Prithee, Inform Me: Paying for POD

Following up on my POD post from the other day, I was wondering, readeurs and readeuses: would you approve the use of tax dollars to fund the installation of a POD device (like the Espresso Book Machine) in your local library (or other municipal book-type location)?

Poll time!

POD: The Future of Print?

Again, sorry for my unforeseen silence last week, lords & ladies, but I've returned from my... what did Laura call it? Spiritual retreat? Arctic expedition? Whale-watching cruise? Voyage through the seventh dimension? Anyway, I'm back, and it turns out that the publishing world continues to turn regardless of whether I'm trying to insinuate myself into the center of it.

Today's news comes out of Rice University, where it turns out their academic press is switching over to print-on-demand. The reason for the move? It saves them a ton of cash.

The print runs of academic titles are only fractions of the print runs of most commercial titles, so (generally speaking) academic publishers pay more per unit than commercial publishers do when having their books printed, bound, and shipped. This is for two reasons: first, there are a number of flat-rate costs (e.g. typesetting) that are unaffected by the number of copies produced, and are therefore diluted as as the size of the print run increases; second, many printers will offer better variable rates as print runs increase, so it may be disadvantageous for an academic publisher to produce print copies traditionally (as they'll either be forced to print more copies than they can sell or to produce relatively few copies at a high price). This is where POD comes to the rescue.

With POD, publishers only produce a copy of a text when it's requested; while this may not be feasible for high sales volume titles like Twilight, it's ideal for smaller titles (e.g. most academic titles or volumes of poetry). As the technology becomes better refined and the speed with which individual copies can be produced increases, it may become a more reasonable option for commercial midlist titles, as well. Not only would this save publishers the higher per-unit cost of publishing traditionally, but it avoids the high-cost tango of shipping and returns altogether.

While it seems to me that e-books are going to become a major force in the industry over the next decade or so, I'm certain of two things: one, people will still be attached to print in some capacity, and two, if this introduces a tiered print structure in which the megabestsellers are published traditionally and as e-books, then I think any non-electronic presence that smaller titles will have will have to be through some kind of print-on-demand setup.

What do you think, author-acquaintances? Will smaller-run titles be permanently relegated to the digital world, or will POD rescue them from print oblivion?

You Can't Spell "MWA HA HAAA" Without "MWA"

We all know how I feel about self-publishing, so it likely comes as no surprise to you that my reaction to Dellarte Press (originally known as "Harlequin Horizons") is largely negative. I'm not the only one crying foul, though, mes auteurs: the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America have objected to the project, with the latter two de-listing Harlequin as an acceptable publisher due to their violation of both organizations' "no vanity press"-type rules. (These reactions, as well as others like them, are what lead to Harlequin Horizon's changing its name in the first place.) Edit: I've been informed that the SFWA has also de-listed Harlequin as an eligible publisher for the same reasons as the MWA and RWA, but books published by Harlequin are still eligible for the Nebula award because no prohibition exists against granting it to self-published works.

The source of the brouhaha (at least, as near as I can tell) was that Harlequin was talking out of both sides of their collective mouth: on the one hand, they were saying that your manuscript wasn't good enough to be published by Harlequin Harlequin, but—but!—for the low, low price of $599.00 (packages run from $599.00 to $1,599.00), Harlequin Horizons would make you into a Real Live Author™! (Tragic character flaw not included.) The solution to this contradiction? Change "Harlequin Horizons" to "Dellarte Press." Et voilà! You no longer have a traditional book publisher playing a weird joke on you by asking you to pay them to publish your book because they didn't think it was good enough for them to pay you.

