3 ms·

>Finding "diamonds in the rough" may not be enough to sustain a publishing house. This may today be a valuable service but that doesn't mean that it will still

>Finding "diamonds in the rough" may not be enough to sustain a publishing house. This may today be a valuable service but that doesn't mean that it will still be profitable in the future. When amazon launched the kindle, ebooks were mostly priced at 10$. These publishers fought to be able to raise the prices. When all the "truly great" become self-publishers they will lower the price of ebooks so now as a publisher you've lost your sure bets and have to instead spend considerable resources (paying all these mentors/editors) on riskier bets that when/if they succeed will have to be priced lower to compete with the self-publishers. I just don't see the economics favoring publishing houses. Being a freelance editor/mentor sourcing authors from first-time self-publishers may very well become a profitable venture though. You are making the mistake of conflating "the most successful authors" with "authors who achieve major success with their first books." The publishing companies will lose out on the latter, but they will still get plenty of the former. As I mentioned before, Frank Herbert was a very late bloomer. A more modern (but less extreme) example would be Dan Brown: his first book, Digital Fortress was just barely good enough to get him a second book deal; Angels and Demons made the best-seller list, barely; he didn't achieve superstar chart-topping success until his fourth book, Da Vinci Code. He's now one of the top-selling authors in the world. As long as publishing companies continue to grow authors like that, they will do just fine. They may see their margins shrink due to competition from self-publishers, but books are not commodities and people will pay more for better books. The only thing that will dislodge traditional publishers from this role is, as I have asserted repeatedly, a competitor which provides the same service, at the same or better level of quality, for less. I also firmly reject the notion that "truly great" authors will necessarily lower their prices of ebooks when they transition to self-publishing: they will charge whatever price the market will bear. I think that a far more likely change is that book prices will become much more a function of book quality, with the very best charging a premium for their books compared to other authors, as compared to the current system where dead-tree books are priced mostly as a function of form factor.

pedrocr 15y ago
>You are making the mistake of conflating "the most successful authors" with "authors who achieve major success with their first books." No I'm not. What I'm saying is that the home-runs will move over to self-publishing, reducing the profitability of traditional publishing. Say you're a new author, why not release your first book online under a pseudonym and see how it does. If it does ok, why go to a publisher? So now if you're a publisher you have to make do with the authors that need development and you're hoping for Dan Brown sized successes in a market that is tending towards more, not less, diversity. The successes you do find will now be competing in a much broader market that is priced at a fraction of what you're used to. Doesn't seem like a great place to be. > I also firmly reject the notion that "truly great" authors will necessarily lower their prices of ebooks when they transition to self-publishing: they will charge whatever price the market will bear. The point is that as an author you can charge a third or less of the price and get the same money because there are less middlemen. Since buyers will buy more of your books if they're cheaper you'd be crazy to charge the same price when you move to self-publishing. As a buyer I'll also spend more on books if they're 3$ each than if they're 15$ each so for the industry this may also be a total net gain.
- lucasjung 15y ago
  >What I'm saying is that the home-runs will move over to self-publishing, reducing the profitability of traditional publishing. You just did it again: the "home runs" are not necessarily the most profitable authors. Those authors that need development very often turn out to be the most profitable in the end. They're also far more common than the "home runs," meaning that by losing the "home runs," the publishers are only losing a small fraction of profitable authors. >you're hoping for Dan Brown sized successes in a market that is tending towards more, not less, diversity. The growing diversity will impact the volume of mid-list authors far more than chart-toppers. I see no sign that the human propensity for mass trends is diminishing, and those mass trends (and the mega-influential opinion-shapers who drive them) are what carry the top-selling authors to the top and keep them there. >The point is that as an author you can charge a third or less of the price and get the same money because there are less middlemen. Since buyers will buy more of your books if they're cheaper you'd be crazy to charge the same price when you move to self-publishing. Any given author can charge less and make more by self-publishing. If all authors were equally good, you might have a point here. However, a great author who has to pay middle-men (because they helped him become great, amongst other reasons) will still be able to charge a high enough price to make orders of magnitude more than lesser authors who self-publish.
  - pedrocr 15y ago
    >You just did it again: the "home runs" are not necessarily the most profitable authors. Those authors that need development very often turn out to be the most profitable in the end. They're also far more common than the "home runs," meaning that by losing the "home runs," the publishers are only losing a small fraction of profitable authors. That's fine, because what I'm saying is that the home runs will get to market fast and cheap so they're a very big competitive threat. Add to that a bunch of small niche authors that also have incredibly small cost structures and the decade long lead-time bets the publishers are now making are much riskier. >The growing diversity will impact the volume of mid-list authors far more than chart-toppers. I see no sign that the human propensity for mass trends is diminishing, and those mass trends (and the mega-influential opinion-shapers who drive them) are what carry the top-selling authors to the top and keep them there. I agree with this completely. I didn't mean to say that chart-toppers will cease to exist. What will happen though is that some of them will be self-published and more importantly the mid-list will probably be taken over by self-publishers. So as a publisher your portfolio now has a higher percentage of decade-long bets and they have to pan out for you to stay in business. >However, a great author who has to pay middle-men (because they helped him become great, amongst other reasons) will still be able to charge a high enough price to make orders of magnitude more than lesser authors who self-publish. So we do agree that prices will be pushed down? Cause for a publishing house that's monumental, their margins are pretty low as it is. Can we at least agree that self-publishing is a long-term threat for publishing houses? You don't think it will wipe them out, I think that at least the existing ones will get replaced by new firms that understand the new dynamics better.

