Online Information: The View of a Real Author
February 8, 2010
The addled goose publishes monographs. These are expensive and sell in dribs and drabs. The addled goose has no real publishing experience so I gobbled up the information in the TechCrunch article “Hey, 1997 – Macmillan Called, They Want the Net Book Agreement Back.” If the information in this write up is on the money, real publishers have been making life difficult for authors and booksellers for a long time. I recall reading that Charles Dickens was a slippery dude with whom to deal. Now I am wondering if the dust up between the world’s smartest man (Jeff Bezos) and a bunch of publishers is an information apocalypse, a business negotiation, or a new era in information access. I am working on a really dull monograph with zero interest to anyone except a few attorneys and possibly an investment banker or two. I may even give the monograph away because with the speed with which my stuff published by my publishers is selling, I will be in the big duck oven in the sky before I can pay for a meal at McDuck’ down the road.
In the TechCrunch write up, I noted these items:
First this passage:
Of course, publishers still choose their wholesale price, but there’s nothing to stop, say, Borders from heavily discounting bestsellers to get people through the door. Publishers didn’t necessarily like this as it led to booksellers demanding more aggressive discounting (sometimes more than 60% off the cover price), but they didn’t have much of a choice but to accept. The fact is that publishers couldn’t justify opening up their own stores, so if they wanted readers to be able to actually read their books, they had to keep bookstores happy.
Ah, control is not complete. I did not know that publishers were at the mercy of their retail partners.
Second, this passage:
It took until the late 90s [in the United Kingdom] for the Restrictive Practices Court to declare that the Net Book Agreement was anti-competitive and should be scrapped. Shortly afterwards, Borders entered the UK market, hundreds of UK independent bookshops went bankrupt and publishers decided to change their contracts with authors. Now, instead of being based on the cover price of a book, the author’s royalty would be based on ‘net receipts’, which is to say the price that publishers actually received from bookshops.
Yikes, price manipulation and then pricing actions that further reduced what was paid to real authors. Geese like me are even further down the food chain. Yikes again.
Finally, this passage:
For the first time in the UK since 1997, and ever in the US, publishers are able to set – and enforce- their own prices on ebooks. And they will; not to make a fair return on ebooks but rather to cripple their sales in order to protect early hardback book sales. They’ve admitted as much themselves, saying that prices will start high on hardback release, before dropping steadily over time. The idea that this benefits anyone, least of all authors, is laughable.
So what are the consequences?
You can read the TechCrunch original for its view. Mine is that a disintermediation option is open. I argued that Google could move in this space with the flip of a bit. So far Google is dragging its giant Googzilla feet. But for how long? Have publishers read The Strategy Paradox by Michael E. Raynor. It might be available on Amazon or in your local bookstore. Worthwhile reading for understanding in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold,
No one paid me to write this. I will report non payment to the US Department of Treasury, which prints money, unlike publishers and authors.
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