# Why the Demise of Traditional Publishing is the Best Outcome for Authors **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 5, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680 "2011-10-05T13:53:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/101 "2011-10-25T14:52:55Z")
One more point by Hartwell that’s relevant: he said that they publish books in service to the _reader_, not the author. In other words, the decisions are based upon whether readers will want to buy the book. This doesn’t mean publishers are always right; it’s always a crapshoot. But they are coming from the idea that you want to give the reader something they will want to read. This goes against the entire premise of this thread, which is publishing will be in service to the author. POD and ebooks give the author the chance to get work out there, but it’s generally done to give egoboo, with the hope of financial rewards to the author. It’s all author-centric; what readers want to pay for is not part of the equation. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/102 "2011-10-25T14:56:11Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > One more point by Hartwell that’s relevant: he said that they publish books in service to the _reader_, not the author. In other words, the decisions are based upon whether readers will want to buy the book. > > This doesn’t mean publishers are always right; it’s always a crapshoot. But they are coming from the idea that you want to give the reader something they will want to read. > > This goes against the entire premise of this thread, which is publishing will be in service to the author. POD and ebooks give the author the chance to get work out there, but it’s generally done to give egoboo and financial rewards to the author. What readers want to pay for is not part of the equation. Really? Ebook publishers can FORCE hapless readers to buy their books? I had no idea! I need to rethink my marketing plan. “HALT! Buy my book so I can have more egoboo!” Point is, any ebook publishers who wants their books to sell has to pay attention to readers’ wants, too. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/103 "2011-10-25T15:00:48Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > True, but the facts I just posted indicate quite clearly that the market for ebooks is not going to threaten traditional publishing. The market is already threatening traditional publishing, the question is, can ebook publishers follow through on that threat? I think over time we will. I also think the structure will change over time, I’m not sure how, but I am pretty sure New York will lose its influence over the publishing industry over time. > [@](#): > > And, OTOH, few people luuuurve ebooks the way you do. As I pointed out, people don’t pay for 80% of the ebooks they download, and the other 20% is filled with best sellers. Essentially, there is nothing in the facts to indicate that ebooks are going to change publishing, other than perhaps replacing the already dying mass market. Time will tell. I think epublishing has so many native advantages it will eventually destroy publishing. Give it another decade or two. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/104 "2011-10-25T15:22:14Z")
I found this article by David Pogue interesting. It is supposed to be about dropbox, but I found it more interesting for the insight about how he publishes his books. It looks like he hires his own editors for his books. [http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/dropbox-will-simplify-your-life/?scp=4&sq=david%20pogue&st=cse](http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/dropbox-will-simplify-your-life/?scp=4&sq=david%20pogue&st=cse) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/105 "2011-10-25T15:55:25Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Really? Ebook publishers can FORCE hapless readers to buy their books? I had no idea! I need to rethink my marketing plan. “HALT! Buy my book so I can have more egoboo!” Evidently. Because that’s what 99% of all ebooks are, as the sales figures I quoted indicate. Authors certainly aren’t making money on them, no matter how much they promote them. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/106 "2011-10-25T16:05:15Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > The market is already threatening traditional publishing As Hartwell said, it isn’t. Traditional publishing is doing as well as it always has. Ebooks are not cannibalizing sales. If you say otherwise, let’s see the facts to back up your assertion. > [@](#): > > the question is, can ebook publishers follow through on that threat? I think over time we will. I also think the structure will change over time, I’m not sure how, but I am pretty sure New York will lose its influence over the publishing industry over time. You can be sure of whatever you want, but there is no evidence that ebooks are changing anything. I’m dealing with facts, not religion. > [@](#): > > Time will tell. I think epublishing has so many native advantages it will eventually destroy publishing. Give it another decade or two. I know you think that. Problem is, you’re dealing with your belief, and not the facts. I’m providing actual evidence of what ebooks are doing today; you just have a mystical belief that they’re The Wave of the Future®, but nothing but your belief to back that up. The facts remain that ebooks have done nothing to change the model. People just aren’t rushing out to buy ebooks from unknown authors: it’s either free PD work, or mainstream best sellers that are also in bookstores. Publishers are including ebooks, but they are not a threat to their sales of hard copy books. The ultimate result is that any ebooks that don’t have the imprint of a major publisher are going to get lost among the 400,000 ebooks released each year. I’ve shown you the facts. Let’s see what facts you can provide. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/107 "2011-10-25T16:57:57Z")
