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Maybe we should be hurting the authors
February 5, 2010 | 11:25 am
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By Joanna
Notice anything missing in the publisher press releases about their ‘victory’ in the Amazon/Macmillan battle?
John Scalzi writes to other authors. John Sargent is writing to ‘authors, illustrators and literary agents.’ Rupert Murdoch is speaking directly about his own bottom line.
What all of these seeming insiders are forgetting though is that without the paying customer, there would not be a bottom line! Authors, absent a paying audience, would be sticking it in a drawer like Emily Dickinson did, writing for their own personal satisfaction.
Where is the voice of the customer in all of this? What are they doing to try and make things better for themselves?
On forums such as Mobileread, this blog and elsewhere, customers are mobilizing and trying to advocate for themselves. The book review blog Dear Author is hosting a survey for ebook readers which it plans to take to an upcoming conference, this blog continues to serve as an aggregator for news relating to the Great Price War of 2010, and readers at Mobileread are organizing initiatives such as a boycott on all $15 books, and an interesting campaign to catch author and agent attention by deluging offending books with 1-star reviews.
And what has the response been? Plaintive replies, in every venue, about how these attempts to mobilize the reading community ‘hurt authors’ and we should just accept that there are aspects to doing business that we don’t understand and our only option is to shut up and pay.
To that, I say nonsense, and—this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it needs to be said—maybe ‘hurting’ the authors is what we actually need to do for awhile. I don’t mean ‘hurt’ them through piracy or anything ridiculous like that. But we have to get someone to see that this fear of all things digital is costing authors actual sales from people who want to spend legitimate money. If a spate of 1-star Amazon reviews is what it will take to send panicked authors running to their agents and publishers demanding change for us, I say Power to the People.
I’ve written to retailers, to publishers, and to authors themselves about things like geographical restrictions preventing me from buying a book I wanted to pay for, or being unable to buy a series because it was only available from book 2 onward and I couldn’t find book 1. Responses ranged from outright ignoring at worst to polite ‘thanks for letting us know, too bad that’s not my responsibility and I can’t really help you.’
Nobody seems to care about how the customers are feeling, and how sad they are—for themselves, deprived of books, and for the authors too, whom they would read, whom they would support, whom they would generate profit for if only someone would let them.
All our efforts to advocate for ourselves have been in vain—nobody is noticing the letters, the blog posts, the veritable shouting from the internet rooftops begging someone to help us out, or if they can’t, then tell us whom we can write to who actually can help us. But judging from the angry responses to the thread at Mobileread, people are noticing the 1-star reviews!
Does it hurt authors? Maybe. I think an intelligent book-buyer could see at a glance where the 1 star is coming from and judge for themselves if they’re really going to cost an author a sale over it, so I am not sure how much bottom-line pain an action such as this would cost.
But it would certainly be less than what they are losing now to people who want to buy legitimate e-books and are prevented from doing so. All I know is, complaining from readers hasn’t gotten us anywhere yet. Maybe the pressure of authors at last mobilized to help us finally will.
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Actually, if readers simply developed better literary tastes the authors that currently have the power to do something would feel the heat. The bottom line is that DAn Brown, Stephen King, James Patterson (anyone read the New York Times Sunday Magazine article about his $500 million novel factory?), John Scalzi, and the like, aren’t particularly great authors. Their books will not stand the test of time. So if ebookers simply became more discriminating, the Scalzis of the world would soon recognize who butters their bread.
Nobody has said what I’ve been thinking since I started hearing the authors complaining about this.. your article is the closest.
If the authors are hurt by the actions of their publishers, then maybe they will look to sign on with publishers who are not so consumer and e-book hostile.
It’s happening in the music business, and it will happen in the book business. Publishers are becoming obsolete, and they are desperately trying to hang onto their business model.
And authors are playing right along with them, thinking the publishers are “protecting” them. The publishers don’t care about the authors or the consumers. They only care about their bottom line.
Authors, listen up. If this issue with Amazon is costing you sales, take a good hard look at who and why it is happening. The blame falls on many sides, but your publisher is NOT doing this for you. Find a smaller publisher (if you think you need one) that will protect your rights AND look out for you, while being progressive enough to see the changes coming.
Book publishers = Just another bunch of dinosaurs failing to adapt to the times. (see RIAA and MPAA for further reference)
I think that they are scared. Amazon will now directly market for an author with a 70/30 split (that is 70 percent for the author and 30 percent for Amazon). How much does the typical author make from the typical publishing house? I know that it is hard, right now, for an unknown author to make it on their own but it’s getting easier every day.
