This post, by Julie Ortolon, originally appeared on her Julie’s Journal Online site on 4/27/12.
It was a year ago this month that my world changed forever thanks to the ebook revolution. April 2011 was when my sales exploded. I have been reeling – in a good way – ever since.
This journey, however, started long before that. It started in the fall of 2009. Back then, I had one goal: to somehow get back some semblance of a writing career. To me, at the time, that meant land another contract with a traditional print publisher.
Boy has that goal changed! But let’s look at how I got from there to here.
The First Step Down a New Path
In the summer of 2009, I was basically unpublishable in the eyes of New York. I hadn’t had a book out since Unforgettable came out in 2007. I’d gone from rocketing onto the publishing scene by hitting the USA Today list with my first title to sales numbers that were so bad (thanks to the implosion of the publishing industry) it was heartbreaking. I was also so emotional beat up after eight years of the publishing process, I needed a break. I stepped back for two years by going to the mountains of New Mexico to paint aspen trees and contemplate clouds.
That was fabulous for awhile, but after two years my muse started to stir. I wanted back in the game. So, I landed a new agent with a proposal for a new series. One of the first things I realized, though, was that a lot had changed in the two years I’d been away. Suddenly, it wasn’t just the proposal and an author’s sales numbers that publishers looked at before offering a contract, it was the author’s Website and overall Web presence, i.e. their number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Yikes! My Website was two years out of date, and I didn’t know a tweet from a twerp.
Fate Intervenes
As karma, chance, the universe would have it, I bumped into an Internet marketing coach at a wine bar one afternoon and I hired her to overhaul my Website. Instead, she overhauled my entire life by opening my eyes. I already knew the publishing industry doesn’t make sense to any rational business person. Yet, in talking to this very savvy businesswoman, trying to explain why I couldn’t implement her marketing strategies because “that’s not how things work in publishing” I started to see just how ridiculous the publishing industry is. Even so, the first time she suggested I ditch New York and self publish, I drew up with indignation and said, “I would never self-publish!”
Long story short, part of the strategy this marketing guru proposed to help me land another print contract was for me to start this blog. Julie’s Journal Online was meant to accomplish two things: 1) help me learn social networking by teaching others; and 2) seriously up my overall Web presence. In order to write my blog posts, I had to do a lot of research. That led to me reading things like Konrath’s blog the Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. Which led to me reconsidering epubbing my out-of-print backlist. Lord, what a hair-pulling experience epubbing was back in the early days before we had a sufficient number of cover designers and formatters to hire.
This post, by Roger Colby, originally appeared on his writingishardwork site on 4/29/12.
I have long been a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. Every year, when school dismisses for summer break, I read The Lord of the Rings. This year I will read it to my children and do all the voices for them. Tolkien was a brilliant writer, but what if we could sit down with him and ask him any question we wanted? What if he could give writers advice about their own writing from his years of experience as an incredible storyteller?
This is possible if we read his letters. I have a musty old book entitled The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter. I once spent the better part of a month reading it cover to cover and underlining every instance where the master of Middle Earth wrote about his process. What follows are the best of those notes:
1. Vanity Is Useless – Tolkien writes in a letter to Sir Stanley Unwin on 31 July 1947 “…I certainly hope to leave behind me the whole thing [LOTR] revised and in final form, for the world to throw into the waste-paper basket. All books come there in the end, in this world, anyway” (121). The Lord of the Rings has a worldwide following, has inspired films, video games, animated features, songs, poetry, fan fiction and countless other things, yet its author felt that in reality it may not be that important to the world. There are several other instances where he writes to people about how humble he feels about the things he writes and that they are not really life changing at all, but simply imaginings “from my head”. In Tolkien’s opinion, The Hobbit was published out of sheer “accident”, as he had passed it around to a few close friends, one of them being C.S. Lewis. Finally (and lucky for us) an Oxford graduate, Susan Dagnall, who worked for the London publishing house of Allen & Unwin, encouraged him to submit it for publication. He did, and there are pages of letters where he struggles with the process of publication. He was not, in any way, a vain man, especially about his writing.
