) five items for my three-year-old grandson (one book and four toys). The items were shipped in four separate shipments, within a day of each other. I saw this as a huge waste of packing materials and fuel—which bothered me not only because it’s bad for the environment, but also because (full disclosure here), I’m an Amazon stockholder.
It looks like the Amazon move is aimed directly at eliminating competition from the largest print-on-demand printing company, Lightning Source (LSI).
Publishers who use LSI to digitally print their books and don’t want to switch all their printing to Amazon’s BookSurge are offered two choices in the Amazon letter:
Publishers who choose option #1 (use Amazon’s POD company, BookSurge to print all books that ship directly from Amazon), face an unpleasant situation.
Publishers who choose option #2 (stay with LSI for all their book printing) would have to participate in the Amazon Advantage Program to sell books directly through Amazon. To do that, they will have to print and ship copies of their books to Amazon for them to warehouse and ship to customers. And they will have to pay Amazon $29.95 per year plus 55% of the list price of each book sold.
It not clear at this point whether Amazon intends to impose the new requirement on all publishers that use POD printing, which would include thousands of small presses, or if they are primarily targeting the subsidy (author services) publishing companies that use digital printing. I haven’t heard yet of any small independent publishers that have been affected by the new Amazon policy.
The story was originally broken by Angela Hoy, co-owner of BookLocker.com, in her ezine, WritersWeekly.com. She has continued to follow the story with frequent updates on a special WritersWeekly page. One of her most recent updates says that AuthorHouse/iUniverse has reached an agreement with Amazon to allow Booksurge to print their books.
Apparently AuthorHouse had originally refused to comply with Amazon’s demands, with the result that their book listings on Amazon had their buy buttons removed. This meant that a customer who wanted to buy one of the books would have to buy it from one of the marketplace vendors and the book wouldn’t qualify for Amazon’s free shipping offer. I checked some AuthorHouse book listings on Amazon earlier today (Wed 4/2) and the buttons were gone. Then after I heard about AuthorHouse reaching an agreement with Amazon, I checked again and the buttons were back.
My tiny publishing company has three books printed through the POD printing company, Lightning Source (LSI). I haven’t heard anything from Amazon saying that I should switch to BookSurge for printing, and the listings for our books are unchanged. I did get an email letter today from LSI President & CEO, J. Kirby Best, which said that LSI is following the discussions about Amazon requiring publishers to use BookSurge for their POD books in order to sell on Amazon, and reassured LSI cutomers that our titles are available to Amazon.com for shipment within 24 hours.This situation is changing way too fast to draw any conclusions. So what can we do besides follow the story and hope for the best?
I’m still in the watch-and-wait camp right now. And maybe I should sell my Amazon stock?
“Modern POD printing machines can print and bind a book in less than two hours. If the POD printing machines reside inside our own fulfillment centers, we can more quickly ship the POD book to customers—including in those cases where the POD book needs to be married together with another item. If a customer orders a POD item together with an item that we're holding in inventory—a common case—we can quickly print and bind the POD item, pick the inventoried item, and ship the two together in one box, and we can do so quickly. If the POD item were to be printed at a third party, we'd have to wait for it to be shipped to our fulfillment center before it could be married together with the inventoried item.… Simply put, we can provide a better, more timely customer experience if the POD titles are printed inside our own fulfillment centers. In addition, printing these titles in our own fulfillment centers saves transportation costs and transportation fuel.”
As an aside, I have to say I find this shipping-everything-in-one box justification strange. I recently ordered (in one Amazon order) five items for my three-year-old grandson (one book and four toys). The items were shipped in four separate shipments, within a day of each other. I saw this as a huge waste of packing materials and fuel—which bothered me not only because it’s bad for the environment, but also because (full disclosure here), I’m an Amazon stockholder.
It looks like the Amazon move is aimed directly at eliminating competition from the largest print-on-demand printing company, Lightning Source (LSI).
Publishers who use LSI to digitally print their books and don’t want to switch all their printing to Amazon’s BookSurge are offered two choices in the Amazon letter:
- Use BookSurge just for those units that ship from Amazon and continue to use a different POD service provider for distribution through other channels; or
- Use a different POD service provider for all your units, and pre-produce five copies of each title and send those in advance to the Amazon Advantage Program for in-stock inventory.
Publishers who choose option #1 (use Amazon’s POD company, BookSurge to print all books that ship directly from Amazon), face an unpleasant situation.
- BookSurge has a reputation for printing low-quality books, with pages falling out, missing pages, etc.
