According to a front-page article in today's Times, Children's book publishers are now producing board books--those big, chunky cardboard tomes designed to be "read" (or at least slobbered on) by toddlers and a large portion of the Republican electorate--adapted from the classics. Not classic board books, mind you: Actual classics! There are now board book editions of Moby-Dick, Les Miserables, and Sense and Sensibility. My personal favorite, though, if an accompanying photograph is any indication, is a board-book version of Anna Karenina. If nothing else, that ending should keep kids away from Thomas the Tank Engine forever.
Showing posts with label Publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Publishing. Show all posts
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad E-Tailer?
If I remember anything from microeconomics class--and it's by no means certain I do--it's that, in an efficient marketplace, the price of an item should be equal to the marginal cost of producing that item. OK, that may not be right, but I do remember that price does relate very closely to marginal cost. And that raises the question of how price is determined when marginal cost is essentially zero.
A recent Justice Department lawsuit accused a group of publishers of price-fixing. Mainly because they were fixing prices. To be precise, the publishers were taking advantage of a new(ish) device platform--the iPad--to allow themselves to set prices for e-books. Pricing was always something of a publisher's prerogative, but this has been challenged by Amazon.com's dominance in the e-book retailing field. Amazon has reduced the upper-level price of most books to $9.99, and publishers fear this will irreparably damage their profitability. Moreover, while consumers may at first appreciate the lower prices enforced by Amazon, they may not be so happy if such a pricing strategies eliminates competition and leaves Amazon as the sole arbiter of how much books should cost.
But how much should books cost? Particularly e-books, for which the marginal cost of "printing" another copy is effectively nothing?
I believe firmly in the principle of paying the writer. So, to the extent that authors are paid by publishing houses, I don't want publishers to go out of business. Publishers also provide vital services to authors beyond the paying of advances and royalties, and these services cost money. Some of these costs will likely decrease as we move firmly into the age of electronic publishing: Books won't necessarily need to be printed or bound in large quantities, nor will massive shipments need to be delivered across the country and world. Other costs, of course, will still remain: Even e-books need to be edited and promoted, for example.
But do these services depend on the existence of large publishing houses? Publishing is moving more and more towards becoming what it perhaps should always have been: a completely author-driven process. People can already self-publish their books through Amazon or other sites. And if Joe Schmo, who has devoted his life to the study of boomerangs, can find his readership--small though it may be--why would any author need a large publisher. Presumably "name brand" authors could set up "subscription services." Pay $5 a month to have unlimited access to "JKRowling.com": Read the latest chapters of your favorite authors' newest work as it's produced. Free-lance online editors and marketers would assume the tasks previously concentrated in the big publishing houses.
Amazon may pose a huge challenge to the traditional model, but that doesn't mean the model must be preserved. Ultimately, as much as the internet is a threat to the "standard" model of literary distribution (and, indeed, the distribution of artistic production in general), this could turn out to be a time of great opportunity for these industries. And if the real producers--the writers and other artists--take proper advantage of these opportunities, the internet could prove the greatest boon to literary production since the printing press.
A recent Justice Department lawsuit accused a group of publishers of price-fixing. Mainly because they were fixing prices. To be precise, the publishers were taking advantage of a new(ish) device platform--the iPad--to allow themselves to set prices for e-books. Pricing was always something of a publisher's prerogative, but this has been challenged by Amazon.com's dominance in the e-book retailing field. Amazon has reduced the upper-level price of most books to $9.99, and publishers fear this will irreparably damage their profitability. Moreover, while consumers may at first appreciate the lower prices enforced by Amazon, they may not be so happy if such a pricing strategies eliminates competition and leaves Amazon as the sole arbiter of how much books should cost.
But how much should books cost? Particularly e-books, for which the marginal cost of "printing" another copy is effectively nothing?
I believe firmly in the principle of paying the writer. So, to the extent that authors are paid by publishing houses, I don't want publishers to go out of business. Publishers also provide vital services to authors beyond the paying of advances and royalties, and these services cost money. Some of these costs will likely decrease as we move firmly into the age of electronic publishing: Books won't necessarily need to be printed or bound in large quantities, nor will massive shipments need to be delivered across the country and world. Other costs, of course, will still remain: Even e-books need to be edited and promoted, for example.