2. Keep a Stiff Upper Lip – In another letter to Sir Stanley Unwin dated July 21, 1946, Tolkien lists a mound of personal struggles he was facing: being ill, being overworked and missing his son Christopher who was away in the Royal Navy. He put many of his struggles aside, though, and went to writing. He had to balance his day job with his desire to write epic stories set in Middle Earth. He found time. He made time. It took him 7 years to write The Hobbit. (117) The thing that he writes about most in this period is his struggle to get the work finished on his novels and to balance teaching and his many duties at Oxford College. Apparently he found a way.
3. Listen to Critics – Tolkien writes to his editor about the comments C.S. Lewis made about The Lord of the Rings: “When he would say, ‘You can do better than that. Better, Tolkien, please!’ I would try. I’d sit down and write the section over and over. That happened with the scene I think is the best in the book, the confrontation between Gandalf and his rival wizard, Saruman, in the ravaged city of Isengard.” He writes that he “cut out some passages of light-hearted hobbit conversation which he [Lewis] found tiresome, thinking that if he did most other readers (if any) would feel the same…to tell the truth he never really like hobbits very much, least of all Merry and Pippin. But a great number of readers do, and would like more than they have got” (376). I notice the words in parenthesis “if any”, because there are many passages in the letters where Tolkien seems to be self-deprecating. He listened carefully to critics and understood that they would hone his writing down to something that would be well received by many. We must learn to use the advice of critics to help us become better writers.
Probably the most telling letter of the entire collection would be his letter to Christopher Bretherton dated July 16th, 1964. The following are the highlights of that text:
This post, by Zoe Spencer, originally appeared on her Colpo Di Fulmine blog on 4/26/12.
Yesterday I came across a small publisher who was looking for writers in the genre I’m currently writing in. I was quite excited until I dug deeper into their website. I’m not going to name names because I’ve no interest in getting into a fight on the internet but the overall tone was arrogant and off-putting.
I have a friend who works as an agent’s assistant in London and she says soft skills are of critical importance because the publishing industry is relationship-based. The tone of this publisher’s web site and specifically their submissions guidelines guarantee I’ll never submit to them.
The killer for me was their bald refusal to consider anyone who didn’t have AT LEAST two hundred followers on each of Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. If you don’t have that, they say, you’re not serious about your career and they have no interest in you whatsoever.
Where to start?
I’m very new to the idea of publication – this time last week I’d never submitted a thing and I still consider myself very much a learner – but this attitude suggests they expect their writers to market their books for them. I had this weird idea that was the publisher’s job. If Harper Collins tells me I need to build a web presence, fair enough. But when some relative nobody says my number of followers is more important than the story I have to tell or the quality of my writing, I shake my head and put them in an idiot-shaped box.
This has been a huge issue lately. To better understand it, let me describe a couple of different pricing models or customs which are at the heart of this controversy.
Wholesale Model: The publisher establishes a book’s recommended price and sells it to the booksellers for a percentage off that price. The bookseller can then sell the book for whatever price (sometimes higher) that he wants to.
Agency Model: The publisher sets a price for the book and then discounts it 30% to the reseller, who must agree to sell the book at the price the publisher establishes and cannot discount. The result has been for the publishers to push up the prices of their books because they can.
Impact on E-books: This has pushed up the price of E-books and has resulted in a major conflict between some of the major publishers and Amazon, who wants to keep the prices low for their Kindle market. In their efforts to control the situation in their favor, the major publishers began allegedly sneaking around in a variety of price-fixing activities. Ooops, they got caught at those and the following cover-up attempts. This brought the Federal Department of Justice into the fray with an anti-trust suit against five publishers and Apple. In the meanwhile, E-book distributor Mark Coker of SmashWords has come on record that he prefers the Agency Model because it allows the authors and the publishers to control the prices. This levels the playing field for smaller book retailers and preventing large retailers from loss-leadering their small competitors to death.
All these recent activities are pushing down E-book prices and tying the hands of the major publishers, which may hasten their demise.
