The Future of Publishing
The Future of Publishing
Basic premise: assuming civilisation continues along broadly the same course, there will be increasing numbers of people wishing to (a) fulfil themselves (b) via self-expression, many of them (c) choosing to write.
Consequently, there will be more and more people:
· learning the rules (university courses, correspondence courses)
· producing competent, even good, books
· unable to find a publisher
· joining on-line writing communities
Here is where it gets interesting. There seems to me an opening for such communities to arrange publishing-on-demand for good material.
Here is where it also gets tricky. Where you have an opening you have a problem. Who decides what is good material? Answer: the boss(es) of the site. This will inevitably cause plenty of backbiting, bitching and flouncing off, but not so much as if the decisions were made ‘democratically’ (= lining up your pals).
The crucial aspect would be the bottom line. MemberX might think he has written a wonderful book, but if very few people buy the published-on-demand result, it will fall by the wayside. On the other hand, MemberY might get good sales, spreading out to Amazon, and alerting conventional publishers and bookshops.
This would be a sort of Authonomy-with-teeth. Instead of fellow members pretending to like a book, they would prove it with money.
Conventional publishers and bookshops, fearing a shift of power, would be likely to monitor such developments, thereby giving ever increasing power to the writing community bosses.
To reiterate: this is based on the premise that
more and more people will want to fulfil themselves via
writing.
The situation provides, I think, quite an opening for an
entrepreneur. I am not that entrepreneur but am willing to take a
small rake-off for providing these ideas.
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55 Comments
With the advent of the Internet, couldn't self-publishing be a much more realistic route to success? What's needed is an organised online market, to get authors and readers in the same place.
Unfortunately I am no bussinessman.
Perhaps it may be worth you examining Holly lisles "rebels tales" publishing somethingorother. I feel it may posses similar ideas.
The above snatch of conversation, by the way, is based on real life experience. In the early Eighties I took along my recently invented board game, 'Sprint Finish', to Waddingtons in Leeds. The receptionist sent for the Idiot Deflector who sat me down and proceeded to deflect. "Well, we already use this aspect is this game, and we use that aspect in that game... Putting them all together, you say, well we do something like that in the other game" and so on...)
So we'd play 'Sprint Finish' at home. Good game. It was the era of Coe, Ovett and Cram. We sure put on some sprint finishes. We broke a few world records too. Then I came up with the Decathlon version - well, it was era of Daley Thompson. Hurdles, shot putt, high jump. Cracking stuff.
Than along came computer games.
I think you're right to suggest that sites like Authonomy will prove inconsequential. The self-publishing model growing out of print-on-demand works because, as you say, people are still voting with their pockets. Maybe only ten years from now, publishing will be an altogether different concern. The one or two business initiatives that will trigger the tipping point may be among us now, just as Amazon was trading for some time before they became a household name.
Have you taken a look at Lulu? They're a print-on-demand company that provide many of the additional services of a publisher. They can offer you copy-editing, graphic design and other resources, if you want them. Or you can do everything yourself and just upload the final documents for printing. It's your decision. The only measure of success is the sales figure. They will register your book with the national library, so you get an ISBN, and they are linked to Amazon as a registered sub-contractor, so that you can immediately begin selling your book. You can control the pricing and perform the marketing, or once again you can buy services from them. They have links with organisations that can help you promote the book in multiple ways. The quality of the finished copy and binding exceeds that of some major publishers. And even printing one copy at a time, the cost is more than reasonable.
All round, Lulu are getting a reputation as a contender. I think we are at the stage where traditional publishers are beginning to think that they will have to take them seriously at some stage sooner or later. Just how soon is going to surprise them. They will react too late, and then they will over-react. I wonder if this revolution will play out parallel to the rise of Amazon. It took only ten years for them to dominate to such an extent that the bookseller chains were closing branches.
So the entrepreneur you are talking about may already exist. If not, she won't be long coming. In your blog, you don't really say whether you think this will be a good thing. I'm wondering myself. It will be different, that's for sure. It will change many things for the reader and the writer, for better, perhaps, and for worse. Interesting times.
