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Heads Will Roll

Steve Osgoode, Director of Digital Marketing and Business Development at HarperCollins Canada, pointed me (and everyone else on Twitter) to an interesting post on e-books at An American Editor by Rich Adin. It’s a nice coda to the Guy LeCharles Gonzalez post I mentioned yesterday:

No industry changes overnight, so it is certain that publishers aren’t going to change their business model tomorrow just because a handful of people demand it… But the anger of the devotees, as few as they may be in number, continues and becomes increasingly strident, with neither side willing to “hear” the other.

Adin goes on to raise some interesting points. I do, however, have problems with his argument that the internet has fostered a sense of entitlement:

The Age of the Internet has birthed a belief among some consumers that they are entitled to everything they want when they want it at a price they want to pay…  Entitlement says I have rights that are more valuable than your rights (or that you have no rights)…

There is certainly some grain of truth to this and, to be fair, Adin’s argument is more nuanced than the quotation suggests. But it is also a dangerously seductive argument for publishers who don’t want to take full responsibility for their actions.

On a basic level, blaming the consumer and/or accusing them of being uppity (or worse, criminals) is not a good business strategy. Figuring out what they will pay for is a much better idea.

Customers don’t necessarily want cheap — they want value. Sure, everyone likes cheap stuff in the short term — free is even better — and yet most people know that in the end you get what you pay for. Quality costs.

Consumers will pay for things when they believe they are worth it, and as publishers, we need to recognise we aren’t always providing real value for money. We publish too many books and (shh… whisper it) a lot of them aren’t very good. We can do better. How many books really do need to be released in hardcover a full year before they’re available as paperbacks (or e-books) for example?

I also don’t think you can ignore that consumer attitudes are being led by businesses — that publishers have been all too willing to oblige — who have an interests in devaluing creative content as much as possible. Cheap content gets people in to stores and sells devices and publishers have benefited from this in the short-term. But we need to realise that cheapening our own content is like pissing in the pool. Not cool and not a good idea — even if it feels good at the time…

That all said, I think Adin recognises that it is not a one way street. He argues that publishers and consumers need to compromise:

The ebookers have thrown down the gauntlet, the publishers need to pick it up and accept the challenge. Simply because some ebookers have decided that publishers have no role to play in the future ebook world doesn’t make it so. Publishers need to redefine themselves in 21st century terms, not rehash 20th century concepts.

This, at least, seems spot on to me…

Read the whole article.

7 Comments

  1. Interesting post. I have a foot in both camps as an author. I have a hardcover coming out in March from St. Martins (my 40th traditionally published book) and I’m releasing 16 books from my backlist in ebook format in the first six months of 2010 along with some original work in both fiction and non-fiction.
    The key issue is quality control for ebooks. Who are the guardians at the gate? I can release ebooks with PW, Kirkus etc reviews on the cover along with the label NY Times bestselling author. Hopefully that give them some legitimacy in the eyes of reader, who are the ultimate determiner of quality.
    Couple the medium of the ebook with the medium of viral marketing right now and you have a potent combination. How potent, I will find out this year.
    I’ve been following many blog posts about this subject and what is rarely mentioned are authors and readers. There is a great outcry about agents, editors, publishers and bookstores, but in the end they are a conduit between author and reader. I would like to see more panels at these conferences regarding books and technology be authors. We all need to work together for change. And the change is happening exponentially, not linearly, which is something many are not realizing.
    I’ve started a program, Warrior Writer, to train writers how to be authors. A failing in the current business paradigm is that publishers, agents, editors, et al don’t have any training program for authors. A newly contract, first-time author walks into the publishing world relatively oblivious, no matter how many writers conference and workshops they’ve attended. Interestingly, the people getting the most out of the program are published authors who want to take their career to the next level.
    Thanks for posting this blog and giving us more information.

  2. Dan

    Hi Bob. Thanks so much for your comment. I really appreciate it.