From James Altucher: > [@](#): > > I had a built-in audience of a million people. So I decided to do another book. Pam couldnt buy it. I was a failure now at Wiley so they passed. Penguin picked it up. I forget the exact advance now but it was somewhere between $80,000-$100,000. If I ever told you it was more than that, I probably lied on purpose. > > The book was set for publication in December, 2008. I begged them to wait. Nobody was going to buy a book about stocks called “The Forever Portfolio” in the worst bear market in history. Nobody. But they had to do it. it was on the schedule. I had written the book almost a year earlier. The world had been different. But this is why book publishing in the finance space in particular is going to slowly disappear. Ebooks and ebook publishers will take down every single traditional finance book publisher. Its inevitable. (If you want to publish an efinance book, call me and if its good I’ll give you an advance and publish it online myself within 2 weeks). > > So the book flopped. The publisher would barely return my calls. In total it sold 1598 copies. All my other books had been priced from $40-70 but I wanted to do a cheap one so this was priced around $20. But it still flopped. People were worried whether or not they were going to survive. Not what stocks they should buy for “Forever”. The goddamn stock market was going down 300 points a day. [http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/why-i-write-books-even-though-ive-lost-money-on-every-book-ive-written/](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/why-i-write-books-even-though-ive-lost-money-on-every-book-ive-written/) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/108 "2011-10-25T18:02:54Z")
If you’re saying that major publishers make mistakes and sometimes screw up books, that’s nothing new. As I’ve said, it’s a crapshoot; you can never be sure of what’s going to be successful and sometimes there are factors that cause bad decisions. In the example above, the publisher had invested $100k in the book and couldn’t sit on that investment indefinitely. They could have waited another couple of years and it still would have flopped. Altucher takes one particular example and extrapolates based upon fact-free assumptions. And you can bet if he did this as an e-book, he would not have had $100k in the bank and been able to afford to self-publish. Also, without traditional publishers, no one would ever have bought his self-published work, since no one would have heard of him. The facts remain that ebooks are not hurting sales of hardcopy books, that there are 400,000 of them published each year, and only a handful make any money for their authors. How on Earth is this good for the author (other than egoboo)? Now, I will ask the question that I’ve been asking for years about music, and which I’ve never had anyone give me an answer that would prove their claims. It’s several questions this time: 1. Do you own an ebook reader? 2. Count the books you have on it. How many are free works? How many did you pay for? How many of those you paid for were from an self-published author? How many of those were from people who you didn’t meet, either face-to-face or online? The last question is important, because in order to succeed as an author, you need to sell your books to people who don’t know you at all. I’m betting no one who claims that ebooks are the future will answer these questions honestly (My answers, BTW are Yes, I have an ereader and 100% of the books on it were free). ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/109 "2011-10-25T19:14:45Z")
I’d add two questions: How many paper books did you buy in the year before you got the e-reader, and how many did you buy this year? I ask these because I don’t have an e-reader (though I’m likely to get one soon) and I also don’t buy books. I’m in a stage of my life where I can’t store any more books, and get all my reading material from the library. With an e-reader, I’d probably continue to read free stuff and get them from the library, but I might actually buy books I wouldn’t in paper. Though I can’t really say until I’ve had the thing for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Implicit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Implicit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Implicit)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/110 "2011-10-25T20:07:26Z")
