Publishing Woes Dance Party
This video makes no sense if you can't see the youtube annotations (and makes only limited sense even if you can see the annotations).
posted by John Green @ Monday, January 26, 2009
20 Comments
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20 Comments:
It was hard reading through some of the comments. Seeing people comment only about your hair cut or choice of puppets when there was so much more at stake!
Not to knock your mad puppet skillz (by the way, I'll now be singing "Puppet Head" by TMBG all day, interspersed with "Nerdfighterlike" from Hank's CD (which I own - NERDFIGHTERS!)), but your writing skillz are far superior.
Recent literacy studies show reading to be on an upswing, so there will always be a need and a market for books. But you are 100% correct about the sucky state of affairs in our economy in general and in the book world in particular right now. No easy answers for this, any more than there are easy answers for anything else in the economy. Except to encourage everyone you know to buy books (new) and ask for new books as gifts, and to consider frequently book stores as much as possible (some of them make higher percentages on non-book items, like plush toys or cards, so one can still support book stores for non-book items).
I work for a company that sells books at special events and author signings. I have noticed that while readers may show interest in the book I am selling, the high retail price deters them from buying it from me right away. After they have had some sort of interaction or communication with the author however, they are almost guaranteed to buy the book from me right then and there at full retail price (even if they do not get it signed). With the internet, we can communicate with anyone anywhere instantaneously. As a society, I think we've become dependent on this rapid exchange of ideas and while people still want to read stories, they want to be INVOLVED with those stories even more. Many authors are now participating in conversation with readers and potential readers via the internet and readers and authors can have an entirely different relationship than they did 15 years ago. By even further utilizing the internet, the publishing industry can focus on making people feel involved or connected to stories, making them much more likely to purchase an actual, physical book. It's a lot more complicated than that of course, and I am no expert.It's been on my mind a lot lately as I try to get people to purchase books. (The real ones with paper and binding and sometimes jackets.)
I know I wrote you quite the response in an email, but I think I can paraphrase it properly here:
It's all about interactivity. Publishers are going to have to start looking at the book and the author as a package. What is the author willing to do to sell the book? Organize street teams? Willing to travel with other forms of media that draw attention? Would an author run around the block in their underwear to sell a book?
Maybe that last example is a little drastic, but until life is up and running at full warp again, that's what it's going to come down to. What is an author's limit? I mean, yeah, books go places on their own if they're good, but it's going to have to come down to a great work and a bashful author versus a good work and an author who is willing to do anything to sell a copy for a while.
THAT's what would save the publishing industry. Compromise and creativity.
Repac - every darned posthumous cd made from 2Pac.
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Because of self-publishing, I'm not so sure it's a matter of books surviving, but people who make a living by books surviving--writers, editors, all those people who train and work long, long hours to put together a quality work of art that also entertains and educates. If anyone can self-publish, then becoming a writer is something anyone can do. That's the good news.
But becoming a writer many, many people will want to read remains something else. I suspect most writers don't realize how much of a collaborative editor that is. We need critique partners, editors, book designers, even before we get to the printers, because the book, a good book, is something like a gesamtkunstwerk without the music.
Question: Why would we expect a hedge fund to be a good publisher? Most of them weren't even all that good at doing what they were supposed to be able to do well.
you know, I frequently wondered how the book publishing industry actually profited when libraries are so made of awesome (my mom's a librarian). But I guess it wasn't until more recently that people started rediscovering the library, which seems like it should just have a big huge sign out front that says FREE BOOKS!
For me, it used to be that every time I really fell in love with a book, I had to go out and buy it. Now, I will buy something on recommendation from others, based on the books that I love.
Another interesting thing to note, is that while Nerdfighters are fantasmical, and the whole genre of YA fiction has, from my perspective, totally becoming the new 'it' genre--there is still a substantial chunk of the entire population that doesn't get the whole reading-for-fun phenomenon. I think one of the best things that can be done for the book industry is for parents to read to their kids :) um, even when they are in high school, like my mom did for us, which sounds embarrassing in retrospect, but the books were always too interesting.
I think, unfortunately, that printed books are going to fall by the wayside. While there is nothing more enjoyable than curling up with your book, hunkering down for the long read ahead it seems people just don’t want to fork out the money. I do believe that there will always be a select few who will get their books into mainstream. However for many novelists it looks like self publishing and internet publishing is really the only option if they want to get their words out. It’s sad that so many writers will not get to see their books on the shelf of the favorite bookstore of the moment, but those who write will always write. The medium will change with the times. The stories will always evolve to suit the needs of writers to tell their tale. The times may change but a writer’s passion will always prove to adapt to the moment and continue on.
At least that’s my 2 cents.
I have to say, first off, that I love and will always love a good solid book in my hand. While I can appreciate many things about devices like the Kindle, nothing feels like a book except a book.