I think the development of writing communities is interesting. This site has almost 3000 members. But isn't the most important thing to connect readers and writers directly?
So the judges of what's good should be readers, rather than fellow writers. As a reader, for any particular book I'd like to see the following: author's synopsis; some reviews from neutral reviewers; and an excerpt of the writing. I don't want to read the marketing twit's over-hyped description of how bloody marvellous the book is.
In terms of editing there would appear to be many people who are willing to help in this respect for little or no reward, in the same way that software communities chip in to produce free software that is as good as the commercially available equivalents.
Hopefully that sort of culture would create a greater variety of books and provide a fairer reward to authors.
Jules, I haven't looked at Lulu yet but it sounds like part of the future. I'd stress community publishing rather than self publishing, though, for reasons of quality control, as I said before. (By the way, Wrathnar's mention of bands is interesting because bands are small communities - the more people get involved the more chance there is of eliminating dross and accentuating quality.)
Community publishing a good thing? Emphatically yes, from my point of view as an ex-schoolteacher - I've always believed in lifelong learning and, as EmmD pointed out in another blog ('Opposing Views of Novel Writing'), education in recent decades has been about self-realisation and self-expression as well as about literacy. So, yes, free the masses! Let everyone discover their hidden talents (very hidden in some cases).
Ron B: I'm with you except for the matter of 'reviews from neutral reviewers'. How do we get those in the context of a writing community? Authonomy shows how self-interested reviews can be. I often turn to Amazon reviews, but there have been cases of naughty practice there as well. You're quite right about avoiding the hype, though (have just been to see the much hyped Harry Potter 7 - a playground for special effects morons - whizz!!! whoosh!!! wham!!! - who'd imagine there'd ever been any wit in the books?). Once you're in hype-land you can kiss goodbye to intelligence.
In terms of getting neutral reviews, one idea is to have (elect) a panel of readers. If you have a community of writers and a separate panel of readers perhaps more fairness is possible. There would need to be a mechanism for deciding which books are reviewed, by whom. A ranking system then becomes more meaningful.
The top books in the system could then receive input from a separate editing team.
It would all be voluntary to begin with, but if books are successful and make a profit, the authors would feed some of that back into the community, until readers and editors are all receiving some compensation for their efforts.
What do you think?
I'm interested in the relative lack of comment on this blog, especially from those who are usually in the publishing 'know'. It might mean indifference, of course, or it might mean they are already aware of something like this. Maybe it's already happening in embryo and we are just sniffing what's already in the air.
I don't know of any embryo community publishing projects, although I think there have been some in the past but they involved established writers.
What worries me is firstly selling the books when you've produced them, because it's bloody hard to do (as I've said endlessly on this site) and even more so if you're selling something written by first-timers. And it is just as hard to sell books by second-timers, third-timers, and so on. I have royalty statements which bear that out - books that have been in print for years and have yet to earn back their advance - and I'm not the only one. Amazon may have been going for ten years but did you know they have yet to make a profit? Also, you can have books on Amazon that don't sell a single copy because no one can find them or doesn't care about them when they do.
The other thing that worries me is the quality control aspect of it that has already been mentioned. It's been suggested that everyone could volunteer to do their bit during the editing process, but that once again raises the problem of quality control. Because editing a book involves a hell of a lot more than just checking the spellings and hoping to God that you've got the punctuation right. (And that can be difficult enough.) And it takes years to learn how to do it properly - both with fiction and non-fiction. I speak from experience here, I can assure you. I shudder when I look at some of the first books I edited.