I’m a voracious reader (100+ books a year) who got a kindle in March. Prior to that I never bought new books. Really. I utilized the library or bought used books very cheaply at garage sales/libraries or had people pass on books to me. There was no way for me to manage the storage of all the books I read so I never kept any books, I passed them on, exchanged them, or donated them. Since I got the kindle I have indeed downloaded many free public domain books. Once I’ve read the ones that appeal to me, I’ll still have my kindle and need more books to consume. Plus variety is the spice of life. I’ve sprinkle in one classic every 3 or 4 books. The question is, where am I finding those other books? Now that I’m hooked on my kindle, dead tree books are not appealing at all. So, I have started buying ebooks. I’ve bought the most recent books in series I’ve been following, or award winning books that have been recommended to me. The other books I’ve bought have been early works by authors I’ve discovered along the way that I can now find and receive instantly. eReaders will change the game since **nothing will ever be out of print**. It won’t just be classics that people with eReaders gravitate to, they’ll reread favourite authors or go looking for early works or those they missed the first time around. It will take years for people to work through that backlog. Those self-published authors aren’t just competing with each other and new books by published authors, they are competing with every book ever published. In that kind of environment serious authors will be looking for any edge and the publishers are positioned well because of their influence with sellers and reviewers. The best parallel for the book industry is apt to be the movie industry, while independent films can breakthrough, usually it is the mainstream studios that produce the hits. Studios didn’t disappear once people could make their own movies. Publishing catalogs and their stable of writers will be a valuable asset as eReaders gain popularity. The focus may change, the technology and timing will change, and pricing/revenue models need to change, but publishing isn’t threatened with extinction. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/111 "2011-10-25T20:40:13Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Also, without traditional publishers, no one would ever have bought his self-published work, since no one would have heard of him. FTA: > [@](#): > > One time, a friend of mine was pitching the same publisher a book. I don’t know who she was talking to. They didn’t know she knew me. She asked them, “what did you do to market James Altucher’s book.” They said, “we got him a review in the Financial Times, an excerpt published in [thestreet.com](http://thestreet.com), and we got him on CNBC.” She called me right afterward and told me this and we both laughed. I wrote my own review in the FT! I was at [thestreet.com](http://thestreet.com) and got the excerpt there. And I had been doing a weekly spot on CNBC for years and talked my own book there. I personally don’t care for James Altucher very much but he is a relentless marketer. He writes on the Freakonomics blog, he writes on the TechCrunch blog, he writes answers of Quora, just the other day, a close friend of mine shared an article of his on Facebook. Without wanting to, I’ve been exposed to him at least a dozen times from at least 4 different sources. As for the answer to your questions: - I own an iPad with the kindle app on it - I have 22 books on there - 17 of them are paid - I’ve met the author of one of them, but only a few years after I bought the book - 3 were because of a book club I attend, 4 were as a result of reading a mention in a media source, 5 were the result of me having read a previous work by the author before ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/112 "2011-10-25T21:04:41Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Yep, again. I get 10% for hard copies and 50% for eBooks, and the eBooks still only net me a few cents each vs. a couple of dollars each for hard copies. A few cents and a couple of dollars aren’t very exact numbers, so I’m making some guesses here. But, if your 10% of the price of a hard cover gets you $2-3, then it must be selling for $20-30. And if you’re making \< $1 per eBook, it must be selling for less than $2? Somewhere in here the math doesn’t add up. There are a few eBooks that are priced low, but the standard eBook price is around $10 or so. How are you only making a few cents per sale if you get 50%? > [@Eve](#): > > And everyone else’s publishers are screwing them, too; that’s how the business works now. Maybe in ten years when books and bookstores no longer exist, publishers will have to divvy up more money to the author for eBooks. How is this an argument _for_ the traditional publishing industry? It seems to me that if the publishers weren’t there to screw with you, you wouldn’t have to rely on their good graces to get a higher percentage of what you earn. I don’t agree with the idea that the quality filtering function that publishers traditionally have served requires a gatekeeper role. There’s no reason that the filtering can’t be performed after the fact. The fact is that publishers used to have a competitive advantage based on the capital costs of book production, and that advantage is rapidly eroding. If they go away, it’s not going to be because there was no one out there to take 90% of earnings in exchange for fronting money for editors, artists, promotions and connections to reviewers and booksellers. It’s going to be because new authors don’t think that’s worth 90% any more. I think they’re right. