I’m sorry (okay, no I’m not), but I need a nice comfy spot and a bag of popcorn. I am one of the biggest advocates you’ll find for all things literary; especially when it comes to African-American books & authors, but the last few weeks have taken me over the edge. The literary industry is REALLY going through some things and either I’m left in awe with my mouth hanging open, or I’m pissed the hell off or I’m ready to grab a bag of popcorn and just watch it all, because truly it’s just a movie or something and I simply don’t realize it.
It is absolutely craziness going on in the world many of us have engrossed ourselves in for years, leaving us to fight battles & pick sides when there are truly more important things going on. This is the literary industry, right?
How in the world has it come down to this? Yesterday, I was finally able to post my thoughts (after almost 2 weeks of trying to take the Angry Black Woman out of my words) concerning the whole Bloomsbury issue of telling POC they don’t matter enough to put us on the covers of books about us (my words, not theirs; though I am using their actions to help me come to this conclusion), but instead they slap a white girl on the covers of not one book, but two in the span of 6 months.
Then, this weekend, our good ole friend Amazon.com has a hissy-fit over not being able to decide the price of eBooks and pulls Macmillian titles (and their imprints) from the site, only to turn around a day later and say you win, we’ll put them back since we would pretty much be useless without any books (again, my words, not theirs).
This is absolutely ridiculous!
What is going on in the industry? At what point do authors, agents, advocates and the likes just say forget about it? Mainstream publishing is supposed to be better right?
Makes you wonder…was this a set-up from the beginning? A publicity stunt? Did Amazon seriously think they could have a say in the price publishers set for books? They didn’t think the other publishers & authors would stand on Macmillans side? Or were they more concerned with trying to get the attention off the iPad?
And, in all this…what about the authors? What about those readers who went looking on Amazon for books that were not there? Why weren’t the authors, agents & editors told by their publisher before they had to find out about it on a social network? On the news?
Absolutely unbelievable! All of it…
-Tee
as a macmillan published author, i’ve been left dizzy by what’s gone on these last few days. at first, i thought all my books had been taken out of print and no one had bothered to tell me LOL.
as a consumer of books (though i haven’t actually bought an ebook) i can certainly understand amazon’s stance. i can also understand what macmillan is trying to do (keep from devaluaing the price of hardcover books). as an author on a contract, i just feel caught in the middle. admittedly, authors don’t get paid a whole lot of money for the sale of an actual book and even less for an ebook. i’ve only recently begun seeing my books published as ebooks, so it’s all new to me.
apple’s ibooks will give publishers more leverage in setting the price of their books. will consumers really be willing to pay $3-5 more simply because they went out and buy an ipad? will they pass on our ebooks because there is a $10 ebook available for another book from another publisher? it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out. but i’m glad they’re putting the pay button back on our books. like most authors, i use amazon to guage how my books are doing. it’s not the best way for the authors to get a read on their standing in the industry, as amazon rankings aren’t really always that accurate, but it’s all we have.
I hear you, J. D., I hear you.
oh, and just to add…that really was a childish move by amazon to suddenly “yank” down all our books. i thought they could’ve used a different approach in their protest. they acted like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.
I thought Amazon was on crack for while there. How you you just arbitrarily remove books from you website like that?
Exactly! They say they are pro consumer and all, but if there is REALLY such a big deal over the price and wanting to help us out, why don’t they eat the loss and sell the book at the price they want to, despite what they get it for the publisher for? Or what about their discount? They could give that up too, huh?
The whole “I’m going to show them” was not a smart move; especially since it harmed the author first and foremost.
-Tee
I’ve already commented on the cover issue so I’m not oging to say anything else about that but the e-book thing. Maybe I have it wrong but I’m sorry an e-book should not cost more than $10 because teh author has to get paid but I’m sure the overhead isn’t as much as a physical copy in my hand. The publishing houses are off the mark on this one. Some people will continue to buy the book at the increased price because they have the handy Kindle or Nook and they need books for it but eventually you’re like forget it. I can use a coupon at Borders and get the physical book cheaper.
from my understanding, the publisher is concerned with books published in hardcover that sell for a higher price, versus that same book being released as an ebook (at the same time) for a much lower price.
i’ve been told that publishers want to delay the release of ebooks for hardcover books until the hard cover is replaced by the paperback version (usually a year later). like stephen king said (adrienne byrd told me this) you dno’t release the dvd while the movie is still in theaters.
i think that’s the issue here for publishers. i think they want to recoup what the pay to publish hard cover books, before the ebook is released. i’m not sure, though. i’m confused by it all.