Bottom Line: The forces of greed and control battles point to the obvious solution of self-publishing. Once a pariah in the book industry, self-publishing is becoming acceptable, as long as the author does a professional job of publishing his books. The legal fight has an indirect impact on self-publishers in terms of common price ranges. It all points to a much different business model.
Writing is like telling a story. There are a lot of reasons why peoplw write. They write to share their ideas, learnings and experiences. As for me, I write because I simply love to write. When you are mad or angry, you can take your anger off your head by writing it down and release what is inside you especially if you still do not have the courage to say it directly to the person. As well as love. It is very romantic for a couple especially for a girl to receive a letter from an admirer or from his loved one. And if you or your loved ones are far away from you, when you receive a letter from them, it puts a smile on your face. Writing is also a way of coummunication. Writing that comes from the heart has a great impact to a person. And whatever you are feeling, it reflects to the content of your writing.
About the Author:
A writer from California. I write because I love to write. It is a way for me to express love, hate, happiness, sorow and share my ideas. I am interested in politics and law. I write topics about the importance of a California car accident attorneyand current news about politics. I also travel a lot and write about the place I recently visited.
Some people are fond of reading books. They say that reading makes them relax, which is really true.
In fact, reading has 8 major benefits. The first one is that it enhances your knowledge. Through reading, you learn more valuable information and it can make you smarter. It has also been proven to reduced stress. Reading can easily distract you and can make your mind feel at ease. Also, it could provide you with greater tranquility, help improved yout analytical thinking, increased your vocabulary, improved your memory, improved your writing skills and helps you to prioritize your goal. Reading can make you realize what you really want with your life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I am a writer and blogger. I usually write articles that discusses about issues in the society, music, latest star gossips, history and movie reviews. I am also an avid fan of sports. I love to watch football games. I also love to collect books. My current read is all about medical malpractice lawyer.
This post, by Andrew E. Kaufman, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 4/18/12 and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.
Being a writer means being vulnerable. I’m talking, rip your shirt open, aim your chest toward the heavens, and let the vultures have at it. I learned long ago that if I wanted to be an author, I’d have to accept this fact. And while, for the most part, people are wonderful, there will always be haters; they’re everywhere. And yes, they do suck.
Of course, accepting this philosophy is one thing. Surviving it is another. We, as authors, are human. We’re a sensitive lot. We pour our hearts and souls onto the pages, and taking criticism, regardless of how much truth there is to it, isn’t easy. But we all have to endure it, whether it’s a nasty review, email, or passing remark. Friends, both readers and writers, often ask how I cope with that. Luckily, it doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I deal with it. I have no choice. I’ve developed a coping strategy. Sometimes it even works:
Accept that this is the nature of the beast. Simply put, if you can’t handle criticism, you’ve chosen the wrong business. This is not brain surgery; this is the arts, and being as such, not only must you accept criticism, you should expect it.
Take what you can use, throw away the rest. Constructive criticism is always welcome. I know I’ll never stop growing as a writer, and growing means listening. Besides, who better to give feedback than the readers? I consider them experts and their input important. If something resonates with me, I take it to heart. If it doesn’t, I respectfully consider it a difference of opinion and move on. I’ve learned a lot from my readers and I hope I never stop.
The exact moment someone gets nasty is the exact moment I realize it’s not about the book. It’s about them. When somebody becomes belligerent or starts calling names, I know there’s something else at work, that their motivation is more than likely coming from a bad place. Constructive criticism is thoughtful. Hate requires none.
Not everyone is going to like my couch, and that’s okay. I look at it this way: tastes vary widely from person to person. If I bought a new couch—one I found particularly cool and awesome—and showed it to fifty different people, it’s a sure bet I’d get fifty different opinions. Some would love it, some would feel indifferent about it, and yes, some might even hate it. Does that make it a bad couch? Nope (of course, if everyone hated it, then I’d have to do some rethinking about my couch, just as I would with my book). But someone is bound to hate it. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. That’s called life.
Take pride. Anyone who has written a novel knows what a ridiculously difficult job it can be, but it’s also a huge accomplishment. I am by no means perfect, nor would I ever delude myself into thinking I produce perfect work. But I do take great pride in it. I trust my instincts. Even more important, I live for the process, and nobody can take that away from me. Whether I have one reader or thousands, whether people love my books or hate them, I will always write, always love writing, and will always, every step of the way, enjoy the journey.
