Ewan Morrison: “…epublishing is another tech bubble”
This is one of the most interesting articles on e-books that I’ve read in some time:
The Guardian: “Why social media isn’t the magic bullet for self-epublished authors”
Ewan Morrison likens online independent publishing to the tech bubble.
A few people make a lot of money, lots of people get into it (the bubble inflates), and then…pop!
I think many people sort of intuitively feel that there are many people publishing that are feeding a current ravenous maw for content, that wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) be making it in the higher bar paper world.
This isn’t about just guessing, though.
Morrison does a great job of going through what people are being told to get them in the game, what “success rules” they are being sold…and some actual statistics.
For example, there is the stat that 10% of independent e-publishers make 75% of the money.
Of course, it’s quite possible that the same is true in traditionally published p-books. You don’t think Stephen King makes hundreds of times what low-paid novelists make?
I’m going to really recommend that you read the article, especially if you are an author or thinking about becoming one.
I want to look at one particular idea, though.
Why would people encourage other people to become authors?
Where’s the upside?
One of the reasons is that you can make money when people think you can tell them how to make money.
Yes, that could be books and seminars about how to be a successful independent publisher.
I joked about that in this
That’s a direct exchange: you pay me for a “secret” or for expertise.
There are other people and organizations that benefit by people independently publishing.
Amazon does, for sure…even if the self-published book doesn’t sell one copy.
It helps because customers think that having more content options is better.
Take the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL). The growth of available books was incredibly multiplied by Amazon starting KDP Select, a program that allowed publishers using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to make their books available in the KOLL.
Sure, some of those indies make money doing that…and Amazon doesn’t charge them for it (although they do require exclusivity, meaning that the publisher might lose potential sales elsewhere). Amazon, though, makes money whether those books are borrowed or not, if people are more likely to use Kindles (and/or join Prime) because of the close to 200,000 books in the KOLL.
What about all this encouragement to tweet to get readers?
Twitter makes money based on traffic, right?
That’s what makes all of this not immediately clear. Money doesn’t need to be made directly from the independent publisher (although it can be). It can be made by people and organizations that benefit from both the sheer volume of titles and the promotion of those titles.
Why would that cease to be true in the future?
There could be a couple of reasons.
First, if it turns out that folks realize that making money as an author actually is hard work with a small chance of success, the number of people who do it may vastly diminish…making the market for direct exploitation much smaller and less attractive.
The other thing is that traditional content suppliers, or other big organization players, may figure out how to give us enough content that we get choosier again.
I think that’s already happened to some extent.
Five words I never thought I’d say: “I have enough to read”
Are free e-books less desirable to you now than they were, oh, a year or two ago?
That’s evidence of a potential bubble.
I don’t think this means that indie e-publishing isn’t going to be just as good a path now for some people in three years as it is now. However, there may not be as many people taking it as a bad path.
I strongly recommend Ewan Morrison’s article to you.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
August 4, 2012 at 3:20 am |
I listened recently to a pod cast interview of Blake Crouch and J.A Konrath. They were discussing how important they thought social media was in the marketing of their books. They likened it to the spreading ripples of water made by one little drop of water (not their words). So, I think they believe that every avenue, including social media should be exercised when marketing one’s own work. They are both good examples of authors who have stepped out on their own and are making and continue to make some substantial bucks. They talked about the difficulty of laying the ground work and continuing to keep their names out there for marketing reasons,etc.
August 4, 2012 at 1:20 pm |
Thanks for writing, Janice!
Crouch and Konrath, who are both successful authors (especially with e-books) could be right…but it’s very hard to judge what is specifically affecting sales, and how it would apply to others.
For example:
* Konrath had been traditionally published. Is social media more effective for staying in touch and deepening relationships than it is for establishing new ones?
* Would social media be as effective for a bad book as it is for a good one? That may seem like an odd question. A bad book presumably wouldn’t sell as well as a good one, but if social media doubles the sales for a good book, would it double the sales for a bad one?
* Does genre matter? Would a “literary fiction” book be helped as much as a thriller or a romance?
* Does having a series matter?
* How does what you write in social media affect it?
* How does how good you are at social media affect it? In other words, is a good tweeter or blogger benefited more than a bad one, regardless of the quality of the book?
It’s quite complex.
If “every avenue” is exercised, it’s hard to tell which ones contribute how much to success. It also means you have to spend a lot of time promoting, rather than writing. One avenue, for example, is personal appearances at conventions and such. Another would be local bookstore signings. Yet another would be traveling to appear on local radio shows. How does one balance the time involved versus the benefits? Social media promotion is certainly more convenient…is it equally (or more or less) effective?
The basic thing for me is that we don’t know that doing x results in y amount of book sales a this point. We can’t tell a person that we can guarantee that they can make a living as a writer by following a particular formula.