JD, I could be wrong too, but this is what I think the issue is, too. If a book only comes out as a trade paperback, it’s not as big of an issue. But, to have ebooks come out at the same time as the hardcover ($20-$25) set at the $9.99 rate is a disservice to the author who is already NOT getting enough in the way of royalties for the book THEY wrote. What about the readers, too? Yes, you have your hardcore booklovers who love hardcover books, but I don’t see too many folks running out to get a hardcover if the ebook is available for half the price.
Yeah, yeah, there’s Amazon and the publisher, but my favor lies with the author, then the reader.
Now, I am NOT saying I’m going to pay $15 for an ebook because I’m not. Especially if the hardcover is released first. While I understand production cost and all, but if the book is already out in hardcover or trade paperback, what are the new expenses for the ebook? It’s already edited, marketed and the cover is there. So, what…is there a program which converts the manuscript to eBook?
Or is this just about somebody being greedy, somebody else thinking I’m running things or neither? I dunno, but I sure am getting cynical over the whole thing. Don’t get me to start talking about royalty rates on eBooks. Amazon also plans to offer 70% royalties for ebooks, but with strings attached — http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/amazon-offers-new-70-roya_n_429651.html.
::::going to pop more popcorn::::
-Tee
The reason that the publishing industry is going through these woes and upheavals is, in my opinion, that the brick and mortar (B&M) business model has been rendered obsolete. Amazon, which has no financial interest in that model and would love to see it vanish altogether, is prepared to roll with the times. Macmillan and other big publishers are trying to keep it viable. I believe that to be a losing battle.
The main elements of the B&M business model are: 1) moderate to large print runs, 2) marketing of books to physical bookstores, 3) acceptance of returns by bookstores for refund within an agreed-on window of time. Consequences of this include: 1) pricing that incorporates the built-in inefficiency of accepting returns for refund, 2) low royalties paid to authors because there isn’t a lot of room for generosity in all that (and because publishers hold the whip hand and can get away with it), 3) control of all mainstream publishing by commercial publishing houses because of the expense involved; 4) a limited (and generally short) time for any published book to be considered a “success,” beyond which it’s considered a “failure.”
A different model would work best with even print books marketed on-line, let alone e-books. On-line distribution lends itself to print-on-demand methods rather than mass-printing. Also, there doesn’t need to be any return mechanism built in for the wholesaler/retailer as there does with a physical bookstore. This by itself can allow lowering of prices for books as well as increase of the time-for-success window. With e-books of course that change is even more extreme, because e-book production and storage costs are trivial. It’s possible to profitably market an e-book at a much lower price than a hardcover, or even a paperback (one can find independently published e-books today for as low as 99 cents, and people are actually making money on them).
At the same time, there’s another change on the other end, the relationship between writers and publishers. It’s no longer true that writers have to go through publishing houses in order to publish their work. (Well, it was never true, but it used to cost a lot of money to do it other ways; now it costs nothing.) Nowadays, while it remains true that no writer is guaranteed success, any writer can be published. There’s nothing to it.
What I believe all of this means for the future of commercial publishing companies is that they’re going to have to lose a whole lot of arrogance, and start offering more to both readers and writers. For readers, they are going to have to accept the changes that have come with new technologies, and offer a lot of reading material of a diverse nature at reasonable prices. For writers, they are going to have to give writers a better deal, because they no longer hold the whip hand. They are competing now with the rising small-press and e-publishing houses, as well as with the opportunities for self-publishing, and will have to give writers a reason why they should share a portion of their revenues with the publishing house. A good publishing house can offer editing and marketing that may be well worth giving up a small share of the revenue, but the only way the very small royalties currently offered can possibly be justified is if a writer simply has no alternative, and that’s increasingly not the case.
Brian, I had to put my popcorn down to applaud this reply. Thank you so much for stopping through and sharing your thoughts. I am so with you and loved this part:
What I believe all of this means for the future of commercial publishing companies is that they’re going to have to lose a whole lot of arrogance, and start offering more to both readers and writers. For readers, they are going to have to accept the changes that have come with new technologies, and offer a lot of reading material of a diverse nature at reasonable prices. For writers, they are going to have to give writers a better deal, because they no longer hold the whip hand. They are competing now with the rising small-press and e-publishing houses, as well as with the opportunities for self-publishing, and will have to give writers a reason why they should share a portion of their revenues with the publishing house.
