Fifth installment in this new series. This series will be made up of short, sometimes very short questions and puzzlements about publishing.
Why would anyone with any sanity try to predict the future of publishing at this moment in time? Well, maybe because I’m nutty, that’s why. I did this as a response in a discussion and decided it needed to be up front here just to show how really, really stupid I am.
I am not a person who normally even tries to see into the future. I’m just a science fiction and thriller writer who has been a publisher, an editor, and a writer for thirty years in this business. But because I am totally nuts, let me give you my business predictions just so I am on record here in the fall of 2011, even though not a person on the planet will ever look back at this. Or care. (grin)
Prediction #1: A Safe One.
This Christmas will be huge for electronic books. (duh)
Numbers of paper book sales will decline dramatically through the first two quarters of next year while all the new owners of electronic devices get their reading that way. This will cause more and more panic among some in the field and lots of press and the standard “the world is ending” article. It is 2012 after all.
At the same time publishers’ profits will rise as they did the first two quarters for 2011 for some companies. Reason, the line of profit from electronic book sales will finally come close to crossing or in some cases cross the line of loss for paper books.
Remember, for every reduction of a paper book sale by one book in a publisher’s profit-and-loss calculation, that means another book does not have to be produced, shipped, stored, and then destroyed. (Returns system, remember?) The savings by this reduction from every paper book sale and the shift of that same book sale (plus some) to electronic publishing is stunning for publishers. Yeah, I know, no one talks about that tiny fact. (grin)
Also, most publishers are shifting slowly to POD in many aspects of their business, from reorders to proofs. Watch as more and more publishers shift to first run POD on the small titles, putting them into nonreturnable programs.
Prediction #2: Another Safe One:
Repeat Prediction #1 every Christmas as device prices come down and the device wars shake out and print distribution becomes solid once again, mostly in POD form. And without the returns system for the most part.
Prediction #3: Another Safe One:
Some publishing companies in 2012 and 2013 will have trouble with warehousing and union and printing contracts and not be able to cut paper distribution expenses fast enough and will either be shut down by their parent company or go out of business. However, most companies will be fine, with cutting of warehousing, shipping and union contracts, and taking more and more of their printing to the coming new POD webs as they come on line.
Add to that the fact that electronic book sale profit margins (because of how writers have let themselves be screwed over the last ten years on electronic rights) will be huge for corporations, especially as backlists are put up and number of books for sale electronically for each corporation will increase. The old produce model of a book spoiling and getting destroyed after a few weeks on a shelf will be shifted for corporations to sales (without secondary cost) in electronic sales of backlists. Publishing accounting systems will take some time to shift to this new way of thinking, but they will eventually.
Prediction #4: Still betting this is a safe one:
The patterns I talked about above will continue for the next few years, with lots of new players coming into the field, from distributors to new publishers to new stores, both physical and electronic. International distribution of English language electronic books will add a huge amount to publishers’ bottom lines, as well as make many indie writers very rich. (This is happening and not even the corporations saw this one coming and are now scrambling to get World English from their authors who had only sold North American rights.)
Prediction #5: Not Really a Prediction Since Already Happening:
The weak and stupid bookstores will go out of business, but as is the trend over the last three years, more and more indie bookstores will spring up. (That’s right, over the last three years more indie bookstores have started than shut down. Publisher’s Weekly and ABA numbers. And Borders has left a huge opening for indie stores.)
Bookstores are weeding out the weak and poorly managed stores (like Borders) and the strong and new and creative stores will remain doing fine. Most will be either indie stores that are large or niche stores or new/used stores or a combination of the above.
Eventually they will find a way to help their customers buy electronic books through them, which will solidify their bottom lines. (I do not think this will be the Google system that does this, however.)
Prediction #6: A Real Prediction Finally:
In five years the level of electronic sales to print sales will level at about 3 to 1. But many of those electronic sales will be new readers, new sales. Paper books, mostly trade and some hardcover, will find a level and sustain through the death of the returns system and the move to POD printing.
Mass market paper will be mostly gone. (Racks switched over to trade size.)
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I will make no prediction on agents, since I am waiting for the courts to come in and rule. If the courts shut down agent-as-publisher, then agents will be mostly gone in a few years. If not, who knows how many writers will be scammed while agents will actually help other writers in some fashion or another.
—
Those are my predictions. We shall see how full of shit I am in a year or two.
I should have stuck to fiction writing, huh? (grin)
Interesting post. I agree with much of what you say but not everything. Wouldn’t be much point in reading you if I agreed with you 100%.
“Numbers of paper book sales will decline dramatically through the first two quarters of next year while all the new owners of electronic devices get their reading that way.”
