With Dorchester Publishing's announcement about transitioning to strictly E-book and trade paperback formats, it came as no surprise to learn they fired two of their senior editorial staff on August 19, 2010: Leah Hultenschmidt and Don D'Auria. The fact is, the publishing industry appears to continue down a shallow grade. Barnes & Noble is experiencing its own issues and many of its shareholders think that a minority stockholder may try for a grab.
Does all of this come as a shock to me? Not really. I don't think we'll see another Black Wednesday out of the deal, but I'm persuaded this is far from over. What's triggering it? I can't say with certainty but since most blogs are little more than opinion, I'll take a stab: poor business practices. I've mentioned before that the publishing industry has operated for a long time now with fiscal impunity and now they're paying for it. You cannot repeatedly give high advances to authors that don't earn them back and stay afloat. My job doesn't pay me ahead of time for work and with good reason. It's basic math and the numbers don't pan out.
I think there's enough evidence to postulate the number of authors seeking alternative means of publishing will continue to rise. It's become relatively cheap. In spite of the fact some naysayers claim "most self-published work is crap" (see Writers Beware Blogs for the latest turmoil in response to Publishers Weekly's announcement regarding self-publishing), there are a lot of authors, published and not, who seem determined to expose their work wherever they can.
Once more, only time will tell but it seems there's a fresh resurgence of non-traditionally published work and particularly with the "E-book revolution." Yeah... it's about to get interesting.
4 comments:
What I find really interesting about the "e-book" revolution is that e-books *wait for it* are returnable!!! WHAT? That's right with Amazon's kindle you have SEVEN days to read your E-book decide you don't want and return it for a full refund.
Oh yes, let me be a part of that.
I've not checked but I'm fairly certain this is standard. All I have to say to that is why would an e-book EVER be returnable?
I stupidly and naively put my debut novel on kindle and watched while they mis-marketed it, as it seems is standard for them. I got my first one star review from a reader who couldn't figure out why my book was in the category it was in (because Amazon didn't pay attention of course to the categories where I told them I wanted it) AND said reader (I assume it was them) returned the book to kindle.
Never again. Not in this life time. You find my work in e-book format it will be because someone else put it there. Not me.
I'm sorry to hear you had a bad time with the Kindle and, frankly, surprised! But I have to disagree with your sentiment, simply because most retailers permit readers to return print books, too. I'd estimate that e-book sales make up about 1/4 of my total sales volume, thus far. I was able to choose the categories for my books, so I can't understand why Kindle would have made a mistake with yours. But... it is what it is. Nonetheless, I wouldn't let one bad experience persuade you to completely dismiss the idea. My sales on e-books are climbing every day, and I've not had one returned yet.
I had two returned Kindles in the first week along with the sales. And Amazon placed my e-book all over the place in categories not of my choosing.
Nope. I won't do it again.
I've proven myself to be a savvy marketer and have avoided (thus far) bad reviews from readers who picked up the book because it was in a category it really shouldn't have been in (to me that's why you have categories, to help readers find what they WANT to read.)
I don't need help from Amazon's lack of experience and stupidity. Black Bed Sheet Books will take on my series though and will probably make it available through Kindle just because it's there as an option. But with or without that experience with Kindle, I don't feel e-books are the wave of the future or even the answer to small pubbed authors problems. E-books are like giving someone a band-aid when they need stitches and telling them to have a nice day.
And yes, that's just my limited opinion. LOL
Sue,
Sorry to hear you have had a problem with Kindle. Regarding the categories, you do realize along with the categories and tags you give your book, others can also "tag" it if they feel it fits in another category in addition to what is already listed. The more exposure, the better. I have discovered a few of my books have been high on best-seller category lists that I had not even thought of. A couple of them have been as high as #8 on some lists. That makes me happy.
From my personal experience, Amazon does know what they are doing in adding your book to additional genres or areas of interest. You best bet is your own description that you write, telling readers what your book is all about. That will always give a reader better information than a tag.
Regarding Kindle returns. I now have 36 books at Kindle and I have had two or three returns. When the first one happened I was concerned that my format may have been messed up, thus the reason for the return. I contacted Kindle and they checked format, all was fine. I have Kindle for the PC and I have previewed samples of a number of books now. What I was told by Kindle is that sometimes a person wants only to preview and they hit the buy button by mistake. I do see how easily that may happen now that I have preview samples on my computer. I have also learned from Amazon that if a customer makes returns too often, it is not acceptable, so I believe they do watch for that. I don't know if you realize it but it may be possible (if you want to spend all day) to read a Look Inside print book by numerous creative searches.
So it seems you have to weigh the advantages of ebook publishing or even print or traditional publishing against the possibility of occasionally being ripped off. It happens. My husband was ripped off by underground publishing of his books in other countries more than once over the years and that was long before any cyber theft.
I do hope you keep Kindle in mind, Sue, because I believe it is a valuable marketing outlet, and presently number one of the e-book publishing world, and is very generous in royalty rate.
Linda
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