One blog post I read yesterday claims that “DOJ probably just destroyed the publishing industry.”
This claim seems to be based on the idea that e-book prices will inevitably fall to a level where publishers will be unable to make a profit,
and Amazon will gain Ultimate Power over the world of books
You’re thinking about only a subset of websites. There are plenty of websites that sell a product, not advertising. Netflix, Dropbox, and Amazon (for example) all sell products and services, not advertising. An eBook is a product. There’s no reason you can’t sell it as a product and keep a clean advertising-free site.
The era of the printed book is coming to an end. All the publishers’ attempts simply cannot turn back the technological progress that’s driving that change. It’s not going to end tomorrow, but eReaders are getting better very quickly. Similarly, the concept of a general book store as a relatively small building where you go in and look at individual physical books and maybe buy one is coming to an end, just like record stores and video shops have died out.
I don’t think publishers are evil or add no value to the process. I just think they’re inefficient and limited and are going to be replaced by more efficient and open ways of accomplishing the same thing. I also think that as they are replaced, it will provide more and varied opportunities for people who were excluded from the old system for various reasons, and that that will outweigh the losses by people who can’t figure out how to navigate the new world of self-publishing and promotion. There are always winners and losers when industries change. But I think that on the whole, the change is a good one.
How is it not already competing with that stuff even with publishing? We’ve got crappy e-books about cats now. If publishers can’t figure out how to make money by finding good authors, striking deals for a portion of the future profits, and promoting them above the chaff, I’d suggest that the reason for that is that publishers are not very good at figuring out what books will be successful. Why do we want to keep a system around that’s demonstrably more wasteful and inefficient than the alternative?
In some cases, the authors themselves. In some cases, it was a publisher’s agent of some sort. Some, I found in discussions here on the Dope.
Maybe a dozen or so (out of a library in the 200-300 titles range. I’ve culled my bookshelves a lot in recent years), counting both physical books and eBooks. I expect that’s significantly higher than most people. Part of the reason is that, when getting rid of books, I tended to keep the self-published ones and donate the mass-market ones. I can always find a major author in the library. I’m not likely to I’m currently reading Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor, which I found as a result of the author doing an AMA on Reddit.com.
Comparing the count of self-published to traditionally-published books in my personal library isn’t really an apples to apples comparison, though. Part of the reason people have relatively few self-published books is that the historical nature of printing books required big up-front fixed-cost expenses that made publishers well-suited to the market. That’s only not been the case for, what, five years, maybe? I’m arguing that that’s changed, but that doesn’t retroactively change the history of the publishing industry. The fact that my copies of Hamlet, Moby Dick, and Lord of the Rings tell us relatively little about the value of a traditional publisher in a world where the internet exists.
Again, I’m not claiming that publishers don’t provide a service. They clearly do. But so did milkmen and record stores, and you don’t see them much any more.
According to my cite, Amazon was selling e-books at a $2.50 loss. Are you saying it doesn’t make sense for them? Or that I’m not making any sense? It makes sense for them to be the go-to place for e-books, because while you’re there you can buy other things…like their e-book reader.
Thudlow Boink’s link touches on a lot of what I’m trying to say. Basically, I don’t think this is good news for readers (or authors.) I don’t have such a book habit that I want to ‘rejoice’ over lower e-book prices that cannot support publishers and in turn, writers. I feel that the quality of writing will go down, and the number of sub-standard writers will go up.
Also, in your NYT link, notice what happens to the profit margin when they reach Amazon’s $9.99 price point. What do you think happens when it’s $4.99? $2.99?
iamthewalrus(:3=, you cannot compare an e-book as a product to web sites, and then bring in Netflix as an example. You comparing apples to space shuttles. As I noted, a book is a static product, it cannot provide a ‘service.’ You & I agree that publishers bring some value to the table. The vast majority of readers have never read an independently published book. I have none in my library. The example of the AMA Reddit guy is super rare, and I’ll wager not terribly successful when compared to published authors.
I disagree with the “era of books coming to an end” saying too. Books will still be printed 100 years from now. The era of big book stores is coming to an end, but books are not just inefficient means of delivering content. It’s not the same as CDs & digital music. Just because my Nook or Kindle is super-efficient to me, doesn’t mean it is to the guy without internet access, or people in poverty, or people in countries where electricity is scarce, or in space, or on an aircraft carrier…until you can create an e-reader that never fails & doesn’t use power, there will be books.