Not once in this entire discussion have I read of one publisher or author that was interested in improving ebooks. Instead they apparently just slap the rough draft of books (full of typos, misspellings, and poor formatting) into ebooks and complain that we the ebook customers are devaluing their books by not paying enough for them.
A number of false assumptions here. The major one is that authors have any control over any of this. We don’t. In the publishing food chain, authors have the least power and the most to lose. Authors have less power over the conglomerates than the average fast food worker has over McDonalds.
Authors are also the scapegoats. If a book has a bad cover/blurb/marketing/distribution which the author can’t control, and the book has poor sales, it’s the author’s fault.
Authors also have the most to lose. Publishers/distributors/agents have other books to improve the bottom line. Authors do not.
Another false assumption is that hurting the author will improve things for the reader. Writers write books; readers read them. If you take the author out of the equation, you take book out of the equation. Boycott or steal the books you like to read, and more of those books won’t be written.
What readers need is a healthy publishing ecosystem, and destroying any element of that system isn’t the answer.
The last false assumption is that the publishers aren’t listening. They are. The trade press and blogs are full of the readers’ reactions. Readers might not get exactly what they want, but they are being listened to.
@ Marilynn Byerly
If ebook readers were being listened to when they asked for better ebooks, more titles, fair prices and so much else, they wouldn’t be so on the edge about this. It wasn’t the Amazon/Macmillan thing that lead to readers outrage, that was merely the tipping point. Ebook readers have been largely ignored by both publishers and authors for way too long. Macmillan is just reaping what it sowed by treating ebook buyers as lesser customers.
As for the authors I’m truly sorry that they’re losing sales, and i don’t think they should be punished. But may this be a wake up call that they and their publishers should start paying more attention to ebook buyers out there.
Marilyn,
“A number of false assumptions here. The major one is that authors have any control over any of this. We don’t.”
Two reactions. First is that many authors — and author organizations such as the SFWA — have taken anti-consumer actions and written blog posts supportive of the publishers’ actions. Some of them with very sarcastic and snide responses to those of us with different opinions.
Second is: *Take* control. Fight for your digital rights with terms that are favorable to you, or consider self-publishing. Your fans will follow you.
Ficbot has said what many of us are thinking right now, and said it well IMHO.
How are the authors ignoring the ebook readers? They write books. The publishers decide how those get distributed, not the authors. Really, the authors are the scapegoats. Publishers are driven by money, plain and simple. They sell books that people, you know, actually BUY. So, if Dan Brown sells lots of books, who are the publishers going to publish a second time? Right, the author who actually sold the most books, in any format.
Honestly, this is like getting mad at musicians for how Ticketmaster charges for tickets!
Cat Valente has the very best response to all the idiots out there who think publishing companies are obsolete and writers would be better off without them. Is that really what ebook readers want, a market saturated with unedited, lame, amateurish selfpubbed crap that would never have made it out of the slush pile? Do we want quality work by professionals, or do we all just want to buy mountains and mountains of slush?
To the original poster, dude, really, use some of that money $10 ebooks are saving you and buy a clue. How is flooding Amazon listings with one-star “reviews” anything other than infantile, petulant idiocy? How will that actually accomplish anything in the way of bringing publishers and Amazon around to agreement on fair ebook pricing? If you want to be intelligent, just keep to the policy of not buying anything you think is too pricey. No one ever said you didn’t have the right to do that.
Thiago, what exactly do you want authors to *do* to “pay[] more attention to ebook buyers”? Like Marilynn Byerly pointed out, most of the issues being talked about here are fights between publishers and distributors. Authors are watching on the sidelines, trying to figure out how this is going to affect them, but it’s not like they have the market power to demand changes for themselves or on behalf of readers. (with potential exceptions for Dan Brown, James Patterson and J.K. Rowling).
And what do you want them to demand, even if they could demand something? That their publishers cede pricing control to distributors? (Because that’s worked so well for the companies that supply Wal-Mart). Or just that they demand the publishers coordinate lower prices (which is [a] liable to be an anti-trust violation, and [b] sort of a bizarre demand, given how authors are paid, and yes, I think it’s a good idea to keep paying authors of writing books we enjoy reading). What am I missing? Help me out here.
The error in your reasoning, in my opinion, goes something like this:
The value of a book, like the value of a home, is not simply a function of the cost to produce it. Take the price of hard-cover vs. soft-cover books – the difference is NOT due to it being that much less expensive to produce the soft-cover version. The difference is due to the time lag and (presumably) fall in demand that a book experiences after its release.
