Yep, it's a Tuesday. This week's Word Whore topic is daydreams.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Penguin Group & "Self-Publishing"
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article out today titled, "Self-Publishers Get Help." When I read the headline, I thought, "Yay, this is going to be about the hullaballoo of retailer subscription-models and the grey space of 'when a unit of sale is not a unit of sale.'"
It's about the self-publishing venture of Penguin Group -- Book Country. Book Country positions itself as a writers' community. "Your Writing. Your Community" is the tag line. Tacking self-publishing on to that community is simultaneously brilliant and skeevy. Penguin clearly anticipates the majority of their self-publishing customers to come from the community they've fostered. Logical business move. Risky and predatory, but bottom-line oriented (as any business needs to be).
I don't know if traditional publishers ought to be in the business of self-publishing.
To Penguin's credit, they publicly state in the WSJ article they're not looking to generate revenue from rejections made by their "traditional publishing lines."
Mind you, what eventually evolved into Carina Press was never publicly positioned as a self-publisher. They were and are an ebook publisher. Carina books are edited by freelance editors, get professional covers, and marketing support. For this, authors do not pay Carina upfront. Carina extracts the usual publisher % of revenue fee. Carina also operates on a traditional submission accept/reject acquisition-model; so not every Tom, Dick, and Harry can have their book published by them.
Self-Publishing or Self-Serving: Book Country offers "self-publishing" in the way that a novel doesn't have be approved by gatekeepers to be pushed to the public. The novel don't get an editor, a professional cover artist, or marketing assistance -- normal for self-publishing. The author does get the honor of paying Book Country an upfront fee for the uploading, digital formatting, ISBN assignment, and hosting -- which is totally fair for self-publishing.
Yes, some vanity publishers do that. They take an upfront fee and % revenue. Some just take an upfront fee. I haven't seen the Book Country contract to know who owns what of the Intellectual Property of said novel. For the author's sake, I hope the author retains 100% of their rights and that time limits, international access/distribution, etc. are all covered under that contract.
Monetizing Community = Short-Term Business Win: Having been a part of a big company who tried to monetize (and over-monetize) their community assets, I absolutely see the business advantages of adding self-publishing tools to a writers' community. Penguin has the audience, an audience drawn by Penguin's brand-value and perceived exposure to "Big 6 Editors." Thousands of aspiring novelists theoretically work together to hone their craft in Book Country's genre-fiction community. What are those pre-published writers to do after working so hard on their book? Why publish it, of course! Penguin makes it easy. They supply the technology, the community supplies the content. Classic internet business model -- for better and worse.
Intellectual Property vs Community = Long-Term Business Risk: There is a lot of grey space in the author-publisher relationship that has the potential to harm the author and the community of authors. Most of it deals with setting the industry standards for revenue, ownership, legal accountability. What if someone published pirated/plagiarized work via Book Country? Who's accountable? Who owes the copyright holder damages? Worse? What if members of the Book Country community "help" an author edit/rewrite their book, that book gets published, and that book becomes a bestseller? Is it really a book by Jane Author or is it a book by the Book Country Community? There is the potential for dozens, even hundreds, of people claiming to have had "significant input" into creating the end product. All of which is documented and stored in Book Country's servers. How are rules of Intellectual Property, burdens of proof, etc., applied in these situations? Yes, writers' communities have been around for as long as writers have been paid for their work. They've thrived on the internet without imploding. However, they haven't been as visible or tied to a NYC publisher before. The risk/reward for being a bad apple significantly changes.
Self-Publishing and Decline of Brand-Value: Generating revenue from aspiring authors is a big win for the publisher, but does it create negative value in the marketplace? In an era of evolving tech changing publishing and distribution models, traditional publishers ought to be concerned about the public perception of quality associated with their brand. That is what will keep consumers buying from them and authors submitting to them. If consumers associate subpar books published by Book Country to the overall Penguin brand, Penguin Group will lose ground to its competitors. Also, community squabbles within Book Country can have very public, very ugly repercussions on the parent brand.