Yes, yes, yes! I’m all for authors getting picked up by major publishers and getting paid for their work, but I will never agree with an author just accepting whatever just to be “published”. And, I think many of them should just stand up and say no thanks.
-Tee
Wow, at the moment I’m at a loss for words. As my mind tries to consume and understand what is happening, all I keep saying is Wow!!!!
I totally understand, Jaime. And sadly, I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Authors who are great writers are losing contracts, folks are using the economy as a scapegoat, great books are being rejected and told they’re “not marketable”. It’s a sad, sad time!
-Tee
In my opinion, and don’t anybody blow me up because of this, I think if the hardcover and ebook are released at the same time, they should be the same price. Otherwise, like was mentioned earlier, the ebook should come out later (with the lower price) when the paperback is released. I know this means that the reader will pay more for the electronic version, but it really took the same effort to produce both from the writer. I just think it’s fair compensation.
Brenda, I’ma have to disagree with you on this one. Yes, I do believe the author should be compensated, but a hardcover and ebook releasing at the same time are not equal when it comes to price (royalties the author earns, the amount the publisher spends to produce them, or the ending price.) As Candace already said, it takes so much more to produce that printed book than it does to do the eBook, so to me, they should not be the same price if released the same day.
I guess it’s really in what’s important for a reader? Personally, I love my Sony Reader and the ability to carry around books so easily, but it would have to be an emergency for me to pay hardcover price for an ebook. I’d rather have the book. (Now your method would mean the author would more than likely make more money off an ebook–but even that, I’m doubting is going to be in their favor now with all the electronic devices coming out. Publishers are no longer going to want the split to be in the author’s favor and definitely are not going to let authors keep their electronic rights. And this is another thing… SMH.
I’ll save that for the next post in this series..
-Tee
Tee,
The cost is dramatically reduced to produce an e-book, which is why publishers should take that into account when offering royalty rates.
There is a process to convert from a typeset book to the Kindle format, which takes about 2 hours. (from InDesign).
For the other e-books, I believe all you have to do is supply a typeset PDF.
It’s greed, pure and simple. However, I think Amazon is being just as greedy.
I want to do a poll and find out anonymously if necessary what authors are getting for their ebook royalties. I’ve seen contracts with 10% in them? Unbelievable!
-Tee
I am of the opinion that this is old fashioned play or get off the pot, kind of messaging, years ago in B-school one of the first things I learned was to show them what’s up. Amazon knew they couldnt do it without those books, but the power is in showing that we can make you see what we are capable of. Childish, oh yes, unfair, for sure, but powerful, absolutely, and that is the name of the game in the world in which we live, be that literary or otherwise~ jmo
angelia
Tee,
I dont even think the authors were considered. Amazon knows better than most that authors are losing contracts hither and yon and they saw a way, albeit a nasty one to capitialize on that. They know they can grab up quick profits and when they get tired they can stop. Much the way that did a couple years ago with Amazon Shorts, they allowed any author with a book on Amazon to participate. With the rates of return for a 49 cent book being nothing unless you sold a gazillion. As such once they got all the ‘traditional’ authors, read the James Pattersons, et al. onboard, it was no longer open to any author. Check, match, game~
angelia
Ummm hmmm! I like Amazon and I shop there A LOT, but it’s almost like they not only want to be the distributor, wholesaler or bookseller, they want to own the rights and that is a whole notha thing.
This post (by an author) sums it up nicely:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/01/amazon-macmillan-an-outsiders.html
And it also amazes me that not many authors are in uproar over this. It just makes me wonder at what point you say ENOUGH!
-Tee
That author is exactly right, but what I knew for sure is that sometimes in this game we have to make a thing work for us. That is what I did with amazon shorts, I wrote short story, GAVE IT TO AMAZON~ they sold it for 49 cents, I sold a bunch, never recieved a dime, but what they didnt count on and I knew out the gate that many of those who bought that story that I would have given away for nothing, came back to purchase other works, it was a vehicle, and damn it, if I am getting in the car, I plan to drive at least sometimes~
angelia
I heard that, Angelia! And, I see your point clearly. I totally agree with doing things in your best interest, always! Authors deserve to be paid for their work and to benefit the most, in my mind. They are the ones who wrote it.