From the publisher (and in many cases the author) perspective, the price of a book should be driven by the combination of demand/quality/popularity of the content. The price of a book, like the price of many other products we consume, is not a function of the manufacturing or distribution cost. It is a function of demand for that produce.
And that is what publishers are trying to (re)establish.
The authors aren’t the ones causing this shitstorm. How about acknowledging that the assholes here are Amazon and Macmillian, not the authors who are trying to get their work published at a fair price? Not one affected author — not ONE — wants to fuck over their customers.
Direct your rage where it belongs, why not?
Bill: First is that many authors — and author organizations such as the SFWA — have taken anti-consumer actions and written blog posts supportive of the publishers’ actions.
Talk about distortion; this one is Fox News-worthy. All SFWA has done is removed Amazon links from their site and replaced them with links that will actually make it possible for consumers to get the books that Amazon has presently delisted. So how is it an “anti-consumer action” to make it possible, rather than impossible, for a consumer to buy a book? Unless, of course, said consumer is a Kindle owner, and has apparently absorbed the inflated sense of entitlement that seems to have become a natural by-product of having bought one of those ugly things in the first place.
E-books are still such a tiny part of the market that it IS going to take time (and a larger market share) before readers’ voices are heeded on these issues. Publishing is a business, and adjusting any business to encompass emerging markets while still tending to existing markets is going to have some growing pains, some trial and error, and some head-bangingly bad decisions.
But authors have as little voice as readers do on these issues, so expecting them to fix the problem is unrealistic. A few top-rank authors can dictate terms to their publishers and pick and choose where they publish, but even they have issues to consider other than the relatively small e-book market. Most authors can’t do anything except express their opinions, and many authors are saying that they want their books available in e-formats, for whatever that’s worth. In my experience, authors care a lot more about their readers than publishers or retailers do.
As the digital book market grows, it will get more attention. As readers show their preference for certain KINDS of e-books, by buying the ones that best meet their needs, that will start to shape the market. It seems horribly slow, but look back on what happened with music — in retrospect, the digital downloading of MP3s became a huge part of the market very quickly, and without replacing CDs for those who prefer them.
Refusing to buy, especially e-books, just reinforces the view that the digital part of publishing is too small to matter, and that print publishing is where the real money is.
Being listened to and getting your own way are not the same thing, as any parent of a tantruming child will tell you.
Publishers and retailers are engaged in a battle over profits in an age of changing technologies, but authors (who wield little to no power and rarely make a living wage in their chosen profession) are the civilian casualties. Attacking them will accomplish nothing.
The authors were the first ones to get hurt in this entire mess. Instead of continuing negotiations with MacMillan behind closed doors like true professionals should, it was Amazon that decided to delist the authors’ books without any warning in a broad-stroked move that actually is most likely hurting many authors’ ability to make a living from their works – both good authors and “bad.”
Amazon is still moving MacMillan authors’ products, just in a way to make sure that *they* make profit at the expense of someone else’s intellectual property. As noted above, authors do not have any say-so about distribution chains and final pricing, even with small presses. They hardly even have a say over it when they self publish! Amazon dragged the authors into this immediately, however, displaying their own dubious market ethics and punishing precisely the kind of people who are most at stake, yet the least likely to be of any influence at the negotiation table.
If you care at all about books (which, I’m guessing you do or you wouldn’t have written this bit of nonsense), you would understand that there would be no books without authors or publishers. Good and bad books will persist whether Amazon or eBooks were here or not. Consider this when you’re trying to pick sides in this thing.
First, most of the expositions of the cost of publishing an ebook that I have seen are utterly without a clue. It is, of course, possible for a text-only book to be fed into a conversion program (like Amazon’s DTP site) and come out as an ebook.
Doing that, though, guarantees that most of the books will be much less entertaining or useful than they should be. There’s a lot more work that goes into preparing a draft manuscript for publication than that, if you want a half-way decent book. (I’ve posted on exactly what and how much elsewhere, as I am wont to do, but if there’s interest, I could do it again here.)
Second, there’s only one determinant of a fair price: when the buyer and the seller are both willing to make the transaction. Fair is not a function of cost — which is why loss-leaders are fair, for example. If you don’t think e-books are worth what publishers feel they must have in order to make the books profitable — don’t buy them. (Note: piracy is NOT fair in that situation, but boycotts are.)
@ Network Geek
Given the online presence of authors like Scalzi and others, one would expect them to be at least not so surprised as they seem to be by the anger from ebook readers (since that anger is not at all new, it only surfaced now), which indicates that so far they couldn’t care less about the experience most ebook readers had finding, buying and reading their work in electronic format.