From what I’ve seen (no hard data), ereader owners still buy paper books, although at a smaller rate. So this is a bit of an overstatement. The basic premise is correct though.
“most publishers are shifting slowly to POD in many aspects of their business, from reorders to proofs.”
Many small press and university press publishers have already gone entirely over to POD. With their small margins they saw the financial light more quickly than the big boys.
“Most [bookstores] will be either indie stores that are large or niche stores or new/used stores or a combination of the above. Eventually they will find a way to help their customers buy electronic books through them, which will solidify their bottom lines.”
Niche stores will stay strong because people like the browsing and community they offer. I know of two mystery bookshops and one Civil War/Old West bookshop doing well. Children’s bookshops will do well too because (A) kids like the tactile sense of paper books and (B) not many parents will buy their six-year-old a Kindle.
I think many bookshops will start investing in an Espresso Book Machine or similar POD gadget. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened already.
“In five years the level of electronic sales to print sales will level at about 3 to 1.”
Not sure about the ratio but yes, paper books will survive, despite what so many overeager people say on the forums. Kids books, art books, gift/novelty books will continue to do well. All other genres will switch to a great extent to electronic, but some people will still prefer print.
Sean, even in our small town here one of the indie bookstore owners researched the Expresso Book Machine. Said it was still too slow and expensive, but getting closer. (And by the way, in our little town of 7,000 people not counting tourists, we have 5 indie bookstores. Yup, I said that, not one, not two, but FIVE. All going strong.
Sounds entirely reasonable. Maybe a little too reasonable. This is a best-case scenario for paper and/or the big publishers. Will be interesting to see how things shake out, that’s for sure.
I have to admit, I’m mainly writing this comment just to be first in your replies section. Incredibly juvenile, I know. But hey, it’s the simple pleasures that make life worthwhile.
Silver, welcome. (grin) And actually it’s not the best case by a long ways. The best case, which is really possible, is that we lose no publishers at all in this transition. And we lose no more indie bookstores and B&N continues on strong and puts shelves back in for books instead of toys. That’s the best case.
I just think the people that declare a multi-billion dollar, multi-corporation business dead in a few months while the demand remains are just funny. If the demand was going away, I would be talking another story. But the only people I know who read on devices are writer friends, and not all of them. The 16% electronic readership number is pretty close at the moment. The doomsayers forget that there is still 84% on the other side of that, and that the corporations are making money on the 16% as well.
Good morning, Dean! I’m not so much interested in predicting the future, though that would certainly be helpful, as I am interested in figuring out a strategy to capitalize on the situation you described above:
“…many of those electronic sales will be new readers, new sales.”
I’ve been very successful in my first few months as an indie author. My books are still selling well, but not at the previous rate which means they’re not on the bestseller lists now.
How do I help all those new readers find my books which have now been out 6 months and aren’t making the lists any more?
Got any insights?
Best wishes,
Joan Reeves
Joan, every book has a “level” as it is beginning to be called. How to goose that level up for a time or even to a new level?? Well, the only proven way for decades and decades, and that applies to indie publishing as well, is write more books. New books goose old books and find more readers. So the key in this new world is just write as much as you can and keep getting it out there for readers to find.
Once you have a half dozen or more in the same series or under the same author name, then a loss-leader of the first book often works. Price your books at a decent amount, then lower the price of the first one, or one you think would be a gateway drug into your series. That works if you have a lot of other books or stories under the same name. But the key is only do it as a sale and then turn it back to regular price.
Those two things are the best way. Promotion in any other aspect does little if anything and is a waste of time compared to writing new material.
The only one I’d quibble over is the rise of independent bookstores – only because I suspect a behavioral shift is occuring in how we procure books. Here in Australia, with the collapse of the group that ran Borders and another big bookstore Angus and Robertson, the number of bookshops has been cut by up to 70% in some states. Now with the drastic decline in bookstores (I have to now drive past four big shopping centers/malls to find one that actually has a bookshop) you’d think the remaining bookstores would be swamped with customers. From what I could see in visiting one of the survivors yesterday, customer numbers haven’t skyrocketed. I suspect people have just decided “stuff it, we’ll order it online”.
A few people that looked into starting their own bookstores are having trouble because the rents they have to pay and the margins they get on books make it almost impossible to compete with the overseas online bookstores (the high Australian dollar making overseas books a lot cheaper also helps). There are easier ways to make a buck in retail than selling books! The same sort of thing is happening with chain and indie music stores here in Oz – they are getting steam roled by online purchasing. And that’s while the Oz economy is humming along nicely and people aren’t really penny-pinching – nothing like what’s going on in the northern hemisphere.
