In The New York Times this week, Scott Turow published an op-ed on publishing and eBooks titled “The Slow Death of the American Author”.
Following my habit, I won’t summarize the piece (since you can read Turow’s thoughts here). But I will throw out a few more-or-less random notes. Here we go.
Publishers Put the Screws to Authors on eBook Royalties
Turow says in the piece that publishers limit “e-book royalties to 25 percent of net receipts. That is roughly half of a traditional hardcover royalty.”
My first reaction to this is “huh?” because it sounds like Turow is saying that authors often get royalties of 50 percent of net receipts on hard covers. Unless publishers subtract their costs from this net before calculating the royalty, or unless Turow means the actual dollars paid are roughly double, this sounds very high and totally sweet.
Now, I have to admit I haven’t seen many book contracts in a while, and none of them for general fiction. So I’d be happy for information from someone with current experience in the industry. Also, if any publisher would like to provide a sample contract – perhaps with my name on it? – that would be okay-dokay too.
Anyhow, as for the complaint that publishers put the screws to authors, all I can say is, “What else is new? It’s a business. The point is to buy low, sell high, and sleep on a pile of money.” At least publishers are willing to pay authors something, even if the word “pittance” is germane. As opposed to these folks.
Pirating of E-Books Are a Threat to E-Books
This is a different problem and one about which I can’t be as flip. Many eBooks authors are finding the best way to combat getting screwed (or ignored) by publishers is to sell directly to the reader.
As you may know from my other posts, I am quite keen on this model, although I don’t think it is the utopian revolution described by some of its more enthusiastic boosters.
However, if e-Book piracy becomes as endemic as other forms of media piracy, then the model breaks down. And leads to this question: What reason will writers have to create good work?
Writers Should Write for the Love of Writing
Yeah, that sounds nice, and to a large – but not absolute – degree, it’s true. All good writing starts with enthusiasm and love, I agree.
But that doesn’t mean the only reward for writers should be personal satisfaction; and the folks who claim otherwise are either individuals eager to read books for free or companies that have business models which substantially depend on the enormous amount of free content on the web. (A big piece of the value electronic device manufacturers and internet service providers offer to their customers is access to free content. Pirate sites monetize their piracy by selling advertising, much of it through our giant friend on the internet, Google.)
Also, to paraphrase Turow, and to borrow from King Lear’s advice to Cordelia, writers who get nothing for their writing will eventually write … nothing. Or more accurately, writers will write less, and the quality of their writing will decline, if they can’t get paid for their work.
Those at most risk are the mid-list, middle-brow authors. Successful genre writers are likely to always make enough money to keep writing about vampires or serial killers, particularly it they can sell rights to movie or television producers. Writers with real artistic talent will find a perch in a college or university that is happy to pay them hard cash for the prestige of their name and a light teaching load.
Everyone else? I hope they make a beautiful corpse.
Related Articles:
“Scott Turow and his Sinking Ship” (criticalmargins.com)
This is a bit depressing, but interesting as well. It’s interesting to see websites that charge for authors to feature their work. like “You can pay me for the writing you’ve worked on” I just feel like that kind of mindset would be unacceptable in other industries.
Paying to be published does sound like a bad deal, but it happens in academic and scientific journals, too. (Not vanity publications … but respected journals in fields where there simply isn’t any money at all.) At least there, the value to the author exceeds the cost, and may be paid by the institutions. Us fiction folks, we’re sorta outta luck.
I’m not a fan of e-books, partly because it has killed writing as we know it. As you pointed out e-books are vulnerable to piracy, but also just too easy to fill with rubbish. There are signs of a fightback from traditional books, but right now publishers are running scared and won’t look at anything that isn’t guaranteed.
eBooks certainly do make it easy to publish anything, but I don’t know if the trash is having any effect on writing in general. Unknown writers with good work … or at least work they think is good (yeah, I’m talking about myself) … have a hard time getting anywhere. Bad work has even less of a chance. I have noted in another post, you probably saw it, you’re very faithful, that eBooks seem particularly well adapted to “pulp” genres, which you may or may not consider trash. I’m not sure eBooks have created a bigger market for pulp, or simply made it more visible. As for the publishers, they’ve always been scared. Over the years, I’ve read interviews with many executives, and the number that call their business a “casino” is remarkable. Considering the risks, and the inability of even the best eyes to consistently pick books that will sell, it’s not a surprise to me the go after the “50 Shades”. Or the next Stephen King. Someone has to pay the bills, and allow the media machines to take their next chance on a book that could flop.
Thurow’s article is depressing but I suppose the antics of the likes of Google and Amazon are nothing new; most writers have never had an easy life.
Writers sure haven’t had an easy life. But most had warning … or soon found out it wasn’t easy … and kept at it. I tend not to blame Google for ignoring ad supported piracy, because I don’t see how you could accurately evaluate and police the content of the entire internet. On the other hand, when Google ignores some huge blatant piracy sites out of consistency or greed, I do have a problem. As for Amazon, they are the biggest reason the eBook ecosystem is thriving. They did it for money of course, but they did build the Kindle and the infrastructure to support it. Turow’s point about the used eBook market was interesting, but in the end, I don’t see this as fundamentally different than the market for used paper books, cds, cars, furniture. Maybe you could sell eBooks as a “non-transferable license” (if fact those probably are the actual terms right now) but folks don’t tend to like hearing, “you give me money and I sorta give you a book for a little while”. Also, authors and publishers have been screaming murder about the used market for decades: everyone is still around. I’d like to see how Amazon’s program plays out before I worry. Plenty of business ideas fail.
Indeed they do 🙂
It’s a thought provoking piece and I’ll probably go away and think on it some more. I must admit I’m not always totally in love with the e-book revolution – it seems to have simply flooded the market – who knew that there were so many writers. Sarcasm aside, I’m sure that a lot of the books available are excellent but it feels that because there are so many it’s almost too difficult to choose. And there is, of course, the issue of piracy which is likely to become a major problem.
Lynn 😀
With eBooks, I agree the problems are their sheer number, the fact most eBook authors have no means of publicity, and especially that the reader has no assurance of quality from the self published and a strong reason to think there isn’t any.