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MJ26
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Agents, publishers, book shop buyers -- they are not the problem in the UK. The problem is the distributors. Yes, those uncreative cut-me-ins who are stonewalling to cut everyone else out while they devise plans to retain some kind of control over the market. My ebooks (not including Kindle) are available in Australia, the U.S., Canada, Japan, Germany, Holland, New Zealand (and selling very nicely) but ... are not available through Waterstone's, The Book Depository, WH Smith etc etc etc. Why are my ebooks, why are YOUR ebooks, not available for sale in the UK? Answer: the distributors. Ridiculous, especially when you consider those same booksellers pretend to sell the print version. And, why? Because Waterstone's, WH Smith, The Book Depository are frightened of the distributors. You cannot get an ebook listed in Waterstone's, WH Smith and The Book Depository's online catalogues unless you have 'a distributor'. This is prohibition-era gangster politics at play. I'm not at all surprised Waterstone's has recently been bought by a Russian gangster. Only in England -- only in England could this happen.
AFTER GOYAThe Best of Barcelona Ink
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MJ26
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Further, the situation in the UK is very much akin to film distributors. (No surprise there - publishers of most UK/USA published books are now held fast within the realm of global media-communcation/entertainment businesses.) It is the distributors which determine WHAT you you can see and WHEN you can see it. Been there done it. (I worked in cinema exhibition) [Talk about gangsters - whoa - don't start me off ] Even EasyJet's founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, hit a brick wall (and, probably faced-off a few threats) when it came to applying low-cost/maximum demand principles to the cinema exhibition business in the UK. (He bravely attempted, but FAILED, to establish a network of easy cinemas in the UK). Why? The Distributors. Distributors are crooks -- they invest NO money in the product, they invest NO money in the primary producers (i.e. script writers, writers, lyricists and composers) yet they demand changes as they see fit in content and all the peripherals, i.e. book covers, DVD covers - in short - the inoffensive look of the thing (the thing being your work) AND they take the largest percentage. It's thanks to distributors that you have NOT seen, or experienced the best, the most curious, the most challenging work of writers, film-makers and thinkers of the past century. Think on, the future is not written. There's time - and energy aplenty - for change.
AFTER GOYAThe Best of Barcelona Ink
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Sammy
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Quote: tchaibov, Monday, 12 Sep 2011 21:21Quote: Sammy, Monday, 12 Sep 2011 16:53I know you're evangelical about this, Mark, but I don't believe that paper books are an antiquated medium or will become so for a long time yet. The e-book market is still relatively small. It hasn't exploded in the same way iTunes did. And personally, I would never buy a self-published book from Amazon (unless I knew the author or had read it on here). Reason being, there is still no quality control. When I pick up a 'proper' book - mmm, paper, pages, a bound spine, not crappy plastic and buttons - I know it has been through an agent, through the agent's editors, through the publisher's editors, through a proof-reader and then, and only then, is it published (and yeah, sometimes it's still crap.) But my point is, I don't want the publishing industry to lose it stranglehold. The publishing industry provides a filter. It's easy to always paint them as the bad guys, but there's a reason a lot of writers get rejected. They're not good enough. Until there's some way of having the same kind of quality control with e-publishing it will always, for me, be a second-rate medium. That's not to say there aren't good writers doing it. Just that there's no way to filter the good from the bad. And yes, I know people give reviews, but I'm cynical. Perhaps because I know someone who e-published and, funnily enough, when I read her reviews, I knew all of her reviewers too! Anyway, I'm sticking with my antiquated paperbacks and hardbacks. So there. x Sammy, The myth of the tsunami of crap engulfing the poor reader is just that: a myth. I blogged on this a while back: http://markwilliamsinternational.com/2011/07/07/dumb-and-dumber-the-myth-of-stupid-readers/ Fully one third of the Anazon top 500 ebooks are indie published. Check out my post on WG2E just this weekend on why you and any new writer would be crazy to still be chasing the old agent-publisher route as 2011 draws to a close: http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/dont-be-a-dinosaur-the-future-is-digital?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheWritersGuideToE-publishing+%28The+Writer%27s+Guide+to+E-Publishing+Feed%29 Finally, these are OFFICIAL AAP figures just released today. E-book sales rose 167% in June, to $80.2 million, at the 15 houses that reported figures to AAP’s monthly sales report and closed the first half of the year with sales up 161%, to $473.8 million. In addition to e-books, downloadable audio sales (up 25%), and the religious books and university press segments were the only categories to post gains in the month. The major trade segments took big hits in June due in part to the closing of more Borders stores. Trade paperback sales had the largest decline, down 64%, while children’s hardcover sales were off 31%. Adult hardcover sales fell 25%, mass market sales were down 22% and children’s paperback was off 13%. Sales in all the trade segments were also off by more than 10% for the first half of the year. http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/48646-e-book-sales-jump-in-june-print-plunges.