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/113 "2011-10-25T21:24:04Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The facts remain that ebooks are not hurting sales of hardcopy books, that there are 400,000 of them published each year, and only a handful make any money for their authors. How on Earth is this good for the author (other than egoboo)? Amazon, clearly a significant market, is selling more ebooks than hardcover books. [Cite.](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/technology/20kindle.html) It is clear that paper books are going to be as dead as LPs in five years or so, and I say this as someone without an e-reader, and who is quite happy reading my backlog of real books or getting them from the library. With a few more improvements in technology, there will be precious little reason to have a hardcopy. You can already check ebooks out at our library. If ebooks mean self-published books, then I totally agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/114 "2011-10-25T21:32:16Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > A few cents and a couple of dollars aren’t very exact numbers, so I’m making some guesses here. But, if your 10% of the price of a hard cover gets you $2-3, then it must be selling for $20-30. And if you’re making \< $1 per eBook, it must be selling for less than $2? Somewhere in here the math doesn’t add up. There are a few eBooks that are priced low, but the standard eBook price is around $10 or so. How are you only making a few cents per sale if you get 50%? As Eve is the closest thing we have to a celebrity around here, we can actually figure this out for her. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr\_nr\_p\_n\_feature\_browse-b\_mrr\_2?rh=k%3Aeve+golden%2Cn%3A283155%2Cp\_n\_feature\_browse-bin%3A618073011&bbn=283155&keywords=eve+golden&ie=UTF8&qid=1319578197&rnid=618072011](http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse-b_mrr_2?rh=k%3Aeve+golden%2Cn%3A283155%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011&bbn=283155&keywords=eve+golden&ie=UTF8&qid=1319578197&rnid=618072011) If her eBook royalty is 50%, she gets between $5 and $16 per book. Much better than the $2-$3 of a hardcover book. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/115 "2011-10-25T23:25:35Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It’s good for the author in the sense that their egos won’t get hurt by rejection. But not in any sense of making money from their writing. The mark of a professional in any field is the ability to face a full-on assault from the arbiters of what’s good, take from the experience what you can use, and keep working without empathy for your own hurt. If you can’t hear _no_ ten times loudly, you’re not ready for _yes_. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/116 "2011-10-25T23:49:39Z")
> [@Implicit](#): > > Now that I’m hooked on my kindle, dead tree books are not appealing at all. But you have no desire for coffee-table books packed with lovely photos or paintings? Or grand old second-hand store books that will never be available in any other format? Those are what I thrive on, I guess it is all a matter of what you like. Also, when a friend writes a book, I like to have a signed copy on my shelf . . . as I like to sign copies of \*my \*new books and send them to friends. [I shredded my most recent royalty statement, so I cannot argue hard copy vs. ebook royalties . . . though I am quite willing to admit I am an idiot with numbers . . .] ---
**Author:** ![Implicit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Implicit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Implicit)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680/117 "2011-10-25T23:58:41Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > But you have no desire for coffee-table books packed with lovely photos or paintings? Nope. > [@](#): > > Or grand old second-hand store books that will never be available in any other format? Soon those will be scanned and available digitally. Old books will have new life. > [@](#): > > Those are what I thrive on, I guess it is all a matter of what you like. I love books, so I set them free. > [@](#): > > Also, when a friend writes a book, I like to have a signed copy on my shelf . . . as I like to sign copies of \*my \*new books and send them to friends. A friend is having her first book (I did the first read/edit) published by Penguin in January, I’ll be buying a couple of dozen copies and gifting them to people. I never claimed that other people won’t still want dead tree books, but I’ll be buying a copy for my kindle if that’s available. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-demise-of-traditional-publishing-is-the-best-outcome-for-authors/598680.md?page=5)