While at the recent Comic-Con convention, I attended a number of panels featuring a wide range of authors — some whose books aren’t even out yet, and some who have been part of the publishing industry for decades. The one theme that came up on virtually every panel was how much things are changing in the industry, but each author seemed to have a unique take on the effect of those changes. Three authors took the time to speak with me and share their views on the changing face of publishing; all three are writing in the young-adult genre, aimed at readers between the ages of 13 and 19. What follows is their take on where the industry is going and how it is affecting them.
Going the self-publishing route
Morgan Rice is a self-published author following in the footsteps of John Locke and Amanda Hocking who has made several appearances on top-seller lists on Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Nook lists. She has just released the fifth novel in her vampire series, The Vampire Journals.I asked Rice if she had ever thought about traditional publishing for her books, or if she had tried to find an agent or publisher for her books before making the decision to self-publish. She said there was never any doubt that self-publishing was right for her:
“[I]n this particular genre, I feel that it lends itself well to the e-book format. The readership is younger and embraces technology, and that makes for an exciting e-publication, on many levels. You get published instantly and receive immediate feedback from your readership, which is very gratifying. It also allows for you to get multiple books in a series out more quickly, which keeps the readers very happy. It makes for an interactive publication.”
Read More in the full GIGAOM.COM article
Philip Hodgetts connecting the dots between publishing and Film/Television
Both book publishing and film/television are industries that were built on scarcity, that are being disrupted n an age of non-scarcity. That’s not to say that there isn’t success and money to be made in the traditional businesses, but book publishing is an interesting place to look for parallels to television (particularly).
In “olden” times book publishers approached writers, offered them an advance against royalties, to write a book. Somewhat more dramatically than the budgetary pressures on television production, the advances offered to writers in the video technology and techniques space have dropped to about 20% of what was being offered as an advance a decade ago.
Given that even those advances really didn’t cover the time it took to write a book, book writing was done for profile/career rather than from the publisher. In fact an author makes more from the Amazon affiliate commission (for sales in a State where Amazon still has affiliates) than from the publisher for the sale.
Read More in the full article by Philip Hodgetts