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly%27s+PW+Daily&utm_campaign=47da53bb4b-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email But what of the writer who still wishes to see their books upon shelves in bookstores? What of the reader who still wants to pick up a physical book? You say, a third of books in the top 500 are indie-published, but where do most fall in that 500, and how many thousands are published that are utter rot? I don't believe number of readers alone is a benchmark of quality, and I still believe unregulated self-publishing will see a fall in standards. And also, let's bear in mind, traditional book sales falling is not an outright result of digital sales rising. There are many other factors. And quoting percentage rises and falls is meaningless unless you also deliver the actual sales figures for traditional books alongside digital sales. I can't bombard you with facts and figures about paper books versus e-books. All I can give you is anecdotal evidence. When I went on holiday recently, out of maybe 100 people lounging around the gardens and pools, roughly half had books. Two had Kindles (one of whom was my partner). More had iPads, so the new Amazon Kindle tablet may be the thing that tips the balance. But, out of my friends, all avid readers, only one of them has a Kindle, and her biggest frustration? That she would like to be able to buy the paper book but also have a version to read on her Kindle for the same price. This is where I believe publishers are missing a trick. Why not have a code in every paper book that means you can also read it on a Kindle? Mr partner and I are starting to double up on book purchases, because I buy the paperback and he buys a version to read on the Kindle, which is kind of crazy. Putting aside what I would like to achieve as a writer, as a reader, I would hate to see the demise of paper books, although I do believe the hardback has had its day. It was incredibly sad when record stores started closing. I would find it even sadder to see the book industry go the same way. x
'Stay away from your potential. It's like your bank balance. There's never as much of it as you think.'
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marley_blues
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So I went to Waterstones...
They've still got that f**king 3 for 2 offer. I bought goon squad by Egan, the Storyteller Dahl biography and american gods by Gaiman.
They were trying to hawk some book called 'the particular sadness of lemon cake', which is just the worst title for a book ever.
I've got books for my holiday, just not necessarily the ones I wanted. Maybe I was too quick to get stuck in, but waterstones really needs to get its act together fast. They need more discounts, more graphic novels, e-readers in store to browse for small press and magazine subscriptions. Book buying can be exciting, I still don't want to sit at a screen and choose what amazon recommends me.
How can lemon cake be sad? Have we all lost our minds?!
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marley_blues
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Went to waterstones again...
Bought 'pump six', a short story collection by Paulo Bacigalupi- guess what, it's not available on amazon! A small victory.
I realise a regular update on my book purchases isn't very interesting.
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redbreastedbird
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As an (ex-) Blackwell's employee, I tend to automatically view Waterstone's as the Evil Empire. I know this isn't particularly rational, it should be High Street vs. Amazon, but at the time I felt that, compared to Blackwell's, Waterstone's just wasn't set up in a way that allowed employees to push the books they personally loved. It was like the management had forgotten how unique books are as a product - you can't just sell them like they're clothes or towel rails. Booksellers need to get excited about books if they're going to sell them successfully. I really hope the new CEO changes that culture, because we need physical book shops out there in the world! There's nothing quite like having a book in your hand to make you want it like crazy, and there's nothing like chatting to other people who are as mad about books as you are. - Robin www.litro.co.uk http://redbreastedbird.blogspot.com/
- Robin www.litro.co.uk http://redbreastedbird.blogspot.com/
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taggie01
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"When I pick up a 'proper' book - mmm, paper, pages, a bound spine, not crappy plastic and buttons - I know it has been through an agent, through the agent's editors, through the publisher's editors, through a proof-reader and then, and only then, is it published (and yeah, sometimes it's still crap.) " (Sammy)I read a bestseller/women's fiction/new-release paper book a month ago (Fiona Walker's latest) and by quarter of the way through I had counted at least seven line-edits that should have been picked up by her editor, and by the end of the book felt that the story could have been cut shorter by two or three chapters and some damned hard editing. I've just finished reading an indie-published/e-book/new release (Lucinda Brant). No errors, fast-paced, meticulous research... how is Walker any better than Brant just because the latter is indie? I am a lover of indie literature (e-books and paper-books) and mainstream literature (e-books and paper books) equally. . What I would say is that indie literature, both print and digital and in every genre, is invariably much fresher and more exciting than standard mainstream literature and has also increased my choices, making me a very happy reader.