So yes, I applaud you, MWA (to whom I ascribed the mysterious laugh in this post's title), as well as the RWA, SFWA, and the countless other members of the industry who voiced concerns over this less-than-honest move by Harlequin. Yes, I think self-publishing produces absolute bilge 99.999% of the time. Yes, I think authors who self-publish are more often than not shooting themselves in the foot (feet?) if they want to ever make money doing what they do. BUT. I also think that those self-publishing companies have the right to do what they do so long as they're being honest about it, and most of them are: they're not offering book deals or literary stardom, they're offering to bind your book for you. When a traditional trade book publisher, however—you know, the fancy advance-and-royalty kind—starts getting in on the game, it's no longer clear where traditional publishing ends and self-publishing—dare I say "vanity publishing"—begins.

Sure, Harlequin can take their name off the press to prevent confusion, but if they've got to take their brand off a product in order to sell it, what is that really saying about them and their enterprise?

In the Year 2029

Full disclosure, mes amis: this post on THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING (patent pending) is pure speculation on my part. Informed speculation, to be sure, but speculation nonetheless. So, now that you've taken your mandatory grains of salt, come with me on a journey to...

THE YEAR 2029

In the year 2029, the power of wireless Internet, Amazon, and Google (among newer and even more fantastic companies and services) will have taken connectivity to a new level. We could have search engines in our contact lenses, people! True, video or Matrix-style virtual reality may have largely replaced today's text-based Internet by then, but I'm betting there will still be text involved, and therefore (drumroll, please): reading!

Google's and Amazon's Sith-level grips on electronic books may well still be holding (fun activity: which is the master and which is the apprentice?), meaning that between them, a huge and continuously growing volume of e-books will be available on-line. Mix that with paper-thin, flexible, full-color e-readers (or those mega sweet contact lenses I just mentioned) and you've got almost any book you could ever hope to read wirelessly available almost instantly.

Will piracy be a problem? Absolutely—in twenty years, I expect the publishing industry to be suffering the same issues as the music industry in terms of illegal downloads and pirated materials. Ninja DRM and lawsuits from publishers/copyright holders/author estates will hopefully be enough to deter some pirates, but certainly not all.

Now, as we have seen, there are always going to be early adopters, late adopters, and non-adopters of new technologies, meaning that there will probably still be folks reading paper books in the far-flung year of 2029. I'm pretty sure that's going to be those of us who are college-age or older now, since we have a significant attachment to print books. But those three-year-olds you see running around now? They'll be fresh college graduates with almost no knowledge of The World Before E-Books. They saw us using e-readers when they were tots and thought they were cool. They probably got their own e-readers in middle school. Heck, they might not have ever even touched a physical book in all four years of college. Sure, a few young fogeys might think "p-books" are cool and retro or whatever, but most will view them as archaic and hard to use. (There's no search function on a paperback.)

I think hardcover books will swiftly become novelties, so only a few very small publishers will continue to produce them. For those of us who actually want to read physical books, POD will likely have become the norm, since dwindling demand will long since have forced houses and booksellers to abandon the current mega-print-run-and-returns model. If you want a physical book, you order it, it gets printed just for you, and that's that.

The good news for publishers and agents: I still think we'll need you in the astoundingly distant year of 2029! Roles will have changed drastically, though. Agents will be needed to negotiate royalties & contracts, filter out the detritus, and scout out the self-published stuff that's actually good; publishers will be needed to provide editing, marketing, and publicity services (viral media blitzes and e-co-op, if you will). The industry will be generally more compact, but will still exist and, hopefully, be thriving.

Oh, and I almost forgot the best part: in 2029, all you author folk will be making six-figure advances! Hooray for inflation!

Self-Publishing II: Attack of the POD People

Happy deforestation day! I'm sitting here with crossed fingers hoping the creation of five million copies of THE LOST SYMBOL (and therefore the subsequent loss of trees) doesn't cause a noticeable decrease in my breathable oxygen.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about self-publishing, and it ignited a small firestorm in the comments section. The majority of it was great, lively discussion and I was really interested in a lot of what you all had to say. Some of it, though not strictly disrespectful/incorrect/&c, was a little heated, and I'd like to revisit the subject to clear up a few things. (Apologies in advance for the rant, but it's in the air this week.)

