5 ms·

You're confusing books with manuscripts. Please don't call these things you sell 'books'. "A manuscript is not a book. The author's job is to write the manuscr

You're confusing books with manuscripts. Please don't call these things you sell 'books'. "A manuscript is not a book. The author's job is to write the manuscript. The publisher's job is to turn a series of manuscripts originating from different suppliers into consistently produced books, mass-produce them, and sell them into distribution channels. [...] While it's true that the author is the one with the creative input, they only do about half the work. And the other half of the job is not optional. The reason publishers exist is to provide for division of labour; if I did the other 50% to bring my rough manuscripts up to published-book-quality, I'd only be able to write half as many novels." As per Charlie Stross, accomplished fiction writer: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-how-books-are-made.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-h...

_delirium 15y ago
There are definite value-adds by publishers, but it varies hugely by author, publisher, and genre. I can certainly see it for novelists, but a lot of technical-book publishers, especially the lower-tier ones, do very minimal editing of manuscripts, and are as likely as not to screw something up when they do (they rarely have subject-matter experts on staff). Academic book publishers also vary hugely, both in how involved they are, and in how good their editing is.
- Samuel_Michon 15y ago
  "a lot of technical-book publishers, especially the lower-tier ones, do very minimal editing of manuscripts" It shows. I notice when a manuscript hasn't been taken care of by a good editor before going to print. I can't think of a single genre in which editing is not necessary. NB: I'm a publisher of non-fiction books, primarily lifestyle and comp sci. My dad's a publisher, my mom's an author, my brother is a photographer for print. I'm familiar with the amount of work it takes to turn a manuscript into a book.
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    I've also seen numerous cases where editors have screwed up the original text of a technical publication in semantically critical ways. This holds especially true for editors who remain a few decades behind in technology, and don't quite grasp the concept of providing diffs, as well as the concept of having the author review the changes.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
JoshTriplett 15y ago
Such a distinction might exist in the traditional publishing world (the one with a sign "deposit manuscripts here" right above the trash can), but no such distinction exists in an all-electronic medium. Authors produce books; editors, illustrators, graphic designers, and others might provide help that improves the quality of the book, but they don't magically imbue it with a "book" status that it didn't already have.
peterarmstrong 15y ago
"A rose by any other name..." I'm the author of 2 traditionally-published books. ISBNs, dead trees, the works. The first one (Flexible Rails) was something I self-published on Lulu as I wrote it. It started at about 200 pages and ended up over 500 pages before I did a deal with a traditional publisher. At what point was it a book? My publisher approached me about publishing my book, not my manuscript (or rose). People all over the world bought my book when it was just a PDF. It made my mortgage payments for a while. In fact about 70% of my profit over my book's lifetime was from PDF sales. As its author, I considered it a book when I first published it. My readers did too. Publishers like O'Reilly, the Prags and Manning probably consider their beta / early access books to be books. Finally (since I'm typing on a phone), ebooks are to physical books like web apps are to shrinkwrapped software: you can do way more releases. At what point is a release real? Our answer is it is when you have paying customers. That is a commitment to your readers, and it helps you write and keeps you motivated. So, to sum up the ramble: in 5 years almost all books will be ebooks, most will have multiple releases (including before being "finished"), and this author's opinion will be quaint.
- jstclair 15y ago
  What you're saying makes perfect sense when applied to technical/non-fiction, but as Stross is writing sci-fi/horror, I'm -- to be honest -- a bit irritated by your use of "quaint." What does multiple releases have to do with a mystery novel? "The killer was Dr. Melville in v1, but I fixed that in v2"? And in anticipation, multiple releases != releasing a chapter at a time. That's a serial, and goes back at least to Dickens. I'm pretty sure that Stephen King tried out a "pay-per-chapter" novel once, but believe it wasn't finished. And even in the case of serials, for most authors, that's just the path to complete mediocrity; unless you know exactly where the story is going and how you're going to get there, an editor is still essential. Are you going to pull the previous three chapter releases because you've decided to put them in the middle of the book? Or refund people for the second chapter because you've decided to drop the character that it introduced? Will there be a lot of self-published ebooks in 5 years? Yeah, maybe; but the idea that publishing houses is going the way of the dodo, that they deliver no value to the consumer, is best confined to a specific set of genres.
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
Johannes Gutenberg would beg to differ. A publisher is not a requirement for a book any more than a record company is a requirement for a song.
- Samuel_Michon 15y ago
  Perubalsem it's not à requirement per se, but would you call 12 tracks recorded on an iPhone in someone's basement, without any post production, a professionally produced album? The same is true for books. Anyone can write some texts amounting to 300 pages of characters on pages. That doesn't make it a book, IMHO.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    There are lots of professionally produced albums that are utter crap, just like there are lots of professionally produced books that are utter crap. To think that an intermediary is necessary to create a long-form work is demonstrably false cargo cult thinking. Books were printed for centuries before publishing companies came along.