Yes, there are great opportunities and big wins to be had with a grass-roots-driven product. Yes, it was inevitable that traditional publishers would get into the self-publishing game. I'm just not certain that being a self-publisher who preys on its community is the best long-term business strategy for a big publishing house with a strong brand and valuable reputation.
Will the assorted factions in the publishing community go up in arms about this? Will writers' organizations have opinions? Will there be any chest pounding from the agents? Should we expect the rest of the Big 6 to play lemming, just as they've done with ebooks?
This should be fun to watch.
Or not
It's about the self-publishing venture of Penguin Group -- Book Country. Book Country positions itself as a writers' community. "Your Writing. Your Community" is the tag line. Tacking self-publishing on to that community is simultaneously brilliant and skeevy. Penguin clearly anticipates the majority of their self-publishing customers to come from the community they've fostered. Logical business move. Risky and predatory, but bottom-line oriented (as any business needs to be).
I don't know if traditional publishers ought to be in the business of self-publishing.
Truly, I'm torn.
To Penguin's credit, they publicly state in the WSJ article they're not looking to generate revenue from rejections made by their "traditional publishing lines."
On the other hand, Penguin's traditional publishing business doesn't plan to refer authors it has rejected to the self-publishing operation. Molly Barton, Penguin's global digital director, said "it wouldn't be appropriate" to "suggest a path that involves fees" to an author whose manuscript had been rejected. -- WSJIt seems Penguin learned from the backlash a few years ago when Harlequin was set to launch it's digital imprint. Their rejection letters were going to refer the crushed author to the then-HQN-branded ebook arm. Similarly, Book Country is not branded anything Penguin (save for the footer on the website).
Mind you, what eventually evolved into Carina Press was never publicly positioned as a self-publisher. They were and are an ebook publisher. Carina books are edited by freelance editors, get professional covers, and marketing support. For this, authors do not pay Carina upfront. Carina extracts the usual publisher % of revenue fee. Carina also operates on a traditional submission accept/reject acquisition-model; so not every Tom, Dick, and Harry can have their book published by them.
Not every ebook is a self-published book
Not every ebook publisher is a vanity publisher
Self-Publishing or Self-Serving: Book Country offers "self-publishing" in the way that a novel doesn't have be approved by gatekeepers to be pushed to the public. The novel don't get an editor, a professional cover artist, or marketing assistance -- normal for self-publishing. The author does get the honor of paying Book Country an upfront fee for the uploading, digital formatting, ISBN assignment, and hosting -- which is totally fair for self-publishing.
Paying Book Country 30-70% of revenue based on price points ... a bit dodgy.
Yes, some vanity publishers do that. They take an upfront fee and % revenue. Some just take an upfront fee. I haven't seen the Book Country contract to know who owns what of the Intellectual Property of said novel. For the author's sake, I hope the author retains 100% of their rights and that time limits, international access/distribution, etc. are all covered under that contract.
Monetizing Community = Short-Term Business Win: Having been a part of a big company who tried to monetize (and over-monetize) their community assets, I absolutely see the business advantages of adding self-publishing tools to a writers' community. Penguin has the audience, an audience drawn by Penguin's brand-value and perceived exposure to "Big 6 Editors." Thousands of aspiring novelists theoretically work together to hone their craft in Book Country's genre-fiction community. What are those pre-published writers to do after working so hard on their book? Why publish it, of course! Penguin makes it easy. They supply the technology, the community supplies the content. Classic internet business model -- for better and worse.
However
Intellectual Property vs Community = Long-Term Business Risk: There is a lot of grey space in the author-publisher relationship that has the potential to harm the author and the community of authors. Most of it deals with setting the industry standards for revenue, ownership, legal accountability. What if someone published pirated/plagiarized work via Book Country? Who's accountable? Who owes the copyright holder damages? Worse? What if members of the Book Country community "help" an author edit/rewrite their book, that book gets published, and that book becomes a bestseller? Is it really a book by Jane Author or is it a book by the Book Country Community? There is the potential for dozens, even hundreds, of people claiming to have had "significant input" into creating the end product. All of which is documented and stored in Book Country's servers. How are rules of Intellectual Property, burdens of proof, etc., applied in these situations? Yes, writers' communities have been around for as long as writers have been paid for their work. They've thrived on the internet without imploding. However, they haven't been as visible or tied to a NYC publisher before. The risk/reward for being a bad apple significantly changes.
