virtualDavis

Do you ever flash forward to 2050 or 2100 and wonder what students will be studying in the Publishing Industry chapter of their Economics books? Will encyclopedias (or Wikipedia) parade Amazon and Jeff Bezos as Gutenberg II or the Gutenberg Killer?

Amazon is busy making the entire book business a “direct-to-consumer” model. This isn’t new; they have been doing it for 15 years. By most accounts, the company is now the largest retailer of physical books and the dominant player in the digital space. What are Amazon’s priorities?  It doesn’t hide them.  In 2007, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos described a company that is “congenitally customer-focused” whose enduring priorities are selection, low prices and fast delivery.

Compare those priorities to the ones in place at most publishing houses.  It’s easy to see where interests start to diverge.  And if you apply Porter’s framework to Amazon, you quickly see why the company has become publishing’s best-known and most significant frenemy… The recent controversy involving an agent selling exclusive e-book rights to Amazon… has focused largely on royalty rates, the role of agents and the exclusive nature of the deal. I think that debate misses the point.

The publishing supply chain has shifted. The interests of the company best positioned to benefit from those changes are not aligned with those of most publishers today. Publishers can defend, change or co-opt, but they can’t stand still.  Issue all the press releases you want, but realize this isn’t about e-book royalty rates.  It’s about Amazon. (Magellan Media Partners)

Spot on, of course, the “publishng suppy chain has shifted” and ranting, soapboxing, naysaying “old school publishers” are liable to miss the train if they don’t start running down the platform and getting on board.

Look at the last decade in the music industry. There wil always be audiophiles who insist that the “new school” music supply chain is killing the music industry. Or has already killed the music industry. They’ll insist on higher definition audio, better acoustics, etc. And they’ll pay through the nose for their tastes and recalcitrance. That’s fine. It’s good. They’ll continue for a long time to support an increasingly niche but valuable pocket of culture and business. But they’re already a tiny minority. The music train left the station, and the landscape of the music industry shifted dramatically, rapidly and irrevocably.

Unfortunately, the book publishing industry isn’t sure it wants to run and catch the “new school” train out of the station. In fact, its not sure which direction it’s going, an aggravating predicament when trying to decide which train to chase… So instead of leaping on the Amazon Express to the future or the Gutenberg Paradigm to niche-bibliophile-land, the publishing industry is planted on the platform throwing a temper tantrum. “I don’twant to go anywhere! I like it right heeeeeeeere… And I get motion sickness. And I have waaayyy too many traveling companions to fit on that dinky little train. And there’s no first class. I ONLY travel first class!”

This is a good counterpoint to the flood of Amazon-awed Kindle points that I and many others have been sharing in recent months. I don’t know how accurate these claims are, but I admit that I’ve shied away from buying a Kindle so far because my “test drives” have left me wanting further improvements before I take the leap. These five claims are worth exploring:

1. You read slower on a Kindle.
2. You almost certainly read stupider on a Kindle.
3. The Kindle flunked out of Princeton.
4. Amazon can play Big Brother with your books.
5. Governments can play Big Brother with your books.

(“Five Things Jeff Bezos Doesn’t Want You to Know”,Regulator Bookshop)

There are interesting articles and test results cited to substantiate these claims, but I wonder about your experience with Kindle. Do you read slower with a Kindle? Less inteligently? Are you worried about Amazon of the Fed snooping (and potentially censoring) your reading list?

After many months, I’ve finally updated the little profile blurb under my photo on Facebook. It used to read, “Those who can, meander. Those who can’t, gallivant.” This genious clot of words encapsulate a mountain of wisdom! I borrowed it from @lexiconehead last winter, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to update it. Nothing worthy! Or worthier… Until today. At last, a new shimmering drip of wisdom has fallen from the twitter spigot to replace my facebook uberstatus: “Storytelling reveals meaning without defining it.” (Hannah Arendt) Eureka! Amen.

Q: There’s so much for a writer to think about: platform, query letters, agents, marketing. What’s the most important thing to focus on?

A: That’s easy. Focus on the content of your book. There’s nothing more important. (The Book Deal)

So content is [still] king! Back to work…

Publishing isn’t broken, or so says Jane Smith over at How Publishing Really Works, and here’s why. The very best books from the very best writers get published; books get sold; and writers, agents, editors, publishers, etc. get what they want: money. Phew. Good to have that sorted out so tidily. Unless, of course, it’s not really that tidy…

For decades, the publishing business has worked pretty well. Writers write books; agents sell those books to publishers; publishers make the books available to the market. Money flows through the system from reader to writer via the publisher and agent. Everyone involved makes money, and gets what they want… Be very wary of new models of publishing. The old one works just fine. (A New Model for Publishing?)