First (as I've said before), I, too, have been known to write things—primarily poetry, although I also write some weird sci-fi-ish literary-ish fiction. The point being: I am very well aware that what I am writing is not really salable. I am not some sales-obsessed Big Publishing Corporation nut who insists that there is no virtue at all in POD, (fre)e-book dissemination, guerrilla Facebook marketing tactics, &c—on the contrary, I am super in favor of those things. I'm not trying to keep you good folks down! However, what I am not in favor of are vanity presses and self-publishing companies that capitalize on writers' lack of knowledge, insecurities, &c. Which, as far as I can tell, is most of them.

Again, first caveat: if you really don't care about selling books, self-publishing is fine. Go nuts! If you only want to sell a couple copies of your Regional Guide to Edible Berries and Flowering-Type Plants, or you're a college professor who just wants to bind a bunch of notes and excerpts into a DIY anthology for a class, or you want to collect all those fun stories you made up for your children over the years into one neat package they can read and hand down to their children, I say: more power to you. Hooray for self-publishing.

Also, second caveat: this is not a hard and fast rule because there are no hard and fast rules in publishing, but it IS based on probabilities. If you really want to sell your book and you've tried everything and you can't get it published traditionally, you are probably better off shelving it and writing a new one. Here, cats and kittens, is why:

1.) Your book, as I've said, is probably either not something that will earn the publisher (and, by extension, you) much money, is not very good, or both. You have nothing to earn by paying your hard-earned cash to print a tiny run of your book that probably LOOKS self-published (although this can be avoided), doesn't cater to more than six people, and/or is not representative of your best work. (Or, worse yet, is representative of your best work and STILL doesn't pass the proverbial mustard.) Grey Poupon, please, with a dash of mondegreen.

2.) Would you want videos of your very first piano lesson on CNN? Or your first crème brûlée on Top Chef? No? That's what you're essentially asking for if you self-publish. This is not my kidding face. (This is my kidding face.)

Seriously, though, the odds of you getting any attention or money at all for a self-published book are ludicrously small—you'll have to get in line behind all the mid-list authors who are scrabbling for publicity/marketing/fame/fortune/&c and DO have big houses supporting them—but what you're essentially saying when you self-publish is "I want the entire world to read this novel that was declined by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of experts in the publishing field." Again, this is either because it's not considered salable in the existing market, not very good, or both. Again again, there are exceptions. Again again again, your novel is probably not one of them. Write a better one!

3.) If you go through the money and hassle of getting an ISBN and actually getting your self-pubbed book into stores, congratulations: you are now trackable on Nielsen BookScan. Publishers—whose attention I assume you're trying to get (see below)—will now be aware of Self-Published Boy Wizard and His Quest for Publication (as well as the fact it sold three copies in two years) and may likely want nothing to do with you for fear of catching your poor sales themselves. Self-publishing does not show publishing houses initiative. It shows publishing houses you don't have an idea they consider publishable and you're getting desperate.

4.) You're ostensibly self-publishing to avoid having to deal with the Big Cantankerous Publishing Monster... yet, paradoxically, you're also self-publishing to get enough attention from the Big Cantankerous Publishing Monster such that it'll give you a six-figure advance and tickets to the Super Bowl with Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer. Interesting.

5.) But John Grisham and Christopher Paolini were self-published! Oh, wait. No, they weren't. Yes, there are exceptions, but when you consider how many books are self-published every day, the odds of you being the next William P. Young are fractions of fractions of a percent. Your odds are still bad with a traditional publisher, but they're better.

So please, gentle readers, feel free to self-publish if it's not about national media attention, big advances, or triple-digit sales. If you want more than six fans and six dollars in net profit at the end of the day, though, I suggest you write a fantastic book, edit the hell out of it, get an agent, and get a publishing house behind you. E-books will change a lot. POD will change a lot. But we will always need experts to divide the salable from the non-, the well-written from the crap. And let us say: amen.

Tomorrow, our good friends at Nielsen (and everyone else on planet Earth) will have DB's sales figures. The results... when we come back!