Comments on Nathan Bransford, Author: Publishing's Winner's Curse

@Nick, The reason the film version (Greed) ran 10...

2009-12-17T09:54:56.573-08:00

@Nick,

The reason the film version (Greed) ran 10 hours is because Erich von Stroheim directed it, and he was well known to do such things. He fought with studio heads all the time, and eventually was forced out of directing. He got the occasional acting role afterwards (probably most famously as the director in the movie Sunset Boulevard).

McTeague...didn't that come out as a silent mo...

2009-12-17T09:40:19.276-08:00

McTeague...didn't that come out as a silent movie (Greed) with, of all people, Zasu Pitts as the leading lady?

(Yup, I was right, according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McTeague )

@Marilyn Peake - I like your idea:
Maybe the publishing world should watch the new TV show, PAWN STARS. Those guys, especially the Old Man, rarely pay too much for anything without first doing research to find out the item’s real worth. They even talk about how the current economy might affect an item’s worth, and the Old Man has a fit if the younger guys pay too much for something.

I love that show, BTW.

"...creeping omnipotence of e's and hyphe...

2009-12-15T09:06:05.809-08:00

"...creeping omnipotence of e's and hyphens."

Hilarious.

Nice article, Nathan, and surely something on which to ponder.

Now where did I set that Dr. Pepper? I'm parched.

Geoff

This is some of your best writing ever.

2009-12-15T08:27:21.418-08:00

This is some of your best writing ever.

I suspect a sharp implement will be put into use b...

2009-12-15T08:25:08.851-08:00

I suspect a sharp implement will be put into use by the survivor at some point.

I had to chime in on the self-publishing issue. Th...

2009-12-15T08:17:05.285-08:00

I had to chime in on the self-publishing issue. There are so many misconceptions that I can't help myself anymore.

I went the indie route after several rejections from agents. As I later found out, my novel was rejected because it wasn't good at the time--plain and simple. But I used all the great feedback from the agents and a former acquisitions editor from a major publishing house to whip it into shape.

I officially released my D-I-Y POD masterpiece on October 6th--yes, POD (the bottom-dweller of the publishing world). And at a very low-cost comparatively speaking.

As of today (two or so months later), my book has been picked up by buyers at B&N and Booksamillion and sits on bookstore shelves across the country as well as online retailers around the world--and sells pretty well on Kindle. It is very well-reviewed (not just by my mother) and I'm slowly building my audience and respect as a new writer. Dang, it's a lot of work but I'm learning things about this business most traditionally pubbed authors will never know.

On top of that, I'm building the ever-important PLATFORM--and pretty quickly too. Rather than throw my vastly-improved manuscript in a drawer and let if fester for years while seeking representation, it is helping me build an audience. So, that when I complete one of the three new masterpieces I'm working on, I will have marketing skills, an audience of several thousand readers, and lots of business savvy--in addition to my well-written 90,000-word manuscript--if I decide to go traditional.

I've just minimized an agent's and publisher's risk in taking me on--and quite possibly the fear of paying me a decent advance.

With that said, indie-pubbing is NOT for everyone. I've loved every minute of it because I'm borderline insane. I can get my book on store shelves but it takes A LOT more work. Nothing compares to getting big house distribution and an agent to help you maneuver the process. But there are benefits that can make you more marketable in the future IF you find some success.

Shanna Swendson posted a series of entries on this...

2009-12-15T08:06:29.906-08:00

Shanna Swendson posted a series of entries on this very subject (I believe there were five) -- she called it "The Publishing Doom Loop".

I honestly think that *something* will happen and things will change out of sheer necessity, eventually, but for the life of me I couldn't tell you what—or how soon it will happen. But it will.

Oops, here's the tiny for the Anne Rice conver...

2009-12-15T07:54:35.176-08:00

Oops, here's the tiny for the Anne Rice conversation:

http://tiny.cc/4kIeZ

It looks like Anne Rice is finding her way out of ...