Smith suggests that the only breakdown in the publishing world is unskilled writers, agents, etc. Granted, there’s plenty of room to point the finger at unqualified contenders, that’s always fun and easy. But it seems that Smith is overlooking vital current concerns about whether or not the traditional publishing environment is broken, outdated, inefficient, etc. She talks a lot about money in traditional book publishing. This makes sense because the Gutenberg Paradigm is expensive to maintain. Whereas evolutions in technology, book selling, and readers’ habits have enabled modern publishing alternatives that make book publishing less expensive. Much less expensive!

Mainstream publishing isn’t broken: it has its flaws, certainly, but it still works. It still publishes books which show clear commercial potential; works to make those books as good as they can possibly be; and then gets those books into as many sales points as it possibly can. Just because it does that by only publishing the very best books from the very best writers, and consequently rejecting the majority, doesn’t mean that it’s broken: just that far too many writers are not yet good enough at their craft for publishers to risk investing their money in them.(Publishing Isn’t Broken)

Publishing cannot focus solely on bringing works of staggering genius to the attention of a grateful reading public, or on nurturing and supporting novice writers as they learn their craft and experiment with exciting risky new projects: while that would be nice for those novice writers it wouldn’t be nearly so nice for the publishers’ shareholders who would have to provide funds to publish the many turkeys such an approach would undoubtedly hatch, nor would readers appreciate being provided with all the unreadable tripe which might well result… [So] publishing books which will sell well has to be the publishing business’s main focus. (Publishing: Broken Or Not?)

Related articles

• Gutenberg, Meet Amazon (virtualdavis.com)
• Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published (janefriedman.com)
• For the First Time In History, Print Is Optional. Now What? (ereads.com)
• Traditional vs self-publishing: Neither is the perfect solution (radar.oreilly.com)

Cartoon via Rants & Ramblings

I enjoyed Eric’s lighthanded but thoughtful reflection on the merits of working with a literary agent in the digital age.

The times, they are a-changin’, mes auteurs. The digital age means more books are available in more ways than ever before, which in turn means two things: first, you have that much more competition for eyeballs, and second, you need some way to differentiate yourself from the crowd such that all those eyeballs are reading your book.

 

In short: regardless of whether [or not] you’re going (exclusively) digital, you want an agent… an agent’s multiple talents, myriad connections, and considerable experience will all be great assets to you in your quest for publication. This is true for more than a few reasons…

• If you’re dealing with an editor, an agent is worth his or her weight in gold in terms of contract negotiation (not to mention that going with an agent in the first place generally makes it much easier to get an editor’s attention). This is doubly true as the details of e-rights are being hammered out.
• An agent will secure you a publishing house by way of said editor, meaning he or she is basically getting you editorial input, a marketing team, a publicist, a sales team, and an art department capable of making you a Truly Fancy Cover. Unless you’re the aforementioned Jack/Jane of all trades, this is a huge bonus for you. (You also won’t have to worry about getting your e-book fed out to Amazon, Apple, and the like.)
• You’ve got a buffer between you and your editor/publisher. This means that you can spend your valuable time writing while your agent spends his or her time talking to the editor/publisher (pitching your next project, hounding them for royalty statements, finding out why the awesome cover they helped you negotiate isn’t showing up on Barnes & Noble’s website, &c).
• You have a Fancy Website with lots of loyal visitors. Your agent has a Fancy Website with lots of loyal visitors. If you both add links to your book to your websites/blogs, you get that many more eyeballs reading about (and hopefully soon reading) your book. Agents go to bat for their clients in more ways than one.
• Finally, you get a measure of that e’er elusive brand recognition that separates your book from Joe “DIY” Lunchbucket. If you self-publish on-line, the only one vouching for your work is you. If you have an agent and an editor, you’ve got at least two organizations behind you vouching for your talent and credibility as a writer. (Pimp my Novel)

Manuscript to Kindle ebook conversion services
(photo credit: 52 Novels)

Some names have a way of popping up no matter where you turn. Once upon a time, it was Dixie Cup. Xerox. Ford. CBS. That evolved into Apple, Sony, Toyota and MTV. And later into eBay, Amazon, Prius and the Huffington Post. Today it’s Facebook, Twitter, Tesla and… 52 Novels. Fifty two what? Novels.

