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Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

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JavaJones:
Let me clarify that when I said "outdated dead tree publishers" (admittedly with the charged "dead tree" term), I was not so much saying that physical, printed material should or will die, rather than the monolithic industries built around traditional print publishing systems should. On-demand printing is but one example of a potentially good way forward for independent authors. Or simple printing houses, which aren't going away. An author buys, say, 500 copies of their book and hires a local sales rep to hawk them to local book stores, or sells them easily through an online portal. They can choose to deal with shipping themselves or pay a service to deal with it for them. Dismantling the mainstream publishing empires into component pieces that people can deal with as they need (and as they please) makes the industry more flexible, more diverse, potentially more capable, certainly leaner and meaner, lower costs, less overhead.

In short, I am not dreaming of an exclusively digital future. Just one without huge companies having their way with every bit of media and art I want to enjoy.

As someone who has actually helped publish a book through on-demand publishers as well as Amazon, I can tell you it's actually quite easy to straddle the digital/real-world divide and utilize Amazon for what it's good for and book stores for what they're good for. Amazon may not want to deal with book stores, but I believe they do offer (and certainly other on-demand book publishers do) a service that can put your book into the main catalogs that book stores reference and buy from. Actually getting a store to buy it is another matter, that's where a sales agent and/or PR come in. I'm certainly not saying that doing things yourself should be the only way or that it will be easier or more successful than traditional methods. However the average author stands to benefit more from self-publishing *provided they take advantage of additional services like editing and sales agents* than they do in a traditional publishing model. This is because they know the actual cost of materials and services and can price their product however they want and, critically, they reap all profits. It's potentially riskier, but more rewarding (percentage-wise at least) as well if they succeed. The chances of success are also higher, though again "success" generally doesn't mean "millionaire author" (it very seldom does in the current publishing world either, but the chance is there, just like in music, which puts stars in the eyes of some writers).

I also take issue with the idea that digital-only/self-published music is unnoticed and consists mostly of crap. There's tons of crap, of course, just as there is in any artistic/expressive medium. But to say that only record execs or publishing houses or whatever can properly decide what should actually get attention is silly. It's easy to create systems that fairly rank and reward quality, or at least popularity. There are many modern examples of quality winning popularity contests and I would in fact argue that much of the trashy pulp, both in print and in music (and elsewhere) is actually promoted and made successful by the industries I'm pointing the finger at here, by the A&R people, the publishing reps, etc. "Ooo, sparkly teenage vampires? We'll sell millions!". Going independent isn't going to ruin our chances of finding good material and more than it already is, and it stands a good chance of improving it. It's democratization of publishing and promotion, essentially.

- Oshyan

Carol Haynes:
On-demand printing is but one example of a potentially good way forward for independent authors. Or simple printing houses, which aren't going away. An author buys, say, 500 copies of their book and hires a local sales rep to hawk them to local book stores, or sells them easily through an online portal.
-JavaJones (October 19, 2011, 10:47 PM)
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I don't like monoliths either but I think the model model you suggest only has limited appeal.

I can see the publish on demand or self publishing has some viability if you are writing stuff for a local or very specific market where small numbers are required but if you write a novel that you want to share with the world purchasing 500 copies to hawk round shops or paying your own private editor and sales/marketing force is not what most writers want to be doing! Writers want to write.

The idea of setting up millions of loan writer publishing businesses really sounds awful.

I love the idea that it is easy for individuals to sell on the web - it isn't without a huge outlay in terms of promotion.

The biggest problem is that this new collection of digital only authors will be about as effective as the existing bunch of digital only musicians - ie. almost unheard of by most people
I also take issue with the idea that digital-only/self-published music is unnoticed and consists mostly of crap.
-JavaJones (October 19, 2011, 10:47 PM)
--- End quote ---
-Carol Haynes (October 18, 2011, 10:26 AM)
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I take exception to that characterisation of my comment. I didn't say independent music is crap - what I said is that the vast majority of independents go unnoticed by the vast majority of listeners because they don't have the exposure in the market place.

What I did say is that a company like Amazon wanting authors to self publish with attract a lot of dross - everyone who has ever thought of writing a book will get their book onto Amazon (provided Amazon gets a large enough slice of the price). Doubtless Amazon will promote work - like it did with its app store that has driven many small developers out of business or running away from Amazon in droves as Amazon saw fit to give away copies of other people's products for nothing!

Imagine if Amazon opened its MP3 store in the same way - everyone who has a guitar or a penny whistle would have their work on their in a minute.

If you want an example of what self publishing really achieves look at YouTube! Whilst there is a lot of good stuff on nYouTube you have to wade through all the rubbish (which probably constitutes over 99% of the content).

