4 ms·

I think some form of this confrontation was inevitable. It's good to shake up an industry now and then to shake off outdated practices. Unfortunately for Macmil

by shib71 17y ago

I think some form of this confrontation was inevitable. It's good to shake up an industry now and then to shake off outdated practices. Unfortunately for Macmillan I think it will mostly be their practices that fall short. Publishing houses don't have exclusive control of supply any more, and tactics that depend on that control (like price control) won't be as effective.

electromagnetic 17y ago
Publishing houses do, in fact, have near exclusive control of supply. The fact is, the major publishing houses don't cooperate very often, but Amazon has to be exceptionally careful in the game it's playing. An industry wide boycott of Amazon for publishing books would devastate the company, and would be entirely legal. It would also render the kindle exceptionally useless if people can't buy bestsellers or virtually any genre titles available. Publishing houses have 100% exclusive control over the supply of bestsellers, which make up almost 80% of book sales annually. The publishing industry is a very docile group and pulls none of the shit the music, movie and television industries pull. Poking a sleeping bear is a bad idea, and the publishing industry is a $40 billion dollar industry in the US alone, while Hollywood movies are a ~$50 billion dollar industry globally. The UK alone adds another ~$44 billion dollars to the publishing industries pocket (yes, Britons buy ~5 times more books than Americans). Publishing is a gargantuan industry globally. I would seriously hate to see what would happen to Amazon as book sales attribute ~60% of their bottom line, meaning industry controlled best sellers likely make ~50% of their revenue and on $24 billion in sales, they're only posting <$1 billion net income.
- etherael 17y ago
  You sound like you have a good grasp on the economics of publishing; what do you think are the chances of publishers being cut out by tactics like Amazon's current 70% royalty for authors selling books through them directly between 2.99 and 9.99?
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    Zero, unless Amazon implements advances. The time inherent in writing a book is immense, some best selling authors only manage 1 entire book inside 3 years, whilst some are rather prolific with multiple titles inside a year. You're never going to attract anyone's attention, even paying high royalties, if you can't pay them for their time in advance. The real issue is though that self-publishing means self-everything. Advertising, marketing, cover design, distribution; everything. You're turning a writer into a contractor, they either have to do everything themselves and take forever, or they have to sub-contract. As most writers are writers by choice it seems, quite frankly, moronic why anyone would think they'd want to be anything else. It took years for most authors to ever get published, so why would they ever accept a deal that meant they'd only spend 30% of their time doing what they wanted? They had that when they were doing a real job. This isn't even concerning the major fact that all the talent is in the publishing industry already. Authors aren't going to be able to release the brilliantly edited books that are well marketed, distributed in multiple countries and often in multiple languages, with artistically designed covers. Doing all of those to a professional degree is as lucky as shooting yourself in the head and having no brain damage whatsoever despite a visible hole through your brain; I believe walking on water is more frequently reported. Simply put a mass self-publishing route would inevitably end up with everything been done by the publishing industry, now retitled as the 'self-publishing' industry that takes an 85%-90% cut of your book sales. Only this way, you don't get an advance and you'll likely have to pay the 'self-publishing industry' thousands to get them to cover all the work in advance of any foreseen profits. Essentially authors have the choice between the publishing industry where you can get paid anywhere between ~$5,000 and $2 million to write a book. Or you can choose 'self-publishing' where you'll likely have to pay a minimum of ~$50,000 to get quality editing, distribution, cover art and most costly of all marketing. With $10,000 being an average advance in the industry for a first novel, who's going to pay $50,000 potentially for nothing? Especially considering that if you go with the industry, if your book doesn't sell a single copy they're out $90,000 plus the $10,000 they gave you and you are legally entitled to keep. Right now the publishing houses don't buy out the first electronic publishing rights from the author or the electronic republishing rights. It's only going to be a matter of time before they do, which means authors advances will increase accordingly. If the publishing industry takes on the similar 70/30 to the author, then the advances could potentially increase dramatically if e-book sales really take off. However, again, after editing and marketing, this would likely be closer to 30/70 to the author.

by shib71 17y ago

electromagnetic 17y ago

Publishing houses do, in fact, have near exclusive control of supply. The fact is, the major publishing houses don't cooperate very often, but Amazon has to be exceptionally careful in the game it's playing. An industry wide boycott of Amazon for publishing books would devastate the company, and would be entirely legal. It would also render the kindle exceptionally useless if people can't buy bestsellers or virtually any genre titles available. Publishing houses have 100% exclusive control over the supply of bestsellers, which make up almost 80% of book sales annually. The publishing industry is a very docile group and pulls none of the shit the music, movie and television industries pull. Poking a sleeping bear is a bad idea, and the publishing industry is a $40 billion dollar industry in the US alone, while Hollywood movies are a ~$50 billion dollar industry globally. The UK alone adds another ~$44 billion dollars to the publishing industries pocket (yes, Britons buy ~5 times more books than Americans). Publishing is a gargantuan industry globally. I would seriously hate to see what would happen to Amazon as book sales attribute ~60% of their bottom line, meaning industry controlled best sellers likely make ~50% of their revenue and on $24 billion in sales, they're only posting <$1 billion net income.

etherael 17y ago
You sound like you have a good grasp on the economics of publishing; what do you think are the chances of publishers being cut out by tactics like Amazon's current 70% royalty for authors selling books through them directly between 2.99 and 9.99?
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Zero, unless Amazon implements advances. The time inherent in writing a book is immense, some best selling authors only manage 1 entire book inside 3 years, whilst some are rather prolific with multiple titles inside a year. You're never going to attract anyone's attention, even paying high royalties, if you can't pay them for their time in advance. The real issue is though that self-publishing means self-everything. Advertising, marketing, cover design, distribution; everything. You're turning a writer into a contractor, they either have to do everything themselves and take forever, or they have to sub-contract. As most writers are writers by choice it seems, quite frankly, moronic why anyone would think they'd want to be anything else. It took years for most authors to ever get published, so why would they ever accept a deal that meant they'd only spend 30% of their time doing what they wanted? They had that when they were doing a real job. This isn't even concerning the major fact that all the talent is in the publishing industry already. Authors aren't going to be able to release the brilliantly edited books that are well marketed, distributed in multiple countries and often in multiple languages, with artistically designed covers. Doing all of those to a professional degree is as lucky as shooting yourself in the head and having no brain damage whatsoever despite a visible hole through your brain; I believe walking on water is more frequently reported. Simply put a mass self-publishing route would inevitably end up with everything been done by the publishing industry, now retitled as the 'self-publishing' industry that takes an 85%-90% cut of your book sales. Only this way, you don't get an advance and you'll likely have to pay the 'self-publishing industry' thousands to get them to cover all the work in advance of any foreseen profits. Essentially authors have the choice between the publishing industry where you can get paid anywhere between ~$5,000 and $2 million to write a book. Or you can choose 'self-publishing' where you'll likely have to pay a minimum of ~$50,000 to get quality editing, distribution, cover art and most costly of all marketing. With $10,000 being an average advance in the industry for a first novel, who's going to pay $50,000 potentially for nothing? Especially considering that if you go with the industry, if your book doesn't sell a single copy they're out $90,000 plus the $10,000 they gave you and you are legally entitled to keep. Right now the publishing houses don't buy out the first electronic publishing rights from the author or the electronic republishing rights. It's only going to be a matter of time before they do, which means authors advances will increase accordingly. If the publishing industry takes on the similar 70/30 to the author, then the advances could potentially increase dramatically if e-book sales really take off. However, again, after editing and marketing, this would likely be closer to 30/70 to the author.