4 ms·

I love Paul Carr, but he's wrong on this one. He may indeed love his publisher, but I have seen, far too often, struggling authors fighting with their publisher

by teilo 16y ago

I love Paul Carr, but he's wrong on this one. He may indeed love his publisher, but I have seen, far too often, struggling authors fighting with their publishers just to maintain control over their own works, much less get proper remuneration. Certainly, the problem is not as bad as it is in the music industry, but unless you are a fabulously successful author, you essentially enslave yourself to a publisher, and give up the copyright to your own creative works. Sorry, but the world is changing. It hasn't yet hit the publishing industry nearly so hard as it has hit the recording industry, but it will. Two things in particular almost guarantee it: First the digital revolution. The Kindle / Nook / etc., are not fads anymore than the iPod was a fad. The publishing world is going digital. Second, the publishing world will always have real ink and paper books (this is my industry, BTW) - but the technology is shifting rapidly toward print-on-demand. Lulu.com, with their fleet of Xerox iGen presses and web-to-bindery workflow has led the way giving everyone the ability to publish hard and soft covers one at a time, and make a profit doing so. I am already seeing mainline publishers doing similar for older works which are not economical to print on conventional presses. These works used to go out of print. Now they are being made available once more, because the publishers suddenly are able to print them at a profit, even if it is just one book for a single customer. But ironically, the more they embrace this technology, the more readily available it will be to smaller and smaller shops. Self-publishing - long an expensive proposition - is quickly becoming the norm for new authors, and it is only a matter of time before the marketing of such books will move to the web. Authors already tend to form their own communities, critiquing one another's works and encouraging them to improve and advance their art. The ability to do this on the web gives them a natural platform from which to market their works to a worldwide audience, without a publisher of any sort playing middle-man.

cstross 16y ago
but unless you are a fabulously successful author, you essentially enslave yourself to a publisher, and give up the copyright to your own creative works. No you don't. In fact, if your publisher asks you to assign your copyright to them, what you should do is walk away, very fast, and let the appropriate folks know that there's a scam artist on the loose. (Unless you're in a work-for-hire agreement, which is a whole different kettle of fish -- but not something you should stumble into by accident.) As for self-publishing becoming the norm for new writers ... you may be right: but that doesn't mean self-publishing will become a successful career path for those who take it. There are some fundamental differences between the music biz and writing which weigh the dice heavily against authors going it alone. (For example: bands can make money off live gigs and merchandise while using CDs and MP3s for promotion -- but when was the last time you went to hear some middle-aged guy read from his latest novel? And paid for the privilege?) The real rent-seeking middle-men in the publishing business aren't the publishers, but the distribution chains and customer-facing retail outlets -- of whom Amazon and Lulu are two. They chow down around 60-70% of the revenue in the retail book trade. My reading of the "why not publish it yourself?" propaganda is that it's promoted by POD imprints and folks like Amazon, who anticipate getting much more favourable terms from sole traders and clueless wannabes than they can currently obtain from the major publishers. Sure you can self-publish -- but you're still going to have to deal with the retail distribution supply chain. And there be dragons ...
- patio11 16y ago
  Can I recommend JA Konrath's blog to you? He is big on self-publishing, primarily because his one-man backlist is currently paying him six figures just on Kindle profits, a sharp improvement over a decade of miflist published authordom. Ironically, I am writing this having tasked switched from one of your books on my Kindle. I love Amazon. They gave me the Kindle, from which springs joy and happiness and space Nazis. Your publisher? Meh, adds less value to me than the hosting company for a blog I'm reading. (I understand that they edit, whee, but it matters nothing to me whether the editor works on salary for them or on contract for you.)

by teilo 16y ago

cstross 16y ago

but unless you are a fabulously successful author, you essentially enslave yourself to a publisher, and give up the copyright to your own creative works. No you don't. In fact, if your publisher asks you to assign your copyright to them, what you should do is walk away, very fast, and let the appropriate folks know that there's a scam artist on the loose. (Unless you're in a work-for-hire agreement, which is a whole different kettle of fish -- but not something you should stumble into by accident.) As for self-publishing becoming the norm for new writers ... you may be right: but that doesn't mean self-publishing will become a successful career path for those who take it. There are some fundamental differences between the music biz and writing which weigh the dice heavily against authors going it alone. (For example: bands can make money off live gigs and merchandise while using CDs and MP3s for promotion -- but when was the last time you went to hear some middle-aged guy read from his latest novel? And paid for the privilege?) The real rent-seeking middle-men in the publishing business aren't the publishers, but the distribution chains and customer-facing retail outlets -- of whom Amazon and Lulu are two. They chow down around 60-70% of the revenue in the retail book trade. My reading of the "why not publish it yourself?" propaganda is that it's promoted by POD imprints and folks like Amazon, who anticipate getting much more favourable terms from sole traders and clueless wannabes than they can currently obtain from the major publishers. Sure you can self-publish -- but you're still going to have to deal with the retail distribution supply chain. And there be dragons ...

patio11 16y ago
Can I recommend JA Konrath's blog to you? He is big on self-publishing, primarily because his one-man backlist is currently paying him six figures just on Kindle profits, a sharp improvement over a decade of miflist published authordom. Ironically, I am writing this having tasked switched from one of your books on my Kindle. I love Amazon. They gave me the Kindle, from which springs joy and happiness and space Nazis. Your publisher? Meh, adds less value to me than the hosting company for a blog I'm reading. (I understand that they edit, whee, but it matters nothing to me whether the editor works on salary for them or on contract for you.)