The collective insanity of the publishing industry • Hacker News Board

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#81

Post by coldtea » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:13 AM UTC

>That sounds thoroughly reasonable, and it sort of is, but please let me explain because the crazy is in the details. What was happening was that Amazon was discounting the price of the ebooks, and it may seem like this is something the Big 5 would want to stop, except the markdown was coming off of Amazon’s end. In other words, if Hachette wanted to charge $15.99 for an ebook, and Amazon marked it down to $9.99, Hachette was still paid their cut of the full price of the book. More people will buy a book at $9.99 than at $15.99, so essentially, the Big 5 was coming out ahead in this arrangement in every conceivable way. They collected royalties at an unreasonably high price point while moving the number of units that corresponded to a lower price point.

Sounds good, unless you factor in other Hachette customers that get the shaft, because a company with deep pockets like Amazon uses their cash reserves to undercut them with unhealthy margins (actually negative margins).

This is downright monopoly behavior. Why should they accept it?

And of course those other outlets will complain to Hachette or ask for the same prices.

It's also a good way to screw the customers in the long run, as they get their cheap books from Amazon first, and then when the other stores with lesser means have died (unable to keep up with the negative margins), they can jack the prices again...

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#82

Post by eru » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:13 AM UTC

kevinr wrote: post #35

eru wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If readers value books, but not enough to make writing pay, isn't the economic thing to stop being a professional writer?

Or to try to convince readers to value books more.

Sure, if you can pull it off.

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#83

Post by coldtea » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:14 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #70

kevinr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is that the prices are too high for perceived value. How much do you value your favorite authors eating or having health insurance? This is a serious question: just a few days ago I was suggesting that a friend, twenty published books over the last thirty years, books you may have read or heard of, start a Patreon so that he might, for the first time in his life, afford health insurance. People working fu…

Serious answer: I think there is a huge oversupply of authors at the moment. The world would probably be better off if half of all authors (selected at random) were to quit and go find something more productive/lucrative to do. (I think everyone, even people who simply don't want to work, should be able to eat and receive reasonable medical care. Authors not having healthcare is terrible, but no more terrible than un…

>Serious answer: I think there is a huge oversupply of authors at the moment. The world would probably be better off if half of all authors (selected at random) were to quit and go find something more productive/lucrative to do.

Or you know, let them do whatever they want, and price THEIR work however they want, and then either buy it or don't buy it.

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#84

Post by coldtea » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:15 AM UTC

anon4 wrote: post #67

kevinr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why spend $12 at a bar for a cheeseburger when a Big Mac is $4 or ramen is $0.25 ?

Because you're an idiot? Alternatively, because you want to socialise with rich people. In all cases, the better alternative is to buy fish and vegetables for 6$ and cook them yourself for a healthy and nutritious meal.

Spending $12 for a burger is considered "rich"? You pay close to that in most dinners... And the $4 McDonalds/Dennys/JITB/whatever burger is nowhere close to the $8 or $12 burger you get in actual restaurants.

Besides, the point of dining out is not getting stuffed with food on the cheap to avoid hunger.

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#85

Post by mruniverse » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:32 AM UTC

kevinr wrote: post #28

pgrote wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"* Price is an important signalling mechanism, and so---given the costs of book production---it's important to the publishers not to drive the perceived fair cost of books down below, no matter whether Amazon is currently subsidizing that or not." I think this is the number one reason. The issue is that the prices are too high for perceived value. I buy a fair number of non-fiction books and loved when ebooks emerged…

> The issue is that the prices are too high for perceived value. How much do you value your favorite authors eating or having health insurance? This is a serious question: just a few days ago I was suggesting that a friend, twenty published books over the last thirty years, books you may have read or heard of, start a Patreon so that he might, for the first time in his life, afford health insurance. People working fu…

People don't buy books because they value their favorite authors eating or having health insurance. They buy the books because they want to read them.

> readers' perception of value in books is fundamentally misaligned with the actual economics of the book trade, to the detriment of both.

The actual cost of a book has no bearing on it's value. You could spend a billion on editing, publicity, materials, etc. and if no one wants to read it good luck.

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#86

Post by amelius » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:41 AM UTC

It seems that all creative/intellectual industries are caught in some sort of race to the bottom (e.g., software, publishing, music).

This is sad.

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#87

Post by socket0 » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:43 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #74

kevinr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh hey, someone better-informed than me. There's also a sizeable fraction of the reading public of all ages who still prefer print books for a host of reasons both sentimental and practical. (The one I've just discovered: I can't read ebooks before bed because the blue light from the iPad screen keeps me up. Whoops.) Ebooks have mostly killed the mass-market paperback, though---more's the pity for beach-reading and o…

I don't know about the iOS walled garden, but more generally there are tools to adjust screen colour temperature to something appropriate to the time of day.

There was: http://9to5mac.com/2015/11/12/flux-iphone-sideloading-shut-d...

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#88

Post by lmm » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:56 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #83

lmm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious answer: I think there is a huge oversupply of authors at the moment. The world would probably be better off if half of all authors (selected at random) were to quit and go find something more productive/lucrative to do. (I think everyone, even people who simply don't want to work, should be able to eat and receive reasonable medical care. Authors not having healthcare is terrible, but no more terrible than un…

> Serious answer: I think there is a huge oversupply of authors at the moment. The world would probably be better off if half of all authors (selected at random) were to quit and go find something more productive/lucrative to do. Or you know, let them do whatever they want, and price THEIR work however they want, and then either buy it or don't buy it.

Sure. But if they're choosing to be an author in full knowledge of the economics of it, "working well below market" as the grandparent said, then they shouldn't complain about not earning much money.

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#89

Post by spacecowboy_lon » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 10:59 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #21

true_religion wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the cost of a book is the highly-skilled labor involved (writing, editing, copyediting, proofreading, designing, typesetting, marketing, selling) and these critically don't go away or even get much cheaper in an electronic world. Even ebooks need specialized design and typesetting, and I have some examples which did not get that love which will make your eyes bleed if you don't believe me. The costs of mode…

They probably need at least a copy editor. (Typos are really annoying and you just can't deal with those without help.) But, yeah,for some genres, people with at least a niche following may do better with cutting out a lot of expensive "middlemen" who provide incremental improvement.

But As Charlie Stoss says he doesn't want to do that middle mans work as it takes time from writing.

Re: The collective insanity of the publishing industry

#90

Post by toyg » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 11:10 AM UTC

dilemma wrote: post #69

toyg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But i think the point is that you have to outsource it. There is no space for you "outsourcing the outsourcing" to publishers, because there is not enough fat in the market for them to survive anymore (or so they say). Authors will increasingly have to take charge of managing their creations, like it happened with musicians.

I used to think so, but in industries where supply is abundant, publishers provide not only "post-production", but distribution and more importantly marketing and branding - social proof. The biggest benefit may be setting oneself apart from the fray. Source: I'm a smalltime author and publisher.

If publishers die, such social proof will simply come from other venues, be it dedicated marketing outfits or some sort of community (goodreads etc). In music, major labels are increasingly irrelevant.