Thoughts on Self Publishing?

[srg]

I never said CD self-published - I brought him up as an example of someone giving away their books and having it not hurt their sales (it actually helps). Separate discussion from self-publishing.

Cory Doctorow on Giving Away Free E-Books and the Morality of “Copying”

This is a few years old now (I bet he would re-evaluate his stance on digital books not replacing paper books now, for instance) but pretty much explains his philosophy.

 

[Kate]

Wow! This is a contentious topic. And a discussion I'm glad to have come across.

Self publishing has been on my mind for a while now, and I'm torn.

Yes, there's a prestige in getting accepted by a publisher in the traditional way. It's a giant confidence booster to have someone say yes your work is good enough for us to spend money on.
Yes, I do think that there is a culture of skepticism around "vanity press" and I think that inhibits the chances of selling a SP book.

But on the other hand, the Internet has changed the world (not news, I know), and I think that with the explosion of ebooks now days, the perception of self publication is changing too. But the problem is that it is changing slowly.

And there are people who HAVE succeeded in self publishing. And there are people who haven't. Just the same as traditional publishing I suppose. And also many who have started in SP, were picked up by a major house after they'd already made a name for themselves. So really, SP may lead to traditional publishing, given the right environment.

I think it ultimately depends on what each individual writer wants to achieve. I have a friend who has one novel published in the traditional manor, but this year she's launching into self publishing rather than even trying to get another MS shopped around. And she's absolutely over the moon about the decision. She doesn't expect to make any money, and that's not why she's doing it. So, naturally, she's going to be successful.

If anyone is going down this road, ebooks or otherwise, I sincerely believe that a having an air tight marketing strategy is the only way to succeed, and even then you're not guaranteed to make a cent. But is that why you write?

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

The prestige point is interesting, Kate. I was arguing that same point with someone, not long ago - that there was more prestige involved in being with a traditional press. The reply was something along the lines of...if you are losing control of your work, and quite possibly losing money, for the prestige of that thing - has corporate publishing become the new "vanity" press? If a main advantage of that format is prestige at a cost of other factors?

That floored me. Didn't really know how to respond to that. I started arguing "more readership" instead - even if you earned less, you got more readers, or readers who shop in new places at least. (Which was true six months ago, but with Borders on its way out and B&N planning to close every store they can afford to this year, I have to wonder if it would still be true by the time a book you submitted today was in print.)

I gather marketing has changed an awful lot in the decade and a half since my last book was published... Used to be, publishers did marketing for you. Now, I am hearing from folks doing just corporate publishing or a mix of corporate/indie that they're not doing any more marketing for their indie books than they are for the corporate ones. Or maybe better to say: they have to do just as much for the corporate ones, because nobody else is marketing them. For most books, it sounds like publishers are mainly/only marketing to retailers now, not readers.

So I think you probably need a good marketing plan regardless how you plan to publish, right? And whichever way you go, you're not guaranteed to make anything. Just like most self published books don't sell too many copies, most books submitted to corporate publishers don't sell any copies at all... Gotta write a good book to do well either way, is what I figure.

 

[Kate]

The prestige point is interesting, Kate. I was arguing that same point with someone, not long ago - that there was more prestige involved in being with a traditional press. The reply was something along the lines of...if you are losing control of your work, and quite possibly losing money, for the prestige of that thing - has corporate publishing become the new "vanity" press? If a main advantage of that format is prestige at a cost of other factors?

That's a fascinating point, Kevin. I think I might agree with it too. It's that sense of acceptance - "my work is good enough for them, so it must be good". But thinking about it some more, it seems it could go the way of SP too "my work is good enough, it doesn't need corporate approval".

Really, how different is a self published book that only sells a few copies, to a book in a remainder bin? And let's face it, a huge number of published writers do end up in the remainder bin.

You're right too, Kevin. Online bookselling, over off the shelf retailing is a reality. So why shouldn't I be that first point of online retailing, for my own work?
And your last is a good point to remember, if you can't write a good book, then you can't sell one. SP isn't a way to sell bad books because bad books don't sell.

 

[Fnord]

As I've pondered sitting down to write again, I've thought about this myself. We all fancy ourselves good writers but being a good writer really isn't enough--especially now. I'm a musician too, and I've recorded a lot because recording technology has gotten so much cheaper and I can record an album on the same machine I'm typing this post on. 20 years ago, I would have been paying $120 an hour for the privilege.

But there's a double-edged sword to it. Prices are a signaling mechanism and as the price of something drops, the more widely available it becomes. While this is fine when it comes to computers or gadgets, in creative endeavors we end up drowning in a sea of noise. When you were paying $120 an hour to record, you probably had a pretty good idea of how good you were, especially since the "tape didn't lie". You didn't throw down that kind of money if you weren't at least confident that you had a product to sell. But what happens when the price of those types of things comes down dramatically? Well now people's decisions are going to change.