pedrocr 15y ago

>You are making the mistake of conflating "the most successful authors" with "authors who achieve major success with their first books." No I'm not. What I'm saying is that the home-runs will move over to self-publishing, reducing the profitability of traditional publishing. Say you're a new author, why not release your first book online under a pseudonym and see how it does. If it does ok, why go to a publisher? So now if you're a publisher you have to make do with the authors that need development and you're hoping for Dan Brown sized successes in a market that is tending towards more, not less, diversity. The successes you do find will now be competing in a much broader market that is priced at a fraction of what you're used to. Doesn't seem like a great place to be. > I also firmly reject the notion that "truly great" authors will necessarily lower their prices of ebooks when they transition to self-publishing: they will charge whatever price the market will bear. The point is that as an author you can charge a third or less of the price and get the same money because there are less middlemen. Since buyers will buy more of your books if they're cheaper you'd be crazy to charge the same price when you move to self-publishing. As a buyer I'll also spend more on books if they're 3$ each than if they're 15$ each so for the industry this may also be a total net gain.

lucasjung 15y ago
>What I'm saying is that the home-runs will move over to self-publishing, reducing the profitability of traditional publishing. You just did it again: the "home runs" are not necessarily the most profitable authors. Those authors that need development very often turn out to be the most profitable in the end. They're also far more common than the "home runs," meaning that by losing the "home runs," the publishers are only losing a small fraction of profitable authors. >you're hoping for Dan Brown sized successes in a market that is tending towards more, not less, diversity. The growing diversity will impact the volume of mid-list authors far more than chart-toppers. I see no sign that the human propensity for mass trends is diminishing, and those mass trends (and the mega-influential opinion-shapers who drive them) are what carry the top-selling authors to the top and keep them there. >The point is that as an author you can charge a third or less of the price and get the same money because there are less middlemen. Since buyers will buy more of your books if they're cheaper you'd be crazy to charge the same price when you move to self-publishing. Any given author can charge less and make more by self-publishing. If all authors were equally good, you might have a point here. However, a great author who has to pay middle-men (because they helped him become great, amongst other reasons) will still be able to charge a high enough price to make orders of magnitude more than lesser authors who self-publish.
- pedrocr 15y ago
  >You just did it again: the "home runs" are not necessarily the most profitable authors. Those authors that need development very often turn out to be the most profitable in the end. They're also far more common than the "home runs," meaning that by losing the "home runs," the publishers are only losing a small fraction of profitable authors. That's fine, because what I'm saying is that the home runs will get to market fast and cheap so they're a very big competitive threat. Add to that a bunch of small niche authors that also have incredibly small cost structures and the decade long lead-time bets the publishers are now making are much riskier. >The growing diversity will impact the volume of mid-list authors far more than chart-toppers. I see no sign that the human propensity for mass trends is diminishing, and those mass trends (and the mega-influential opinion-shapers who drive them) are what carry the top-selling authors to the top and keep them there. I agree with this completely. I didn't mean to say that chart-toppers will cease to exist. What will happen though is that some of them will be self-published and more importantly the mid-list will probably be taken over by self-publishers. So as a publisher your portfolio now has a higher percentage of decade-long bets and they have to pan out for you to stay in business. >However, a great author who has to pay middle-men (because they helped him become great, amongst other reasons) will still be able to charge a high enough price to make orders of magnitude more than lesser authors who self-publish. So we do agree that prices will be pushed down? Cause for a publishing house that's monumental, their margins are pretty low as it is. Can we at least agree that self-publishing is a long-term threat for publishing houses? You don't think it will wipe them out, I think that at least the existing ones will get replaced by new firms that understand the new dynamics better.