A crash course in publishing.

I've been going through a crash course online on the arguments between "Indies (ebooks) versus Big-Five (traditional) publishing.  Quite the battle raging.

The Big-5 are scrambling and being defensive and kind of being dickheads.  The ebook proselytizers are definitely being rabble-rousing dickheads.

 I can see merits on both sides, and some blindspots on both sides.

The best outcome would be if the pressure from the Indies forces the Big-Five to change terms so that they are more beneficial to authors.

Though that seems unlikely.

Worst outcome is the whole edifice of traditional publishers goes down (including bookstores) and that would be a tragedy. 

And as someone who has been on the receiving end of monopolies, I don't think giving Amazon that kind of power is a good idea.

Like I said, it's a very complex issue.  I'm torn because I am not only a reader, but a writer.  Not only a writer, but a bookstore owner.  And the three roles conflict to some extent.

So if you were listening to the news, you'd think everyone has an e-reader; until you actually have an ebook to sell them.  Then nobody does.  "I'll wait for real book."  So now that I have the real book coming into stock, I expect that survey to reverse...heh.

I'm trying to take advantage of those opportunities that are open to me.  I'm slowly being won over by the idea of ebooks.

But I still love me some paper.

I'm what they call a 'hybrid' author.  I'm not self-publishing, but I'm also not going through the traditional Big-Five bookstore distribution route.  I've got a small specialty publisher, who takes a chunk of the sales, but who also does the publishing.

But Books of the Dead Press is quick -- getting a physical book out in a little over a month.  Accepting and setting into motion more than one book at a time.  Reporting royalties every quarter.  Working with the digital platforms in a savvy way.  Providing professional artwork and formatting.  Paying me money.

They have an established platform, I do not.  They know the game, I do not.

Publishing yourself sounds like a great idea, unless you don't have a following and are inept at marketing.

BOTDP is also doing both ebooks and printed books, which most ebooks are not.  Roughly speaking, it looks to me that print books are made from less than 25% of the ebooks made.


Eventually there is going to be a synthesis of these competing ideas -- an equilibrium will be reached.  And the truth is, much of it is just noise to the average author.  Very few people make real big money at writing.  The 1% can make huge amounts of money, the 5% can make modest money, and pretty much nobody else.  It's a logarithmic scale, folks. 

Thing is, the Gatekeepers -- as the Big Five call themselves -- are so slow.  Slooooooowwwwww.....

I figured that even if I went the traditional route and even if I was successful that it would probably take about 3 years before I would see a book published.  I write a hell of a lot faster than that.  Taking 3 years won't make it a better book.

And I don't believe necessarily that the Big Five is a meritocracy, either  I'm not sure it's a lottery or a carnival scam as the ebook proselytizers would have it, but pretty close.  I think the keyhole might be a little narrow.  (Though I understand from the pure numbers of submissions that they have to be picky.)

The battle is raging for the midlist authors.  The big authors, the big literary voices, they'll have traditional publishing.  Authors who would never in a million years get published traditionally, they'll have ebooks.

But there is a middle area, authors who a few decades ago would have been good enough to be published, who are finding it harder to break through.

Once I lost my faith in traditional publishing -- in the fairness of it -- it was pretty much impossible for me to go that route.  Hopefully, this isn't sour grapes.  But really, it does seem a really unwieldy edifice.

For the moment I have a publisher, who taking care of things.  I've done my very best to promote my books -- way, way more than I would have expected. 

But now I can concentrate on writing again.