However, with the recession being what it is, it's not just the price of books that is an issue. Books take up a LOT of space, and space comes at a premium! I imagine people are downsizing their homes, which means that even if they have money, they can't just buy every book they like (as much as they would like to!). And while digitization saves space for things like movies, it doesn't do a book justice. So, either we switch to Kindle-devices for books, or we end up with a lot of bookshelves full of books (which, again, I'd love(!), if it didn't have to replace things like, oh, refrigerators).
So for me, I choose the library. Hopefully by supporting the library I am in some small way supporting authors, and the books that I really like, the books that come from the bookstore to a place on my shelf (your books included, John!), those books I lend out to as many people as I can! Hopefully this, too, will encourage friends to go to THEIR libraries, or buy their OWN copy of the book, or others like it! And meanwhile, my bookcase is a few books lighter!
I'm not sure what the point of this is, other than SPACE to store a book is as expensive (or more) than the book itself.
I'm a bookseller, so it pains me to predict the death of my job, but I think printed books are going to go the way of vinyl. That is to say, they will still be made, and collectors will still buy them, but a larger and larger group of people will switch to reading them digitally, and print-runs will shrink drastically.
On one hand, this is a good thing: it's returns season right now in bookstores, and on Saturday I boxed up eighteen cartons to return to Penguin. Each of them was 50lbs worth of books. That's a lot of stuff destined for the shredder, and a lot of waste.
Also, I think that switching to digital will increase the sales of books -- certainly, I'd buy more books if I had a Kindle or a Sony Reader (but I don't, because Kindles don't work in Canada, and because Readers are hella expensive). I spend a good three hours a day online reading text, and maybe half an hour a day with analog books, reading fiction. I would be more inclined to read more story if I could do so digitally (if I could get it in daily installments on Google Reader, that would be INCREDIBLE).
Something one of our sales reps told me last week comforted me: his publishing house plans to price eBooks at par with printed matter. This bodes well for the continued health of publishing houses: this way, at least, they'll be surviving on more than a 3 or 4 percent margin. Authors will continue to get paid (possibly paid more!); new books will continue to be commissioned.
Print houses which only print books, on the other hand, are probably dead in the water. And big box bookstores will be too, in short order. Well-maintained & curated independent bookstores can probably keep going, but they'll have to develop sharper focuses and understand that they're catering to collectors.
I think this future won't hit soon -- it'll take ten or twenty years, although twenty feels like overkill, considering how the net revolution has sped up time -- but I expect 2019 will show us a very different literary biz landscape. I have no idea where I, as a bookseller, will be in it, if anywhere at all.
One of my local bookstores just closed after 29 years in business. :-(
I'm not sure how the book publishing industry will evolve. Digital distribution and e-books seem like a way that publishers can save money on publishing and at the same time offer new books to customers at lower prices. However, I love the feel of a book in my hands and I will forever shun Amazon's Kindle.
I had to turn off annotations because I was so enthralled by the puppet dancing. What was it you were saying? ;)
You say "upcoming writer,don't despair!"
I am not only an aspiring writer, but an aspiring editor as well! Something has to be done about the injustice and collapse...-ment of the book-world!
1. Publishers should stop printing hardcovers. They can put a little extra into better paper and binding for paperbacks, charge less, and sell more. People looking to spend their discretionary dollars would much rather pony up for two books than one if given the choice. Authors won't starve (well, more than normal, seeing as they aren't getting paid much anyway) and the costs of putting out one edition rather than having a hardcover edition that they'll later pulp in returns will be reduced to nothing.
Oh, and it's better for the environment.
2. Get that Obama guy to help. Any president who puts three images of families reading in his paid political message probably supports books and reading. How awesome would it be to have a president invite the ALA award winners to the White House for a special dinner and to have a press conference extolling the virtues of reading. If he can invite the winners of the Super Bowl and the World Series, damn it, then why not authors?
3. Go Hollywood. I mean have the awards go Hollywood. Drive some excitement by announcing a shortlist in December when sales can be ramped up in advance of the Big Award. Give the public a chance to get excited and have debates in advance. Talking about books is good and it creates interest. As it is, you have announcements one day, and people scratch their heads over titles they've never heard of, and it's over. Hollywood doesn't get a lot right in my book, but they know how to generate buzz for their own work and milk it.
4. Bring back the pocket book. There's no way a book printed on pulp could or should cost more than a glossy magazine that people read and toss. No way. I don't believe it. And don't say it's about the ads because there are plenty of mags out there without ads that are just as glossy, and hip, and disposable, and they STILL don't cost more than a paperback.
5. Shorter books. Does every story require 350 pages? Would Gatsby have been a better book if Fitzgerald had padded it out? Orwell? Steinbeck? I think the time is ripe for the shorter book -- the novella if you will -- and with lower pages costs come down and people can read more voices, buy more books.
Just some thoughts I had. I don't automatically think that the future of reading is non-book based (TV didn't eliminate movies) but it is possible for the publishing industry to rethink what it does at its core and question every single decision they make, and why, and how they can do it better without blaming anyone besides themselves.