I am having a major issue with Amazon acting like the victim when THEY pulled the books, ebook AND print books. Sometimes we start believing our own hype and I think this is the case. Yes, they’re a wealthy company with hands in everything…shoot, I bought more items than I cared to admit over the last few months, but still…I don’t see how they thought they could dictate what a publisher sets as the price of a book (whether right or wrong). Other than the author, the publisher is the one who takes all the risks, who fronts the money and who, at times is more greedy than necessary, but for a wholesaler/bookseller to try to strong arm them? Oh uh uh….that’s kinda dumb. (Oh and then tell them, you can’t sell to anyone but me, too?) ROFL…they have lost their minds.
Tee,
I do believe they have lost their minds and this coming from a woman who purchases books, tea, makeup and so many other things and have been a teeny weeny stockholder since 1999. But what they are doing is an epidemic, everyone from major banks, to car dealerships, to politicians play the victim these day, we live in a oh poor me world no matter how RICH AND POWERFUL poor me is. We live in the RICHEST poor me country in the world~ sheesh~
It is probably ten percent which equates to one dollar for every ten dollar but if you publish directly through them for the same 10.00 you can now get 7.50 cents per book! THEY ARE TRYING TO BE KING OF THE WORLD
Tee C. both of us were sitting on the couch with popcorn watching how this movie was going to play out. However, let me shed a few points about ebooks and the cost to create them.
1. The issue isn’t about trade paperback books. It’s about dynamic pricing, a basic microeconmics price point high enough to be viable in the marketplace that can be teared down through time to a lower final clearance fee. Publishing houses have been asking for a higher price point on ebooks from Amazon for years, so publishing houses tabled the discussion for later. With the announcement of the iPad and the fact that DRM isn’t consumer friendly, publishers have decided to start this conversation again.
2. Ebooks cost money to produce. Outside of upfront development costs to pay for the main professionals that produce a book: editor, commercial artist, typesetter, copyeditor, proofreader, marcomm(advertising, pr, etc) you also have to pay someone to convert the book into an automated Ebook version. Amazon uses Kindle, Barnes uses ePub.
People said the same thing about the cost of a single when iTunes came out. Now people spend more than that on ringtones. For authors I would be concerned about Amazon’s plan to have a price ceiling. If it continues, then dynamic pricing will leave little room for Author’s to be paid for their stories. I’m very confident that my daughter will be using an e-reader and an iPad type device as a normal tool, since they use netbooks and kindles now. think five years from now. how much will you as an author make if the ebook price drops to $4 during the holidays like they did this past year? will there be a bigger bite out of your royalty?
For readers–especially lovers of African-American contemporary fiction– you should ask yourself this, what stories will be available to us? Most AA authors can barely make ends meet in the industry as it is now. Authors relationships with publishers rest on our preorder sales and first printing sales numbers, including e-books for hardbacks. If we continue to only support discount bookstores, wholesellers like Amazon and Sams Clubs, then will publishing houses continue to invest in our voices? Will we drive our writers out of the marketplace? Aren’t we shooting our foot to spite our leg?
somehow i deleted part of my comment. let me edit it here:
1. The issue isn’t about trade paperback books. It’s about dynamic pricing, a basic microeconmics term, where product developers (in this case publishing houses) set a price point high enough to be viable in the marketplace that can be teared down through time to a lower final clearance cost. Publishing houses have been asking for a higher price point on ebooks from Amazon for years, but there hadn’t been a strong interest in ebook sales, so publishing houses tabled the discussion for later. With the announcement of the iPad and the fact that DRM isn’t consumer friendly, publishers have decided to start this conversation again. Perhaps if the Nook had a higer price point for their ebooks this efight would have started sooner.
I get all this, Dee, but I don’t think many people know all the sides of this. I still think Amazon threw a hissy fit and acted in a way that hurt authors who had no say so in the matter. That alone is enough for me to raise an eyebrow or two. It’s like when they went in and removed books from Kindles later year, from folks who had purchased them. What? You do NOT have the authority to do just any ole thing because you think you lead the market. But, that’s just my opinion.
-Tee
i agree. Amazon wanted to show its muscle to MacMillan. If they cared about us-the customer, they would have issued a statement about the pull down. It bothered me that they were willing to risk customers for a catfight.
+
Exactly! And that it’s still going on. That’s just poor customer service, not to mention Bezos has yet to issue a statement. Did you see the Macmillan ad though?