And so just as the music market is oversaturated with every band in the world's demos, so too will the writing market. Being a good writer hoping to make a living becomes harder and harder the more the "cloud" drowns you out. I discovered it as a musician and I don't plan to make the mistake as I ponder returning to writing. But, for me anyway, it will be a labor of love, regardless of who does or does not read it. And just as I played music for my own enjoyment first and foremost, that's how I'm going to approach writing. If someone else ends up enjoying it, great. But I don't have the energy to try and claw my needle to the top of the publishing haystack.

 

[Kate]

You make some good points Fnord. I agree that the relative inexpense of self publishing (and music too, but let's keep on track here), has certainly allowed a mass of low quality material to flood the market. It's similar to blogs in a way. Anyone can have a blog, and millions do because it's such an easy thing to do. And of course that means that there are a million + low quality blogs out there, for whatever reason. The good ones stand out because people work hard at them and they work hard to market them, so a certain standard is naturally produced. If what someone writes is awful, they're soon going to realise that by the public responses, or lack thereof to their work, and either keep going without improving because they just do whatever they do because they like it, or they're going to work hard to improve on it.

Yes, self publishing is also going to equal an increase of competition, even for good writers. I think though, exactly like we see in the blog world, those that offer something a little different somehow will always be those with the most success in this arena.

We're all, as writers, in the middle of the change now. To self publish, or not is something a lot of people I know (myself included) are currently weighing up. Who knows what changes in traditional publishing models will bring to the game as more people start getting their reading through self published channels. All pretty exciting really..... Well, maybe just for me.

 

[Ravana]

The prestige point is interesting, Kate. I was arguing that same point with someone, not long ago - that there was more prestige involved in being with a traditional press. The reply was something along the lines of...if you are losing control of your work, and quite possibly losing money, for the prestige of that thing - has corporate publishing become the new "vanity" press? If a main advantage of that format is prestige at a cost of other factors?

To be perfectly clear: the prestige issues I was arguing have to do with prestige within the industry itself… not with potential readers. It's possible you could build up a decent readership solely through self-publishing, along with aggressive self-promotion and good word-of-mouth recommendations. It wouldn't be easy… but it would be possible.

However… if you have any ambition to eventually be published under contract–presumably in print, but possibly even solely in e-formats–then self-publishing will, at best, do you no favors once you finally do reach the point you decide to submit your works; and until (and unless) the vast inertial weight of opinion within the industry alters significantly, self-publication may well be held against you… as it is now.

I still feel that publication will continue to be controlled by professional houses, even in regard to e-books. I fully expect that once the publishing houses get up to speed on the new format, they will negotiate favorable, if not exclusionary, contracts with the major e-retailers. The "first point of contact"–be it Amazon, Google, or whomever–will preferentially display those works that have been published by such houses: it is these that will appear first to any reader "browsing" their electronic shelves, while less favored ones will be pushed toward the back of the queue… with self-published works coming in last. Companies such as Barnes and Noble, which is both publisher and retailer, may limit their content solely to those texts they publish… though it's more likely they'll also sell the products of certain other houses willing to contract with them (as B&N does now). (Actually, in B&N's case, it's even worse, since they're also one of the largest producers of e-readers: is it really escaping people's notice that they're trying to take complete control of the supply chain? Where do you think that might leave indies, let alone self-pubs?)

-

srg: I stand corrected. What I said is no less relevant, though: he may be able to "get away with" giving his books away for free, with no loss to "prestige" (however defined), but he can do this because he's Cory Doctorow, and because he was known before he started doing this. As such, his giving his texts away is no different from any other free promotion. It may even reach more potential readers than other similar methods; wouldn't surprise me if it did, and, if so, it ought to lead to greater success. On the other hand, it can't help his sales if he isn't also selling something… like, say, print books. Try offering your book for free online and also selling it online–only–and see how many people are willing to pay for the same thing if they don't have to.

I would add that the arrangement Doctorow presently has with his publisher is one that is probably going to vanish very soon, if it hasn't already (and I'd be surprised if it hasn't). He managed to sneak the idea in on Tor before there were e-readers; I assume he set up a good long-term contract that says he can continue offering his books for free–at least until the contract runs out. Anybody signing a book contract today can probably expect to be signing away electronic as well as print distribution, now that it actually matters. (Which doesn't affect any of the foregoing discussions one way or the other: it's just the usual caution about reading the contract carefully and knowing what it is you're agreeing to.)

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Some interesting new tidbits over the last couple of days...

#1: The AAP just released new numbers for the US publishing industry in February. Ebooks have overtaken mass market paperbacks and become the largest share of consumer book revenue, representing 29.5% of sales in Feb, taking into account only the 14 largest publishers (i.e., not including any indie sales or small press, epress, etc. sales). Some estimates place the count including small press/indie sales at 34-35%.

