
A footnote about the publishing industry - pavel_lishin
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/05/a-footnote-about-the-publishin.html
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lazyant
"(Bezos) picked publishing because it was obviously the most dysfunctional. "
, from what I remember from a biography he picked books because they could be
bought by users without checking them out first, they are easy to store and
mail and you didn't have to pay for them until you sold them.

From Wikipedia: "After reading a report about the future of the Internet which
projected annual Web commerce growth at 2,300%, Bezos created a list of 20
products which could be marketed online. He narrowed the list to what he felt
were the five most promising products which included: compact discs, computer
hardware, computer software, videos, and books. Bezos finally decided that his
new business would sell books online, due to the large world-wide demand for
literature, the low price points for books, along with the huge number of
titles available in print"

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yawz
Unfortunately a new balance is not easily achieved. Take "editing" as an
example:

Most of us read "well edited" books, therefore we take "editing" for granted.
I am an amateur book reviewer & blogger. And I regularly come across badly
edited or not-at-all edited books/stories. IMHO, editing can be (at least for
me) the difference between greatly enjoying a story and parking a book on the
side after a few dozen pages.

Then publishers also come with some sort of brand loyalty. I have my favorite
publishers (and editors for that matter). For example, when I hear about the
book rights acquisitions of a new author from my favorite publishers or
imprints I get really excited. Because I know they've been publishing the type
of content I enjoy.

So, all in all, it's shortsighted to see publishers as just "middle-man". This
ecosystem has evolved to be more complicated than that.

~~~
dublinben
1\. Editing can and will still happen outside of the traditional publishing
relationship. Authors should hire editors directly before releasing their
books. Many authors already trade editing with other authors.

2\. You're an incredible outlier for even being cognizant of the publisher of
your favorite books, let alone having any kind of loyalty. Readers who are not
industry-insiders never hear about book rights acquisitions.

~~~
jasode
> You're an incredible outlier for even being cognizant of the publisher of
> your favorite books,

I don't know what kind of books grandparent had in mind (fiction or non-
fiction?). For me, I have a general awareness of _technical book publishers_
and their strengths. Some examples... In general an Addison-Wesley or Morgan-
Kaufmann book is better edited than an Apress book. Also, some publishers tend
to gravitate towards certain strengths such as MK's line of books on big data
& data mining. O'Reilly and Manning publishers tend to respond very quickly to
the latest technologies (some might say "fads") with a topical book whereas
Addison-Wesley is much more conservative.

Of course, there are exceptions to all of the above but the general tendencies
of tech publishers can be used to signal the potential quality of a book
(especially for unknown authors.)

I don't think the HN crowd would be outliers by having a sense of where the
various tech book publishers fit in the marketplace.

~~~
dublinben
If you set aside technology books, I think you'll find the situation quite
different. Can you tell me the publisher of the last fiction book you read?
How about the publisher of A Game of Thrones? Or the publisher of Piketty's
book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" or any of the NYTimes Bestsellers?

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ivan_ah
Like the OP, I think the big publishers are going down in flames soon. They
just don't provide enough value in the value chain.

Unlike the OP, however, I think the _publishing industry_ is on the verge of a
great renewal. The only people that matter are authors and readers, and eBooks
and print-on-demand can make this connection happen, without the need to pay
any middlemen. More on this here [http://minireference.com/blog/techzing-
interview/#opportunit...](http://minireference.com/blog/techzing-
interview/#opportunities)

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
The missing thing here is editors.

A lot of books, regardless of format, would be a lot less enjoyable without a
good editor to make sure the story is consistent, well-paced, etc. A number of
authors thank their editors in the afterword.

That said, there's still room to disrupt the industry a bit.

~~~
cwyers
Well, and discoverability/signalling. The more books that are available, the
harder it is to choose a book to read. And right now, the major imprints are a
signal of quality -- such-and-such publisher decided this book was good enough
to spend money on. Not to say that can't be addressed in this new world, but
it's unclear how it's going to be addressed and what the tradeoffs are.

Also, by democratizing books, you may end up drastically altering the
compensation structure. Right now, you have a relative small number of people
like Stross who are able to make their living writing novels, and a larger
number of people who don't ever "make it." A more open book-publishing market
may mean fewer Strosses can make a living as an author, and more and more
people who are novelists do it in addition to their primary job, rather than
as their primary job.

