Publishing is broken.

[tuftears]

Here's the story of how an author's book is rejected by a series of publishers due to lackluster sales of previous books. When the author submits manuscript under different name, it is accepted within three days.

I'm just... well. Flabbergasted. This system is broken, if the publishers are blinded by numbers and it takes someone deliberately masking their identity to get them to look at the story. The conventional wisdom is that new writers have it the hardest, after all, since publishers would rather go with a known quantity... But if the known quantities don't sell as well-- and they will inevitably fall off, since publishers will only issue print runs up to the limit of those that sold on the previous book-- then gradually the publishers will ease authors off of their lists.

It's called 'planned obsolescence'. Of writers.

Rebroadcast from marthawells.

Comments

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

I admit, I am kinda surprised anyone's bothered doing an article on this. This has been going on for decades. I have a buddy who's a romance writer who's written under three pen names. It's standard operating procedure when your writing career tanks. Usually the editor knows, which is what's mildly unusual about this, but people have changed their names to relaunch their careers for a very long time. (I can think of at least two big names in SF who were previously lesser names, and romance writers change their names like jackets.)

The issue, however, usually isn't Big Evil Publishers--it's the book buyers for brick and mortar stores. They're the ones checking the sales numbers obsessively, and they're the ones who say "No, we will not stock this author's book because their last one didn't sell for crap." If you can't get the orders from them, it doesn't matter how good the book is. If the author only got orders for 4K books, then that's how many you print, because you have nowhere to send the product.

The truism inside the industry actually ISN'T that the new writers have it the hardest--it's that if you can sell the first book, the second book is easy, and the third book is impossible. (The tragedy of the midlist!) That's because if you can't sustain sales over the long term, the book buyers don't want you, and the publishers may go to the bat--read the Twenty Palace's author's blog posts about how hard his publisher tried to keep his series going!--but they can't MAKE the stores carry you.

Now, with the rise of e-books, it's possible this dynamic will shake out differently, and I'm hoping it does. But bear in mind that no matter how popular e-books are becoming, the majority of sales STILL are through brick-and-mortar hard copy...so until then, I expect we'll see pen name roulette.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

That truism is news to me!

Though now that I think of it, there's a writer I liked, Doris Egan (http://www.sff.net/people/Doris.Egan/credits.htp) (Gate of Ivory trilogy) who relaunched under a pen name, Jane Emerson. Which is kind of a pity because I really enjoyed the Ivory series.

The rise of ebooks comes at the same time as the downfall of physical media, which is just that it's a whole lot more expensive to staff brick-and-mortar stores, so I guess we will have to see how it shakes out. I figure where it'll take us is a universe of the Long Tail, a universe where midlist stuff doesn't evaporate, it keeps going, hanging in a universe of other relatively unknown media. Most people will wind up in the midlist, and they'll concentrate on growing their 'tail' of continuing sales and recommendations and reviews enough to catch more readers in the hope they'll have a Katamari Damacy event where it gains enough mass to turn them into a star.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

I think the rise of e-books will probably be a lot better for the midlist, honestly.

There's really no malice anywhere in the chain--book buyers have limited space in the stores, and they can only risk so many shelf inches on a name that didn't sell very well last time, because they have to pay employees and keep the lights on. If my book sold one copy last time, and the rest got returned, and your book blazed through all the copies in a week and they had to order six more, you're getting the shelf space next time. And the publishers can only sell what the book stores will buy, and with the rise of on-demand printing, they now only print what gets ordered (which actually saves everybody a lot of money and grief on pulping and returns) but it does sound shocking when they say "Oh my god, they only printed 4,000 copies!"

The lack of malice, however, doesn't change the fact that you get very little buffer as an author. These are people who love books, who are passionate about books, who really want to see great books succeed--but it's a business, not a charity, and it can only sell what people will buy.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

It is scary though, when they only print X copies and they set X to be the number that actually sold last time, because functionally you're almost always going to sell fewer than X, since they can only sell what they have on display!

But your point is taken, the editors are adapting to the book buyers' habits. It shouldn't be surprising that the editors will remove inefficiencies by using the same devices the book buyers do to determine whether they should buy a story. That this creates inevitable midlist author churn is not exactly their problem... But it does create weird adaptions like the pen name thing.

*looks up Twenty Palaces blog*

*starts leafing through it*

[wordslinger.livejournal.com]

There's also the issue that they figure a new writer will not make back the advance. Let's say I get a $3,000 advance (I did once) for a book. The publisher can sell 600 of them priced at $10/book (because they have to give bookstores a discount) and make that back.

My advance would get credited at about 25 cents per book. So on those 600 books, I've repaid exactly $150 of the $3,000 advance. Truth is, darn few of us ever get to the point where the publishers have to pay us.

I like epubs, but the problem is that there's a LOT of them and there's a LOT of drivel. Some of it is probably mine.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the big crisis for epubs is going to be the evolution of sites to refer people to the good ones... Since tastes vary so much, expect to see a veritable forest of reviews, or maybe something that recommends based on what you've already read and liked, rather than a one-size-fits-all site!

As for advances -- that's the publisher not guessing right about how much of an advance they should offer, no?

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

I'm skeptical of the downfall of physical media, myself. I have books that are decades old that I still read. I have a box of 5-1/4" floppies, that I can't now read. And that's not counting books that I've read at my grandmother's place (she gave me an astronomy text from the 1880s; fascinating to read for the historical contrast).

That's part of why I buy hardcopies of books when I can, and pressed (not burned) DVDs when I can. It's also why I keep thinking about ways to store data and media for the really long term. My physical media collection does degrade through use and accidents, but it's still held up better than my virtual media collection.

Among other things, this is why I think print-on-demand is the future of the book industry.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I like print, but I just don't have space to store an infinite number of books! On the other hand, I haven't thrown my lot in with Amazon or B&N yet on who will rule the e-library market by picking either of their tablets.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

And thanks for dropping a note. ^_^

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Publishing has been broken for a long time.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Well, I have to think they mean well, but the system is just terribly full of inertia and unwillingness to take risks! I think it'll be interesting if Amazon eats their lunch.