This is HUGE. It means that, as of two months ago, print is a subsidiary right. Digital is now the primary right, after which are hardcover and paperback rights, then audio etc. It also means we can expect to see paperback prices rise this year. Mike Shatzkin (well known industry analyst) did the math a while back and showed that once ebooks took 20-25% of the market, publishers would lose their economy of scale, and prices on all print books would be forced to rise by 10-20%. This would then cause more movement to digital for readers, which would again hurt the economy of scale, eventually pushing print prices up to around the trade paperback level. They would stabilize there, because that's a workable price range for print on demand sales.

It also means that the acceleration of digital is happening faster than all but a few people thought it would. Going from 8.3% in December to 29.5% in February makes it seem likely, perhaps certain, that ebooks will pass the 50% mark in 2011 - not in 2014-15 like most analysts predicted last year. The upcoming $99 ad-supported Kindles and Apple's hopes to sell 45 million iPad2s this year will only fuel the fire.

#2: A number of authors have been on the web this week talking about missing ebook sales from major publishers. It seems like several major publishers have mis-represented ebook sales to authors in their royalty statements this week, reporting somewhere around 10%, possibly less, of the total actual sales. These folks (check it out in Mike Stackpole's Stormwolf blog, or Kristine Kathryn Rusch where Kristine Rusch talks about this at length - David Farland also blasted publishers for this in his "Daily Kick" email a few days ago) are calling for mass audits of the responsible publishers (major houses) by all of the national writing organizations.

Again, huge. When digital was only a few percent, writers tended to ignore the digital sales. They were not really tracking them well. Now, though, with digital representing perhaps a third of a traditional book deal's income, losing 90% of that income down some oddball accounting mess up is huge. And the fact that this seems to be systemic, not just one or two authors, means it represents a major issue. The fact that one publisher *refused* Stackpole's request for an audit, claiming their ebook accounting was "not prepared for auditing yet" is not only a danger sign, but a violation of the publisher's contract.

Closing: If ebooks are now the most sold book format - and the one format where self-publishing stands toe to toe equally with any publisher out there - then the reasons to sell to publishers have diminished greatly. With Borders on the way out, and B&N closing stores, that leaves indie bookstores as major markets - which Dean Wesley Smith has been writing about how to sell to this past week, over on his blog (Dean Wesley Smith). As the former owner of the 5th largest SF&F publisher, it's a field he knows something about...

And if publishers can no longer be trusted to accurately represent sales to authors, then there's simply something broken in the system. It seems to me like the reasons to self publish continue to grow rapidly, while the reasons against it shrink daily.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Quick side comment, re: what Ravana said.

About self publishing counting against you...
Less than it has for the last fifty years. In fact, I know personally of more self published books being picked up by publishers - either the books themselves, with rights sold over to the publisher, or simply future works by that writer (both have happened) in the last three months than I've heard of in the last ten years. Both editors and agents are actively scanning the ebook bestseller lists, looking for books and authors to pick up. A number of writers have told me they haven't even submitted their work - simply been offered contracts by publishers. Not talking about Hocking level sales here, either - even a few thousand book sales seem to be enough to get some serious interest going. Publishers care about "will your book make me money?" Nothing else. If your book is already making money, odds are good it can make them some, too, so they're increasingly happy to snag books already doing well. I see this as a trend which will grow.

On publishers setting up exclusionary deals with retailers:
Doubtful. Basically, they just can't do it, under US law. Major retailers tried before, and the smaller retailers sued and won. You cannot conspire to create an exclusionary environment in an industry. So NO deal between publishers and retailers will ever exclude small presses. Which is what the successful indies will morph into: small press publishers, producing their own work and perhaps a few others. There are things retailers can do to trim the slush, if it becomes an issue (say, tack a $100 fee onto each ebook upload - would cut out a lot of the junk books and not hurt any publishers). But indies will always be able to do anything a small press can do, and small press will never allow the big publishers to create an environment which excludes them. It might not always be as *easy* as it is today; but it will always be possible.

 

[Ravana]

You cannot conspire to create an exclusionary environment in an industry. So NO deal between publishers and retailers will ever exclude small presses.

