Pub Rants

Category: electronic books

Three Articles Worth Sharing

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: TGIF—even if it’s cold in Denver.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? BARE NECESSITIES by Phil Harris

Sorry to interrupt our fun with royalty statements (and don’t worry, I’ll resume on Monday) but I saw these three articles and they definitely are worth sharing.

First article is a follow up to the one on Tuesday about FTC fining of blog reviewers for nondisclosure. Richard Cleland highlights that the FTC doesn’t have the authority to level fines, and he says, “the blogger or endorser would not be fined, but the advertiser would.”

Second is a blog entry on the HuffPo site from Steve Ross (Former President, Collins Division at HarperCollins and Sr. VP, Crown Division at Random House) asking why we can’t all just get along and responds to two recent blog postings by Chip O’Brien and Mark Coker with the following:

“Both blogs are, to this reader, rife with fallacious thinking, faulty reasoning, and/or tunneled perspectives that ignore the complex realities that publishers face during this turning point for the industry. But at a time when it is in the best interests of everyone who loves books to help the major houses endure, they’re being scapegoated, demonized and ridiculed for trying to survive with the crippling business model they’ve been handicapped with for decades.”

Last but not least, FrogDog Media does a children’s iStorytime ap for the iPhone—just in case you want your 3-year old to read instead of playing a video game on your iPhone. Kinda cool. And they are doing all picture books by new writers.

Tectonic Shift

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Halloween is going to be here before we know it. I’m not sure I’m ready for it to be the holiday season soon.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? UNDER PRESSURE by Queen (with David Bowie)

Or to quote Malcolm Gladwell, we may have reached the tipping point. As I mentioned earlier this week, October is a big royalty statement month here at the agency. All the publishing houses have different royalty reporting periods but the good majority of statements come in February/August, and April/October. In the last week, we’ve received a ton of statements.

And it’s always a happy time because with statements comes money.

But that’s beside the point. What I wanted to highlight tonight was that I’m reading a ton of statements from different houses, different authors, and different genres.

I’m noticing one big change. The amount of eBooks being sold in any given accounting period has risen dramatically.

I’ve been watching this for years. Four years ago, any author that sold more than 50 books in the electronic form (in one accounting period) was blowing it away and mostly I’d only see high numbers from our SF&F authors.

Now I’m looking at titles selling 500 to 1000 copies (and certainly sometimes more) in electronic form regardless of the genre. Even this time last year the numbers were not running nearly this high.

The tectonic shift is happening and it’s all clearly spelled out on paper—although one has to wonder how long those paper statements will last…

Pirating Made Easy

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Very chaotic and busy today. Logged a lot of phone hours for a negotiation, a revision phone conference, and a possible Hollywood deal.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? EVERYBODY HURTS by R.E.M

Today, one of my authors sent me a very interesting link. Basically you can Google to find a tutorial on Scribd that gives you instructions on how to easily download a Google Books “Limited Preview” book in its entirety into PDF.

You know the “partial” preview that is sometimes enabled on Google Books? Well, these instructions tell you how to get around the partial views to download the file. All of it.

Yep, pirating made easy.

Needless to say, I’m not including the link to the instructions on this blog (although if you’re curious, I imagine it’s not hard to find the link.)

One of the issues in this digital age is how authors will get paid for their intellectual property. And no, I’m not going into the whole DRM debate in this entry.

What I want to say is this. If you are a published author with the preview enabled on Google Books, tell your publisher about this quaint little feature on Scribd and the issue with Google Books preview.

Is Publishing Just About To Be Disrupted?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: How the industry is shifting does make me lie awake at night.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY by Donna Summer

And to piggy-back on to what I was writing about yesterday on the blog, I want to share this very interesting article by science writer Michael Nielsen.

I read his blog entry earlier this week and my mind has been in a whirl since. He tackles the question of whether scientific publishing is about to be disrupted but I think the parallels to traditional publishing are very clear.

In the article, Nielsen highlights the signs of impending disruption in the newspaper industry: “Five years ago, most newspaper editors would have laughed at the idea that blogs might one day offer serious competition. The minicomputer companies laughed at the early personal computers. New technologies often don’t look very good in their early stages, and that means a straight up comparison of new to old is little help in recognizing impending disruption. That’s a problem, though, because the best time to recognize disruption is in its early stages. The journalists and newspaper editors who’ve only recognized their problems in the last three to four years are sunk. They needed to recognize the impending disruption back before blogs looked like serious competitors, when evaluated in conventional terms.”

The signs of disruption in the publishing industry are already there. The big question is whether we’ve recognized them in time. The big publishers today are like the Titanic. Huge. Cumbersome. Potentially perceived as unsinkable. And yet, huge tech companies such as Google, Amazon, and the upstart Scribd are changing the face of publishing. What will the big publishers be like in five years? 10 years? They see the ice berg but can they turn in time?

