Almost exactly a year ago I wrote this:
Traditional publishing may not be in freefall yet, but it’s standing on the edge, just one big shove away.
That shove is now being applied. It had started being applied by early entrants in the self-publishing realm, such as Lulu.com. But the player with enough muscle to actually move entrenched traditional publishers off the cliff has only relatively recently entered the fray — Amazon. Amazon is going to eat the lunch of traditional publishing for one simple reason — pure economics.
Sure, they have a variety of forays into publishing that I could discuss, including Seth Godin’s much-hyped, but still likely to have an impact, Domino Project. I’m sure I don’t need to point out the signficance of the name. No, what I wish to point out is something much more mundane and, well, crass. It’s simply this: if you publish with a traditional publisher you will be lucky to get a 15% royalty. With Amazon’s Kindle Direct publishing option royalty rates start at 35% and can be as high as 70%. Now I’m no math wiz, but that’s an eye-popping difference.
If you’re an author, just how badly do you want Harper Collins to publish your book? Would you give up 55 percentage points of royalty for the privilege? Yeah, I thought so.
Meanwhile, the implications for libraries seem almost as stark. Whatever you thought you knew about collection development has gone out the window. Don’t expect Amazon to churn out a catalog of new titles — at least not in paper form. And good luck with your approval plan. As authors break in a big way for the big payout that ebooks are now potentially providing and as e-readers approach the price point of free, we’re in a completely new world. It would be best if we get used to the idea — and soon.
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Agreed. It is a whole new world in need of a whole new direction for libraries. But the implications are only stark if we continue to rely on our collections–in whatever format–to carry us into the future on a huge wave of relevancy. Our collections will not keep us relevant. That is becoming clear. Our place in our communities and new perceptions about what role libraries can play in those communities just might, though.
Thanks for the post. I always appreciate your perspective.
Astute – as always.
I don’t disagree–that’s why I left book publishing in 2006. However, I think you’re ignoring a distinction between two tiers of publishing. Some authors only get their royalties, it’s true. But in the kind of name-brand trade publishing where I toiled for 6 years, all authors get an advance. If you have a choice of $100K today from Harper Collins (plus royalties if you “earn out” that advance) or a flat percentage from Amazon, I’d take the $100K. Traditional publishers gamble like this all the time and often lose money, but it’s the chief way they compete among themselves for hot projects. I don’t think I ever worked on a project that didn’t involve an advance. It’s probably different in lower-status “genre” areas like romance. Amazon could really thrive there. Then again, I’ve been saying *that* for years!
Emily, I hear you, but the people who get the large advances are few in number comparatively. The vast majority of authors labor with relatively small advances (the most I’ve ever had was $5,000 and that was also all I ever saw from the book as my publisher left the business and remaindered everything). Until some publisher offers me enough of an advance to provide me the time to write the book (very unlikely), that leaves the Amazon path as the path of choice. I doubt I’m alone in that. For every Stephen King there are hundreds of Roy Tennants. Ouch. What a bad vision I just created. My bad.
That’s a good point. I guess when I picture the “industry” it’s the part I worked for, the big five, who are all Stephen King and no Roy Tennant. They make a lot of money and while I think that model will change too, it will probably happen more slowly. The long tail of smaller publishers will go more as you say.
Roy – I just (I am late) realized, that most Kindle Books now are more expensive than paperbacks. This is partly because Apple broke the $9.99 standard in favor of the publishers. The publishers in their shortsightedness want to preserve the hard copy profits.
I hope more writers go the self publishing mode – over time most would make more money than with the meager royalties they get from publishers – publishers will be left with the lazy ones.
Personally – I am really frustrated with this – and I am not sure the library will satisfy most e-books readers – maybe the torrents will.
Interestingly, I just learned that the Domino Project is ending.
Maybe not as game-changing as intended?
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-seth-godin-shutters-his-amazon-publishing-imprint-the-domino-project/
Gamer Librarian: Good catch, I hadn’t seen that yet. As for game-changing, I’m not sure we can judge that yet. The Domino Project did some interesting things — some of them for the first time by any publisher — and the impact of that still may be felt down the line. If I were a publisher, I’d be studying that project very closely and taking away any lessons I could about how publishing can be different and more effective in concert with the Internet.
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The other issue of note is the power of marketing. Most of the self-published Kindle volumes will get few sales and little notice, because no one knows the authors and there is no way of determining if money will be wasted buying their books. Sure, the long tale is in place, and some of these authors will make it big, but it’s really like playing the slots in Vegas. One advantage for traditional publishing is that authors achieve some sort of “authority” by getting published by them. That said, who cares about authority or peer review or any other gatekeeping functions? That said, I hope to get a couple of unsold novels into Kindle ASAP.