theinferior4+1 - And I've got a bridge I'd like to sell ya . . . (updated below)

Paul: Thanks for the insight on this.

I agree that I don't think this particular unit (as they call it . . . makes it sound vaguely pr0n0graphic) will be able to stick around, partly because authors who can get a deal elsewhere will. But also because Internet-only marketing cuts out a segment of the buying public. I have friends and acquaintances who are forty and older (HORRORS), and I'll go out on a limb and state that most of them just don't use the 'net to buy all their books or read reviews. They use e-mail at work, and they use applications all the time, but they don't necessarily go to the 'net for advice about book buying or do all their book shopping online. They like to prowl the bookstore and the library. I suppose they could be a bunch of Luddites, but maybe not. (My aunt still has trouble figuring out why anyone would want to keep an online journal. For that matter, so does my husband, and he's a 'net lizard.)

I did blog about this yesterday, though, because I was thinking that this move could prompt copycat moves from all the other houses. If they all got together and agreed, "No more advances," we would be stuck, wouldn't we? We'd have to agree or move to small presses (which are no longer welcome at Amazon) or self-publishing. Of course, maybe I'm being ridiculous because perhaps getting all the New York houses to agree might be like herding cats. But considering the consolidation that has happened and the way they are now seemingly driven by the marketing people, I think it's a possibility if they all got together at once. The upper eschelons where the money people are might well be able to cooperate on something like this. Same for returns policy. And then bookstores would have to just DO whatever it took to get stock.

I'm just speculating, of course. But it's the first volley, kind of a test case, in my opinion. If this happened to work out, they would all stampede towards doing it the more profitable way, because that's capitalism at work. However, authors would then be at even more of a disadvantage.

You have to wonder what'll happen. I would not mind seeing the shift you suggest (towards the new model of music distribution), except I think that we'd have the same problems getting attention for our work, or even worse, as authors don't play gigs and the samples they give out don't get put on repeat play. . . .

I've worked for Border's for nearly five years, in several capacities, all of them low on the food chain. I just want to comment on the practice of returning unsold books to publishers. I witness first-hand how costly this is, not just to the publisher, but to the bookseller as well. You would think that companies like B&N and Borders would grasp how expensive it is to utilize space and employee time in order to shuffle around massive quantities of books that wind up being stacked in overstock, and then returned. But I assure you, they do not seem to care. The financial impact to booksellers, if they no longer could return unsold copies, would actually be very favorable, because they'd have to order realistic numbers to begin with.

I would estimate that at least 50% of the inventory team's time is spent coping with receiving, shelving, and returning books. Describing it like that makes it sound much easier than it really is, because you'd have to see the sheer excessive numbers of books in order to comprehend it. And the wastefulness of stripping paperback books (only covers are returned to the publisher, book stores trash the body of the book at their own expense) is mind-boggling. I don't know that much about the printing end of things, but it seems that a lot less books could be printed initially, at a great savings all around: the publisher, booksellers, and the environment. Yet booksellers are terrified they'll be caught without adequate stock when the next bestseller gets announced by Oprah.

I really believe the current policy of returns is excessive, wasteful, and costly all the way around. A lot of money could be saved, and then they wouldn't have to cut the poor author's advances.

Believe me, if publishers could get self-writing books, they'd cut the authors out of the loop too.

The parallels between the publishing and the record industry are apt in this case -- the common thread being the company handling manufacturing and distribution treats the people responsible for the content with contempt.

Publishers better thank their lucky stars that no one has come up with an effective iPod for books -- they still rely on the physical object and it's peerless user interface for copy protection. On the other hand, Amazon can't make Kindles fast enough, so if they're not worried now, they're delusional.

If publishers want to do something useful with their time, they should figure out what their digital business model will be. They have a giant example of what not to do right in front of them: the major record labels, who are in the process of dying for lack of a new business model beyond screwing artists on one hand and suing consumers on the other.

On a side note, there used to be no such things as remaindered books; the tax laws actually rewarded publishers to keep books in print and inventory. It's OK for the discerning consumer who can find treasures on the remainder table, but it's had an awful effect on the generally available supply of books, and probably ended up screwing authors in the process as well.