- BookSurge’s printing prices are higher than LSI’s, so the publisher and/or author will earn less per book sold.
- Publishers will have to modify the files they have set up for LSI because those files aren’t compatible with BookSurge’s specifications.
- Because BookSurge does not offer Ingram distribution, which is virtually essential for bookstore sales, publishers will want to continue to have their books available for printing though LSI, which provides the Ingram distribution. Using two printing companies means extra formatting and extra fees.
Publishers who choose option #2 (stay with LSI for all their book printing) would have to participate in the Amazon Advantage Program to sell books directly through Amazon. To do that, they will have to print and ship copies of their books to Amazon for them to warehouse and ship to customers. And they will have to pay Amazon $29.95 per year plus 55% of the list price of each book sold.
It not clear at this point whether Amazon intends to impose the new requirement on all publishers that use POD printing, which would include thousands of small presses, or if they are primarily targeting the subsidy (author services) publishing companies that use digital printing. I haven’t heard yet of any small independent publishers that have been affected by the new Amazon policy.
The story was originally broken by Angela Hoy, co-owner of BookLocker.com, in her ezine, WritersWeekly.com. She has continued to follow the story with frequent updates on a special WritersWeekly page. One of her most recent updates says that AuthorHouse/iUniverse has reached an agreement with Amazon to allow Booksurge to print their books.
Apparently AuthorHouse had originally refused to comply with Amazon’s demands, with the result that their book listings on Amazon had their buy buttons removed. This meant that a customer who wanted to buy one of the books would have to buy it from one of the marketplace vendors and the book wouldn’t qualify for Amazon’s free shipping offer. I checked some AuthorHouse book listings on Amazon earlier today (Wed 4/2) and the buttons were gone. Then after I heard about AuthorHouse reaching an agreement with Amazon, I checked again and the buttons were back.
My tiny publishing company has three books printed through the POD printing company, Lightning Source (LSI). I haven’t heard anything from Amazon saying that I should switch to BookSurge for printing, and the listings for our books are unchanged. I did get an email letter today from LSI President & CEO, J. Kirby Best, which said that LSI is following the discussions about Amazon requiring publishers to use BookSurge for their POD books in order to sell on Amazon, and reassured LSI cutomers that our titles are available to Amazon.com for shipment within 24 hours.This situation is changing way too fast to draw any conclusions. So what can we do besides follow the story and hope for the best?
- Some authors and publishers are circulating an online petition "Stop the BookSurge Monopoly," that has 600+ signatures. Personally I haven’t signed it, because the originator is anonymous. But some of you may want to.
- Some authors and independent publishers are removing links to Amazon from their websites and sending customers to BarnesandNoble.com instead.
- Some are trying to work through the professional organizations PMA (The Independent Book Publishers Association) and SPAN (The Small Publishers Association of North America) in hopes they will join together, question Amazon on behalf of their members, and advocate for their members’ interests.
- • Some are contacting Amazon officers and directors to express their displeasure and to let the directors know they will no longer buy from Amazon.
I’m still in the watch-and-wait camp right now. And maybe I should sell my Amazon stock?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
How Are You Celebrating Small Press Month?
March is small press month. Did you know that? I didn’t until this week, even though I own a small press. I found out about small press month when I went to the website of PMA—The Independent Book Publishers Association—an organization to which my publishing company, PMI Books belongs. But I don’t recall hearing anything about it before that.
According to its website, small press month is an annual celebration of the independent spirit of small publishers. As a small publisher, I am delighted to find out that we have a month and a website devoted to celebrating us. The small-press-month sponsors, of whom PMA is one, have arranged celebration events in large cities around the country.
Small press month even has an official quote from prominent American novelist, Walter Mosley, widely recognized for his crime fiction. Mosley’s official small-press-month quote says:
Apparently this is the 12th year for the celebration of small press month. I’m wondering why I hadn’t heard about it before and why it isn’t a much bigger deal. There are lots of us small, independent publishers out there. The most recent statistics I could find on the Bowkers website reported that in 2005 their Books In Print data represented input from 81,000 publishers in the U.S. We know how few large traditional publishers remain after so many of them have bought each other up. So we small indies must be 80,000+ strong in this country alone.
If we look at our accomplishments, we have a lot to celebrate. Publishing is not a simple job. We’ve had to learn about ISBN numbers, book design and layout, printing, getting reviews, promotion, distribution, copyright law and more. And many of us who own small presses also write some or all of the books we publish.
