{"id":569,"date":"2010-02-04T17:52:50","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T21:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=569"},"modified":"2010-02-04T17:54:03","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T21:54:03","slug":"why-in-fact-publishing-will-not-go-away-anytime-soon-a-play-in-one-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=569","title":{"rendered":"Why In Fact Publishing Will Not Go Away Anytime Soon: A Play in One Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARACTERS:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

ELTON P. STRA\u00dcMANN, <\/span><\/strong>a modern-thinking man with exciting ideas<\/span><\/em>
\nSEAN,<\/strong> a humble wannabe writer<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Act I<\/span><\/p>\n

SCENE OPENS ON STRA\u00dcMANN and SEAN, standing.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

STRA\u00dcMANN: Do you want to buy this self-published book?<\/span><\/p>\n

SEAN: No.<\/span><\/p>\n

STRA\u00dcMANN: Obama is awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n

CURTAIN FALLS<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

John Scalzi wrote a longer version on his blog<\/a> that goes into a bit more detail on the subject, but really I think it just comes down to marketing, and the whole business of that.\u00a0 A catchy\u00a0professional-looking\u00a0cover is part of marketing.\u00a0 Potential readers have to expect that your book will be well-edited.\u00a0 And having bookstore shelf-space is pretty huge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scalzi seems to miss one thing (which is not to say he doesn’t believe it; I just didn’t notice him mentioning it): a self-published book is NOT automatically worse than a professionally published one.<\/span><\/p>\n

That said, from my few observations, self-published books definitely TEND to be of lower quality.\u00a0 The few self-published books I’ve looked at have been so unspeakably awful<\/em> that I’ve lost most faith in them.\u00a0 I’m not very likely to buy one.\u00a0 Ever.\u00a0 At least if things stay as they are in terms of quality.\u00a0 See this older post<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

That<\/span><\/em> said, I do think there are unpublished writers out there somewhere who’s works of fiction I would enjoy immensely; I do not<\/em> believe publishers and editors are the almighty gods of determining what writing is good and bad.\u00a0 I <\/em>am that god.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what self-publishers really need if they want to prove Scalzi wrong (though the character Scalzi created would never be so adept) is to 1) actually polish their writing (I think editors are a huge help, but not the end all be all, and certainly NOT the reason publishing will\u00a0not die soon) and 2) market better.\u00a0 Now, how exactly one “markets better” is a huge subject, and not one that I claim to have much of a clue about.\u00a0 However, starting a Twitter following campaign is probably not<\/em> the way to go.\u00a0 If you are dumb enough to market like that, then of course your writing must be garbage.\u00a0 (As in many arts, it’s a lot easier to\u00a0recognize what not<\/em> to do.)<\/span><\/p>\n

It would be nice if there was a way for self-published books that aren’t garbage to get noticed more easily.\u00a0 I’m sure there are some people out there working on this problem, perhaps through blogs or sites that review self-published stuff, or at least track sales.\u00a0 And there’s the whole book-podcasting thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

But can self-publishers ever market with the power of the big publishers?\u00a0 I don’t see how, unless they just overwhelm the market with quality content, which I can’t see happening.\u00a0 The big publishers have the money<\/em> to market.\u00a0 If your self-published book does well and a publisher becomes interested in your material, you’d have to be a complete idiot to refuse… and though you’d benefit from that, you’re also making them stronger.\u00a0 Not that that’s bad.<\/span><\/p>\n

All this talk kind of makes me want to be a publisher… but I can’t really afford\u00a0such a gamble\u00a0right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only other thing that remains to be seen is the effect of book piracy.\u00a0 When publishers aren’t making money, will that even the playing field?\u00a0 Will there be enough pirates to do that?\u00a0 How popular will ebook readers become?\u00a0 I still think ebook readers and ebooks are a bit of a rip-off, so I don’t see myself switching any time soon.\u00a0 I can’t predict the future very well (I thought the iPhone\u00a0sounded like\u00a0a dumb idea… (so does the iPad for that matter…) but I was right about blu-rays winning the high-def format war) but if a lot people think like me, ebooks and ebook readers will either have to become drastically cheaper, or remain about as popular as they are now, which doesn’t seem very (though enough that publishers are continuing to pursue it).\u00a0 But… who can know?<\/span><\/p>\n

A rather lengthy aside: if ebooks do become\u00a0much more\u00a0popular, I have a very very<\/em> tough time believing publishers and distributors\u00a0wouldn’t have to change their business models drastically<\/em>.\u00a0 If I were a published author, and the publisher and distributor were no longer dealing with a bunch of physical inventory, then their roles\u00a0would be\u00a0completely different.\u00a0 I’m not even sure why I should need<\/em> the distributor at all if all they’re doing is hosting digital files, besides to make my book easier to find.\u00a0 But shelf space\u00a0becomes infinite.\u00a0 And certainly the publisher shouldn’t need as much $$$$ if they don’t have to deal with paper.\u00a0 Look at this recent fight between Macmillan and Amazon regarding ebook prices<\/a>.\u00a0 Macmillan wants to charge $15 for some ebooks?\u00a0 What morons out there are buying ebooks for that price?\u00a0 (I shudder to think.)\u00a0 I have to side with Amazon on the issue… but even $9.99 is too much… what in the world are publishers thinking?!<\/em> I guess they just don’t how to work this business yet and are trying to be\u00a0safe… and rip people off while they can… (Or are they trying to counter ebook piracy losses early on?\u00a0 And punish the legitimate buyers?\u00a0 Nah…)<\/span><\/p>\n

Another aside, as I browse Scalzi’s blog<\/a>… Scalzi wrote about the Amazon vs. Macmillan and wrote a post about supporting authors<\/a>.\u00a0 I guess I might seem cold-hearted, but… NO.\u00a0 Ever hear the phrase “don’t quit your day job”?\u00a0 Yeah, well… Not that I think stealing is the way to go, but when I buy a book, it’s a trade for my<\/em> benefit, not the author’s.\u00a0 If you [authors] want more $$$$, maybe find a way to cut out the middle men with all this new technology?\u00a0 Oh, but no, you don’t want that… well don’t go whining about financial troubles to me then.\u00a0 (Not that Scalzi is really whining, I’m just being dramatic.)\u00a0 If Amazon’s move was against<\/em> authors (as Scalzi seems to claim), it was also for<\/em> readers.\u00a0 So are the authors against readers?!<\/em> What do authors think about Macmillan’s pricing?\u00a0 If they think $15 for an ebook is OK, then I’m not sure I want to read their books because they obviously don’t mind being published by a company who would like to rip-off customers.\u00a0 Thanks!\u00a0 Don’t ask us, the audience, to do something about it.\u00a0 You<\/em> do something about it.\u00a0 You’re the ones getting paid.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

OK, I digress…<\/p>\n

Anyway, to sum up my point,\u00a0publishers won’t go away anytime soon simply because most people who buy books buy them from professional publishers.\u00a0 That’s really all it comes down to.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now you must admit that my play is better than Scalzi’s, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHARACTERS: ELTON P. STRA\u00dcMANN, a modern-thinking man with exciting ideas SEAN, a humble wannabe writer Act I SCENE OPENS ON STRA\u00dcMANN and SEAN, standing. STRA\u00dcMANN: Do you want to buy this self-published book? SEAN: No. STRA\u00dcMANN: Obama is awesome. CURTAIN FALLS John Scalzi wrote a longer version on his blog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[53,101],"tags":[185,84,183,186,184,66],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gI4B-9b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":570,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}