Edited at 2008-04-04 03:25 pm (UTC)

this just arrived in my mailbox (from Publishers Lunch):

On some of the specific intentions of the new line, a 50/50 profit share with authors (and minimal advances) is a central tenet. But the idea of selling everything on a non-returnable basis was overstated in a WSJ report. Miller says "I definitely want to sell non-returnable if possible" particularly since that maximizes the profits to be shared and "the goal is to try and stop wasting money on things that don't actually help sell books." But he recognizes that conversations with retailers are an essential element of such a plan and that the process may "evolve after we start."

What really gets me about the whole concept is that it says nothing about the number of starfucker book deals that give the press those great stories about advances in the first place. After all, the vast majority of writers might get a $5000 advance if they're lucky. However, somebody's giving insane advances to Jay Leno and Elizabeth Wurtzel and Whitley Strieber and Newt Gingrich for books that later get returned by the long ton, but it's somehow the other writers' fault that some idiot editor thought that giving Jerry Seinfeld a $1 million advance, when ol' Jerry can't even think in numbers that small any more.

(Personally, I'm surprised that most publishers aren't running with the idea of hyping up the idea of big authors taking tiny advances, such as Stephen King's 10-cent advance two decades ago. Think of the sales promotion: "Big-Name Author X thinks so highly of his book that he's waiting for you to confirm it instead of taking the money and running!" The small writers still get a fair advance, but being able to advertise that the latest equivalent of J.K. Rowling or Clive Cussler took a dollar advance might be one hell of a promotional strategy.)

Pehaps they will hire Karl Rove to push for their position.

Did you see that Galley Cat picked up this blog post?
http://tinyurl.com/66ch2l

As a bookseller for over 15 years--part spent at a chain, the rest at indie bookstores-- I've seen the publishing industry prostitute itself to the chains. The chains have the ability (through the handful of buyers) to order up hundreds of thousands of copies of a new title, which makes a publisher very excited. But what the publisher doesn't anticipate is that there isn't any real motivation to train its employees to handsell that book. So what if some buyer at B&N ordered 300,000 copies of "Book X"? If the people in the frontlines aren't encouraged to read the book, no amount of merchandising will make a book sell.

So then then chain turns around and sends back the 299,000 copies it didn't sell, and due to a tax law (originally applied to heavy machinery, but somehow applying to all manufacturing industries), the publisher CANNOT have those books in their inventory at the end of the financial year--otherwise they get taxed on what's in the warehouse. And that's how remainders show up. That's how remainders can show up while a book is still in it's initial hardback print-run!... The publisher's undercutting itself,so is the bookseller, and the customer wins....

What the industry needs is not no-return policies, but return limits. The independent stores I've worked at have managed to survive because they became more shrewd in their frontlist buying-- if we ordered 40 copies of "Book X", well we better move 40 units, because it does cost everyone involved time and money to process those returns. At one point at my store our return rate of total inventory for the year was down to 12%... I'm sure the chains return rate is up above 40% of the inventory or more...

So if the publishing houses establish rules that only 20% of inventory can be returned, we'd see the chains panicking, and not the indies-- who are more flexible and adaptable to change; and any self-respecting indie should be more shrewd with its buying practices in the first place.

There are solutions out there, it's just that everyone needs to quit the knee-jerk reactions and find a middle-ground.

</i>The solution, I believe, whatever it may turn out to be, will come from below, not above: from writers and readers. Something analogous to the way in which the music industry is being transformed is needed, and will ultimately occur -- or so I tell myself.

i suspect the same thing.

personally, i reckon you'll find it more common to see established authors leave big publishers, eventually, and start printing/distributing their own work. i say established because, the way things are set up currently, new authors can't do it without getting the backlash and name calling that effectively reduces them to wasting their time on it. but it's been done, and as you point out in the comments, there's eggars, but it's also in the music world too--henry rollins has been publishing his own things for a while now, i believe.

anyhow, eventually, i reckon you'll see more and more new authors wanting to be in control of their work, like musicians, and leaving the giant corporations--but time'll see if i'm right.

The current model needs changing... this is simply a step in its evolution.

Personally I believe authors need to ante up their own cash and have some self-belief in their own product. Selling books is hard work - harder than writing the bastards. No, I'm not a bookseller, I'm a writer ... and, at one time, a magazine publisher. I know the pain of marketing, distribution and returns. The business of printing truly sucks.

Unfortunately making money from this gig is all about business - unit sales, P&S statements, successful promotion. The really hungry authors will be the ones that will embrace - and manipulate - the new era.

It's all about hustling.