I'm sorry, but that's simply naive. (1) No law compels a retailer to carry a product line it does not wish to: replace the words "wish to" with "elect to contract with," and you have precisely the situation I describe. All the retailer need do is say that they did not consider a particular product line (i.e. publisher) likely to generate the sort of profit they're looking for, and they've more than covered themselves. Never mind saying that they regard the product as not meeting their standards (which leads right back to self-pub quality control), or that it isn't licensed for their proprietary format (B&N again), or that the product doesn't fit what they consider to be their market demographic, or that they're just flat-out not interested in carrying it (say, because they already offer too many similar products–"Sorry: 'shelves' are full"–and there's certainly no law saying a retailer isn't allowed to pass up something that might make them money, even where there is a reasonable expectation that it would do just that based on their sales of similar products). If you don't believe that, then go to the best bookstore you can reach, inspect their offerings of academic presses, and get back to me. Or, even easier, go to your nearest major-brand gas station and demand gasoline from one of their competitors: see how far that gets you. (Though, ironically, chances are what they're selling actually is from a competitor, given the way gasoline distribution works… but it isn't likely to be tagged that way, and in any event you don't get to choose which one it comes from.) Or walk on to any number of college campuses in the U.S. and look for Coke and Pepsi machines side-by-side. Exclusive licensing and distribution contracts are the norm, not the exception… and are far from illegal. (2) The comic book industry, to take one specific example within the publishing world, is overwhelmingly dominated by a single distributor–Diamond–which, on the production end, won't distribute any publisher that's unwilling to do things their way (a fact that has driven more than one indie out of business)… whereas they are not obliged to sell to retailers that are unwilling to do things their way. Which is about as gross a violation of antitrust laws as you're likely to find outside of Microsoft, but… (3) Lawsuits can only be pursued to successful conclusion by people who can afford to do so. Small presses may have the wherewithal to sue large retailers–more likely, they'd do it collectively than separately; indie presses as a rule do not, and individuals are pretty much right out. Besides, all that needs happen is for the retailers to cut deals with the small presses in question–make them part of the system: they aren't going to go bringing lawsuits on behalf of their competitors simply as a matter of principle. And (4) even "small" presses are still traditional publishing. For that matter, even indie presses are traditional publishing, though they like to pretend otherwise; they are still selective as to what manuscripts they're willing to put their name on, and you still sign a contract with them.

Yes, the most successful indie presses will morph into small presses; it would hardly be surprising for a couple small presses to morph into majors… and will be equally unsurprising for one or more majors to go down if they don't embrace the new format quickly enough. I'd expect a certain amount of "slush-trimming" to start taking place soon, if it hasn't already, along the lines you suggest or any number of more devious ways the corporate world pays high salaries for people to come up with; to a minimal extent, this already happens, in the sense that most e-retailers pay out very different royalties if the price you want to charge doesn't fall within a certain range.

As far as publishers picking up successful online books: yes, I agree that to some extent the prejudice is falling away–if they find you. I'm not as sanguine as you are as to the rapidity with which this is fading, or the extent to which it ultimately will, and I'm far from convinced that listing self-pubs as "previous publications" on a query letter will be more rather than less likely to get your sample chapter read, at least any time in the foreseeable future. (And if the test is "a few thousand" sales, that'll keep the numbers of such successes fairly limited right there.) I may prove wrong about this: I've been wrong before–it's a job hazard when engaging in prognostication–and I will cheerfully admit it when and if this turns out to be the case. In the meantime, I'm not going to advise any friends to try self-publication if they have any aspirations to be anything other than a self-published author. Some enemies, perhaps (that way, if I'm right, I'll derive satisfaction from it, and if I'm wrong, I'll at least benefit karmically form having done someone a good turn… )–but not friends.

Consider, too, that even in the cases where stringers (more agents than editors, I suspect) are tracking down the good online sellers, all this means is that these books, or at any rate their authors, are being brought back into the traditional channels of publication… that the pros are trying to bring the market (back) under their control. Which, I believe, carries this full circle.…

 

[Ophiucha]

There are small and even a handful of large publishers who are moving forward in the e-publication market, however, and I have still yet to read a piece of even remotely convincing evidence that - medium aside - there is ANY benefit to self-publication over traditional publication. Because, let's be honest, traditional publishers aren't dumb. They are going to get on this in the next five years, probably less for some of them. Then we'll be back to where we were before. Do you self-publish for higher royalty percentages, but greater upfront costs, or do you go through traditional means, pay nothing, and get a small royalty back? Because once traditional publication gets their shit together in the ebook department, I am still very much in favor of the latter.

And, frankly, I would never want my book to be exclusively online.

 

[Fnord]

Kevin is right on the economy-of-scale thing. I used to work in commercial printing; anything outside of flexographic label printing is a dying dinosaur. Once the demand for something goes down sufficiently, the per-unit cost becomes higher than the expected revenue (especially accounting for the time-value of standing inventories). Once E-readers achieve sufficient economies of scale and prices come down, it will be an effect akin to jumping off a see-saw. Industry bust.

The music industry has been facing the ugly reality of this paradigm shift for awhile now, so it's probably best we pay attention to what has been happening there insofar as the future of creative arts like writing.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Actually, I wasn't suggesting that retailers couldn't bar whom they wanted. That would be naive. What I was saying is that big publishers cannot *conspire* to create *special arrangements* with retailers which create an exclusive setup. They cannot even have the appearance of doing so. Not legal.

More, they don't want to. Really. Do you think Amazon wants to cut out indies? Are you kidding? Thirty eight percent of their bestselling ebooks are by indies! Indies are pricing where Amazon wants ebooks, where big publishers are fighting every step of the way. Amazon is creating systems to let people get their blogs up, their short work up, their little one man periodicals up... Amazon is *pushing* indie right now very hard.