Blarkon, thanks for reporting that. Give it time and see how it shapes out. Indie bookstores (I think the large bookstore chain model is almost dead) are very single-person driven in most cases and those people take time to get around to things. Here in the States the publishers are sponsoring conferences to teach indie bookstore owners tricks and how to run businesses. They have been doing that for a number of years now to great success. It has made the smart indies stores even more secure. And we have a strong organization of booksellers here called the American Booksellers Association (ABA) that is stunningly supportive and finding creative ways to help bookstores with publishers. Very strong support for the smart stores.
Oh, Dean, what an interesting blog post. I don’t really have anything intelligent to add. I’m just mulling some of this over. I’ll link it on my Facebook wall. I tend to have more “readers” than writers posting there, and I always like to get the readers’ perspective on things.
We hang out with writers all the time (smiles).
But I had no idea that there were courts cases over the whole “agent as publisher” explosion. Wow.
No cases actually filed yet (that I know of), Barb, otherwise I would be linking to them because when they file they normally become public knowledge. But I do know of four pending filings. I am hoping that one or two go in as test cases instead of settling, but agents really, really want to settle on these to stop that from happening. Agents who know agency law are trying to sneak this through and agents who are lawyers are not getting near this. That’s why each agency is also setting up a different business, to try to put walls between themselves and their publishing and their agent. Richard Curtis did this with his publishing company over ten years ago and it is still flying. So only time will tell.
But I can also say this. The ugly stories of conflicts of interest are already starting to mount up. One agent who wanted to publish a large group of books was made an offer by a person to do it, a better offer than the agent could give his client by doing it himself, and REFUSED to present the client the offer. Yup, getting ugly. Caution, everyone. Again, if you are looking for an agent right now, just go direct to editors and let this settle for a time. No point in diving into a mess.
Great job!
As I read these predictions I felt that each and every one of them were bang on.
I actually feel you will be at least 95% right or better.
Thanks,
Jonas Saul
“In five years the level of electronic sales to print sales will level at about 3 to 1. ”
Prediction #6a: In five years, traditional publishers will continue to deny the trend…
…while surrounded by candles and cursing the darkness.
Todd
“THE TELLING OF MY MARCHING BAND STORY”
http://www.toddtrumpet.com
Todd, not really. It’s only a few traditional publishers at this point who are not a full run with the electronic publishing, working to make the switch. Only indie publishers think traditional publishers aren’t moving. They actually are and at top speed in most cases, considering how large the ships they need to turn are. You folks need to remember, traditional publishing has been thinking and aiming at this day since 1990. They saw it coming. As I said, I got paid a ton of money to write an electronic only book for Pocket Books in 2000. They are worried about the transition, yes, but not the end result. They LOVE the end result because of the returns system going mostly away. And because publishers were strong and agents clueless, writers gave publishers a HUGE amount of profit in the electronic books. Trust me, for the bottom line, traditional publishers love paper books, but make more money on the electronic sales. But traditional publishers just can’t survive selling into 16% of the market like an indie publisher can. Traditional publishers do what I suggest indie publishers do: Sell to the entire market. Which means paper books.
“I should have stuck to fiction writing, huh? (grin)”
Of course, your critics would argue that this IS fiction writing, since they want you to be wrong. Heh.
I do start to wonder about my next move. You’ve hit on the Christmas boom in practically every one of your recent posts; and I understand why, certainly! I’m the guy who pre-ordered Kindle Fire approximately 40 seconds after I saw the announcement, so I’m convinced eReaders and eBooks are going to boom again this holiday season. If my sales resistance crumbled that easily, I doubt I’m alone.
So here’s my conundrum. I’m starting to get some real confidence in my writing. I’ve got two pro sales, some nice WotF results, and some promising feedback in other areas. Right now, I’ve got enough really solid short stories for one good collection; but if I put them into a collection and self-pub, I won’t be sending them off to magazines in hopes of selling them and building up my name.
The obvious answer is: write more stories! And write faster! I know I heard that advice from some guy online (heh). And I’m working on that (though my latest short story idea seems to want to become my first novel idea).
But in the mean time, I’m torn. If I attempt to sell to the markets, certainly nothing will sell and get published before Christmas at this point; but presumably that will give me more sales potential down the road. But if I take all of my best and self-pub as singles and a collection, my “bakery” is temporarily empty for the markets.
I think you’ve convinced me to self-pub what I have (except for those currently submitted, and the two that haven’t reverted back to me yet). They’ll sell, or they won’t, but at least they’ll be up there. If people like the two that are in print, they’ll be able to find more from me. And then I can write more to sell to the markets; and if I can get in there, I’ll already have a small “back catalog” when readers see those.