So why aren’t we all out there tooting our horns and wearing buttons that say, “I’m proud to be an independent publisher”— or even “I’m proud to be a self-publisher”? I think it’s because we hear so many derogatory comments about publishing our books ourselves or through a small indie publisher that we aren’t proud. Deep down we accept what the old guard tells us—that having our books published through a major traditional publisher is better. Even though as new or mid-list authors we know we will get little or no promotion from a major publisher, and even though with a major publisher our books are likely to be quickly out of print, we continue to fall for the idea that having our books published by a major publisher is much better.
It’s hard to celebrate being something that others disparage. But we small publishers vastly outnumber the big guys. We’re changing the publishing industry and we shouldn’t be ashamed or apologetic about our business model. If more of us speak out about and celebrate what we do, we will help all small independent presses be seen as respectable publishers whose books deserve equal opportunity in the marketplace. Happy small press month!
According to its website, small press month is an annual celebration of the independent spirit of small publishers. As a small publisher, I am delighted to find out that we have a month and a website devoted to celebrating us. The small-press-month sponsors, of whom PMA is one, have arranged celebration events in large cities around the country.
Small press month even has an official quote from prominent American novelist, Walter Mosley, widely recognized for his crime fiction. Mosley’s official small-press-month quote says:
"The life’s blood of contemporary and modern literature is in the custodianship of so-called small publishers. Without them, there is no future for literature."
Apparently this is the 12th year for the celebration of small press month. I’m wondering why I hadn’t heard about it before and why it isn’t a much bigger deal. There are lots of us small, independent publishers out there. The most recent statistics I could find on the Bowkers website reported that in 2005 their Books In Print data represented input from 81,000 publishers in the U.S. We know how few large traditional publishers remain after so many of them have bought each other up. So we small indies must be 80,000+ strong in this country alone.
If we look at our accomplishments, we have a lot to celebrate. Publishing is not a simple job. We’ve had to learn about ISBN numbers, book design and layout, printing, getting reviews, promotion, distribution, copyright law and more. And many of us who own small presses also write some or all of the books we publish.
So why aren’t we all out there tooting our horns and wearing buttons that say, “I’m proud to be an independent publisher”— or even “I’m proud to be a self-publisher”? I think it’s because we hear so many derogatory comments about publishing our books ourselves or through a small indie publisher that we aren’t proud. Deep down we accept what the old guard tells us—that having our books published through a major traditional publisher is better. Even though as new or mid-list authors we know we will get little or no promotion from a major publisher, and even though with a major publisher our books are likely to be quickly out of print, we continue to fall for the idea that having our books published by a major publisher is much better.
It’s hard to celebrate being something that others disparage. But we small publishers vastly outnumber the big guys. We’re changing the publishing industry and we shouldn’t be ashamed or apologetic about our business model. If more of us speak out about and celebrate what we do, we will help all small independent presses be seen as respectable publishers whose books deserve equal opportunity in the marketplace. Happy small press month!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The Times They Are A Changin'
CHANGE. It's the new buzzword in the 2008 presidential campaigns. All the candidates running in the primaries are telling voters that if they are elected, things will be different—meaning better.
But while the idea of change tends to be popular, actual changes are often resisted, mocked, and opposed by people who say the new ways are unwise, unfair, and irresponsible. The history of mankind is rife with examples of ideas, inventions and social policies that were originally considered foolhardy but are now mainstream. The automobile, airplane, telephone, and women's right to vote are a few examples.
I predict that trajectory for publishing. Soon digital printing, e-books and publishing formats we haven't heard of yet will be the order of the day. It's a long uphill road, but a lot has happened in the last few years and movement is accelerating.
For example, back in 2003 The Rocky Mountain Writer, the newsletter of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers reported on a roundtable discussion where local editors and agents commented on publishing trends. They asked the panelists, "Is there a future for e-publishing and/or POD?" The unanimous answer was an emphatic "No!" In fact, one panelist suggested that, if an author’s contract with a publisher mentions POD, “run like your hair’s on fire!”
Fast forward to January 2008 and an Associated Press article entitled "Got a Manuscript? Publishing Now a Snap." How things have changed! The article, which has been widely reprinted, points out that because of new technologies today's writers—unlike those in past generations—all have the opportunity to have their work published, read, and listed for sale on online bookstores right along with traditionally published books.
Today more than three-quarters of the approximately 200,000 books published in this country each year are self-published or published by a small press. And eBooks are taking off. Amazon already has over 99,000 books available for sale to readers who use their Kindle, which only came out in December.