2009-12-15T07:52:38.774-08:00

It looks like Anne Rice is finding her way out of the desert:

http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx3AKBZU1OCK1TF&displayType=tagsDetail

Am I the only one that wants to break my Kindle in...

2009-12-15T07:30:42.787-08:00

Am I the only one that wants to break my Kindle into a thousand, jillion pieces when I'm trying to read a book? At home.

On an airplane, ok, got it, I can deal with it. At home, it is a major pain in the ass and it now sits on my faux fireplace top gathering an inch of dust. That's how much I use it.

Ever try reading GWTW on your Kindle? Or Moby Dick? All those lovely white spaces I look for as soon as I start a book? GONE! That's right. GWTK.

Another thing. My thumb, she gets tired. Click, click, click. Can you imagine if you're a speed reader? . . ."Look Ma, no mo thumbs!" . . . None of this delightful tiptoeing through the fine, fine texture of post modern paper using all five fingers.

I can't even begin to explain the horror of losing your place if you put the Kindle down. Yes, I know, it's supposed to power back to the original page. Got news for you. Sometimes, that does not happen. At least on my Kindle. Yes, I can find that page fairly easily, after ten hours of sweat. Or I can go back to the beginning. And click, click, click.

Or, I can get help from somebody who's really good at this electronic stuff. (But I'm not, so don't ask me).

All I know is, if I put a book mark in a 'real' book and it falls out, I can find my place alot quicker than I can on the Kindle. And if I want to read right this minute, I can pick up a real book and start reading. None of this forgetting to charge the battery stuff. Which is like, so irritating.

Ebooks DO have their place.

It will not be in my home. Not now, not ever!

But as an author, yes, I would certainly embrace the technology and publishers must as well. It's part of the future and here to stay. But I don't believe it will consume paper books.

Particularly if there are lots of people who hate to read electronically. As I most certainly do!

As for agents, they may need to redefine their jobs as publishing adapts to new technology, but there will always be a need for them, imo.

Karen, good point. I think the author plays the r...

2009-12-15T06:57:14.337-08:00

Karen, good point. I think the author plays the role of the murdered wife. Also conspicuously absent is the distribution chain, which I think plays the part of the desert.

Most conspicuously absent are readers. Perhaps those play the role of the keys to the handcuffs, left behind in San Francisco. (Or perhaps the readers are the water? I could go either way on that one.)

And so here we publishers and agents are, McTe...

2009-12-15T05:44:24.637-08:00
And so here we publishers and agents are, McTeague and Marcus style, handcuffed to each other in the desert, stuck with the advance and royalty model even if it's ill-suited for a time when success is nearly impossible to predict.

Who's handcuffed to whom?

Maybe publishers should move agents in-house... and put an end to this notion that agents work for authors.

I find it very interesting that it is the publishe...

2009-12-15T05:29:20.636-08:00
I find it very interesting that it is the publishers and agents who are handcuffed together in the desert, and that the author is conspicuously missing. Perhaps they are busy searching for the oasis on their own. After all, getting out of the desert is becoming more and more the author's responsibility.

I think there are many writers, like myself, who w...

2009-12-15T05:19:42.064-08:00
I think there are many writers, like myself, who would be quite happy to be published even if it meant a small or no advance. I know that my day job provides enough for me, so I don't need an advance. I just want to be published.

I think there is a conflict of interests when new publishing divisions open that pay little or no advances, since that is the only way agents make money. Agents should have a way to make their deserved money while still using such publishers. I know that I still want to be considered by such publishers, but I think agents won't want to bother to try them because they won't get their paycheck.

Oh, and now time for out of the box: How about th...

2009-12-15T05:18:01.687-08:00
Oh, and now time for out of the box: How about this - I have a book that the publisher is iffy on. I am confident that it will sell b/c I wrote it. I scrap the whole advance, and pay 25% of the publishing/distribution/total costs (up to a pre-defined amount)... However, one the back side I get 25% of all profits + pre-profit royalty (in whatever percentage it normally is).

It makes me a stakeholder in my book. It elminates some of the risk to the publishing company. However, it doesn't remove all the risk - they are still on the hook for 75% of the costs, so the still want the book to sell.