Martin, my advice, and only my opinion, is keep the stories out to the markets first. You’ll make more money and help your career better if you sell to a top market. But at the same point don’t go down the market list very much either. Stay with the top markets that will pay good money for your story, give you great readership at the same time. That’s the key. When you exhaust those markets, then indie publish them. Just my opinion. Do as I say, not as I do with the challenge. (grin)
#3 is already happening, too. Medallion Press switched from MMPB to e and POD early last year, followed by the Leisure debacle. I have heard an author signed an e and POD only with Kensington Books, so they may be heading that way, too. These were primarily MMPB houses that already had a list to exploit. (I consider these guys “mid-majors” but I agree it will creep into the Big Six)
Of course, “exploit” is a rather loaded term when you either do not have the rights or aren’t paying your authors.
I laughed out loud at the title of this one, Dean, given the state of the industry.
But hey, we’re science fiction writers, isn’t predicting the future part of our job description?
Of course, the dirty little secret there is that we predict lots of futures, not just the future, but I don’t think you’re far off on any of these.
Dean, you’re not full of shit. My DH came to the same conclusions, and he’s not even in the publishing industry. Something similar happened with the small tech start-ups in the ’90′s. The smart ones are still around; the dumb/lazy ones are not.
I will make one comment on your non-prediction about agents:
If the courts shut down agent-as-publisher, then agents will simply drop their agency side of the business and become book packagers. They won’t change their business practices, and some will still scam writers, but they won’t have the pretense of agenting the book to anyone else.
Christmas and ebooks are going to be interesting. I speak on a micro-level here: My circle of friends are more and more into ebooks, and we also like to give books for Xmas. Our habits have not brought those two together yet. After all, a physical gift is more satisfying both to give and receive. Your book cards are going to fit in, but aren’t there yet. Eventually the logistics of how Amazon and other vendors have you “gift” books will evolve too — making it feel more like a regular gift and less like a very limited gift certificate.
Hello Dean, sticking with the easy isn’t overly sporting, especially as a creative fiction writer. Take your anti-matter gun out on the limb with you.
My prediction, thus planning is along the lines of Bob Mayer’s “Choke Point” and Seth Godin’s “Sales Per Book” articles:
http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/the-sustainability-of-an-indie-author%E2%80%94will-self-publishers-survive/
http://www.thedominoproject.com/2011/10/sales-per-book.html
I’ve reread these several times this weekend, as I’m sure most of us would rather see some $$ while here to enjoy it. Raw quantity and consistent quality as you’ve mentioned are the early drivers. Big money didn’t kill Indie movies or music, but a deep fan base could take many years to trickle in, especially given today’s exponentially fractured audience.
Sadly, if Bob & Seth are correct, most writers will give up long before they make a living. I’m betting the ranch this new era will go to the swift; those attempting to make a noticeable dent in a genre, creating a “brand” where giants (besides Amazon) fail to tread.
SL, I wasn’t talking about writers. And I agree, just as it has always been through the history of publishing, most writers will give up far before they make a living. That’s totally normal and not changing even in these new times.
But some of us are going to crazy rich, even without doing promotion or having a bestseller. We will just use traditional publisher thinking of make a small amount on a lot of books.
Here is my prediction: the length of the average novel will get shorter.
Paperbacks from the 1940s-’70s were skinnier than they are today. You could sell 50-60K novels then. Today the guidelines want 85-100K minimum. Why is that?
I get the impression readers in the Age of Twitter will be happy with shorter novels in their electronic reading devices.
Dean, I guess most of your regular readers will agree with these predictions, and I’m one of them.
What I’d like to read are your thoughts on the future of the self-/indie-published writer: With all the gate-keeping and quality arguments one is bombarded with – how many writers do you think will actually go indie? How will they be received by the public (actual readers)? Will reviewers finally review self-published books? And so on…
Frank, quickly answer your questions. Many reviewers are already reviewing indie books as long as they don’t look like an author’s effort. Actual readers don’t care where or what company they get their books from, they just want good stories told well. And most writers will eventually be indie publishing, many doing what Kris and I and Konrath and Eisner and Laura and others are doing, publishing with both sides of the fence. But I see the slush pile being in electronic world before too many years, so the only way to break into anything, especially readers, will be to indie publish. So I see many, many smart indie writers getting very rich, at least the writer who can spend more time writing and less rewriting and are not afraid to let readers be the judges.
I’m off to do estate stuff over the next three days. I’ll try to check in here as best as I can from my iPad. Later.