Okay, maybe Rob Siders’ ebook ebook design and creation company still isn’t quite as ubiquitous as Twitter or Twitter, but among authors and publishers — or at least among authors self-publishing (or considering self-publishing) their writing — 52 Novels is creeping into blog posts the way Facebook originally did. Almost like a well kept secret. An insiders’ resource. He’s been at it for a decade, mashing up writers’ manuscripts into digital books. And his ebooks are at least as sexy and professional as the print tomes rolling off the old school presses. Sometimes, more so.

Thinking about adding your book to the Amazon KindleStore but don’t know how to start? Frustrated with converting your Microsoft Word file or PDF to a Kindle-friendly format by yourself?

I can help.

My name is Rob Siders and I’ve been designing and creating ebooks for the better part of a decade. I can save you time and hassle by getting your source document to play nice with Amazon’s Kindle format.

Less time plus less hassle equals more time for you to focus on marketing and selling your ebook.

Reasonable rates. Thorough work. Satisfied when you’re satisfied. (52 Novels Kindle Services)

Intrigued? I am. Time to learn more… And to learn who’s offering similar services for Apple’s iBookstore, etc. I don’t just mean Smashwords, FastPencil and Scribd.com which offer conversion/design platforms. I mean individuals who can custom tailor a solution to your book and have enough experience in the publishing world to design a market-worthy ebook. I mean folks like Rob Siders over at 52 Novels. Who do you recommend for ebook production and design?

I can’t help wondering what Penguin Books founder Allen Lane would think about the advent of digital publishing. Of e-books. Of vooks…

It’s one of the best stories in publishing: how Penguin Books began 75 years ago and became what is arguably the most recognized imprint and colophon in the world.

In 1935, Allen Lane was 32 and worked for The Bodley Head, which had been founded by his uncle. Returning from a weekend visiting Agatha Christie and her husband in the country, he had nothing to read and perused a railway bookstall. While looking at the dime novels, pulp fiction and expensive hardcovers, his little grey cells went to work, as Christie’s Hercule Poirot might put it, and he thought: Why not offer literature inexpensively?

Back at The Bodley Head, he proposed publishing high-quality books for six pence each, the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes. Many publishers thought such an approach would ruin the business, but The Bodley Head approved the plan.

The first major hurdle was finding a name. (Shelf Awareness)

In keeping with Lane’s logic, publishing in the digital age will once again recalibrate the cost of purchasing literature. Seventy five years after Penguin Books waddled on stage, which digital publisher is likely to become the “most recognized imprint and colophon in the world”?

Did I like the book?

Full stop! Do you ever find yourself asking this question after finishing a new book?

Image via Wikipedia

I’m not sure I’d go so far as Nathan Bransford because it’s natural, almost instinctual to size up a read according to your own personal like/dislike criteria. But don’t stop there. My sub-four year old nieces are accomplished like/dislike experts. So is my Labrador Retriever, Griffin. It’s pretty well ingrained in the DNA of humans and those critters who mingle amongst us. But it’s not the most valuable assesment tool. Probe deeper, Bransford reminds us. Especially if you’re an aspiring writer — essaying to leap from unpublished, unread obscurity to scribbling fandom — you must learn to asses books, especially widely purchased and read books with more useful metric.

“X sucks.” … [If] this is all an aspiring writer is taking from a book, they missed the main point of reading it. All they figured out is whether they liked the book or not… the one question that aspiring writers should never ask themselves when reading a book is, “Do I like this?” … Who is that question about? Well, it’s about you. It’s about your taste, and whether the book fit in with your likes and dislikes. It’s not about the book. It’s about you and whether the book spoke to you… but plumbing the depths of our likes and dislikes is about entertainment, it’s not knowledge that is overly helpful as a writer. Knowing your likes and dislikes will help you imitate, but it won’t help you learn tools you can really use.

The real question aspiring writers should ask is not whether they liked a book, but whether they think the author accomplished what they set out to accomplish. How good is the book at what it is trying to do? … Once you start looking at an author’s intent, you’ll start to see where they succeeded and didn’t succeed at what they were trying to accomplish. And you’ll also start seeing that what most megabestsellers have in common is that the authors were phenomenal at delivering the thing(s) they set out to accomplish and at giving readers the experiences they wanted to give them. You’ll start absorbing the positive attributes of books you might not even like all that much.

Asking this question and really thinking about it is the place where nuanced reading starts, and where writers will start noticing craft, technique, and things they can actually use when they write. (Nathan Bransfor’s Blog)

• It’s a Great Time to Be an Author
• Inverted Publishing Funnel
• The Myth of “Just An Author”

Related articles

• My Best Advice for Writers From 2011 (janefriedman.com)
• Do People Know That You Write? (nfaa.wordpress.com)