The problem with this is that for people that can't afford the 25% buy-in they are screwed.

But, it is a way to lower risks for publishers and raise the possible reward for authors (you get royalty + portion of profits)

Anon - some of the examples of authors you are cit...

2009-12-15T05:11:31.421-08:00
Anon - some of the examples of authors you are citing as being successful e-pubbers, like J. Konrath did it with books that were originally published and then went out of print - his later books fueled the successful sales of his ebooks (that, and his $1.99 pricetag didn't hurt).

As far as authonomy helping to generate hits I did a test. I put out two works - one under my own name that i am serious about, and another one that is a poorly written joke. I went with my joke account and gave a bunch of people rave reviews, and guess what, they did the same to my junk book. That site is incapable of finding the best works... it is all about begging people to give you reviews.

Nathan, that was a great image: Death Valley, corp...

2009-12-15T03:52:29.384-08:00
Nathan, that was a great image: Death Valley, corpses and the desert!Well, I guess we all want WATER, all of us, aspiring and established writers, agents and publishers...
But aren't we getting it already? The water, I mean. Why all the scare over e-books? They're the future, they're coming and I'm sure that all this e-technology will do in the end is EXPAND the market, not kill it!
The business model hasn't changed yet, it's not dying, it's merely adapting to a new market (yeah, the e-one...)We'll still need agents to improve and sell the manuscript and publishers to run marketing campaigns. I know what I'm talking about: I live in Italy, and let me tell you, the publishing industry here is a dinausor. Fast asleep. Even the best known writers don't really get supported with a marketing campaign, and I mean a real one. For example, all they did for Dan Brown to promote his Lost Symbol was to invite him last week to an opening opera at the Milan Scala, for goddness'sake!!! Italy is supposed to be the country with the smallest number of readers in Europe, and small wonder!
No,what publishers need to is to continue doing their job of promotion and distribution and agents their job of product identification.By that I mean picking out winners, and that's an art not a matter of technology!

"I like to watch", Jerzy Kosinski

2009-12-14T23:21:25.938-08:00
"I like to watch", Jerzy Kosinski

Authonomy is currently bad at filtering, due to as...

2009-12-14T23:00:12.310-08:00
Authonomy is currently bad at filtering, due to aspects of the game played on that site, due to it being agenda-loaded newbie authors instead of agenda-free readers doing the filtering; but Amazon does a fairly good job IMO. I don't think it'll be all that hard to improve upon what Amazon does now and really harness the wisdom of crowds in the coming years.

I really need to work at my day job. But that'...

2009-12-14T22:46:22.690-08:00
I really need to work at my day job. But that's not going to happen until this comment is done. This discussion "gets down" as we used to say in the sixties. The life and/or death of publishing as we know it (knew it, will know it) is on the line. The situation is fluid.

Observations and thoughts in no particular order.

On another blog I recently said "The dinosaurs are already dead. They just haven't fallen over yet." Okay, I was ticked off and this was hyperbole. Or was it? I want to know if there will still be a Borders in a year. I hope so, as I really LIKE Borders. But I fear not. Then, how much longer does B & N have?

The main advantage of mega-publishing has always been control of the eyeball space represented by bookstores. This is a question of physical distribution. If the two big brick & mortar chains go, will massive physical distribution still be a trump card? Existing publishers could still be players in such a world, but I don't think they would be gatekeepers. Maybe more like a venture capitalist. Agents might morph into PR firms (new school, specializing in online PR).

I think the one Anon person has some valuable insight. There needs to be a mechanism for test-marketing. Whether sites like Authonomy are effective in that role will be interesting to discover.