On the 3 to 1 ratio–your wife’s great article the other day talked about ACCESS to books and how bookstores didn’t provide anything like the kind of access ebook readers/smart phones/tablets do. And thus the pie is suddenly larger because people who wouldn’t normally buy books now can buy them with a touch of a finger. There’s so little effort involved and because it’s over the internet, you don’t even feel the pain of pulling out your credit card.
I write books, yes, but I never bought new books growing up and as a young married person, we didn’t have the money. If I read books, it was via the library or for a few dollars at the discount used paperback store.
Now, I still don’t buy paper books. But with my Kindle, I buy ebooks. I was sitting in the hospital waiting for my mom to come out of surgery yesterday and said to myself, ‘I really need a book’. I found one three seconds later and bought it.
Dean:
Okay, so maybe my “Prediction #6a” above (about traditional publishers continuing to deny the trend toward eBook dominance) was wishful thinking…
…but can I at least cling to the notion that they’re The Establishment and we’re Rebels With A Cause?
I don’t wanna return my black leather keyboard!
Todd
IMO, every writer must now be a publisher; in control of their career. As for pocketing the small on *lots* of titles, we’re scrambling at Heart Press to be -exactly- that; and thus far, it is working quite well.
Oh, and children’s books are rapidly becoming electronic. Today’s toddlers already try to scroll & pinch *paper* books, handing them back as “broken” when the picture doesn’t resize or move.
I predict the surviving paper editions will morph back into the beautiful art from whence it came and at a faster rate than anyone can imagine. The current IP contract grab will sustain NY for the short term, but it won’t sustain their desire for ever increasing quarterly profits. Even “The Onion” is moving creative staff out of NY, consolidating the company in their Chicago headquarters. Bumpy weather ahead means opportunity!
Dean,
You mention Google in your prediction #5. You have any comment their offering vs the Amazon?
I predict that in the not too distant future, either publishers or booksellers like Amazon will give away e-reading devices, like cell phone companies do with cell phones. They’d get their money back in a heartbeat.
I’m more pessimistic about the future of bookstores. Bookstores have fixed costs — rent, utilities, staff — so even a 10% drop in revenue can be difficult to overcome, and as book buying habits change most bookstores are going to see repeat customers shifting some spending to ebooks.
There is no compelling reason to buy an ebook from a physical store. And if buyers are allowed to shift a portion of their ebook purchase to a physical store, why won’t they be allowed to shift it instead to a charity? Surely that option will be available at some point too.
It’s not that I think bookstores will vanish, but that I think most will vanish. Some will survive. Publishers will put out beautiful hardbacks that likely come with a code that gives you a free ebook version too. There will be a market for paper books, but it will be a much smaller market, which means that fewer bookstores will be needed to support it. And Amazon will always be there, ready to sell you a physical book at a discounted price.
I’m not really convinced that POD will make much of a difference to bookstores. First, the price of the POD machines needs to come down. Second, I don’t know if trade paper will appeal to booklovers in a digital era. I think something a bit more substantial will be needed.
Randy,
The reason the phone company model works is because they lock you into their network. I don’t know if that type of lock in is even possible for eReaders.
Civil War Horror (Sean McLachlan)
What I think is going to surprise a lot of people is the resurgence of trades like Book Binder. I’m serious. Mass Market Dead Tree books are going to drop in sales. Specialty Dead Tree books however should do well. How about a writer offering a limited print run, say fifty copies, leather covered, hand bound, gold leaf, individually signed (Dear Sean, I hope you enjoy this copy of the fifteenth book in the Poker Boy series. Yours Truly, Dean Wesley Smith), sold for $300.00 a piece (or whatever makes sense, I have no idea what it would cost for hand binding).
But you can see how that sort of thing could be an extra cash source for a writer, and a great draw for rabid fans.
Blarkon
Same thing in Canada, at least in the more populous regions. You get into the north, rents are a lot cheaper, and you see more independent stores.
Nice post Dean.
Wayne
But they do lock in, JohnMc. Buy a Kindle, and you’re probably not buying books from places other than Amazon – very often, anyway. You might still grab a few Smashwords books, or buy direct from an author’s website. But most folks, most of the time, will buy from the store. Despite using the supposedly “open format” epub, Nooks are no different. Customers who buy Nooks are just as consistent in buying B&N books as Kindle owners are in buying Amazon.
So yes, absolutely – an ereader is a pretty solid lock on buying from that retailer. I completely think that we’ll see some form of ereader giveaway within two years. These devices can be built DIRT cheap, folks; there’s a Canadian company that plans to be selling ereaders to India for $35 shortly, which means they’re making a profit at that price. And LCD touchscreen 7″ Android tablets were selling in Hong Kong for $10US eight months ago.