You have to gain an overview of the book, which means it can't be edited by committee. It must be edited by one person, so they can make the beginning match the end and the middle in terms of flow, style, consistency, and so on. Books are sometimes edited by two people when the author delivers at the very last minute and there is a terrible panic. And the book aways suffers. For instance, an event may have been described twice, but each time slightly differently so there is a clash of information. Two or more editors wouldn't notice that. You must also have an editor's enquiring eye, so you don't take things on trust but you check them against a reliable source even if you think you already know they're correct. This may not apply in fantasy, although you must still make sure that the spacecraft described on page 5 continues to be blue and doesn't suddenly become pink because the author forgot to check its colour. But it does apply in other types of fiction. Have I mentioned before the novel which featured American GIs in London in 1940? The editor pointed out to the author that they wouldn't have been there because America didn't enter the war until 1941. The author was furious and refused to change it. The editor refused to work with the author again. All hell was let loose. Imagine having to sort out something like that when there is no third party (the publisher) to intercede. Imagine spotting it in the first place.
Good luck to you all, but I do think you need to look at this from every angle, as you are already discussing. It's a business proposition so must be looked at from that perspective. Otherwise it would be easy to end up out of pocket. And even more disillusioned than some of you are already.
I am slinking away now …
You ask why hasn't this blog attracted more attention. I think it takes time for people to take on board 'change'. And although Spangles raises some pertinent issues that would need to be addressed, it is also true that for those who enjoy a comfortable position within the current system, any change may cause concern.
Did you have in mind any rough idea of 'size' for such a publishing community?
I think the concept is excellent. And as I see it, I'm not sure that it needs an entrepreneur, but rather some enthusiastic individuals with a shared vision.
That's life, I think, enthusiasm and economics in a state of creative tension. Others may think differently - which is all to the good - thesis and antithesis can occasionally produce a decent synthesis.
Ron, if only I had a 'comfortable position within the current system'! I think I shall be asking Father Christmas to bring me that this year!
And hundreds of organisations have set up to try to do so: to try to by-pass, side-step, transcend or ignore the traditional model... and they almost never, ever succeed. The successes are the ones which can re-shape themselves, before they go bust, to take part in the traditional model. It's not that new models don't get a chance: no one's stopping anyone trying. It's that a chance isn't enough.
There's a central difference between the IT communities you suggest, and writing. Writing is not a communal activity, it's an individual one. Feedback is welcome, collective writing is not - unless you're writing a US sitcom, in which case it's great, largely because drama is a collective activity: actors and audience all in a room together. Reading a book is individual, and so writing one is too. Most writers can't and won't work by committee (except for places like Working Partners, where writers work to very precise outlines thrashed out by editors. It pays the rent, it's basic craft, but no one does it for the creative joy.)
It occurs to me that much of what's said to be wrong with commercial publishing is precisely because the decision making moved FROM an individual - an editor - telling the rest of the house what needed doing, to a state where everything is decided by the group. It makes the products more consistent, but also duller and narrower: less likely to fail, less likely to produce off-the-wall success from the unexpected.
So I have yet to be convinced that decision-by-community would be any different from the modern kind of publishing house. Just look at the range of responses anyone gets on the Cloud when they put up a piece of work. Who gets the final call? Clearly the writer. But what if they're wrong?
Emma
There was also an interesting speech by an established author (26 published books) about the future of publishers; he did not have anything good to say about the publishing industry as a whole. Lots of good things to say about agents though. Biggest shock was one of the biggest publishers in this country (and internationally) only offering 25% on ebooks to the author!!!??!!! Amazon are offering 75% or you keep 100% if you sell on your own website. This author and his agent signed with Amazon. Eye opening stuff.
Firstly, that genre-specific groups would not only make it easier for readers to find the sort of books they're most interested in, but would also preclude the inevitable avalanche of negative reviews that would result from readers who despise a particular genre commenting on novels of that genre. Those who hate horror novels, for instance, would gleefully slate even the most well-written horror novel, but if the group was one purely for horror readers/writers, a horror novel would get a fairer review. The group could also allow for crossover, eg horror/SciFi.
Secondly, a problem would arise from the proliferation of groups on the Internet. This would affect the commercial viability of any one group, by splitting up the potential market into dozens of smaller markets. It's difficult to see how related groups could be amalgamated in order to bring the entire market for that genre into one place. I've joined several horror writers' forums, only to find that nothing much happens on them because each one has only a few members.
People would need to learn to cooperate!