IainB:
@JavaJones: Yes, it will be interesting to see what sort of market structure using what sort of "technology" arises from this current disruptive move by Amazon. Of course, there may be similarly disruptive moves by other existing/new market players.
It seems highly likely that the length of the value chain and the roles of the remaining players in the value chain:
Author-->Agent-->Publisher-->Retailer-->Customer
- will undergo change. (I've added "Agent" to that chain.)

If there is a steady demand shift towards e-books and away from hardcopy books, then it will be interesting to see whether the level of mediocre output will change. There will presumably always be a cost to publishing, and therefore a business risk, but you could argue that the marginal cost of producing an e-book, compared to the marginal cost of producing a hardcopy book, will have been reduced to such an extent that it really wouldn't matter if the output was mediocre, and therefore there would be little disincentive (potential risk of loss) for allowing rubbish to get through the gate. "Penny dreadfulls" were probably an early example of this in hardcopy form. However, if that were to happen, then the market may well make internal adjustments - e.g., the buying and discerning public voting with their feet and avoiding those publishers with a reputation for producing rubbish. Who knows?
However, I would have my doubts about that discernment, given the examples of apparent success of some books - e.g., including Chariots of the Gods, The 1-Minute Manager).

Whatever the outcome, I just hope that the outcome for consumers like me will be a vastly improved experience. The technology is going to have to change a whole lot more yet before the process of carrying out research and cross-references using e-books becomes as easy as, or outstrips, the same process as when using hardcopy.
On this point there is some hope for e-books. For example, one of the best experiments I have come across so far in "Reference Management" systems for e-books is Qiqqa, and there are several similar applications in this field.

But what about all those old hardcopy books/documents/scrolls that are not yet digitised? That's probably the bulk of the sum of human knowledge we are talking about, right there.

There were two major objectives I learned whilst on a World Bank project in Thailand for the Thai Government Dept. of Lands. The project was to transfer all the cadastre - including 20 million hardcopy (paper and papyrus) deeds - into digital/image form.
The two major objectives:
(a) Data quality: the transfer of ALL of the hardcopy population (including the antique/ancient documents and scripts) correctly and uncorrupted into digital/image form, so that they could serve as the authentic originals for the future.
(b) Access to information: the enablement of free and unencumbered access to those digitised/imaged documents for the purposes intended.

I'm not sure that similar objectives could necessarily be met for books in a market which follows the current commercially-driven and copyright-bound value-chain model. This is a market where books can be regarded as "media" and you have to pay to get access to knowledge in scientific papers, and you have to pay exorbitant prices for mandated educational textbooks. Even access to books through libraries is constrained.
The model of the Gutenberg project might be worth considering, and I still haven't figured out where/whether Google books comes into all of this.

JavaJones:
Yes, YouTube is a great example! I find tons of stuff I like on YouTube every day with minimal effort. Why? Because the system has rating, tagging, categories, etc. all of which help me find good stuff easily. It simply doesn't matter that how much crap there is (and I agree there will be more crap published if you lower the bar). It's possible to create systems that reward quality, or at least mass appeal, and they don't require a publisher, an A&R guy, etc.

The issues that occurred with Amazon's app store seem to me to be more "sour grapes" than anything. Amazon made perfectly clear what would happen with the featured (free for the day) apps, as far as I've read. People chose to participate because they thought it would help their app earn money through increased popularity, when all it tended to do was load down their servers with free requests. Bummer, but the terms were clear, none of them should have been under any illusion that they would make tons of money off of it unless they had a really good plan for upgrading free users to pay (in-app purchases, etc.). This is a lot like small companies who do Groupons and the like and then get overwhelmed by demand and can't fulfill it all. Too bad, take the time to think through the promotion you're agreeing to participate in before going through with it.

As for the business side and "writers want to write", of course they do. I'm not suggesting every writer buy 500 copies of their book and hawk them on the streets. What I'm saying is you have a range of options, all the way from that base level, up through contracting with individual experts to handle particular aspects of your publishing project (i.e. you hire an editor and a sales rep directly), up to contracting with a full-service publishing house. It's more options, not less.

- Oshyan

Carol Haynes:
It's more options, not less.
-JavaJones (October 20, 2011, 01:29 PM)
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More options are more often than not a double edged sword. I am not an advocate for the publishing industry BUT the model of a publishing house works really well for many authors and has, to a large extent, for the reader too. They have economies of scale because they represent large numbers of authors and produce large numbers of books.

Models with 'more options' may seem alluring but the upshot will be that most authors (particularly of fiction) will want and need that representation to get any sort of market penetration. If they have to buy in those services as individuals all that will happen is the number of people offering those services will proliferate and they will probably end up more expensive than the publishing house model precisely because the economies of scale won't exist. These service providers will also be very choosy about who they accept as clients because they won't want to be seen to fail with clients.

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