Besides that, many authors, either writing on their own blogs or commenting other blog entries, were quick to point out how Sargent’s letter promised variable pricing and that eventually, if only we waited, the prices would drop, showing complete ignorance of how Macmillan has dealt with variable pricing so far on Fictionwise, which works under an agency model like the one they want push Amazon into, and where most ebooks with already released paperbacks are priced higher than their paperbacks.
So yes, authors have been ignoring ebook readers, which is probably because at this point they don’t mean much in financial terms for most authors. But if there’s nothing they can do (and I’ll agree there probably isn’t much), at least they could try to understand and sympathize with these readers problems, instead of giving them the same old company talk we’re getting from Macmillan.
I read eBooks, and I enjoy being able to carry a small library around with me.
That said. I do agree with pretty much all the authors comments I have seen, so far.
Firstly, why does no-one complain about the high price of hardback books? Why does no-one boycott them and give bad reviews? Because everyone knows that eventually there will be a paperback and it will be cheaper. The price plan Macmillan proposed mimics that. Buy the eBook now – pay $15, wait a while – pay $6.
Am I the only person who thinks that making the eBook market resemble the rest of the publishing industry is a good idea?
Secondly, hurting the authors means that the authors are going to become disillusioned and they are going to stop writing. That does not help the reading public. The books are not going to be available in any format.
If you don’t like what Macmillan or Amazon are doing, tell them. They can do something about it authors can’t.
“All our efforts to advocate for ourselves have been in vain—nobody is noticing the letters, the blog posts, the veritable shouting from the internet rooftops begging someone to help us out, or if they can’t, then tell us whom we can write to who actually can help us.”
Did you, perhaps, consider the possibility that this is because all of the letters, the blog echoing, the ‘shouting from the internet rooftops’ is just *noise* in the overall picture? That the people kicking up a storm out of this are a vocal but small group that would not significantly affect sales if they all deliberately boycotted Amazon and Macmillian, and that the majority of book purchasers accept things as they are?
“Honestly, this is like getting mad at musicians for how Ticketmaster charges for tickets!”
Actually, the petulance of the authors is a lot like musicians bitching at fans considering a Ticketmaster boycott.
“You can’t boycott MacMillan/Ticketmaster! That will hurt authors/musicians!” It’s not the readers’ fault you have wedded your fates to a company they don’t like.
“How about acknowledging that the assholes here are Amazon and Macmillian [sic], not the authors who are trying to get their work published at a fair price?”
The authors won’t acknowledge that, so why should we? As far as the authors are concerned, ONLY AMAZON is at fault for the dispute, and everyone should hate Amazon. The authors won’t acknowledge MacMillan’s responsibility because they are the lackeys of MacMillan. Well, fine – if you’re going to be the lackeys of MacMillan, we’re going to TREAT YOU like the lackeys of MacMillan.
@ Plain
I don’t want nor do I demand that they do anything. I don’t think there’s anything they could do about the lousy state of the ebook market.
I just wish they’d stop giving everyone the same talk we’re getting from Macmillan… they’ve all talked about how in the end Macmillan’s deal will be better for everyone, including consumers, and that if we only wait ebook prices will drop from 14.99 to even lower than 9.99. Ebook readers have been there, done that with Macmillan (and other publishers) for years now, and their experience all this time is far from the one authors are painting.
I want them to hear to what ebook readers are saying, to the concerns being expressed instead of just ignoring all that as they’ve been doing for years.
No books without authors or publishers? Well yeah, without authors, no books. Without publishers, nonsense.
http://www.simonteakettle.com/famousauthors.htm
And rather than call people “idiots” (Martin, I’m looking at you) when you disagree with their opinion, how about a reasonable discussion.
I say again, authors do have a choice, ultimately. If you choose to use a publisher, choose one that isn’t going to do bad things (be “evil”). If you choose a publisher that does bad things to consumers, don’t be surprised if you get caught up in the storm. Remember, those publishers don’t care about you… just the dollars you bring in.
Doh.. let all the Sargents and Scalzies be the boneheads that they are. Darknet here I comeeeee…
The authors are and will get hurt in publisher/distributor wats. Tha Amazon/MacMillan tussle surely has hurt their writers. But to say that authors have no say or play no role in publishing decisiona is to cast the blame on others but not yourselvs.
If writers love their books, then fight for them. Fight to get them in well-done ebook formats, and priced intelligently so that they will sell. (Pricing an ebook at or very close to a paperbook is an insult to intelligent people and is NOT FAIR.) So, writers, you need to complain to your publishers, or you will continue to suffer the fallout by angry customers- and we won’t accept- “It was someone else’s job.” Passing the buck won’t work and will cost you money.