    I do worry about authors and I think it is important that we find a business model that continues to pay them. I also think publishers need to stop blaming their customers/readers!

    But personally I think that readers and authors are actually speaking out more on this subject than the publishing professionals (with the possible exception of agents!) who have — as Alin notes — been very quiet. So perhaps the problem is that readers and authors are not homogeneous groups and opinions differ?

    Nevertheless, I agree with Alin that the loudest, most extreme voices (from all sides) are dominating the conversation right now, and that opportunities are being lost as a result. Publishers need somehow(!) to filter out the noise and figure out how they can deliver what readers want and continue to pay their people — including authors — to do the work…

  3. Nic Boshart

    It’s funny, the most entitled internet who demand free content and will go out of their way to pirate it seem to also be the ones most willing to put in work, be it open source programs or be it simple interaction with publishers, or anyone, on the web.

    I would also like to meet these mythical ‘ebookers’ Alin speaks about. The Mobile Read forum contributors, maybe? They just seem to want fair prices, accessible books, selection, and quality.

    And yes, on that forum you will find out how to crack DRM, but you will also find out that every single one of the “ebookers” on that site pays for their purchases. They crack DRM because they want to read on their laptop prior to Kindle PC.

  4. Thanks for discussing my An American Editor post.

    The ebookers I speak of, unfortunately, aren’t mythical. One good place to go to read some of their posts is MobileRead (www.mobileread.com). Under no circumstance would I suggest that as of today anything close to a supermajority of ebook readers thinks content should be free or cares about DRM. But these are becoming signature war cries among a very vocal group, a group who objects even to paying a top price of $9.99 for a DRM-free ebook.

    Sadly, everyone in the pipeline from consumer to publisher to author has misperceptions about the interrelationships that move the publishing process.

    FWIW, Nic, in 2009 I bought more than 100 hardcover books and more than 125 ebooks, none duplicates. Of the ebooks I bought, fewer than 12 came with DRM or cost more than $5. I am unwilling to pay more for DRMed ebooks because the editorial quality is so low. This attitude among ebookers is growing. I refer you to some of my earlier articles discussing this, especially my proposal for a book warranty.

  5. Nic Boshart

    Hi Rich,

    I apologize first for the name typo. My reference to the ebookers was to the mobile read community, which I comment on frequently.

    I think I was a bit off-topic in my post, but my point is more that ebook advocates and early adopters do a lot for the internet community, and while they may not make up the mainstream, they see themselves as a catalyst of change, a lobbyist for what the average consumer actually wants. That’s my impression anyway.

    I’ve read your proposal for a book warranty, and I agree that publishers need to be more careful with their ebooks. Believe me, I know. As ebooks are integrated into workflows, we’ll see a much higher standard. It’s early years.

    I think publishers are, for the most part, ignoring the free-content advocates. There’s always going to be some people wanting free, but people will pay for things no matter what if you offer it to them the right way.

  6. Dan and co…

    Excellent conversation, lots of great points.

    Bob: your Warrior Writer program sounds interesting. I think that you may be on to something here. Training writers to be authors. Quite conceivably this training of writers to be more assertive and resourceful could remove a fundamental leg from the proverbial publishing stool.

    What happens to publishing when publishers can’t rely on writers to be meek and technically inept?

    Rich: Great article. I’ve commented a couple of times on it directly someone named SJ Driscoll has puffed out his cyber chest on behalf of defenseless writers everywhere.

    But… your comment about ebooks not being worth more than $5 is a good one. Whatever one can say about ebooks they just aren’t worth that much. To me, I understand that other people are quite happy to pay this price and that’s a good sign for book publishers.

  7. “But… your comment about ebooks not being worth more than $5 is a good one. Whatever one can say about ebooks they just aren’t worth that much.”

    I tend to agree here; however, an e-book with art might be worth more. As well, I can see people paying more for certain kinds of non-fiction.

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