In the music industry artists are choosing to bypass major labels and offer albums directly to the public and/or make their work available for digital download. Record companies are no longer required. Not only are new artists putting their works out through self-produced digital recordings, megastars are joining in this trend. Last fall Radiohead offered its new album, In Rainbows, for direct download from its website for whatever price fans decided the album was worth.
Amateur filmmakers can upload their creations to YouTube, which currently has over 72 million videos available for viewing. Now frequent uploaders who have a loyal following can even apply to become YouTube partners who earn money by having ads spliced into their videos.
The old guard predictors were wrong about future trends in publishing and they continue to wear those blinders. But the days of a few major publishers, record labels or movie studios controlling what gets out to the public are over. We have entered a new populist era where consumers can access a wide variety of artistic works and decide for themselves what is worth their time and money.
But while the idea of change tends to be popular, actual changes are often resisted, mocked, and opposed by people who say the new ways are unwise, unfair, and irresponsible. The history of mankind is rife with examples of ideas, inventions and social policies that were originally considered foolhardy but are now mainstream. The automobile, airplane, telephone, and women's right to vote are a few examples.
I predict that trajectory for publishing. Soon digital printing, e-books and publishing formats we haven't heard of yet will be the order of the day. It's a long uphill road, but a lot has happened in the last few years and movement is accelerating.
For example, back in 2003 The Rocky Mountain Writer, the newsletter of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers reported on a roundtable discussion where local editors and agents commented on publishing trends. They asked the panelists, "Is there a future for e-publishing and/or POD?" The unanimous answer was an emphatic "No!" In fact, one panelist suggested that, if an author’s contract with a publisher mentions POD, “run like your hair’s on fire!”
Fast forward to January 2008 and an Associated Press article entitled "Got a Manuscript? Publishing Now a Snap." How things have changed! The article, which has been widely reprinted, points out that because of new technologies today's writers—unlike those in past generations—all have the opportunity to have their work published, read, and listed for sale on online bookstores right along with traditionally published books.
Today more than three-quarters of the approximately 200,000 books published in this country each year are self-published or published by a small press. And eBooks are taking off. Amazon already has over 99,000 books available for sale to readers who use their Kindle, which only came out in December.
In the music industry artists are choosing to bypass major labels and offer albums directly to the public and/or make their work available for digital download. Record companies are no longer required. Not only are new artists putting their works out through self-produced digital recordings, megastars are joining in this trend. Last fall Radiohead offered its new album, In Rainbows, for direct download from its website for whatever price fans decided the album was worth.
Amateur filmmakers can upload their creations to YouTube, which currently has over 72 million videos available for viewing. Now frequent uploaders who have a loyal following can even apply to become YouTube partners who earn money by having ads spliced into their videos.
The old guard predictors were wrong about future trends in publishing and they continue to wear those blinders. But the days of a few major publishers, record labels or movie studios controlling what gets out to the public are over. We have entered a new populist era where consumers can access a wide variety of artistic works and decide for themselves what is worth their time and money.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Publishing: Which Comes First, Art Or Business?
In a comment on my December 20 post, Jim Murdoch said:
I agree with Jim, but I know that not all writers do. The state of publishing today is a huge topic of discussion among writers. A major point of argument is the criteria publishers use to select books—which mainly goes to what you see as a publisher's primary goal. Here, in an admittedly oversimplified synopsis, are the two main positions:
1. Publishing is a business. Publishers primarily want to publish best-sellers. They need to make enough profit on the books they publish to keep their businesses financially lucrative. So they choose the books that they believe will be hot, that they think will sell and sell well. And they shape the books to be as marketable as possible.
2. Publishing is an art. Publishers primarily want to publish great books that readers will find thought-provoking, entertaining, and inspiring. So they choose the books that are the most original, smart, well-written, brilliant, gripping and memorable. And they work with the authors to revise and improve their manuscripts before the book is published.
Here's why this debate matters. If #1 is true and publishing is mainly a business, then the books selected by major publishers are those that have the most potential to make money—either because the author or topic is hot, or because the sales department can make them hot. This view holds that you can't judge the quality of one book vs. another by looking at which one was published by a traditional publisher.
If #2 is true and publishing is mainly an art, we must follow the thinking of the old guard. They believe publishers choose books based mainly on quality and that having a book selected for publication by a traditional publisher is an indicator of excellence. In support of that position, it is true that the big commercial publishers have brought us many great books that we love to read and re-read.