All good predictions. The only thing I’m still curious about are old backlogs in the hands of writers who, though haven’t been published in a while, still retain the rights to decades of past work. It’s a mountain of books that can make its way back into electronic form. If they all come out at once, we could see a flood of great stuff. Books that surely would have been (were to some degree) forgotten in the outdated world of paper.
JohnMc, sure it is – Kindle’s “One Click” is a powerful weapon. Book, click, toilet paper, click. Most customers can’t / won’t be able to move a book from Kindle to iPad – Nook – ?? and would never consider it, esp. given Prime shipping, video on demand, etc.
Amazon’s first business kills off many mass market bookstores; next target, a big chunk Walmart in commodities & most things upscale, Zappos, Endless, Shopbob – check out the Amazon homepage footer.
About POD.
I think Harper Collins recently signed the Espresso people to put some of thier backlist on the network for the machines to print. If the other maijor Pubs soon follow Predictions 2 and 3 will deffinitley happen. Also it may help with Prediction 5.
B. S. S.
Hi all,
back from the frankfurt book fair – at least for today.
One thing I missed this time due to work but will certainly not miss next year, is the conference “SPARK”. Two days basically talking about the future of storytelling in all it’s glory. Title “How will stories be told in the Future?”. (More info in English here: http://www.frankfurtsparks.com)
I was talking to one of the organizers, and he was telling me that they expect publishers to rent less and less space on the book fair in the future because of the development towards eBooks. So the book fair is actively trying to plan ahead for whatever a future book fair might look like – thus the conferences. Rather fascinating, in my oppinion. Because walking along the long ailes of the fair (I managed to see about 1/3 of the whole animal in one day), you sure saw the one and other iPad screwed to the wall, so people could try out one publisher’s new application, but basically you saw the new media only where services (print, ebook cards, … ) were being offered. Not amongst publishers. That looked pretty much the same as always. In fact, I heard a laudatio for some major German book award, where they were specifically (or better, very unspecifically, generalizing. books=good content, and new media= bad content … Which is just … silly! But, what did he get?! Applause. Sad.)
But then again, as I said, I have but seen a third of it.
As to the ebook-cards. I think they came up with a solution that works.
The cards contain a singular code, which is clearly visible. But they are theft proof (or twitter-proof … or whatever), because it has to be activated first. And this is done after you paid.
So you choose whatever story you want to buy by picking up the respective card. Then you go to the cashier. He scans in the bar code with the price information, you pay. Then he scans in the bar code with the activation code. The book store will have to be registered at the place where the cards are downloaded, so you cannot activate it yourself but need a registered store to do it.
There are two ways to activate the card: one with the bar code, which is the fastest but not every store works with bar codes and as I understood, they still have some details to work out. But there is still another, very basic way to activate the card by the store. So at the end, every store that can go online (that is necessary), can activate a card code. After activation, the card owner either goes to the download directly via QR code or by typing in the download URL and the download code by hand. Then the card owner can decide if he wants the ebook by email or download and in which file format. If you want it via email, you will have to give them the email address … otherwise it works totally without asking any data from you. I think it is the only way you can pay cash for an ebook. Thus it is the only way a minor could buy an ebook, right? With no access to a bank account and/or any kind of card, how would a minor buy a book?
You can download the files, or have them send to you, several times. They have not yet decided if 3 or 5 times. And there is no DRM.
Only drawback: the card-design is ugly and rather cheap looking. You see right away, that these guys are more technology guys than designers …
And at present you have to stick to their design … Which for me would be a total no-go. BUT I already talked to them about it, and I will get an offer from them to do an ebook card. So eventually, if I do not have to sign a confidentiality clause, I will be able to tell you a bit more detail in a couple of days.
I am sure they will get over the card design eventually …
And I am sure that if they can come up with the technology, others can, too. So they will have competitors quickly.
Dean
Your predictions have just received a boost:
- one of the UK’s largest high street newsagents, WHSmith, has just announced that it will bring out two e-readers in time for Christmas 2011. They’re linking up with Kobo, which is great news for all of us with ebooks on Smashwords.
- Waterstone’s, the UK’s largest bookshop chain and probably WHSmiths’ biggest rival, is bringing out their own e-reader too.
It looks like eBooks are going to hit the UK big style this festive season. To me, as an indie author, this is great news.
Not quite on topic, but interesting counter argument to those who see traditional publishing as gatekeepers keeping authors out: http://pauljessup.com/2011/10/13/amazon-is-a-gatekeeper/
“Specialty Dead Tree books however should do well. How about a writer offering a limited print run, say fifty copies, leather covered, hand bound, gold leaf, individually signed (Dear Sean, I hope you enjoy this copy of the fifteenth book in the Poker Boy series. Yours Truly, Dean Wesley Smith), sold for $300.00 a piece (or whatever makes sense, I have no idea what it would cost for hand binding).”