In looking at the revolution in the music market, I continue to be struck by the genius of American Idol. I have no idea how those dollars flow to and from particular entities within the music industry, but from the viewpoint of that industry as a whole, star-making used to represent a cash outflow. Now it represents a profit center. Get the audience hooked on the DRANA of starmaking, and let them participate. Then monetize the eyeballs. (Of course, TV has always survived on monetized eyeballs, from the very beginning.) I'm eagerly waiting to watch the first episode of "America's Next Best-Seller". Who will produce it for me? :)

Another question? What happens when the generation that will part with bound paper when it is "pried from our cold dead fingers" is finally buried with our favorite book. Will the following generation read bound paper? Will they PAY MORE to read bound paper? Is the "cuddle factor" intrinsic or culturally determined?

Will reading even mean the same things to the newer generations? Maybe the real nemesis of traditional publishing isn't Amazon or Kindle, but Youtube. Is literacy itself dying?

The fundamental paradox of the Internet is that whem everybody can be heard, nobody will be noticed. This comes out in phrases like "drinking from a firehose" and "everybody will be famous to 15 people" and my own "human bandwidth limit." Nobody has yet solved the problem of filtering the Internet. Just when you think you've gotten a grip on it (like, e.g. search engines) it squishes between your fingers to reform elsewhere.

With apologies to unbelievers, let me quote Tiny Tim.

"God Bless Us, Every One!"

I think we're goint to need it.

We live in interesting times.

-Steve

Dear pjd, As it happens, I remember Control Data ...

2009-12-14T21:53:32.745-08:00
Dear pjd,

As it happens, I remember Control Data because I learned computing on one of their products (CDC 3600). But the more interesting question to me is who remembers Seymour Cray, and for what. Cray knew when to jump ship and which way to jump.

Live like him!

-Steve

I'd like a model where all rights were include...

2009-12-14T21:34:04.678-08:00
I'd like a model where all rights were included: the author could choose to publish first via hard or softcover, then distribute an e book later, or the other way around. Pubs could see if the e-sales were strong enough to invest in a hard/softcover version. Why not have those options now?

As a career writer, who has recently completed bot...

2009-12-14T20:51:17.825-08:00
As a career writer, who has recently completed both a mid-list romance novel and a "taboo" memoir, I'm feeling rather annoyed at all the hot-air and muscle flexing in the world of publishing.

While there are comparisons behind the books-movies-music traditional business models, from the artist perspective there is a huge difference in connecting to the customer. Musicians, painters and writers all need to invest time and effort into developing their craft to have a marketable product.

A song that lasts 3 minutes, that you can listen to while driving (or reading) is different than a book that requires a time and focus commitment from the reader. Even a painting purchased to grace my home for years does not require a commitment of time and focus from me. A movie only requires two hours of my time and should be totally engaging the whole time.

A book is an entirely different thing.

My opinion of why the world of publishing is hitting tough times is the imbalance between connecting writers to their readers. In the non-fiction market, books from those with a platform are still only going to reach those readers in need of that platform so there is less investment risk from the publisher and the books hit the stands in a timely manner.

In the fiction market, the bottom line profit is determined by marketing gurus, based on the market projections at the time of acquisition. However the actual product is not available for a year or more.

I predict that e-pubs are going to continue to grow exponentially in the fiction market. Especially the mid-list genre markets. It's just common sense. The debut author has already invested the time and talent without any advance from a publisher. They want their book in the hands of readers and available for many years. E-pubs offer that opportunity for a mid-list fiction author to be more involved with their book and readers today. Not a year from now with the potential that, if readers don't find that author (or book) within a few weeks, bookstores will destroy the book.

This is the main issue with publishers business model, they undervalued their mid-list bread and butter and focused on only 10% of their product line. Brick and mortar book stores are not getting the traffic or sales because there is too much product on their shelves, they are too diversified.

And all that non-fiction product is becoming available through the web - for free.

But no worries Nathan, I'm sure you career as an agent will get you to a retirement age.

Mira – I’m definitely with you in regard to not w...

2009-12-14T20:25:24.553-08:00
Mira –

I’m definitely with you in regard to not worrying. It’s not worth it. Might as well just be happy, and write and see what happens. There are all kinds of possibilities out there for writers. I think each writer has to decide what works best for them and then follow that path.

Stephen R. Covey thinks outside the desert