This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on his Shatzkin Files blog on 4/14/12.
This post went up around midnight last night (Saturday, 4/14) in London, or between 6 and 7 NY time. I had been concerned about a part of it that has been edited below. If you read it before 5 pm today (Sunday, 4/15), you’ll not have seen this correction. And you’ll see some comments that obviously pre-date the update.
Well, we certainly have a confused book business on our hands following the announcement of the Department of Justice intervention last week.
According to my (admittedly tentative) understanding:
1. We have three Big Six publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster) that have agreed to a settlement with Justice that obliges them to modify their agency arrangements over the next 60 days in ways that will eliminate their ability to control discounting in the supply chain for the next two years.
2. We have two Big Six publishers (Macmillan and Penguin) that will contest the DoJ position that they acted illegally (in collusion). They can apparently continue to manage their business with agency pricing the way they have, at least until a court rules. And, as we know, that can take a while.
3. We have one Big Six publisher, the biggest of all (Random House), which can continue to sell under agency terms without restriction and without a lawsuit to defend. Why? Because they didn’t take simultaneous action with the other five and were, therefore, not implicated in the alleged collusion.
4. Agency terms, including even most favored nation clauses (which never really affected the Big Six anyway), have not been ruled illegal. (Cader said in his post on Friday, blocked by paywalls I think, that, as a result of this set of legal actions “agency itself is demonstrably considered legal.” If that is accurate, and he almost always is, that is certainly an unintended consequence.)
5. The DoJ delivered some convincing evidence, surfaced on the Melville House blog, that despite my conjecture to the contrary, big publishers did discuss agency among each other before they implemented it. That certainly doesn’t look good. But whether or not it was implemented legally does not affect my opinion about the value of agency or the damage from losing it.
Added later. But, aha!!! This is not convincing evidence of a conspiracy. It is most likely that this discussion, assuming the email quotes are all legitimate to begin with, was about Bookish, the book retailing initiative funded by Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin. If that’s true, it would suggest that HarperCollins was an early participant in the conversations about starting it. That makes sense. HarperCollins is a partner with Penguin in the financing of Anobii, an ebook retailing site in the UK.
And hats off to my great friend and favorite consulting competitor, Lorraine Shanley of Market Partners, who made the penny drop for me in a conversation at the Digital Minds Conference today in London! I was only comforted when I spoke to one of the smartest guys in trans-Atlantic digital publishing who said, “of course” to this when I told him, just as I did when Lorraine told me. Like me, he didn’t get this right off the bat!
Writing is my passion. I considered it as my own way of keeping a Diary. Everything I feel, I see and I hear, I write it with no limit. When I write it gives me the satisfacion I want. It is as if I am sharing to the world everything that I learned through life, everything that I’ve been through. Whenever someone ask me why I always love to write, I can’t help but smile and tell them, "it’s my own way of expressing myself". If there is something I want to share, I write something about it, posted it and let everyone to see and read more about it. Writing is more than a passion to me. It helps me to grow and know the real person out of me. It’s a way of life, something that I can always put on and gives out my best in it!
About the Author:
Writing is considered a real passion if you want to express yourself. That’s exactly the reason why I love to write. I write from the heart. I know this is what I want to become. I write about things that interest me like Arts, specifically about Portrait to painting which I love to collect. I also write about travel, best destination and current events.
Indie author Brian Jackson is all about the DIY, and all about helping out his fellow indies by sharing what he’s learned. In his Creating Book Covers Workshop series of blog posts, he walks readers through installing the free graphics program GIMP, creating a simple book cover, working with layers, and working with fonts and text effects.
This post, by John Scalzi, originally appeared on his Whatever blog on 4/24/12.
This is pretty big publishing news: Tom Doherty Associates, an imprint of Macmillan and the publisher of most of my science fiction work, has announced they plan to ditch DRM (Digital Rights Management, i.e., the stuff that keeps you from moving or copying your eBooks) entirely. Here’s the release that’s going out about it.