Indie - self published - sales make Amazon millions of dollars of profit every month. And every new program they've lit off in the last two years has been designed in a way which supports indie growth.

Other retailers are less friendly in this way, but that's where Smashwords comes in. Using Smashwords, your book gets into those channels which bar indie books (Sony, for instance) quickly and easily. Smashwords as an aggregator gives Sony great value - and indie writers great value in getting into those sites. The only major retailers which Smashwords cannot reach is Amazon and Google, both of which allow writers to go in directly.

Ain't going away. All the signs point to the opposite, in fact. It's the large publishers - who expected change to happen years slower than it has - who are in trouble right now. Personally, I expect about half the largest 14 publishers to be gone by the end of 2012. Bankrupt. They changed too slow - they expected ebooks to hit the numbers they did in February, but they expected it in 2014. And at this point, it's almost too late. Changing would require incredible investment at this point to get it done in time. Writer trust in publishers is plummeting thanks to accounting errors and bad new contract clauses (non-compete, IP seizing, really horrid options clauses, etc.). And publisher profit margins, which were never much above 4%, are dipping into danger levels for some businesses.

I'm not saying publishing as a whole is going away... There's over a thousand publishing companies in the USA alone. Plenty will survive just fine. But I strongly suspect (as do a lot of other folks I've spoken to who are watching this mess unfold) that a number of the bigger ones are going to close their doors sooner rather than later.

(Edit to clarify: Actually, what I think will happen is major publishers will close their imprint sub-companies where they are unprofitable, gradually cutting back and cutting back operations. There will always be some areas where publishers are able to maintain a profit; for instance, K-12 education ebooks are about to explode, with several states planning to do to 100% e-textbook over the next couple of years, and that's a segment better filled by large textbook imprints than indies. But a lot of the largest, best known imprints may not survive this, especially for fiction.)

 

[Ravana]

Actually, I wasn't suggesting that retailers couldn't bar whom they wanted. That would be naive. What I was saying is that big publishers cannot *conspire* to create *special arrangements* with retailers which create an exclusive setup. They cannot even have the appearance of doing so. Not legal.

Okay, I can accept that. But appearances can be sooo deceiving. It's not "conspiracy" if it's carried out in "the regular course of business," after all.

To wit:

Other retailers are less friendly in this way, but that's where Smashwords comes in. Using Smashwords, your book gets into those channels which bar indie books (Sony, for instance) quickly and easily. Smashwords as an aggregator gives Sony great value - and indie writers great value in getting into those sites. The only major retailers which Smashwords cannot reach is Amazon and Google, both of which allow writers to go in directly.

So one channel (Sony) already refuses to work with certain publishers, while two others (Amazon and Google) already don't work with certain aggregators. Whether they will continue to work directly with individual authors is an open question; if I had to make a guess, Google will–for the foreseeable future–and Amazon eventually won't.

Do you think Amazon wants to cut out indies? Are you kidding? Thirty eight percent of their bestselling ebooks are by indies! Indies are pricing where Amazon wants ebooks, where big publishers are fighting every step of the way

Which means 62% aren't. Yes, I know those numbers will continue to change, but: if they were forced to jump one way or another today–to go with what is not only proven long-term success but also the majority, or to speculate on indies eventually becoming the majority source of sales–which do you think they'd choose? They don't face that choice, of course… yet. Maybe they never will. But if, as you say (and as I've been saying), big publishers are "fighting every step of the way," they may face something resembling that choice some day.

Besides, they don't have to "cut out" indies–not if they co-opt them instead. Again: indie pub is not the same as self-pub. Big publisher, small publisher, it's still a publishing company.

It's the large publishers - who expected change to happen years slower than it has - who are in trouble right now. Personally, I expect about half the largest 14 publishers to be gone by the end of 2012. Bankrupt.

I would guess fewer, but I don't have overall sales statistics at hand (nor am I aware of any way to get them through publicly available information… that's not the sort of thing most companies like to publish). I might guess that perhaps four will be unaffected or will expand (B&N being one of them); another six will contract somewhat but otherwise remain viable; the remaining four will either fold or drop to specialty-only markets–become "minors." More or less what you suggest in your edit.

Writer trust in publishers is plummeting thanks to accounting errors and bad new contract clauses (non-compete, IP seizing, really horrid options clauses, etc.).

That's another issue–two issues, really, with the contract clauses sounding very much like an echo of what I've been saying: that the publishers are trying everything they can think of to re-establish their control. And failing, in this case. Expect contracts to return to their normally exploitative natures, with the simple addition of an electronic publication clause, either buying those rights as well (the more likely course–possibly even instead of buying print rights, for reasons I develop at the end of this post) or forbidding e-publication during the contract term, depending on just how close to the print profit margin they expect a given book to come. And expect companies that choose the latter to be among the ones that fail in the long run.