So yeah, there's a very real chance that this new world of publishing does
"destroy" something. And something else will get built. And there'll be
tradeoffs, and some people will win, and others will lose. Right now it's
really hard to say whether or not society as a whole will be better off. The
thing about Stross's argument is that historically, there's very little
precedent for being able to stave off social changes instigated by
technological disruption. So even if he's "right," I don't know what's to be
done about it in the long run.

~~~
ivan_ah
> Well, and discoverability/signalling. The more books that are available, the
> harder it is to choose a book to read.

That's a problem, yes. I'm not sure how this will work out for novels, but for
non-fiction I think this will be solved by authors going after very specific
niches---the long tail.

This is unchartered publishing territory because previously publishers would
never take on a niche subject because it wouldn't make economic sales to pass
it through their pipeline.

> fewer Strosses can make a living as an author

Your point about the dilution of attention and book revenue is valid, but let
me partially offset it / counter it with an argument on margins. By self-
publishing, authors retain 60% of the list price (say $15) as compared to
5-10% of profits (=3-5% of list price) regular publishers offer. It wouldn't
be too wrong to say authors make as little as $3 per copy sold, so if you do
the math, it's actually good for everyone:

    
    
      Superstar author, monthly:
         Previously:    10000*3    =  $30k royalties 
         In new world:   3333*15   =  $50k royalties  (assume 2/3 readership loss)
      
      Less known author, over the same period of time:
         Previously:     0
         In new world:   300*15    =  $4500  which is a make-me-wanna-write salary 
    
    

It's not zero sum if there are gains to be had from efficiency.

~~~
edavison1
"I think this will be solved by authors going after very specific niches---the
long tail... This is unchartered [sic] publishing territory because previously
publishers would never take on a niche subject because it wouldn't make
economic sales to pass it through their pipeline."

Publishers have been doing this for a very long time. A lot of sales to
publishers are built on the idea of having a built-in niche--even if it's not
a smash hit, 'people who like x won't be able to pass this up because it's all
about x.' Might sound crazy to the HN crowd, but this is still how the
industry functions--baseball books might be a good example, though I'm not
sure it's niche enough for you, they represent almost a guaranteed amount of
copies sold to certain (acquiring) editors.

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markbnj
I don't know why the idea that there might be a "better way" to produce
fiction would even occur. It's a work of art, not a product. Are we worrying
about the inefficiencies of cottage industries in, say, the production of
music, painting, sculpture, or other literary forms such as poetry and the
various forms of theatrical writing? It seems an odd lament for a writer,
though I don't know that he actually meant it that way.

~~~
mstolpm
While the story itself might be art, the book, ebook, audiobook or DVD is a
product. Publishers aren't producing art, they are in the business of
distributing. (Most don't even sell to the customer but need either the
bookstore or Amazon to do so.)

~~~
edavison1
Writers, including critically acclaimed ones, can't produce their art without
a legit publishing house making sure that their books are readable.

There is a long chain of people in publishing working to ensure you maintain
that perception, so I guess that's on them, but everyone knows they're awful
distributors and most of the value they create comes from elsewhere in the
'creative' process.

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b1daly
Markets for artistic works are unique in that the creators are often (usually)
not primarily motivated by money. Everyone else in the business is, more or
less (meaning many authors write as an avocation, while very few people would
consider doing extend work of a tedious nature like editing for no money).

With the rise of ebooks they are also subject to the wildly counter intuitive
aspects of markets for digital goods. High fixed costs with near zero marginal
cost, leading to a fat head, long tail market structure.

Authors such as Stross who are commercially successful are in a highly elite
group, so I tend to discount their concerns as being generalizable as a
societal concern. Not to say that I don't empathize. Or envy:)

It's unclear to me how the disruption of the publishing industry would affect
the quality of published work. The services publishers provide, funding,
editing, marketing, legal, are essential to the creation of good work.

If there is no mechanics to pair such services with gifted authors, then it
seems a certainty that the quality of published work will go down in the
aggregate.

But as far as I can tell, the profound change in publishing due to the changes
in media itself has yet to shake out into a new stable structure.