As a counterpoint to what Reality Chuck has been saying,an article on IO9points out that the Amazon list of the top 100 best selling science fiction books on Kindle consists mostly of authors who have NEVER shown up on Locus. They speculate that the Kindle may prove to be a great thing for writers and fans, opening up all sorts of new, good reading experiences to all.
RealityChuck and Exapno tout the “services” that publishers provide by sorting out the slush file, why can’t fans collectively “sort out” the slush file by reading and commenting on works by authors directly. I mean, the publishers concentrated in New York are kind of an insular fraternity, you know? You can tell that a lot of books get passed just because the editor knows the writer … how many mainstream novels have been about middle-aged academic/writers who cheat on their wives? A Story That Must Be Told indeed!
But you don’t need a publisher for this. If this is the only thing left, there’s no point in talking about them as “publishers” anymore. Instead of publishers, we’ll have groups who maintain lists of good books. Authors will vie for inclusion on these lists. Kind of like a certificatin system for books.
Publishers are going to be hurt? Not the good people who made Dan Brown and Danielle Steel millionaires! Who’s going to control the quality? Who’s going to put a chick with big tits on the cover so science fiction fans what to read? Who’s going to make Stephen King’s last name big so it’s exactly as wide as his first?
I feel a little for retailers but they’ll just have to sell something else, same as people who used to sell piano sheet music or sailcloth or whatever. I wonder if anybody got all puppy-eyed about them?
I’m not comparing books to websites as products. I’m comparing the web industry with the print publishing industry. My point in bringing up websites was to contrast an environment in which new products are offered through a gatekeeper to one in which they are offered without a gatekeeper. My point was that if there had been a gatekeeper entity to the internet, all sorts of cool things we have now wouldn’t have been approved. I claim that when you remove the gatekeeper from the publishing world, we’ll see some cool adaptations and advancements there, as well, though probably less dramatic ones given the limitations of the medium.
Sure, but, like I said, lots of the reason for that is due to historical economics that don’t necessarily apply going forward. We’re on the cusp of a sea change in book distribution. If we’d been having this conversation in 1993 about, say, online publishing, you could say the same thing. The vast majority of readers had never read an article on the internet. That doesn’t mean that they won’t.
Probably true. I was asked how many self published works I had, and I responded, admitting that I expect I’m an outlier and that my experience is not typical.
But I still think that it will be increasingly common.
Barbara Freethy, for example, sold 2 million+ eBooks, self published through Amazon. It doesn’t look like my cup of tea, but there are clearly lots of people buying them. That sort of success wasn’t even possible ten years ago without a publisher. So of course most people haven’t read much self-published work. It’s really just getting started.
They still print records on vinyl and you can still buy buggy whips, too. I’m talking about the mass market.
There will always be Bestseller type books desirable at the $10 price point and the $12 price point. Eventually, JUST LIKE NOW, they will reduce the ebook price as the title ages. At 9.99 the publishers endure the horrible tragedy of selling ebooks at the Trade paper price while still making as much profit as a hardcover. (oh the humanity) At 3.99 they will endure the (according to them) still greater tragedy of making as much profit as a mass market paperback. Incremental reductions in price (and retailer discounting off list) has ALWAYS been a part of the book pricing model, a model the publisher wants to abandon cause… cue wailing and gnashing of teeth … actually I don’t know why.
You can buy the box set of the first 4 “Song of Ice and Fire” mass mark paperbacks for $21 and the publisher doesn’t give a crap about that, but the Kindle set is $29, and that, apparently, is a symptom of an national publishing crisis.
I’m saying that there is no universal $9.99 max price point now and no reason to think there ever will be.
Charlene Harris – trueblood series author – has a new book being sold for $15 kindle edition and… $15.16 in hardcover. (and a whopping $15.98 at bn.com). Explain again how the kindle price is wildly unfair and will destroy the industry?
Amazon sells SOME ebooks at a loss. Retailers have always sold SOME print books at a loss as well. In fact, best selling books are USUALLY sold at a loss by retailers. Publishers have never considered this their problem.
Really?
Yes. New York Times Bestsellers at 30% off? Special bestsellers like Hunger Games at 40+% off? Losing money on every copy.
I’ll believe it when I see the lower prices on Amazon.
Amazon already has a weekly list of ebooks for 2 and $3. I’ve found a few new authors that I really liked. Not every one was a gem, but at that price its not the end of the world if a book isn’t worth finishing.