I don't think we can know how the medium and the industry will change, because it's usually pretty impossible to accurately predict. Fiction is part of what tells us what might happen, though, because people's imaginations are as limitless as the infinite future in front of us. Storytelling can never die, because it's always been a part of being human. But as we build a new economic framework for everything, not just books, my sincerest hope is that it's more community-based, whether that community is geographical or social or digital. I work in the kids' section at an indie bookstore, and we have relationships with our customers that are like the relationships people used to have with their grocer or their family doctor. We remember what their family reads and likes and strive to be useful and knowledgeable so that we're a resource people depend on. We're a physical space for people to spend time in, and we have loyal customers who trust us and support us. We're happy to have long conversations about the appropriateness of a book for a certain reading level or maturity level, or how to find books with diverse characters so kids who aren't white have media that reflects their world. We find that fantastic novel to help their nephew who's going through a prolonged depression, or a story that inspires their daughter to study abroad. Because I believe in the power of stories and ideas, I feel like an important part of their lives, especially as we watch kids grow up and move from Frog & Toad to Charlotte's Web to The Lightning Thief to Looking for Alaska. I cannot believe that we are completely expendable, and even if we eventually go out of business (we're over 100 years old, in some form or another), I don't think the whole idea of bookstores filled with book nerds is going to go completely away. That said, I understand that the industry has to change, and I will try my best to change with it. I just hope that people turn to the members of their community when the big corporations start letting them down. We've been here, and we're going to be here, for as long as we can.
Meg Cabot spoke briefly about book publishing in her blog today. Seems like a popular discussion.
I want to say that things will continue to be the same, but I'm not optimistic about it. I love the feel of books, but it will probably not last. Everything is becoming digital, which may or may not become more expensive. And I want to support authors (along with the editors and publishers, etc), but I end up telling my library to buy it. I could live there.
There is nothing hotter than a guy holding a book. It tells me he wants more out of life than what's in my pants.
Every industry is undergoing radical shake-up/down at the moment, publishing is no different. But publishing is different because there has been a major problem in publishing over the past twenty years, which is the bandwagon thing - publishers are pretty hopeless at working out what readers really really want - just think of the rejection letters that JK Rowling received. And now, well, how many boy spies and wizards there are in the hope of filling the yawning HP gap.
The future lies in small independent presses - writers prepared to go out and flog and market their work without thinking that that is demeaning pimping and finally, developing non-proprietary e-book readers so that the Kindle/Sony readers don't maintain their stranglehold over the marketplace.
And by the way, remember that romance is currently having a bumper kind of time...sales are increasing for mass-market romances.
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I agree with others that some of the best ways to save books are by 1) getting the author connected with the audience, especially using the online medium, and 2) taking books into the digital era – not that this means we will ever completely abandon the physical book. I have chosen most of my recent books in part because the author has an online site. I particularly appreciate those who blog often because that gives me a sense of the author’s style, personality, concerns and humor before I make that investment. I just read Paper Towns because of a Sister Salad vlog containing a snippet of an interview with John Green, which led me here, which convinced me that I really needed one of the books.
To contribute something new, though, I have been brainstorming the details about what needs to happen to propel books into the electronic medium. I think the time has come for a new power website to emerge selling nothing but e-books and e-audio books. The site could lure people in by offering hundreds of the classics in e-book form for free. These free e-classics could be superior to the Project Gutenberg versions by using easy to read font and formatting and by possibly adding some images. This site could also lure in readers by offering free podcasts that will include interviews with famous authors and perhaps authors reading e-classic short stories. If we can get readers to the site and have them listening to and getting to know the popular authors who talk about really exciting stories they have just completed, readers are going to want to buy.
I do think that the cost of an e-book needs to be significantly less than the cost of a physical book because it is less expensive to produce. And, if you drive the cost down, you are going to sell many more books and make more profit in the long run. And readers aren’t naive: most aren’t going to pay the same price for an e-book as a physical book.
As another way to hook the reader, the first three chapters of any novel could be sold for a dollar. If the reader likes these first three chapters, he or she could come back and pay for the entire book, with a dollar off for the part already paid.
I'm currently reading Paper Towns on my Kindle. I know I wouldn't be reading that or much of anything if it weren't so easy to get content that way. Like you mentioned, lots of book stores are closing and it's just going to get worse, so all we have left either stores that offer a poor select of book produced for the masses or stores that are more interested in profit margins than literacy.
I try not to spend money on frivolous crap, so go out to a book store and spend way to much money on a book or books that may or may not be of any value beyond their price tags (and it usually ends up being the latter) isn't very prudent.
I've noticed that in the Kindle store, there are a bunch of public domain books that are either free or very very cheap. This means I can finally read all the classics that I've been meaning to but for which I never had the time. This means I can finally read War and Peace without having to carry around War and Peace. I do think with an increased market of and demand for e-readers and content that there will be a matched enthusiasm from publishing companies to provide that content.
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