_delirium 15y ago

There are definite value-adds by publishers, but it varies hugely by author, publisher, and genre. I can certainly see it for novelists, but a lot of technical-book publishers, especially the lower-tier ones, do very minimal editing of manuscripts, and are as likely as not to screw something up when they do (they rarely have subject-matter experts on staff). Academic book publishers also vary hugely, both in how involved they are, and in how good their editing is.

Samuel_Michon 15y ago
"a lot of technical-book publishers, especially the lower-tier ones, do very minimal editing of manuscripts" It shows. I notice when a manuscript hasn't been taken care of by a good editor before going to print. I can't think of a single genre in which editing is not necessary. NB: I'm a publisher of non-fiction books, primarily lifestyle and comp sci. My dad's a publisher, my mom's an author, my brother is a photographer for print. I'm familiar with the amount of work it takes to turn a manuscript into a book.
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  I've also seen numerous cases where editors have screwed up the original text of a technical publication in semantically critical ways. This holds especially true for editors who remain a few decades behind in technology, and don't quite grasp the concept of providing diffs, as well as the concept of having the author review the changes.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

JoshTriplett 15y ago

Such a distinction might exist in the traditional publishing world (the one with a sign "deposit manuscripts here" right above the trash can), but no such distinction exists in an all-electronic medium. Authors produce books; editors, illustrators, graphic designers, and others might provide help that improves the quality of the book, but they don't magically imbue it with a "book" status that it didn't already have.

peterarmstrong 15y ago

"A rose by any other name..." I'm the author of 2 traditionally-published books. ISBNs, dead trees, the works. The first one (Flexible Rails) was something I self-published on Lulu as I wrote it. It started at about 200 pages and ended up over 500 pages before I did a deal with a traditional publisher. At what point was it a book? My publisher approached me about publishing my book, not my manuscript (or rose). People all over the world bought my book when it was just a PDF. It made my mortgage payments for a while. In fact about 70% of my profit over my book's lifetime was from PDF sales. As its author, I considered it a book when I first published it. My readers did too. Publishers like O'Reilly, the Prags and Manning probably consider their beta / early access books to be books. Finally (since I'm typing on a phone), ebooks are to physical books like web apps are to shrinkwrapped software: you can do way more releases. At what point is a release real? Our answer is it is when you have paying customers. That is a commitment to your readers, and it helps you write and keeps you motivated. So, to sum up the ramble: in 5 years almost all books will be ebooks, most will have multiple releases (including before being "finished"), and this author's opinion will be quaint.

jstclair 15y ago
What you're saying makes perfect sense when applied to technical/non-fiction, but as Stross is writing sci-fi/horror, I'm -- to be honest -- a bit irritated by your use of "quaint." What does multiple releases have to do with a mystery novel? "The killer was Dr. Melville in v1, but I fixed that in v2"? And in anticipation, multiple releases != releasing a chapter at a time. That's a serial, and goes back at least to Dickens. I'm pretty sure that Stephen King tried out a "pay-per-chapter" novel once, but believe it wasn't finished. And even in the case of serials, for most authors, that's just the path to complete mediocrity; unless you know exactly where the story is going and how you're going to get there, an editor is still essential. Are you going to pull the previous three chapter releases because you've decided to put them in the middle of the book? Or refund people for the second chapter because you've decided to drop the character that it introduced? Will there be a lot of self-published ebooks in 5 years? Yeah, maybe; but the idea that publishing houses is going the way of the dodo, that they deliver no value to the consumer, is best confined to a specific set of genres.

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

Johannes Gutenberg would beg to differ. A publisher is not a requirement for a book any more than a record company is a requirement for a song.

Samuel_Michon 15y ago
Perubalsem it's not à requirement per se, but would you call 12 tracks recorded on an iPhone in someone's basement, without any post production, a professionally produced album? The same is true for books. Anyone can write some texts amounting to 300 pages of characters on pages. That doesn't make it a book, IMHO.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  There are lots of professionally produced albums that are utter crap, just like there are lots of professionally produced books that are utter crap. To think that an intermediary is necessary to create a long-form work is demonstrably false cargo cult thinking. Books were printed for centuries before publishing companies came along.