Self-Publishing and Decline of Brand-Value: Generating revenue from aspiring authors is a big win for the publisher, but does it create negative value in the marketplace? In an era of evolving tech changing publishing and distribution models, traditional publishers ought to be concerned about the public perception of quality associated with their brand. That is what will keep consumers buying from them and authors submitting to them. If consumers associate subpar books published by Book Country to the overall Penguin brand, Penguin Group will lose ground to its competitors. Also, community squabbles within Book Country can have very public, very ugly repercussions on the parent brand.
Yes, there are great opportunities and big wins to be had with a grass-roots-driven product. Yes, it was inevitable that traditional publishers would get into the self-publishing game. I'm just not certain that being a self-publisher who preys on its community is the best long-term business strategy for a big publishing house with a strong brand and valuable reputation.
Will the assorted factions in the publishing community go up in arms about this? Will writers' organizations have opinions? Will there be any chest pounding from the agents? Should we expect the rest of the Big 6 to play lemming, just as they've done with ebooks?
This should be fun to watch.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Trifling Shoe Decisions
This post contains nothing of pertinence. It does not require ze leeetle grey cells to operate. It shouldn't be a blip in the vast wasteland of internet data.
I can't decide if these shoes are hideous or fabulous. I'm torn between wanting to own them as my "everyday" shoe and wanting to own them for munitions during the zombie apocalypse.
However...
I can't decide if these shoes are hideous or fabulous. I'm torn between wanting to own them as my "everyday" shoe and wanting to own them for munitions during the zombie apocalypse.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Publishing Hullabaloos: Week Ending 11/11
Amazon owns the bulk of ire this week from publishers, agents, and authors -- some of it merited, some not.
Following up on my post earlier this week: Publisher's Weekly takes a look at the Amazon Lending Library scandal.
What should be an issue? Amazon's technology "glitch" that cost a self-published author revenue for more than six thousand downloads of his book. As more and more literary agencies get into the business of digital publishing and distribution, gaffs like this aren't going to be limited to "unprotected" self-pubbers.
The fine print of the flub to which authors need to pay attention is that the author's "free first chapter" marketing on other sites triggered Amazon's anti-compete software. Yes, it's the classic human vs machine, small business vs behemoth industry leader story. However, Amazon isn't the only retailer using technology to track business on their sites and their competitors' sites. Even if Amazon recodes their software bug to check for the download's file size, it doesn't mean other sites will. It also doesn't mean Amazon will improve their consumer conflict resolution protocols to address problems in their digital publishing division.
If self-pubbers want to take on the big boys of retail to demand improvements, they're going to have to organize themselves into a business association; otherwise, they remain dependent on big publishing to force changes. End of day it's all a matter of numbers. The bigger numbers -- be they people or dollars -- the more say.
Details of Amazon's actual screw up here: "Amazon sells 6,111 copies of an ebook for free by mistake and won't compensate author." -- Matthew Humphries for Geek.com
Following up on my post earlier this week: Publisher's Weekly takes a look at the Amazon Lending Library scandal.
As long as Amazon continues to sell books for which they have retail rights and they report each download as a unit of sale to the publisher, the cage rattling serves only to let Amazon know the publishing industry is watching their every move. Such chest-pounding by agents and authors does have value, particularly as the industry "norms" are being redefined. Don't expect it to stop subscription sales strategies any more than it will stop ads in ebooks from coming. The dicey bit comes if publishers negotiate unique retailer deals for subscription services in which one download no longer equals a unit of sale."Amazon was able to include publishers’ titles without their consent because the e-tailer is treating the borrowing process as a sale—each time a Prime user borrows a book, Amazon pays the publisher as if the book was bought." -- for PW
What should be an issue? Amazon's technology "glitch" that cost a self-published author revenue for more than six thousand downloads of his book. As more and more literary agencies get into the business of digital publishing and distribution, gaffs like this aren't going to be limited to "unprotected" self-pubbers.
