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> These magazines cannot be gatekeepers any longer. I reckon they really could, with a bit of smarts. The brands alone are worth so much, in these times of wi
by toyg 5y ago
> These magazines cannot be gatekeepers any longer.
I reckon they really could, with a bit of smarts. The brands alone are worth so much, in these times of winner-takes-all. Look at the news: anybody can start a blog, but the actual "papers" we turn to are almost invariably old, established brands, even when they clearly suck. And there is so much shit online, respected filters are worth their weight in gold.
One of the problems is indeed the competition with bazillions of stimuli coming down the internet hosepipe every second. People have to make a conscious effort to sit down and read certain material, rather than using it as escapism - on escapism, the mobile internet cannot be beaten.
Another is that there is no economic model anymore. People bought books and magazines convinced that they were paying for distribution costs; in fact, they were also retroactively paying to produce the material. Now that distribution costs are virtually zero, nobody wants to pay anything, and the industry has not been good at making clear that writing and editing cost money.
Another again is that there is massive digital fragmentation: some people will read on kindle, some on phones, some on laptops, and some still want paper. The numbers are so small, for each mode, that they cannot individually sustain much; but supporting them all costs real money.
- ghaff 5y ago>People bought books and magazines convinced that they were paying for distribution costs; in fact, they were also retroactively paying to produce the material. This was the whole "Why aren't ebooks a lot cheaper?" theme. A lot of people assumed that most of the cost was in printing, shipping, and selling physical books whereas that was actually a pretty small slice of where the purchase price went. And this isn't just a literary magazine thing. My understanding is that science fiction magazines, and I assume other niche publications, are struggling as well. And it's mostly not a case of going to Kindle shorts or whatever. For the most part, short stories, etc. just aren't really much of an income stream for most authors any longer.
- oldsecondhand 5y ago> This was the whole "Why aren't ebooks a lot cheaper?" theme. A lot of people assumed that most of the cost was in printing, shipping, and selling physical books whereas that was actually a pretty small slice of where the purchase price went. Traditionally authors got around 10% (or less) of the retail price of a book. Same for music. But they also got an advance, which complicates things. But still the bulk of the price was in distribution.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> But still the bulk of the price was in distribution. As I understand (largely from contact a while ago from insiders in the TTRPG industry), for print runs of the sizes many non-mass-market books get (which is still going to effect ebooks of similar market sizes the same way) fixed costs like editing, layout, etc. take a lot (layout especially in things that aren't just plain text.)
- ghaff 5y agoAs I recall, printing for a typical hardcover was about $2 per copy to which you can add some for warehousing, shipping, returns, etc. (A qty 1 softcover print on demand book is <$5 shipped.) But leaving aside distributor cuts (which in the case of Amazon applies to both physical and digital books), most of the cost is in everything a publisher does and its cost structure.