Three hundred dollars is a non-starter for all but some select writers.
If you can get the price down to $50 or even better, $35, you might see midlist writers selling some of these.
And these won’t save bookstores. These will be direct order sales.
Mark,
I’m more concerned with helping writers and small press publishers maximize their profits, being a writer and small press publisher. So no, it doesn’t help book stores as written.
Now there is no reason it couldn’t help bookstores. All it needs is a smart book store owner to jump into the equation, and offer an additional add to the package that would benefit the writer/publisher who is working the deal.
Take for example the Christmas Book that Shirley Meier and I are doing. It’s Shirley’s book that she wrote a couple of years ago. I’m the publisher. But we are also doing an Audio Book, I own my own recording studio, I’m a recording engineer, and both Shirley and I have down Voice Acting in the past.
And Shirley happens to know a retired radio personality who is majorly popular in the local area. Can we offer an special package? Damned right we can. In fact we can offer several packages. We can get downright silly. Would you believe super special packages where the children’s Daddy records the Santa voice and pays us for the right to do so (don’t forget that this is going to cost us a lot of extra time and effort).
The point being that we are looking for ways to do more than just sell a children’s book about Christmas. We want to do a lot more, and hopefully make it as fun as possible for everyone involved.
Wayne
http://madhatter.ca
Laura,
I somehow missed this a comment of yours the other day from Dean’s previous article. Rather than quote it, I’m just going to provide my answer. My apologies to everyone else, I hope it doesn’t look too insanely confusing.
Your comment was about why Book Publishers wouldn’t go out of business, and you mentioned several other entertainment industries which had been hit by technological changes. The problem is that you hadn’t gotten what those industries provided correct.
Of course Movie theaters don’t compete with home videos, streaming videos, and TV subscriptions. Movie Theaters are a public “Night Out’ chance to have fun. They offer a totally different experience. Of course the new home options didn’t hurt them.
But may not exist for much longer. I suggest that you check into the fuss surrounding the work for hire provision of copyright law, which allows recording artists to reclaim their recordings, and which the recording companies claim don’t apply. If the recording companies lose, they lose a lot of classic music, which is going to heavily impact their bottom line.
Artists in the music business are as bad as writers when it comes to understanding the business side. That is the only reason that the music publishers still exist. That, and the few remaining people who buy compact discs.
You forgot Nextflx. This is still playing out. It should be interesting see how it works out.
This is very early in the cycle, say about where books were five-ten years ago. My son is involved in the film making community in Toronto, and has appeared in several independent films. Give it time.
And it seems to be working out. Some papers have gone. Others appear to have adapted.
I think that my words were “I cannot see what value that traditional publishers can bring to the table” and I stick to that statement. When I can earn 70% royalties doing it my way, what can they offer me that is better?
Wayne
http://madhatter.ca
Wayne, let me repeat the one point you are missing over and over and that is the very basis over the last few years of this blog:
Writers, as a class, when it comes to business, are dumber than posts. And refuse, for the most part, to learn.
I have not been angry at agents or traditional publishers for bad contracts or anything else. I get angry at the stupid writers who let agents take advantage of them, who give a stranger all their money and paperwork for that money without even a thought, who sign bad contracts with publishers without first knowing what they are signing and second not negotiating.
So when you use the idea that “you cannot see what traditional publishers bring to the table” as a reason for all writers to avoid them, you assume a level of business smarts in writers as a class that is not in evidence. In fact, 95% of writers will refuse to learn indie publishing, 95% of writers will continue with agents even when those agents are breaking agency law, and 95% of writers, when offered the chance to get 25% of net on electronic books will jump at the chance because most don’t even know what that means.
Sorry, Wayne, just not happening from the writer’s side, and since writers control this business, as long as writers as a class remain dumber than posts when it comes to business, traditional publishers will continue to thrive and do well.
That is not to say that if all writers suddenly woke up and stood their ground and actually were treated as partners by traditional publishers that large publishers would fail. Most would not, but as long as writers willingly give them most everything, they will do just fine.
Wayne, here is an example of how very smart publishers are spinning the low royalty rate to keep very stupid authors in line:
...HarperCollins chief executive Brian Murray said authors were getting a better digital royalty than on print. He said: “When we looked at our print royalties, we saw they averaged about 16%-18% so we knew we could afford to pay a higher royalty rate. That was almost a 40% increase in the royalty rate.”