The fine print of the flub to which authors need to pay attention is that the author's "free first chapter" marketing on other sites triggered Amazon's anti-compete software. Yes, it's the classic human vs machine, small business vs behemoth industry leader story. However, Amazon isn't the only retailer using technology to track business on their sites and their competitors' sites. Even if Amazon recodes their software bug to check for the download's file size, it doesn't mean other sites will. It also doesn't mean Amazon will improve their consumer conflict resolution protocols to address problems in their digital publishing division.
If self-pubbers want to take on the big boys of retail to demand improvements, they're going to have to organize themselves into a business association; otherwise, they remain dependent on big publishing to force changes. End of day it's all a matter of numbers. The bigger numbers -- be they people or dollars -- the more say.
Details of Amazon's actual screw up here: "Amazon sells 6,111 copies of an ebook for free by mistake and won't compensate author." -- Matthew Humphries for Geek.com
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Word Whore Tuesday: The Perfect Man
This week's topic over on the Word Whore blog is "The Perfect Man."
Yes. Yes, laugh until your belly aches. While you're wiping tears from your cheeks, hop over and leave a one-liner description of the "Perfect Man." The more ridiculous, the better.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Product v Marketing: Digital Lending & Author Royalites
From a consumer's perspective: Amazon is adding e-books to their Amazon Prime subscription package. Now, along with free two-day shipping, streaming movie rentals, and instant TV show downloads, Amazon Prime members can "borrow" One Free e-Book a month -- all other books the consumer has to buy.
From an author/agent's perspective: Publishers engaging in this subscription-based distribution deal with Amazon make money off of a pool of authors' works. The size of the pool is critical since consumers are more likely to pay for a service that offers a million books versus one that only offers three hundred of the best sellers. The happy theory is that each time a publisher makes money off of a book, the author of said book also makes money. The amount the author (and the author's agent) earns is determined by the contract between author and publisher. Big publishers have only recently adopted e-book verbage in their contract boiler plate. Subscription digital distribution, at first glance, hasn't been addressed. The root argument is if an author is due money by simply having the title of their work available to the subscribers -- even if their book isn't downloaded by a single consumer.
The Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR) has a great summary of the issue and a breakdown of the math behind potential solutions over on their blog: Author Contracts and Subscription Models.
From an unpublished author's perspective: I'm probably not going to win friends by saying it's much unnecessary ado about a marketing strategy. Unlike tangible books versus e-books, subscription services aren't new products. They're not even new means of distribution. They're marketing strategies -- for a retailer. The only thing "new" is a retailer bundling existing products to attract more consumers and retain existing customers.
Marketing -- creating consumer awareness and purchase opportunities -- is one huge reason authors sign publishing contracts in the first place.
True, true, I don't know all the moving parts nor do I have a crystal ball for seeing the ass-biting that will result from digital subscription models. However, publishers have been discounting books for eons. Retailers have run subscription programs with lures for ages as well. So, why wouldn't an author's payment fall under an existing contract?
Subscriptions models aren't a new product. "Lending" is a misnomer only in the consumer association with a non-profit public library, versus a for-profit Free Product Sample / 30-day trial. Each time a customer downloads a book, that download is logged by the retailer and reported to the publisher as a unit of sale. The retailer pays the publisher for that unit sold according to the distribution deal in place with the publisher -- regardless of whether the retailer collected money from the consumer. The publisher then pays the author (or agent) for that unit of sale according to the contract in place.
Why would an author expect to get paid if no one downloads their work? It's like saying I expect to get paid by Google and Twitter since I've created content that populates their sites, since empty search results or content streams are worthless. Never mind that Google is one of the few companies who get paid to include a listing in search results.
I'm assuming authors don't have an "opt-out" for publisher or dealer promotions that discount the prices on their paper or digital books. I'm also assuming they don't get paid extra each time the publisher or retailer promotes their books or even lists them in search results. An author gets paid each time someone buys their book. Period.
Authors -- keep writing books that people want to read.
Marketers -- keep finding new ways to improve discovery. (P.S. You might want to take that Tech geek out to dinner and pick his brains.)
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