Tom Doherty Associates, publishers of Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen, today announced that by early July 2012, their entire list of e-books will be available DRM-free.
“Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time,” said president and publisher Tom Doherty. “They’re a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another.”
DRM-free titles from Tom Doherty Associates will be available from the same range of retailers that currently sell their e-books. In addition, the company expects to begin selling titles through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.
About Tor and Forge Books
Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is a New York-based publisher of hardcover and softcover books, founded in 1980 and committed (although not limited) to arguably the largest and most diverse line of science fiction and fantasy ever produced by a single English-language publisher. Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is also the home of award-winning Forge Books, founded in 1993 and committed (although not limited) to thrillers, mysteries, historical fiction and general fiction. Together, the imprints garnered 30 New York Times bestsellers in 2011.
I called Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Senior Editor of Tor Books, to ask what going DRM-free will mean for the publisher’s efforts regarding online misappropriation of author copyrights, because I know that this is a very real concern for many writers. This was his response to me, which he allowed me to post here:
Just in case anyone is worried: I can tell you with complete confidence that Macmillan and Tor/Forge have no intention of scaling back our anti-piracy efforts in the e-book realm. We expect to continue working to minimize this problem with all the tools at our disposal.
As you know, we already have a legal team in place that pursues major infringers. We don’t expect that to change at all, and we hope we continue to get the kind of cooperation from infringed-upon authors that’s been such a big help in the past.
Now, thoughts. Please understand this is me speaking personally, for myself, and only for myself.
This post, by Laura Hazard Owen, originally appeared on PaidContent.org on 4/24/12.
Calls for big-six publishers to drop DRM have increased in recent weeks, coinciding with the DOJ price-fixing lawsuit. Many observers fear that the lawsuit will actually reduce competition in the e-book marketplace by cementing Amazon’s role as the dominant player — and they wonder whether DRM is simply another weapon in Amazon’s arsenal, keeping customers locked to the Kindle Store.
Here at paidContent, independent e-bookstore Emily Books‘ Emily Gould and Ruth Curry have argued that DRM is crushing indie booksellers online. And Hachette VP, digital Maja Thomas recently described DRM as “a speedbump” that “doesn’t stop anyone from pirating.”
Still, it may be a long way from this discussion to the first big-six publisher’s actual removal of DRM from its e-books. For now, many readers know they can download free tools to let them read a Barnes & Noble Nook book on a Kindle, or an Apple iBookstore book on a Nook, or a Google book on a Kobo. I’ve used these tools. I recently bought a Google e-book from an independent bookstore, broke the DRM and converted it to read on my Kindle.
Recently, I began chatting with a publishing industry executive about this. This person — who I’ll call Exec — was interested in learning how to break DRM on e-books. About a month later, Exec is a convert and was ready to talk about the experience, albeit anonymously. I don’t think Exec is the only person in the publishing industry breaking DRM on e-books they buy…and those who aren’t doing so already might want to give it a try, if only to see what readers go through. Here is Exec’s story.
I was coming to the conclusion that I wanted to start breaking DRM on e-books I bought so that I could read them on any e-reader, but what pushed me over the top was a terrific post from science-fiction author Charlie Stross, “Cutting their own throats.” He argues that DRM is a way for the Amazons of the world to create lock-in to their platforms.
This editorial, by author Barry Eisler, originally appeared on the Guardian UK site on 4/24/12.
Scaremongers who warn of a potential Amazon monopoly conveniently forget that one already exists in shape of legacy publishers
As the author of nine novels (the most recent, The Detachment, published by Amazon) and four self-published works, I’ve long been curious about why so many people are frightened of a potential future Amazon monopoly while simultaneously so sanguine about the real existing monopoly run by New York’s so-called Big Six.
And it’s been interesting for me to see people try to explain away the evidence of collusion between the CEOs of the major publishers as set forth in the US Justice Department’s suit against these publishers and in the equivalent suit brought by 16 states. Have a look yourself, if you haven’t already, and imagine the reaction if these sorts of meetings and discussions were happening instead among, say, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Larry Page, or among the heads of Bank of America, CitiGroup, and Morgan Stanley.