That’s right, he said basically that because the 25% of net is higher than book royalty rates, we are doing the authors a favor. And since agents work either for their own publishing company or publishers instead of writers these days, they just go along with that kind of thinking. In fact, in another article today from the fair, the 50/50 rate by agent/publishers is being talked up as a good thing. Not kidding.
After reading this http://www.thepassivevoice.com/10/2011/an-agency-sells-520-books-in-a-single-deal/ , particularly the POD part, I wonder if the commercial publishers will try to court people considering self-publishing with the POD option. That and I wonder if they will start offering services, like editing and the like, for a fee on the side. And the more you pay, the more they promise you will be of blockbuster quality.
Jodi
Gentlemen,
No lock in. I have the Amazon PC software loaded. I download the same book that would reprise the kindle on the PC. Same one click order. I open up Calibre, tell it to rescan the library. I export the new kindle book to ePub. I then Wifi the new export to my Android smartphone. Its about 5 clicks.
In addition the Kindle Fire will do ePub. It will also access and read the entire Gutenburg archive, in ePub. What Amazon does have is one stop shopping, ie convenience. But the format wars are about over and mobi is not necessarily the winner.
Wayne,
When it comes to movies its game over when the studios figure out that they can make huge $$$ selling direct to the home theatre crowd. $3-5/month subscriptions for access to the latest releases plus backlist. Why do it — The suits at the studios don’t have to fight the suits at the theatre. The paradigm shifts to the studios. The unit cost is low enough that direct customers won’t moan too loud if service is down periodically yet the whole fight for theatre placement disappears.
The thing I fear the most is that, as amazon expands into publishing, the traditional publishers will complain to the government, which will use its antitrust laws to maintain the status quo.
Dean, you wrote this about the savings of ebooks in regards to returns system. I mentioned that on a writing forum, but many do not believe that books have many returns and what is returned is not mostly pulped. For the most part, I keep seeing from others the belief that ebooks don’t save the publisher much money concerned to print books. But personally, I find it hard to believe that ebooks cost more than a mass market paperback to produce.
Do you have any links on this? Or will you consider doing a post about the costs?
Thanks,
Jodi
Jodi, in all mass market paperbacks, right now in most companies, the return rate is running from 30% to 50%. It used to be just counted at 50% for all books, but because of publisher work and more focused selling and cutbacks, that rate has come down in many cases to the 30%-50% rate. A book now that has a high return (50% and over) is considered a failure for the most part.
Mass market paperbacks are stripped in store and the covers sent back and the book body recycled. Trade paperbacks, for the most part, are sent back full copy return and any damaged book is pulped in the warehouse, which also averages a percentage of the print run, but much lower than mass market. If the book then doesn’t sell, it is pulped or sold to a discounter. Hardbacks are full copy return as well (imagine the costs of postage) and extra dust jackets are printed and the damaged dust jackets are replaced and the book either held in warehouse (huge costs) or sold off to discounters. The problems with all of this return system is the massive extra costs. Warehousing and union labor contracts are large for publishers, who often have up to twenty warehouses around the country. And the shipping alone is just ugly.
The costs of production on a e-book and a hardback or mass market paperback are EXACTLY THE SAME right up to the point the book leaves the New York publishing house in an electronic file. It either goes to a printer in electronic file or is launched electronically. (Actually, electronic launches of books are slightly more expensive in house because of the launch time, but then the costs stop.) The massive cost differences come in the costs of printing and material, union labor for trucking, trucking costs, warehousing costs, union labor in warehouses, and then the shipping to bookstores, then add the costs of the destroyed or returned books and the difference is massive.
The costs are identical while in the publishing house. Takes the same to proof, buy, layout, and do covers and ads for a regular book as it does electronic. The difference in costs are the moment the book is sent out of the publishing office for sale.
And the returns system is a huge aspect of that. Paper books are fantastically more expensive to get to a reader than an electronic book.
Now take into account that lack of costs of production and returns lost and the authors only getting 25% of net (which many bestsellers get 25% of gross sale price of hardbacks) and you can see why on the companies that can make this transition, I am not worried about them surviving. They are making a TON more money per copy electronic than paper because of how authors (through our suckie agents) allowed publishers to get 75% of net.
And any author who doesn’t understand the paper returns system really, really needs to just go talk to someone who works in a bookstore. Wow.
Thanks for the info, Dean, on the returns system. It’s very helpful.
The other concern or major cost this writing forum brought up was that it was expensive to convert the books to the different formats and for the extensive quality checking they do of the books after formatting. But I would assume conversion is mostly automated in the big houses. I’m less certain about the quality checking aspect.
Jodi