My expectation would be that in the community you would have:
Writers
Readers
Some (but fewer) people with editing/copy-editing ability
Some marketing nous somewhere
Some admin skill
Here is one scenario:
A writer submits his completed MS
A team of readers read it and assess it against some criteria.
If it passes then someone helps the writer to edit the book and address any concerns raised by the readers.
It gets checked for spelling and all that
Sell it
There are lots of details to consider, such as the genre thing, what to do with any profit, how to pay for the printing, whether to ePublish, etc ... but I'm not yet convinced that this is a daft idea!
Why? Those skills are hard-earned, and they have a living to earn...
Assuming civilisation continues along broadly the same course, there will be increasing numbers of people wishing to (a) fulfil themselves (b) via self-expression, many of them (c) choosing to write.
This blog was an attempt to see how that trend would play out. Maybe it'll play out differently, but I still think there'll be increasing numbers of people having some sort of effect and, given the technologies increasingly available, the effect may be radical.
1) There are now about a 1000 lead guitarists for every actual band in existence.
2) They all sound very similar.
3) If you want to sell on any excess guitars or related equipment, you can't give it away.
Perhaps there will turn out to be parallels of 1 & 2 above in the writing world.
For example, I've just completed work on a 140,000 word MS (a very good one, as it happens). I spent several days reading and taking notes and then another full day writing up the report. This comment will take me just a few minutes and I can slide it in while I wait for something to download on my other machine. I'm afraid the point above re needing 'Some (but fewer) people with editing/copy-editing ability' doesn't seem to take account of what editing a full book properly entails.
OTOH, you might be interested to know about my writers' group, which has done something not a million miles from what you are suggesting. We have been going for 10 years and have people at every stage of their writing career, from absolute beginners to competition winners and published authors. Last year, we decided to publish an anthology of short stories, poems and novel extracts and set up our own imprint. It did well, selling out of its first print run and was awarded runners up prize in the Nat Assoc of Writers' Group awards. We're about to publish the 2nd anthology.
BUT - every submission went through the group process and was read aloud at one of our meetings. Each contributor was then paired up with a partner to work further on detailed editing. After that, all submissions were posted on our google group site for yet more feedback and editing. The whole book was then proof read by 3 different people.
Then there was the cover design, layout, negotiations with printers, blurb, intro, publicity, distribution, event organisation ... It's a huge task and is only feasible if people pull their weight. Inevitably, some do more than others. It requires an enormous amount of energy, commitment and time.
Is it worth it? Sure - or we wouldn't be doing it for a 2nd year. Do I believe the same would be possible if we wanted to take on and publish complete novels? No way, I'm afraid. And I know that the other members of the group, who know what's involved, would agree wholeheartedly.
This isn't a pouring on of cold water, nor is it cynicism. I know the industry from both sides, having been through the editing process for my own books and also having worked as an editor for the last few years. There are ways to make things happen and my writers' group is proof of that. But I do think it's vital to understand what's involved in producing books of a high enough standard for it to be worthwhile.
All a bit incestuous. So, there you are - could the future of publishing be incest, at least in part?
barb, if the community was called 'Naked Books' then perhaps a publicity stunt would be in order. Some naked people wearing 'Naked Books' hats could go round to existing bookshops to get some publicity, "stripping the book to its natural state". hehe.
I'm thrilled and grateful when people I encounter online buy my work, and thrilled and grateful all over again if they get round to reading it, and telling me what they think. (Slightly less thrilled, of course, if they tell me they loathed every word. But that's an occupational hazard). At a wild guess I'd think that maybe a hundred people have bought my work because of some such personal connection. But publishing books doesn't become an economic activity until you can sell several thousand...
As Barb says, where is the market? Anthologies like Debi's East Dulwich Writers' Group one have a built-in advantage in that it can sell into every contributor's network, and some of the rest of the groups too. That's not to diss the content at all: it was seriously and professionally put together, which is key. Doing the same for a book by a single author is a completely different economic and marketing proposition, and not an easy one to make add up.