The "accounting errors" will need to be pursued, and sorted out, soon… since here there is a real chance of a class-action suit from multiple aggrieved authors against whichever publisher(s), as these don't involve only marginal authors. Though don't be too surprised if at least some of these "errors" are a result of factors other than publisher malfeasance. Is the retailer tracking reliable? (I assume it would be for established online retailers such as Amazon; it might not be for others.) Were all the purported "sales" downloaded legally? If not, who gets shafted: the retailer, the publisher, the author? (All, of course… but it's one way in which the number of downloads might not match the number of "sales" recorded, and money changing hands, at another point in the line.) Do different retailers–or aggregators–report sales in different ways? Are any of these transactions outright being lost somewhere along the line… say, if the author never signed a digital rights contract with the publisher, but the retailer is still paying the publisher whenever a digital sale is made, because that's who their contract is with? (I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the problem lies here, especially when older works from long-term contracted authors are involved. Wouldn't surprise me if some publishers simply made their entire active catalogs available for e-pub, without bothering to check whether or not they held the digital rights–or even realizing they might need to check this. And if so, it wouldn't surprise me if their accounting software doesn't have a way to credit such sales to an author's account, and the money's just going into a black hole somewhere: I've seen stupider things in accounting software before. Which doesn't make it right, let alone sound business, on the part of the publishers, but which would make any action brought against them much more complicated.)

-

We aren't really all that far apart here: more a matter of emphasis than anything else, I think. I guess I just have greater confidence in corporate America than you do… that is, confidence in its collective ability to exert control over a given market. No matter what changes occur in a given business, in the end it'll still be a business. E-books afford new opportunities, and some publishers–and retailers–will benefit by taking advantage of them; others will fail to take advantage of them, or do so in ways that fail (through a proliferation of proprietary platforms, for instance: remember Betamax?), to their eventual demise.

But if self-pub is such a great thing, then why are these authors you mention, who are being trolled for and courted by energetic (or desperate) agents and editors, actually signing contracts with them? Why don't they just tell the publishers to go to hell? Doesn't all the advantage lie with remaining self-published? Are they just stupid? Or so vain they want to see their book "in print," even if it means surrendering those advantages? (I'm sure a few are.…)

Or maybe they're thinking along the same lines as I am.

Give it a couple years for things to shake out, and I'd bet you'll find self-pub right back where it was a couple years ago: ostracized and relegated to obscurity. Once the industry adjusts to e-publication, the kind of authors who are today getting noticed by self-publishing won't have any particular reason to self-publish–because of a factor not yet brought up. The profit margins for publishers on e-publication are going to be huge, compared to print at least… and once the publishing houses lay on a few more submissions readers (in place of the people who are trolling the listings now), they'll be able to expand their own catalogs well beyond what they could physically handle, much less print profitably, right now… they'll be able to accept manuscripts they would never have so much as contemplated "taking a chance on" before, since the number of sales required to reach their break-even will be far lower. (Nor would retailers have had the space to stock these even if they had been printed.) I can't imagine what upward limits might be–triple? quadruple? the number of titles they publish now; there might not be a limit: the only controlling factor would be how quickly submissions could be read, evaluated, and edited. (If anything, e-publication will spell the doom of the agent, not the publisher. Though I have "confidence" in the ultimate resilience of this species of middleman, too.…) Which is great for us authors, as it'll become that much easier to get accepted… even if we might never get to hold our book in our hands, unless we order a print-on-demand copy.

And which means that every author of even moderate quality will get picked up by a publisher eventually, probably after very few attempts. And the ones who don't… well, I guess there will always be the option to self-publish.…

"Meet the new boss: same as the old boss."

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Love reading your replies, Ravana. Intelligent, well thought out. Make me think.

Couple of bit comments:
On the "14 biggest publishers" - I was talking about publishers, not retailers. It's the publishers whose business model is in trouble right now. Yes, absolutely, the digital book can be huge for them, but the largest publishers as a group have failed to adapt in time. We're sitting now where they figured ebooks would be in 2015. They're far, far, FAR behind the 8 ball right now, as a group. A lot of the smaller or mid size publishers are doing a much better job of converting. To be fair, they have less "corporate mass" to shift - it's easier to steer a little skiff than an oil tanker. But I think we may see a large number of those big publishing imprints go away, and little guys rise up to be the new big publishers. There's lots of publishers, though, so in the long run there will still be plenty of them. Just be careful who you sign with for the next year or two, since having a book in production with a company in bankruptcy might mean years before you get the rights back.

But about B&N: they're in trouble, too. They plan to close *every* store this year for which they do not own the property. They closed a net of 7% of their stores last year, and this year will see an even higher number go away. B&N lost money, on average, at their retail stores last year. They made up for it at B&N.com and their college stores to make a profit overall, but with print book sales plummeting, their core business is literally evaporating right now. Their stock is less than half the 52-week high, and they are the only Fortune 500 company right now whose stock is worth less than their estimated physical value - that is, if you added up the value of every share, and compared it with the physical assets B&N owns, the assets are worth more than the stock. That's a danger sign that bankruptcy is around the corner for a company. If B&N cannot begin dumping their stores at a faster rate, they're likely to move into bankruptcy in 2011 or 2012, I think. Smaller stores - focusing on bestsellers on shelves and POD machines in the back to print *anything* the reader wants - are the future for bookstores.