http://www.pruebatten.com/
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Sammy
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Quote: taggie01, Friday, 14 Oct 2011 12:37"When I pick up a 'proper' book - mmm, paper, pages, a bound spine, not crappy plastic and buttons - I know it has been through an agent, through the agent's editors, through the publisher's editors, through a proof-reader and then, and only then, is it published (and yeah, sometimes it's still crap.) " (Sammy)I read a bestseller/women's fiction/new-release paper book a month ago (Fiona Walker's latest) and by quarter of the way through I had counted at least seven line-edits that should have been picked up by her editor, and by the end of the book felt that the story could have been cut shorter by two or three chapters and some damned hard editing. I've just finished reading an indie-published/e-book/new release (Lucinda Brant). No errors, fast-paced, meticulous research... how is Walker any better than Brant just because the latter is indie? I am a lover of indie literature (e-books and paper-books) and mainstream literature (e-books and paper books) equally. . What I would say is that indie literature, both print and digital and in every genre, is invariably much fresher and more exciting than standard mainstream literature and has also increased my choices, making me a very happy reader. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I don't even think of it as indie versus mainstream. I'm just talking about the more general matter of quality control. Of course, sometimes books published the traditional way contain errors. Drives me absolutely fucking nuts when I find them. No system is foolproof. BUT, at least there is a system for filtering them out. However, it's not just typos and grammatical errors. It's the quality of the actual product. Many, many people want to write books. A few will. Out of those, only a tiny minority will write something readable. With the advent of e-publishing, those people, who formerly would have been told to take a hike by the publishing industry, can now foist their masterpieces upon the world. 'Good on them,' you might say. But actually, I don't want everyone to be able to publish a book. Because not everyone can write a book. To me, e-publishing is still tainted by the fact that anyone - with or without a modicum of actual talent - can do it. As for editing? Well, the more well known the author, the more power they wield and the less likely they are to get the editing they need. Same with film directors. x
This post was last edited by Sammy, 14 Oct 2011, 17:17
'Stay away from your potential. It's like your bank balance. There's never as much of it as you think.'
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Destinyschild
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It's very hard to get published. It's meant to be. On the subject of e-books. I love my Kindle and can't imagine ever buying another print version book again. I don't need to go into a bookshop - I don't have the time to find one! - Amazon (big and bad) has everything there for me to browse. I don't need the advice of an assistant - sadly they usually know less than I do - because I can look at reviews to get some idea of the book's worth. Yes, I do know Amazon reviews are notorious for their bias but I am bright enough to spot the friends and enemies. Amazon then kindly suggests other books I might like and takes me off on a journey more than equal to those ever suggested to me by a book shop assistant. I don't need the shop, I don't need the assistant, I don't need the smell or feel of a printed book. I buy for content. I rarely buy indie e-books. Most, not all, are riddled with errors I find very distracting. Sad but true. Everyone to their own, but more and more of my friends who swore they would never move over to Kindle full-time are doing just that. DC
This post was last edited by Destinyschild, 14 Oct 2011, 17:34
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marley_blues
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Taggie-
I'd love to know what indie books you recommend. It's difficult to know where to start. And sadly, the truth about self published e-books is that I will have to wade through a river of sileage to find the nugget of gold. Where do I start?
There's a certain romantic ideal about finding a publisher and being edited. Come on, we'd all be beaming if that letter came through the door. Dear Sir/madam, I've just read your manuscript, and...it's brilliant...my only worry is the public are not ready for your genius etc etc! I bet any e-author would drop their 'us against them' schtick and be clamoring to get on the '3 for 2'. As douglas adams said, first with their backs to the wall when the revolution comes.
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Waterstones
13 Sep 2011, 00:04