That was alot of good info Dee. This whole thing with Amazon was just crazy. As far as readers are concerned, I don’t think there’s a way to stop people from getting books from Amazon,other discount book stores, or Sam’s Club. Readers aren’t thinking about how they may be driving their favorite author out of the business when they see a $25 hardcover for $15 at their local Wal-mart or Sam’s Club or when they can use the gazillion coupons that Border’s offers. This reminds me of when people talk about supporting our rapidly disappearing AA book stores.People want to get things as quickly and cheaply as possible. I’ll even take it a step further, why even go into a brick & mortar at all when you can get hardcover books from Book-of-the-Month online club ( formerly Zooba) for $9.95 free shipping. I’m sure authors really don’t get any money from that either.
Hey, Radiah!
Authors normally don’t get royalties from the Book Club sales, but they do get an advance.
As someone said earlier (either here or another board), B&M stores are really taking a hit with places like Amazon and with ebooks and technology for them on the rise.
-Tee
Thanks for posting this article, Tee. I had not been following Amazon’s hissy fit. I think that e-books should be cheaper, and for this reason, it seems fair to release them after the hardcover release. Having said that, what about the preferences of the reader? I have not jumped into the whole e-reader thing, and don’t see myself doing so anytime soon as I like the feel of a book in my hands. But, should readers who prefer the electronic format have to wait…for a year, to get the book in electronic format?
No, I don’t think they should have to wait. Some have speculated that since eBooks are cheaper, customers are more likely to buy them — once they buy the Kindle, Sony Reader, etc. Some of the makers are getting smart in that they are developing desktop platforms and phone apps. It’s getting interesting. You will always have those die-hard gotta have a book people, but ebooks are not going away.
-Tee
Now just imagine how we the average reader feels. Book prices go down but so does variety. Publishers and major book stores are telling us how to think and how to read all in the name of their bottom line. And those that do not have a look at the inner world just sit and womder were the heck to all the literature go. I can not blame an author for not writing (at least not publishing) if they just can not get paid for it. They have to live put food on their tables and sometimes it is just not cost effective to do it for the love of writing. Hell I would love to quit my job and throw myself into the lit world and really get BBW Reviews (my other passion) to where I would love for it to be but my babies like to eat and go to the doctor.
But what can I do. I can’t stop technology, I can’t change the cost of publishing, if it was not for conversations like this I would be clueless. So I just sit back and see hope I will not completely lose good black literature because they do not think it will sell in these changing times.
Your last sentence is exactly why I’ve been a bit frustrated with the industry over the last year or so. It amazes me how great books are rejected, but the agent or author is told “it’s a good book, but not marketable.” Now, I understand things shift in the industry, but when I look at some of the stuff published and the rejected work, all I can do is shake my head. How does something become marketable anyway? Somebody takes a chance on it…
Macmillan is the first but if this is going to work in their favor, the other publishers have to be on board too. This argument really took off with the ipad announcement but Google is coming out as an ebook reseller too and from what I understand, they will offer publishers a business model similar to what apple offers. If that holds true then Amazon will be forced to get with the program.
O, and agents are already gearing up to start demanding bigger royalties on ebooks for authors.
Authors get up to 40% with the e-publishers I don’t know why you shouldn’t get the same from the big publishers as well.
I’m going to set up a poll on royalty rates because this amazes me. I’ve seen contracts as low as 20% and as high as 50%, but for my clients, I request 50% or that the client retains those rights. Granted, I very seriously doubt I could get a publisher to agree to it now.
There’s so much drama going on right now that sometimes it seems like we’re living the pages of a drama-packed book.
Authors seem to be stuck in the middle. I’m hoping with Amazon’s decision to re-instate MacMillian, that it won’t happen again with another publisher.
Saying you’re going to reinstate and actually doing it appears to be two different things, Shelia. A lot of the books still don’t have the Buy Now links…almost a week later.
-Tee
Sad to see. They are losing money themselves so that was a bad business decision on their part.
And for those still on board with this discussion…here’s another post, from an author affected. http://www.jlake.com/2010/02/02/publishing-an-open-letter-to-kindle-enthusiasts-and-ebook-activists
-Tee
I know Amazon is full of itself because last summer I got caught up in their little “accidental” delisting of erotic books. Supposedly it was accidental but I still think it’s more than a bit peculiar that it was so specific to gay and erotic books. I don’t think we’ve heard the whole story, but as someone who primarily writes e-books I’m glad to welcome a new player to the party.
Ladies these past few weeks in the Literary world have made me less than enthusiastic about even wanting to publish..that whole white folks on the cover thing…BURNED me up.