You're dividing "indie publishing" and "self publishing". It's worth noting that most self publishers today have adopted the phrase "indie publishing" to mean self publishing; but I think you're right in that there is a difference.

A self publisher is a writer who puts their own work up for sale in some manner (print, digital, combination, whatever). An indie publisher is a publishing company, one who sets standards to act in a certain professional manner, produce high quality professional books, and act as a professional press should. The indie publisher might be publishing works from many authors, or might just be publishing his/her own work. That's largely irrelevant, in my opinion. What differs is the *attitude*. An indie publisher approaches the publishing end of things as a business in its own right. I think that indie publishers will always find a way to survive, now, even the indie publishers who are self publishing. They'll emulate other small press companies, do things the right way, and produce professional work which makes retailers money. Do all that (especially the last), and you'll always find retailers happy to take your product. Fail in those things, and your future gets iffy.

I think you've got some interesting points on the "why would I self publish when publishers can take as many good books as they want, produce them for almost no cost, and earn money from them forever" model. But there's some answers right there. Writers can also take a good book, produce it for almost no cost, and earn *all* the money on it forever. I think the swing will depend upon how high royalties get. I mean, right now copy editing + formating + ebook cover costs about $1000 to have pros do all the heavy lifting for you. Less if you can do one or more of those things yourself. So writers need to sit back and do the math.

Say the breakdown is 30% to retailer, 20% to publisher, and 50% to author on a $5 book. The publisher kicks out $1000 to get the book copy edited, formatted, cover made, and uploaded, and makes a buck a sale. The writer makes $2.50 a sale. For every book pas the thousandth sale, the writer is now losing money compared to what they would have made flying solo. If you sell 10,000 copies over the life of the book, you just lost $9000. Multiply that by four books a year for a thirty year career, and you've paid out over a million dollars more than you had to.

And that's with 50% going to the author. Right now, nobody - not even small presses - is paying more than 50% net, or 35% of cover, to the author.

Publishers are going to need to find more ways to add value to the deal, and add it in an ongoing, continuous manner over a decades-long life span of potential sales. Otherwise, smart writers are going to do the math and just produce the books themselves. Maybe make unions to collectively bargain with retailers to get published, who knows? But the smart money would be doing it yourself even with only 20% of cover going to the publisher.

Publishers have gotten out of the business of adding those values. They've rested on the idea that since they had a lock on the major distribution channels, they didn't *need* to add more value than that - all that mattered was you had to go through them to get into distribution. And they were right. But the distribution lock is gone. And the spaces only large publishers can reach are shrinking fast. So they need to add more value, somehow. Editing? Maybe, but they've reduced editorial staff so badly that they can barely get good copy edits in on most books, let alone do serious content editing that might be worth something to a developing author. Marketing? Maybe, but they've slashed marketing for all but the top tiny percent of books they plan to market as potential bestsellers; most books receive just enough marketing money to get them into chain retailers, and not a penny more. Something else? Hey, these are not dumb people. I'm sure they're working on ways to add value. It's going to be tough to accomplish - they need to show writers will make more money, and reach more readers, going through them than they would alone. That's still true right now (at least for reaching more potential audience), but it's diminishing.

Publishers have a lot of work to do if they want to remain viable in a digital world. It's not a situation I'd want to be in.

 

[Ophiucha]

If I manage to sell 1,000 copies, I say 'awesome'. Yeah, you'll lose in the long run... if you manage to make relatively big sales. How many of the people in this forum are likely to do that? Maybe two of us? Maybe. Call me a pessimist if you like, but self-published or not, few aspiring authors are going to be selling a thousand copies of anything, let alone enough more to care about the money you might have made. I'd rather get paid upfront for my novels until I feel I could sell those thousand copies and not have to worry about losing the money I put upfront for the cover, editing, formatting, etc. There are only so many books - self-published or traditional published - that are going to make sales, and that number is far, far smaller than those of the books that never break even, probably even smaller than those that never sell a single copy outside of friends and family.

 

[Ravana]

Love reading your replies, Ravana. Intelligent, well thought out. Make me think.

Thank you. That is the goal.

I was talking publishers too… I'm less pessimistic about their ability to survive than you are. (I'm pessimistic about plenty of other things: you can have that one. ) And keep in mind that B&N is a publisher as well as a retailer–and since they're also putting out their own e-reader, any reason you can give for why e-books will play an ever-increasing role only means their chances of success are higher, not lower. In fact, if they aren't lying out the wazoo about the figures for their e-reader sales, they may be largely responsible for the dramatically higher-than-predicted numbers on e-book sales–a combination of more e-book and fewer print book sales from the same source, doubling the net effect.