I’ve been tempted by Amazon Prime because they get a list of free ebooks. But, it’s hard to justify the yearly membership fee.
Don’t be. You can take out one book a month, and the selection is pretty small. Not at all worth the price of Prime if that’s all you’re using it for.
But that analogy doesn’t work; a publisher isn’t a milkman or a record store, it’s the dairy or the record label, both of which absolutely do still exist.
I think everyone who is claiming that authors can promote and market their own books have never actually tried to do any promotion or marketing; to do it right is a big job, not something you do in your free time on nights and weekends. And not every good writer is a good marketer. And not everyone who thinks they’re a good writer really are good writers. Just about every self-published book I’ve read has desperately needed an editor. Bad grammar, misspellings, just generally bad writing. Publishers absolutely do a very important job, and I don’t think they’re going to go away anytime soon.
If it’s so freaking hard why are so many of Amazon’s top 100 SF ebooks by self-publishers or published by very small publishers? Maybe it’s not!
I’m sure Exapno or Chuck will be back any minute now to tell you what huge exceptions those people are. Also, exceptions like that WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!
Or something like that.
No one is saying that authors can promote their own books as well as publishers currently do.They’re saying that they won’t need to. They have the advantage of the interconnectedness of the web, plus all the technological tools that tell people what is popular. You will be able to type whatever type of book you want and Google Books will find the most popular ones that fit, and then you just pick one. Instead of publishers guessing what people like, you will have electronic tools that already know.
I personally don’t think it will be quite like that, but I think that will take up at least a healthy chunk of the market. I think there will also likely be publishers that cut out the retailer and just sell ebooks directly on their own websites. I think some of these will be the old publishers, and some will be new ones. Likewise, some of the current publishers will adapt and survive, while others will go belly up.
The one thing that will never happen is a complete market failure. There are people who want to write books for people to read, and people who want to read books that people write. Someene will always find a way to connect these two.
EDIT:
In that case, that’s Amazon already becoming like one of the publishers I’ve already mentioned. These books aren’t really self-published, they are published by Amazon. The step that’s being skipped is the retailer.
I think you’re trying to constrain that analogy a little too closely. My point is that industries can change, completely eliminating some previously presumed-necessary piece, in response to technological advancement. Just because something is useful (I’d love to get milk hand-delivered!) doesn’t mean it will stand up to new economic pressures. As far as record labels go, they’re facing the same pressures. More and more acts are forgoing major labels or starting their own, ie self publishing.
There are too many specifics for to respond to - it would take six long essays that nobody would read anyway - so I’m going to make one general post. Numbers are approximations from my memory, but they’re close enough and wouldn’t matter if they were 50% off.
Since I mentioned lotteries, let’s start with the big Mega-Millions one that just happened. 100,000,000 people spent $1.5 billion to achieve a lump-sum payoff of about $400 million. That’s about as pure a price point exercise as can be imagined. The average person spent $15 in the hopes of an essentially infinite return. That means they value the chance of $100,000,000+ dollars no more than they value the price of a Saturday night movie ticket or an ebook. In return they get the pleasure of anticipation and nothing more. Books of any kind can at least be read again, or traded or sold, so their expected value should be higher. If not, that tells us a lot about their maximum price point for the average reader. (Average does not mean you or me; it means the average of every book buyer in the U.S., who may be 100,000,000 people, many of whom - like lottery buyers - buy only one a year.)
There are many lotteries in the country, of course, but as a model lotteries can be best thought about as blockbusters. We already have industries that have moved to blockbuster models. Movies are the best example. Attendance at theaters has been falling for years. Revenues are about steady, only because ticket prices have soared. Studios have moved almost entirely toward making blockbusters, sequels, genre movies, and cartoons. Whenever an adult movie gets good reviews, the industry clamors to put it up for an Oscar just to pat itself on the back even if the slate of Best Movies were what once was expected of the average unrewarded good movie. Nobody says that the industry is healthy.
The music industry has already gone through this and crashed. It tried to hold on to a superstar model and failed. The superstar of the year, Adele, sold 5 or 6 million. Most other big names barely cracked 1 million. Maintaining a career keeps getting harder. Venues are disappearing, touring is down, bands are fungible and are replaced regularly. Nobody says that the industry is healthy.
I’m not expect on PC Games, but my impression is that it’s another industry dependent on blockbusters, sequels, and genre. If so, that’s not healthy.