Of course, we shouldn’t rely on Justice Department allegations alone to form the opinion that legacy publishing is a cartel (after all, this is the same Justice Department that hasn’t prosecuted a single high-level US official for torture or a single banking executive for fraud, and that argues President Obama has the power to execute American citizens without recognisable due process).
We can also look to the results of the legacy model: high book prices, most recently enforced via the so-called "agency" model; "windowing", whereby consumers who want cheaper paperback or digital versions are forced to wait until long after the release of the high-margin hardback; digital rights management regimes that annoy consumers and do little to inhibit piracy; increasingly draconian rights lock-ups in publishing contracts; lockstep digital royalties of only 17.5% for authors.
If you ask legacy publishing’s defenders, "Which is the monopoly: the entity that charges high prices and pays low royalties, or the entity that charges low prices and pays high royalties?", you’ll be told by those defenders (tortured logic to follow) that of course it’s the latter.
In the May/June issue of Writer’s Digest, you’ll find my feature article on “Publishing Strategies for Savvy Self-Publishers.”
Here’s a brief excerpt where I talk about getting specific with your approach to publishing:
Understanding your own goals and expectations is the most important thing you can do for yourself. You can’t set off on a journey if you don’t know your destination, it just doesn’t work very well.
One way to think about this is to identify three things:
Who is your ideal reader?
What kind of books does she buy?
Where are most of those books sold?
If you can answer this ultra-simple set of questions, you’re well on your way to figuring out the end goal of your book publishing, and your answers to these questions will come into play later on [in this article].
The article discusses:
Four strategies to consider,
Evaluate your options
Putting together your publishing team
Seek support and assistance from the self-publishing community
Turn yourself into a marketing machine
Links and resources for each strategy
Writers who blog about their own publishing
Should you do everything yourself?
What kind of book should you publish?
You can get the magazine printed on real paper at major newsstands. Writer’s Digest also has an online store where you can purchase a PDF of the article.
Some of the inspiration for the article was drawn from the work I did putting together the presentation I talked about here:
I’ve often said the most urgent need in the indie community is for author education. There’s nothing else that can save you countless hours of research, frustration, and the pain of making the wrong choice for your book. That’s one of the reasons I was glad to have the opportunity to write for a magazine with exactly those readers.
But I’m curious. Do you read magazines aimed at writers?
I’ve just finished several marvelous days at the London Book Fair and wanted to share my perspective on this brilliant event.
It was definitely a publishing trade event but there were plenty of fantastic opportunities for authors to learn at workshops, through networking and finding out what’s going on in the industry. For independent authors who are entrepreneurially minded, there was also the potential for new markets, tools and relationships.
In the video below, I include some pictures from the event, interviews with authors and share my own perspective. You can also watch on YouTube here. There is a text post below the video if you prefer to read.
My Overall Impression
When I walked into Earls Court, I was immediately intimidated by the huge stands of the ‘Big 6′ publishers that were packed with billboard sized posters of authors and books. Of course, we would all like to be up there, but that’s not the reality for most authors these days.
Those stalls were also full of people having meetings and no appointment meant no chat. I did feel a sense of the scale of the large publishing houses. How many authors, how many books and how many people are involved. It’s no wonder an individual author can feel insignificant.
The ‘altar’ to JK Rowling [is shown at right].
There were more interesting stands around the edges and towards the back, where smaller and more agile publishers had stalls. There was also a Digital space with a fantastic networking area where many of us had back to back meetings.
I heard a fantastic talk from Kobo’s Michael Tamblyn about the data behind the hype, and the Amazon KDP & Createspace stand was permanently busy.
Amazon publishing, including thriller imprint Thomas & Mercer, had a booth at the very back of the event. That physical placement seemed to be a deliberate act by the ‘powers that be’ as there was also a lot of anti-Amazon talk (from publishers) at the Fair. I went to talk to them about my own thrillers and had a great chat with the team there. More on that another time…
Amazon Publishing including Thomas & Mercer thriller imprint
There was a focus on China but I didn’t attend any of those events. I did talk to people about Portuguese translation for Brazil and also about other European markets, something I am definitely interested in pursuing. I enjoyed the seminars I went to and generally felt there was a good atmosphere. A lot of people are positive about the future of publishing, even with the tectonic changes currently happening (but then perhaps I only hear the glass-half-full side because that’s how I feel).