(I am not, as happens, a big fan of B&N. For any number of reasons. Since few commercial ventures seem to have suffered obvious ill effects from my displeasure, however, I am forced to admit that they too will probably manage to endure it. Sigh.)

You neglected to take advances into account in your calculations, by the way. Even the cruddy ones relative unknowns receive will make a big difference. And anyone who can write four books a year and average sales of at least 10k copies of each is going to be getting more than industry minimum. (I can't imagine writing that much–not and have it worth reading, at least. Whereas I would be delighted to be told I was going to manage to sell 10k of anything I did work to completion. I'll let you know if either of those ever moves from "pipe-dream" to "disappointing" for me.…)

I still say you're going to have trouble making any money at all if you get blocked from the distribution channels. And I still expect that to happen. (I shall maintain my pessimism here… or is it my optimism about negativity? Not sure.… )

No, I don't find the position publishers are in right now enviable, either. There are some obvious places they could start adding value back in, though–and you named two of them. Editing staffs and marketing have been slashed, in part, because they're trying so hard to stay afloat right now (though the spiraling cost of paper probably has had more to do with it). Given the difference between printing costs (a lot) and online publication costs (essentially nil), they could chop sales prices in half, double what they pay authors, and still have money left over to do some of these things. Or whatever else they might dream up. With any luck, some of the smart ones will realize this… soon.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

How many of the people in this forum are likely to do that? Maybe two of us? Maybe. Call me a pessimist if you like, but self-published or not, few aspiring authors are going to be selling a thousand copies of anything, let alone enough more to care about the money you might have made.

To some degree, I look at publishing - either form - as a gamble. You're betting on yourself. You're betting your time spent, your effort put in, and yes, your money spent (on books, conferences, submissions, etc.). It's a gamble because, as we all know, less than 1% of submissions to publishers and/or editors are accepted. Better odds than buying a Powerball ticket, last I heard - but still something of a long shot.

Writing to self publish is a similar gamble, because although most self published books will sell at least a few copies, the odds of selling several thousand or more copies is pretty slim. In fact, the percent of self published books which sell a few thousand+ copies is pretty similar to the percent of submissions to agents/publishers which get accepted for print. Coincidence? Maybe not.

Good books sell. Either way they are published today, good books sell. Poorly written books don't. They are either not accepted by publishers, or don't sell many copies if self published.

So I see writing-to-publish (writing with publication as the goal, which is different from writing for fun or writing to enjoy it yourself only) as an act of hubris. In a good way, I hope. The odds are incredibly stacked against us. We do it *anyway* because we are gambling that we are one of the few, that our skills can make us one of those best fraction-of-a-percent. Maybe we're right; maybe we're wrong. If we're wrong, and stick with it, maybe we'll be right after more practice.

Writing anything with publication, trad or self, as a goal is a long odds deal. Have the courage to try anyway.

 

[Kate]

I came across this blog the other day - The E-book Revolution

It's very pro-self publishing, I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but she makes some valid points. As this is a realm that we're all still learning about, it's good to take notes from as many sources as possible. This thread has been helping me a lot decide whether or not I want to take the leap. Still deciding.

Oh and I caught a Simpsons episode the other day. Lisa's new teacher tells her she'd going to help publish her book. "Self published or real published?" Lisa asks. "Real published." Gave me a chuckle......

 

[GameMasterNick]

The best arguments that I've heard for the self-publishing route almost invariably come from previously published authors whose dedicated readership followed them when they made the switch. A massive backlist of titles, an established base and the raw capital to handle your own marketing and promotions is the key. New, previously unpublished, writers have a much harder time with marketing and distribution in self-publishing. Most of them will sell a handful of copies, if that, to friends and family.

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing (J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn)

Lightning strikes like Amanda Hocking are still incredibly rare and that won't likely change.

Authors catch fire with self-published e-books - USATODAY.com

Moreover, Hocking's books are almost all derivative works of the Twilight series (even to the point of using the same ancillary characters)... no lawsuit announced at this point... but many believe she crossed the plagiarism line.

I can't say too much without conflict of interest popping up, but there are other options. Small presses, e-publishing houses (some with print options that allow bookstore listing and access) and non-vanity, non-subsidy (or any other colloquialism) presses can now offer the same benefits (editing, covers, publishing, distribution, marketing) as the big names.

The big names are having trouble adapting. eBooks are currently in a position to overtake print as the key part of contracts, a phenomenon that forecasters said would happen in 2015, and the slow-moving giant publishers have been caught with their pants down. Smaller presses are taking a huge bite out of their lunch thanks to net neutrality.

Just remember Yog's Law: "Money flows toward the writer" and it's easy to see there's a wealth of opportunities out there which don't require doing it all yourself.

Yog's Law | Writer's Remorse

(Hope that didn't read like sales copy. And now, on to my morning tea!)