1. Communities get big because more and more people want to write
2. People in the communities buy the books out of genuine interest
3. This produces Authonomy-with-teeth - i.e. the better books get genuine approval
4. Onlookers (agents, publishers) swoop onto the items that win through this process
n.b. they are more likely to swoop if they trust the quality control in the community. This potentially gives power to the entrepreneur(s)/boss(es) behind the Community - how far can they control that quality? If they build a reputation, they could be quids in.
Therefore, power could shift to the communities.
Maybe.
I'm not being cynical. I don't run a publishing company, I'm not an agent and I don't have any other vested interests in deterring anyone from setting up their own community publishing company. It's no skin off my nose. But I would hate to see you all lose money in it. It may not be your prime motivation in launching the project but you will certainly be shelling out some of it in producing the books.
By the way, thanks so much, Gerry, for buying Britain's Coastlines from the Air. No, unfortunately I didn't get any helicopter trips! I compiled a list of the places I wanted to appear in the book and the photographers did the rest. And thanks in advance for buying Red Sky at Night. I hope you will like it when you get it. There's quite a lot in it that might appeal to you.
I am not, by the way, advocating what ought to happen, but trying to predict what might happen. In a way, it's a barbarians-at-the-gates situation. Historically, there is a choice of outcomes. 1. the City Walls hold and the barbarians go away. 2. The barbarians swarm into the city and take it over, becoming the new citizens. 3. The barbarians swarm into the city and a dark age descends.
Take your pick, but the likelihood is that the future will be different from the present.
Capitalism always deals with the opposition by incorporating it opposition. (Very amused to watch the soul-agonies of the Libs, when invited in to government. Or, indeed, Labour becoming new Labour. If you've always wanted power, what do you do if the only way you'll ever get some is to compromise?)
And thus the barbarians went away with, hopefully, a very useful lesson in life.
"We are sorry but our list is full at the moment and we are not currently accepting submissions. We may be able to accept some manuscripts in 2011, in which case details will appear on this website."
Sounds familiar, doesn't it...
Ron: thanks for the plaudits but I'm only thinking aloud (not actually doing anything).
But a friend of mine was involved with them for a bit, and it was bloomin' 'ard work. Absolutely and unquestionably made no one a cent of money, although because it was PoD most people covered the cost of production, though not their time. A most of the parties involved had enough economic elbow room that they could spare that time.
It's basically hobby publishing for serious hobby writers ("hobby" in the sense of non-professional, I'm not dissing the quality of the writing at all - don't know it). Really fun. Learn a lot. Get some books out there. Sell books to family, friends and local strangers. But I don't think Hachette Livre are shaking in their shoes, any more than Sainsburys shake in their shoes at the thought of the WI markets...
Locally produced mind fodder (books etc) - could they fit any future ideology? It might be worth keeping an eye on the 'happiness agenda' - the Tories (amazingly) seem the guys for idealism nowadays - maybe it's cos of those nice Liberals they are cuddling up to. I suppose they'll go stale like New Labour did, but there could be an interesting few years before they do. Austerity virtue, internal worth v. monetary worth, creation v. accumulation, self validation, reaching out, working together, great society. It's fifty years since the Sixties - maybe it's time for another cultural revolution.
Hachette Livre can be interested in your NEXT book, if your last one was self-published and sold at least ten times what your average self-pubbed book sells. And because the herculean efforts at publicity which it must have taken to sell that many show that you're prepared to be herculean about the next one. But whether, with all those herculean effort you'll actually had a moment to write not just a good next book but a stonking one, is, of course, a moot point.
The anthology retails at £8 and Waterstones are stocking it - without quibble. Sales are bouyant. I'll let you know what happens!
(And are Hachette Livre interested in your next one?)
'Starfish' on the home page is one of mine!
It took me a moment or two to work out that 'he' wasn't the six-year-old, but that's okay - it would have been clunky to spell it out. The poem has a neat plan - your situation, his situation, your thoughts on the two situations. It allows you to be precise about each part of the poem, which you are. Hence your position of glory - right there on the front page. Well done you!
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