The Truth About Publishing

An interesting article in the Guardian discusses the emergence of the ‘No Frills’ approach to publishing, a response to the growing economic difficulties associated with traditional publishing. Just as the music industry has had to evolve to modern buying habits and digital distribution, so must the world of publishing, but HarperCollins’ announcement to introduce a new imprint with little or no author advances, profit sharing, and no-returns for booksellers, in the vein of Macmillan’s New Writing Ventures project, seems almost anticlimactic. CEOs of publishing houses are putting their heads together to work out new strategies for the future of the industry, and this is the best they can do? Apparently this new imprint is going to take more risks, publishing works that would often be considered too high risk for cashed strapped publishers, and expose new writers, but will only have twenty-five titles in its annual run.

Whilst I am all for a shake up of the publishing industry, I do think this is something of a token gesture. This limited imprint is designed to take the pressure off big name authors, and to make it easier for first time writers (for whom it is almost impossible to get published now as publishers become increasingly risk-shy), but it just doesn’t strike me as the fundamental shift required. Yes, I think big advances to authors are wasteful, and I do think authors should share profits, though I think 20%, which is what Macmillan offers on net sales, is pretty paltry – it disgusts me that an author can spend years on a book, eke out something that has taken tremendous effort, only for the lion’s share of the money to go to a publishing house that has minimal input into its creation. The fact is, with the rise of print on demand, self-publishing, and distribution deals, the only assets the publishing house brings are contacts and marketing expertise, and this is vital, because although one can self-publish, without a marketing campaign it is very difficult to make any kind of dent in the market (especially considering how many people are now publishing their own work).

Perhaps the model for a modern publishing house is one that pools its marketing resources and contacts, with distribution deals and minimum upfront printing, so that the internet becomes more of a focus and print on demand keeps both publishing costs down (returns policy between publishers and booksellers would be obsolete) and digital availability of books (with affordable digital readers becoming as commonplace as the iPod) also taking away the burden of unsold books. When I released Veneer, I did everything from the copyediting, typesetting, proofreading, cover design, marketing, paid for the ISBN, organised distribution, and made a small profit. If I had a targeted marketing campaign behind the book then I think it would have been more successful. The point is that the use of expensive editors and designers might be expendable in the light of new technology and more input and ownership comes from the author.

The publishing industry really does need to keep pace with the vastly changing world in which people are writing more than ever - on blogs, social networking sites, and self-publishing – with a vast increase in materials for people to read. The music industry is undergoing a massive revolution, and I think rather successfully. Digital books however still seem to be a relatively foreign idea, and there is no agreed international digital reader (on which ebooks could be downloaded directly and which blogs and other reading materials from the internet could be downloaded in mini-ebooks), digital book format, or iTunes equivalent that would help to bolster the digital market. It is this digital direction that I am convinced will rejuvenate the publishing industry and help strip away the huge costs involved in traditional publishing, and also get more work out there from new writers who simply cannot penetrate the market at the moment. Until there is a CEO bold enough to take on this challenge, it looks like we might have to make do with the type of trite gestures of HarperCollins.

Guardian Article

Guardian Article 2

Comments

[Johnson]

Nice post, publications can get more exposure through online publishing and which is the best tool to increase the revenue. As per the surveys, online readership is increasing dramatically from the past three years. Companies like http://www.pressmart.net helping to the publishers in digitization process and making easy to publisher in distribution of their publications