Here are some points from the sessions I attended, primarily the CEO Keynote. I tried to keep notes of verbatim speech but I acknowledge any errors are my own.
The whole point of publishing is how creativity gets to readers and winning the hearts and minds of the consumer
Audible desperately needs more content, and audiobooks continue to expand as a market. This is great for authors but the author-focused stance was challenged in the keynote, details reported here. If you’re interested in audiobooks, Audible outline their business model further here.
Ceiling at the China pavilion
The book industry is sustainable, just not in its current form. Twice as many people read now as they did in the 1930s which is fantastic. But a quarter of books printed are destroyed, 1 book in 5 doesn’t earn back its advance. “The karma in publishing is bad.” But the interest in stories and ideas is very much alive.
Publishers want to embrace all things digital, but there is hesitancy because of the difficulty of predicting the future[Authors do this too!]
Publishing used to be based on alco-rhythms (booze and instinct) and is now based on algorithms – Richard Charkin, Bloomsbury
Print books are handled 24 times on average from manufacture to purchase. Planes take books to Australia and come back with the returns. Tescos buys 10,000 books and returns 9000. There is no business model that can sustain this. Things have to change.
All that really matters is the author and the reader. Everyone else is in the middle. Authors must realize that publishers can’t do everything for them. Neil Gaiman shifted thousands of his audiobooks with a tweet. We’re looking for more of that. Authors directly engaging with readers.
Publishers serve authors through editorial standard. They turn something into something better. [Agreed. Which is why serious indie authors hire professional editors, many of whom work for publishing firms already.]
“The advance is hush money” John Mitchinson, Unbound
Any kind of artist has to do everything. There is no such thing as sitting around dreaming. Performance is important.
Rights Workshop
This was a separate half day event that focused on what rights are, how they can be sold and the legalities behind it all. It was aimed at publishing professionals but I think all authors need an education in this. It could save you thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Seriously. Intellectual property rights are critical for us to understand so we know what we are selling and the possibilities that there are for us.
I learned how the author’s work is “exploited”, how different books work in different markets, the attention to detail needed in contractuals and tracking rights, about translations and the excitement of the Brazilian market. Highly recommended if you’re around next year.
Digital Minds Conference
This was at the same time as the Rights workshop above, but I attended virtually via the Twitter back-channel which was great. You can read a fantastic round-up of everything that went on at Publishing Talk’s Live Blog Roundup. Well worth a read.
Opportunities For Independent Authors
There were a lot of self-publishing companies around the Fair, as well as a large area for Digital and also Apps, which is where independent authors mostly hung out. The usual suspects were there, and there was a positive, happening vibe with speed networking going on.There were also a number of workshops for authors who want to look at self-publishing. They were a bit basic for you lot though, but interesting to see so many sessions at a Fair so dominated by traditional publishing.
The biggest event though was the launch of the Alliance of Independent Authors, brainchild of the terrific Orna Ross. It is definitely time for such an Alliance and there was a great camaraderie in the room. The turn-out was brilliant, considering you had to pay to get into the Fair and it is a global organization so not everyone is London based. I chaired a panel with Amazon, Blurb & Kobo (video to come on that) and then there was one with some independent authors sharing their experiences.
[This] video contains some of the reactions to the event – you can tell everyone is excited! Watch on YouTube here.
In conclusion, a marvelous event and I am considering going to the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, so may see some of you there!
[Update] Radio Litopia The Naked Book: Shiny, Happy, Publishing People
As a result of the launch, Orna Ross and I were invited onto the panel of Litopia’s The Naked Book, along with a panel of publishing industry professionals. We talked about the Book Fair, Amazon, self-publishing and more. You can listen to the recording here on Radio Litopia.
Did you go to the Book Fair? or have you attended Book Fairs or publishing industry events before? What are your impressions and have you found them useful? Please do leave a comment. Thank you!
