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Top Authors Make eBook Deal, Bypassing Publishers
RobotRunAmok writes "Home to 700 authors and estates, from Philip Roth to John Updike, Jorge Luis Borges, and Saul Bellow, the Wylie Agency shocked the publishing world yesterday when it announced the launch of Odyssey Editions. The new initiative is selling ebook editions of modern classics, including Lolita, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, exclusively via Amazon.com's Kindle store, leaving conventional publishers out of the picture. The issue boils down to who holds digital rights in older titles published before the advent of ebooks, with publishers arguing that the ebook rights belong to them, and authors and agents responding that, if not specifically granted, the digital rights remain with the author. Publishers and authors are also at loggerheads over the royalty that should be paid for ebooks: authors believe they should be getting up to double the current standard rate of 25%, because ebooks are cheaper to produce than physical editions. (Amazon pays authors 70%.)"
Publishers, whether it be of music, books, etc, all seem to have this idea that they are entitled to more of the profits than the people who actually _created_ the work.
Now, in the case of physical items, such as printed books, etc, there is the issue of mass producing it, distribution, deals with resellers, etc, etc. I can see where merely _creating_ the original can potentially pale in comparison to the work it takes to actually make/move/sell the item.
But, in the case of digital distribution, it takes next to nothing to make after the initial eBook/PDF is created. Merely the cost of duplicating those bits which equates to a tiny amount of electricity and then a little bit more plus bandwidth to push the item. Pennies. Sold with a _heafty_ profit margin.
Why would a publisher need to take all this profit? Or even a large percentage? They have next to no costs associated with the make/move/sell aspect of digital distribution. Sure, some guy at the end of the road, such as Amazon, needs an online storefront to actually make the sale, but beyond that these things are pretty much on par with Star Trek Replicators. Poof! another copy! Poof! Ten million more!
Damn straight the creators get the majority of the cut on this form of media/distribution. No need for presses, warehouses, massive shipping requirements, shelf space, etc, etc, etc.
The only thing I don't like about this is the Amazon exclusivity. (Unless Amazon offers DRMed eBooks in formats other than the Kindle's - I haven't looked into that too much, but I understand that eBook DRM is at least semi-standardized.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I really don't know what to think of Amazon.
Sometimes they are great for consumers - competing fair and square with great prices and a great website.
Their video service is available to anyone with Flash, and while many people hate Flash (and some now don't have access to it) that seemed like a good way to allow customers to view the video they purchased across a very broad range of OS's, browsers and devices.
Then they go and do something like this, which seems to lead us to a world where different retailers control different books and have no competition in the sales of those books. This is very bad for consumers.
This avoid competition and seems to guarantee their customers higher prices. This is the sort of thing I would expect from Apple, not Amazon. I thought Amazon was prepared to compete fairly in book sales?
And there's plenty of middle ground for both.
Indeed. I'm one of those who still boycott Amazon over its 1-click patent, and will continue to do so until that patent expires.
Which means that anything sold exclusively on Amazon will be a sale they won't make to me (and others who still continue that boycott), and the money is spent elsewhere, quite possibly on competitors.
For books, I much prefer the PeanutPress format (also known as ereader) for "locked" books, as the format is device agnostic, and I can read the same book I purchased on my PDA, my laptop, my cell phone or my Nook e-ink reader. I'm not locked down to one provider, and can continue to read AND transfer the books between devices even if Barnes and Noble should go out of business one day.
Why people willingly go for locked down technologies like Kindle and iTunes, I'll never understand. Is it just because of the hype?
$10 is too high for older books; even on Amazon itself, you can get a used copy of London Fields for $4 ($0.01 + 3.99 s/h). One of these days I'll get an ereader, but it will likely not be a Kindle. Their DRM is bad enough, but the ability to mess with stuff already bought & the refusal to support epub is the final straw. I'll stick with my trusty Palm Tungsten for now, my eyes are still ok.
Oh, good grief...
THIS got marked "informative"?
Right, I'm both an author who has worked with big publishers, and the owner and operator of a small publishing company. Let me explain what happened here.
Rather than deal with Random House's e-book terms, Wiley founded an e-book publishing company, which will be publishing the work of his clients. This is still a publisher - it's just a new one. The dispute is over electronic reprint rights, and that will depend on the wording of the contracts that Wiley's authors signed ("first English language publication rights" includes e-book rights - "first English language print publication rights" does not).
Now, subsidiary matters:
1. Any new book requires editing by somebody who is not the author (the author is too close to the book to be able to edit it properly), as well as typesetting (which is harder than it sounds - my first typeset job is an embarrassment to me now), as well as some form of marketing. These are what a publisher provides, and yes, they cost money. So, while an author can go it alone, and sometimes succeed, they're usually better off with an actual publisher.
2. Publishers make much less on books than you think. Let me provide the breakdown, based on any one of my publishing company's books with a $24.95 USD cover price:
55% goes to the wholesaler (who then sells it on to bookstores and Amazon at a 40% discount off the cover price). So, now we're down to $11.23.
Next we have the print cost - for a print on demand book like one of mine, we're talking anywhere from $4.00 to $8.00, depending on the page count. We'll take a middle number, so $6.00 is printing. Now we're down to $5.23. Then there's the royalties on top of that.
Now, for larger print runs (around 1500 copies and up), offset printing is used, which cuts down on the print cost considerably. But, the wholesaler still takes 55%.
This new publisher is going to specialize in e-books, and that makes the calculation much different. If you're just going through Amazon for distribution, then you don't have the wholesaler in the picture, and that means that rather than having a net profit (before royalties) on a $10 book being around $3.50 (very rough estimate), you can have it at around $7.00.
But these are the factors in play. It's far more complicated than you described it, and this is certainly not a case of authors going out on their own and leaving the publishing system behind.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
The only thing I don't like about this is the Amazon exclusivity.
The "only thing"? I'm practically screaming about it!
I have a Nook. It's a superior e-reader to the Kindle. (YMMV.) What this deal is saying is that I may not read any of the affected books on my Nook, period. If I prefer to read on my Nook, then POOF! These books are lost to me. Apparently, permanently. I do not understand how these authors (or their heirs) can sit still for that.
And I know the Slashdot audience tends to read mostly fantasy and sci-fi books, but for the literature-minded among you, Jesus titty-fucking Christ! These are indeed modern classics, lost to Amazon's DRM. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Ellison's Invisible Man? London Fields? The Naked and the Dead? These are great books... and now I may not read them in a digital edition unless I give $199 + $10 to Amazon. Fuck me.
Breakfast served all day!