plunging in

[gfish]

I know I should stay clear of Amazonfail, but I just want to say that a publisher which can't make a profit selling $9 etexts (or $5, or $2) deserves to go bankrupt. If amortized editing and design costs are really the lion's share of a physical book, the system is deeply, deeply broken.

(Even applying design costs to the etext version is largely ridiculous. How much design work does an etext need? I'd prefer it as a raw text file anyway, but a LaTeX-generated PDF would also be just fine as well. The only reason for fancy design in the first place is to catch people's attention in a store. Etext selection and browsing is nothing like that, so why bother with it in the first place? Tradition? Snob factor? Anything that can't be seen in the scaled down image of the book cover in an Amazon listing is a complete waste of money.)

I remain unconvinced of the long-term viability of selling data as a business model. But if you want to find a way for authors to make money, don't make it even harder by trying to defend these dinosaurs at the same time.

Comments

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

Two cases in point:

White Wolf: Back when I first started with The Wolf in the early 1990s, we were The Shit. Like rock stars, we could walk into almost any fantasy convention and get food, crashspace, bedmates and... well, other refreshments... simply because of who we were. Some of us took advantage of this "alternate economy," and I can attest that it made us work that much harder at the job.

So what's wrong with this picture?

For starters, it was unreliable. Sure, there were people who would be willing to feed us or fuck us because we were there. Until you met them, though, you wouldn't know who they were, if they would provide that "economy" when you needed it, and whether or not there was anyone there like that where you were going at all. If not... like I said, Motel 6 doesn't care if you wrote Cult of Ecstasy or not!

Secondly, it was unsustainable. Depending entirely on the goodwill of our other "partners," that "economy" could be withdrawn at any time. And, as many White Wolfers found out the hard way, the novelty of that "economy" would eventually wear out... which, of course, it did - in part because...

Its really obnoxious (not to mention stupid) to rely upon the value you assume other people place on your attention.

Any economy must be mutual. All parties involved must feel as though they're getting their "money's" worth. A lot of Wolfers (like many rock stars) assumed too much and gave back too little. Eventually, people got tired of our shit. Just as former fans talk behind the backs of rock stars who take advantage of their stardom, so too did White Wolf fans talk about some of the more presumptuous staffers among us. By the mid-90s, the gravy train had run its course... which is usually what happens with alternative economies, most especially one-sided ones.

And lemmie tell you this much:

To professional artists, authors editors and so forth, all this talk of giving away our work for free looks pretty damned one-sided.

And thus, from an alternative economic standpoint, essentially unsustainable.

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

Ravens in the Library: On many levels, Ravens was a textbook example of alternate economies at work. Using information technology, POD capability, social network marketing, and an almost exclusively web-based distribution method, we brought a collection of top-name talent to bear and created an acclaimed anthology without spending a cent. Everyone involved worked for free - some of them quite hard - and the project avoided the traditional publishing model in favor of a DIY effort.

Thing is, without an extensive degree of peripheral yet essential involvement form the much-maligned "conventional" publishing industry, Ravens could not have existed.

First of all, almost everyone involved was a trained and established professional. Without the skills, resources, ethics and reputations of each participant, the project could not have even begun. Every person involved turned in professional-grade work, immediately and without attitude. Many of them even revised their work, or allowed me to edit it, to hit the high marks we set for the project. Without a trained and experienced team involved, Ravens could not have been anywhere near as good as it was. And without the names of established professionals, not many people would have purchased it.

Secondly, I would not have even conceived of Ravens had I not spent 20 years in the publishing industry by that point - learning skills, making contacts and understanding the essential procedures for what had to be done. Even if I'd had the audacity to try to pull it off without that background, do you think Neil Gaiman or Charles de Lint would have responded to Joe Neato Blogger with a peachy keen idea - much less offered their more-than-generous help for free? I put 20 years of experience to work and laid that same 20 year of hard-won credibility on the line by even talking about Ravens... and even then, I spent many nights worrying about whether or not we could pull it off. False modesty aside, a part-time hobbyist would-be editor could not have done what I did. That person would not have even known where or how to start... and without the expert (and yes, professional-level) help of Sandi, even I would have been hard-pressed to accomplish it.

Third, I would not have even imagined taking on a project of that magnitude without a tremendous amount of love for Sooj herself - not just the love Sandi and I share for our friend, but the love Sooj inspires in thousands of people across the country, if not the hemisphere. It would not have been possible to get people to contribute the time and effort that they did, for free, without the amazing regard that Sooj and K have worked very hard to establish in a half-decade of more-than-full-time professional devotion. A part-time chick who dashes off the occasional home-recorded track and posts it up free on the Internet would not have inspired so many to give so much for so little in return.

Fourth, the book still demanded money. We managed to arrange things so that pre-orders paid for the print-outs, shipping costs and hardcopies of the books themselves; still, those things cost money - LOTS of money. Even without the overhead of an established company, book publishing isn't cheap.

And finally: If Ravens had just been given away for free on Teh Internetz, it would not have made a damn cent toward Sooj's medical expenses... which was the whole purpose of that enterprise in the first place.

I could go on about the two months of round-the-clock drafts, conversations, negotiations, revisions, redlines, proof copies, print-buyings, marketing efforts and all the rest. Thing is, the established publishing industry is what taught us all what we needed to know in order to bring that book to fruition.

There were alternative economies involved, of course: love, fun, professional credibility, socio-political statements - they all came into play.

But again, without the conventional industry, the dollars-and-cents exchange model, and the benefits (And costs) of both, none of it would be been possible.