That article sounds to me like it's written by someone with an agenda. There are a lot of things that raise my hackles there: he talks about how more best-selling authors are going direct but gives no names; he lists the benefits of publishing direct but none of the downside. Surely there are benefits, but there are a *lot* of issues too, from not having someone else do the marketing to less stringent editing (unless the author themselves really works on getting a strict editor) to less notice from the big bookstore chains. He quotes shifty statistics like "people are reading more because of ebooks because 51% of eReader owners increased their ebook purchases over the last year". Note the part where it doesn't say "increased their total book purchases over the past year". (Though to be fair, I myself certainly *have* increased my total book buying since acquiring a Kindle.)
He talks about ebooks including graphics, audio, and short video clips which, um, Kindles, Sonys and Nooks currently don't do. He talks about authors making a higher percentage of the sale price of each book and then in the *very next sentence* notes that many ebooks are given away for free.
And there are a couple of parts which just make me think he's either trying to delude people or is himself clueless, from "most blogs have a review section" (they do? Bloggers who are readers will often talk a bit about books they like or hate, which isn't quite "a review section") to the way he keeps conflating self-publishers and e-publishers. Self-publishers can do print, most big publishers do e-books. Oh, and also, last I heard, writers and editors now correspond electronically no matter how big the publishing house - or if they have to edit a print version, that's deliberate (sometimes it's easier to see mistakes that way).
So while I certainly think that self-publishing is something authors should consider (while being careful not to get scammed), this article would make me want to run very fast the other way.
I've seen studies backing up his stats on ebook sales. For instance, Amazon selling more ebooks than hardbound books, and Harper-Collins (or maybe MacMillian, I forget) just reported the same thing.
Most of what I'm hearing isn't that authors are self-publishing, per se, but they are insisting on keeping the digital rights separate from print rights, or letting their agents handle them, because dte publishers are way behind the powercurve and doing reall stupid things, like not publishing ebooks in other countries, even when dte editions are sold there.
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chiming
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Date: 2010-09-06 02:51 pm (UTC)From:He talks about ebooks including graphics, audio, and short video clips which, um, Kindles, Sonys and Nooks currently don't do. He talks about authors making a higher percentage of the sale price of each book and then in the *very next sentence* notes that many ebooks are given away for free.
And there are a couple of parts which just make me think he's either trying to delude people or is himself clueless, from "most blogs have a review section" (they do? Bloggers who are readers will often talk a bit about books they like or hate, which isn't quite "a review section") to the way he keeps conflating self-publishers and e-publishers. Self-publishers can do print, most big publishers do e-books. Oh, and also, last I heard, writers and editors now correspond electronically no matter how big the publishing house - or if they have to edit a print version, that's deliberate (sometimes it's easier to see mistakes that way).
So while I certainly think that self-publishing is something authors should consider (while being careful not to get scammed), this article would make me want to run very fast the other way.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 03:01 pm (UTC)From:Most of what I'm hearing isn't that authors are self-publishing, per se, but they are insisting on keeping the digital rights separate from print rights, or letting their agents handle them, because dte publishers are way behind the powercurve and doing reall stupid things, like not publishing ebooks in other countries, even when dte editions are sold there.
Good food for thought, though.