But these publishers have also brought us fake memoirs, plagiarism, books by non-writer criminals, mediocre books with predictable plots and tiresome characters, and plenty of other trash. So there is a lot of evidence supporting #1.
My personal experience also goes to #1. My nonfiction book, How To Deal With Your Parents When They Still Treat You Like A Child, was published by Berkley Books in 1992. As an academic gerontologist with a focus on communication, I saw a need for a popular book that dealt with the issues adults face in trying to get along better with their parents. I submitted a proposal and a couple of sample chapters to a NYC agent who began shopping it around to publishers. Initially there was interest and my agent suggested we might have an auction among several publishers. But then the sales departments began to weigh in, suggesting the book wouldn't sell well enough (no one ever told me why they thought that), so there was no auction. My agent continued showing the proposal to publishers until Berkley took it on. There too the sales department ruled, changing my original title and insisting I make the book longer than I thought it needed to be so that readers "would think they were getting their money's worth."
I have to admit that when my book was picked up by a NYC agent and publisher, I was a believer in #2. I felt honored that my book had been selected. I thought I would have one of those great relationships with an editor that I'm always reading about on books' acknowledgements pages. I was naïve. My first editor left the company almost as soon as I signed my contract. I had little contact with the next one. I've learned since that my experience wasn't unusual.
Today, as I've said, I'm in the publishing as business camp. I believe that having a book selected by a traditional publisher means only that they think it will sell. But I'm open to hearing evidence for the other side. What's your experience? Is publishing mostly a business pushing a product, or is it an art celebrating quality?
The publishing industry is simply a business with a product to push. That the product is a book is academic. It could be widgets.
I agree with Jim, but I know that not all writers do. The state of publishing today is a huge topic of discussion among writers. A major point of argument is the criteria publishers use to select books—which mainly goes to what you see as a publisher's primary goal. Here, in an admittedly oversimplified synopsis, are the two main positions:
1. Publishing is a business. Publishers primarily want to publish best-sellers. They need to make enough profit on the books they publish to keep their businesses financially lucrative. So they choose the books that they believe will be hot, that they think will sell and sell well. And they shape the books to be as marketable as possible.
2. Publishing is an art. Publishers primarily want to publish great books that readers will find thought-provoking, entertaining, and inspiring. So they choose the books that are the most original, smart, well-written, brilliant, gripping and memorable. And they work with the authors to revise and improve their manuscripts before the book is published.
Here's why this debate matters. If #1 is true and publishing is mainly a business, then the books selected by major publishers are those that have the most potential to make money—either because the author or topic is hot, or because the sales department can make them hot. This view holds that you can't judge the quality of one book vs. another by looking at which one was published by a traditional publisher.
If #2 is true and publishing is mainly an art, we must follow the thinking of the old guard. They believe publishers choose books based mainly on quality and that having a book selected for publication by a traditional publisher is an indicator of excellence. In support of that position, it is true that the big commercial publishers have brought us many great books that we love to read and re-read.
But these publishers have also brought us fake memoirs, plagiarism, books by non-writer criminals, mediocre books with predictable plots and tiresome characters, and plenty of other trash. So there is a lot of evidence supporting #1.
My personal experience also goes to #1. My nonfiction book, How To Deal With Your Parents When They Still Treat You Like A Child, was published by Berkley Books in 1992. As an academic gerontologist with a focus on communication, I saw a need for a popular book that dealt with the issues adults face in trying to get along better with their parents. I submitted a proposal and a couple of sample chapters to a NYC agent who began shopping it around to publishers. Initially there was interest and my agent suggested we might have an auction among several publishers. But then the sales departments began to weigh in, suggesting the book wouldn't sell well enough (no one ever told me why they thought that), so there was no auction. My agent continued showing the proposal to publishers until Berkley took it on. There too the sales department ruled, changing my original title and insisting I make the book longer than I thought it needed to be so that readers "would think they were getting their money's worth."
I have to admit that when my book was picked up by a NYC agent and publisher, I was a believer in #2. I felt honored that my book had been selected. I thought I would have one of those great relationships with an editor that I'm always reading about on books' acknowledgements pages. I was naïve. My first editor left the company almost as soon as I signed my contract. I had little contact with the next one. I've learned since that my experience wasn't unusual.
Today, as I've said, I'm in the publishing as business camp. I believe that having a book selected by a traditional publisher means only that they think it will sell. But I'm open to hearing evidence for the other side. What's your experience? Is publishing mostly a business pushing a product, or is it an art celebrating quality?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)