And books. The publishing industry is uncannily like the movie industry. It exists on blockbusters, sequels, genre, and childrens. People have said - I can’t confirm this, but it rings true - that the books on the annual bestsellers lists, around 200 titles a year, outsell all other books published, around 200,000 titles a year. That follows from the success of the mega-sellers. If a Hunger Games title sells 10,000,000 copies and the average successful book 10,000 then there can’t be too many Hunger Games readers buying average books. (The long tail is mostly irrelevant. The bottom 100,000 sell less than 10,000,000. That’s rounding error for an industry.)
We know what blockbuster mentality can do to the publishing industry because it already happened. For decades, bookstores purchased books at 40% off list price and sold them at list price. In today’s prices, that’s $18 going to publishers and $12 to bookstores on a $30 hardcover. Big box stores did not change this equation much. They could discount titles and did, but for the most part they competed on selection. Even - especially - rabid book lovers preferred stores with 50,000 titles over stores with 5,000 titles, no matter how personalized the service in a small store.
What changed the industry were the cream-skimmers - the Walmarts, the Costcos - who sold nothing but bestsellers (and category bestsellers). Selection didn’t matter because they sold to people who bought nothing but bestsellers. And because the chains bought in large volumes, they could get the discount down to 50%. They sold books at this wholesale price. Technically this is not a loss leader, although realistically a store can’t cover its overhead unless the book buyers bought other materials. Which they did. They weren’t interested in other books, though. This is what finished off the independents. They had nothing to draw people in with. Many of them stopped selling bestsellers entirely, to save money for the other books, which disappointed the few who wanted both. Borders had more problems than just this one, but losing its lead product was certainly contributory. Losing independents and one big chain is bad for industry, even if bestsellers still sell.
Publishers will have severe profit pressure if the wholesale cost of ebooks drops below $15. The costs of print are not that major a percentage. You can always say that people will buy more if the price is lower, but we don’t know how that will actually work out for the average buyer. It’s the Laffer curve all over again. You can make the claim that very cheap product will sell, and that’s true. That top 100 SF books list has Hugh Howey’s name all over it. But his “books” were 50-page stories. A bundle of 5 books is selling - well - at $5.99. Is that the future? None of us know, but it does make comparisons tricky.
From the point of view of the average consumer, none of these events is a bad thing. People like blockbusters and best sellers, by definition. Getting more of them for a better price is a boon. New markets are being created. Some barriers to entry have been dropped. We are still early in the process. The Kindle has been around for only five years. When it appeared lots of people - a bet a lot of you - predicted that print books were dead then and there. I said that it would take 5-10 years before ebooks got out of single digit percentages. It took 4 and that just barely. The needle is just starting to move. CDs were hurt earlier and faster but they still sell in nine digits. Print books will be a major part of the industry for many years.
But absolutely no one argues that the publishing industry is healthy. The industry is publishers and sellers and writers. All are hurting, because it is harder to make a career and impossible to plan one into an uncertain future. Movies remain profitable because the industry found so many alternate paths to sell their product. Music has many pathways but overall sales are not on the rise. Books have difficulties in this area. A variety of sites can sell a book, but the extras that sell in the other industries are more difficult. Maybe every book will require a podcast extra. Throw out any wild ideas you have, and maybe some of them will come true.
Things will change but that does not imply that the industry will grow healthier. Right now, it’s sick. You can’t use your experiences as a consumer to make statements as an industry. Some of you have won the lottery. Some authors have won the lottery, too. That doesn’t say anything, though. Always, in every industry, in every time and place, some people win that kind of lottery. The Internet doesn’t change that. The economic laws about price points work in every industry. We’ve seen the future: it’s our past.
How come none of their best books of 2011 are self-published? And that the “top 100” is populated by some self-published novels is a result of that being what is available at the moment. Given that not all, or even most, SF published by publishers is even available as an ebook, the Top 20 Amazon Bestsellers somehow manages to consist of such little known names as Stephen King and George RR Martin, Charlene Harris and Anne Rice.
Anyway, I wouldn’t trust a crowd of strangers to tell me what to read or make my selections based on pure popularity. Going by that metric, as another poster suggested, Danielle Steele and Dan Brown are clearly some of the best writers of all time. My experiences of book suggestion threads on the Dope - which is a FAR more discerning audience than a general crowd of internet participants - constantly remind me that 90% of everything really is shit, and that I trust Tor or DelRey more than a random crowd of idiots to tell me what isn’t.