I hope so. I don’t have any answers to share but I certainly see possibilities. Will they merge with big tech companies such as Google? That would not be surprising. What will the role of agent be as publishing transforms?

And digital is the key that has changed all of this.

And how interesting that I’m reading one of the more extraordinary articles to tackle this question on a blog. By a science writer. Not in a publishing industry magazine. Not in a newspaper.

That says a lot in and of itself.

Reshaping Reading

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Contemplative.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? UNDER THE MILKY WAY by The Church

Today as I have spotty internet from my home connection (curses Qwest DSL and the fact that I can’t have cable broadband at my home), I can’t help but do a rant on digital technology and how that is reshaping the reading experience.

Today, in Deal Lunch, I read about two new eReaders—the Ditto Book E Ink Reader and a new reader by Vodafone Germany. (For those of you who might not have been to Europe lately, Vodafone is a big mobile phone provider across the pond.)

Lower price points and mobile phone eReader technology.

Then I read about Cory Doctorow’s serialization of MAKERS that’s going to be posted on Tor.com. Then I read about the Hachette Book Group’s initiative to offer free Open Access to a variety of books in their entirety via their website. And to top it off, Chris Anderson’s book FREE viewed by 17,000 people, well, for free via Scribd.

And here’s what I want to say about this. It’s not okay to cling to your Luddite ways. Even if you love the feel of a physical book in your hands and hate the idea of reading digitally, you need to branch out and give it a try.

From the start of my agency, I’ve always read electronically on my computer (tablet PC). Then I got the Kindle the year before last and now I’m reading both on my kindle and my iPhone. In fact, lately, it’s been rare that I’ve read an actual physical book.

And for me, the medium doesn’t matter. Only the story does. Now I know that’s not true necessarily for other people but this is where we are moving and you if you are a writer, you need to experience reading in these other mediums. Why? Because the next generation, I guarantee it, will not be as attached to the physical medium of a book. They are already more used to reading digitally in all kinds of ways—blogs, twitter, texts, books, instant chat, etc.

Books are transforming. They might be multimedia in the future—interactive in the digital form—which would shift how writers think about writing a novel or a memoir or a work of nonfiction. You can’t afford to ignore this.

You can already see the shifts happening.

Foreign Publishers Getting Into The Electronic Game

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I spent four hours on the phone doing a variety of phone conferences. Maybe I should rethink a headset.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? IF YOU’RE GONE by Matchbox Twenty

In this year alone, my agency has done over 20 foreign rights deals. That’s a lot for an agency of our size. After all, we only have about 30 clients.

And here’s an important facet I’m noticing. Foreign publishers are now asking for electronic rights to be included in the translation deal. No surprise given all the recent developments in the electronic field but until this year, almost no foreign publisher asked for eBook rights for a work in translation.

That’s all changing and fairly rapidly. In fact, some foreign publishers are preemptively sending addendums to add the e-rights to their agreements. Which cracks me up enormously. I don’t mind accepting but only after a significant revision of the “addendum” and a negotiation of the rate.

But here’s what you need to make note of. The royalty rates being offered by foreign publishers for eBooks is all over the place. On the higher end, it’s 25% of net receipts. The emerging standard that I don’t agree with and fight it every time seems to be 20% of net receipts. I’ve also seen as low as 10% of net offered (heck no that ain’t happening) and I’ve also seen 15% of net which is way low as well.

So you published authors need to review those foreign rights deal memos you receive (if World wasn’t granted to the Publisher because than the Publisher subrights department negotiates the foreign deals and you probably won’t see the deal memo until after the fact).

Check if eRights are included and if you’re not sure, ask your agent. And if they are included and the rate seems low, you might also want to have that convo with your agent.

Buddy Can You Spare A Buck?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I’ve actually been working on two contracts today—in between some necessary phone calls.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? GYPSIES, TRAMPS & THIEVES by Cher
(Now you know I can’t possibly be lying about what’s playing on the iPod if I’m willing to ‘fess up to this song being there!)

I read in my daily email from Publishers Weekly that Orbit (the SF&F imprint of Grand Central Publishing) is doing an ebooks promotion [click for the site and where you can buy] for a buck.

Excerpt from the Article:
“In a bid to promote its print and digital lists, Orbit is offering dollar e-books to readers on a rotating basis. Marketing and publicity director Alex Lencicki said the program is currently “open-ended” and will continue as long it is successful. When asked how the success of the program would be measured, Lencicki said if the dollar e-book drives either print or digital sales–or turns readers on to a particular series–it will be a hit.”

First up is debut author Brent Weeks THE WAY OF SHADOWS.

I just did me a one-click to my Kindle. A buck for a brand new book? Heck yes, I’m willing to try a debut author.

What say you?