But do these services depend on the existence of large publishing houses? Publishing is moving more and more towards becoming what it perhaps should always have been: a completely author-driven process. People can already self-publish their books through Amazon or other sites. And if Joe Schmo, who has devoted his life to the study of boomerangs, can find his readership--small though it may be--why would any author need a large publisher. Presumably "name brand" authors could set up "subscription services." Pay $5 a month to have unlimited access to "JKRowling.com": Read the latest chapters of your favorite authors' newest work as it's produced. Free-lance online editors and marketers would assume the tasks previously concentrated in the big publishing houses.
Amazon may pose a huge challenge to the traditional model, but that doesn't mean the model must be preserved. Ultimately, as much as the internet is a threat to the "standard" model of literary distribution (and, indeed, the distribution of artistic production in general), this could turn out to be a time of great opportunity for these industries. And if the real producers--the writers and other artists--take proper advantage of these opportunities, the internet could prove the greatest boon to literary production since the printing press.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Book 'Em
What do Doris Lessing, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sarah Palin have in common? If you said plantar fasciitis, you're only half-right! In fact, they are all mentioned in the same sentence in an article in today's paper. And they're all published by HarperCollins. Which may mean three things in common, depending on how you count. Or only one since we made up the whole plantar fasciitis thing. Anyway, the point is that HarperCollins has begun restricting the way libraries can use e-books.
In the past, when a library would purchase a book (or "book") , the library was free to do all manner of strange and wonderful things with said book: They could boil it; they could use it as sporting equipment; they could even do something called "lending." "Lending" was a ritualized activity, wherein a member of the general public would come to the library, look fruitlessly for a book he wanted, decide to take something else out for the hell of it, wait seven to 94 minutes in a line, and then be allowed by a sharp-faced guardian of literature (unless he were fortunate enough to encounter the rare Tina-Fey-Sexy-Librarian type) to take the book home for anywhere from a week to ten years. (Of course, such longer periods of "borrowing" were discouraged by ever-increasing fines, the largest of which are believed by many to be a culprit in this country's recent foreclosure crisis.) These books were seldom actually read, but clients received a sort of osmotic sense of enrichment simply by toting an armful of them around.
Now, however, with the advent of e-books, one doesn't need actually to cross the lion-guarded threshold of one's local library to borrow books; one can simply download reading material directly to one's e-reader (unless, apparently, it's a Kindle--not sure what that's all about). The books will remain on the reader for the allotted lending period, after which they will simply disappear.
When a publisher sells an e-book to a library, the publisher understands the library will lend the book out. Until now, publishers have treated e-books the same as physical books: When a library buys an e-book, the library owns the book. HarperCollins, though, has instituted a policy whereby e-books disappear from the library's collection after being lent out 26 times--after which the library must buy another copy if it wishes to continue lending it.
The publisher fears it will lose money if it does not engage in such skullduggery. We fail to see how, aside from losing the money libraries would pay to replace lost or damaged physical copies. Indeed, we imagine libararies will lose money by lending e-books. Not only will they be unable to hold as many fundraising book sales, as was noted in the article; they will also, we imagine, be unable to charge late fees. Which, as mentioned above, may run into the billions of dollars.
Now, we know Tea Partiers and Wisconsin politicians will take great pleasure in the thought of fatcat librarians being stripped of their lavish lifestyles, generated on the backs of hard-working, blue-collar late-fee-slaves. But we feel that libraries, although obviously overfunded, are worthwhile institutions. Publishers should thank libraries for the part they play in the uphill battle to promote literacy, not force them to pay (and pay and pay again) for materials they have already bought.
Solipsistography
"Publisher Limits Shelf Life for Library E-Books"
In the past, when a library would purchase a book (or "book") , the library was free to do all manner of strange and wonderful things with said book: They could boil it; they could use it as sporting equipment; they could even do something called "lending." "Lending" was a ritualized activity, wherein a member of the general public would come to the library, look fruitlessly for a book he wanted, decide to take something else out for the hell of it, wait seven to 94 minutes in a line, and then be allowed by a sharp-faced guardian of literature (unless he were fortunate enough to encounter the rare Tina-Fey-Sexy-Librarian type) to take the book home for anywhere from a week to ten years. (Of course, such longer periods of "borrowing" were discouraged by ever-increasing fines, the largest of which are believed by many to be a culprit in this country's recent foreclosure crisis.) These books were seldom actually read, but clients received a sort of osmotic sense of enrichment simply by toting an armful of them around.
Now, however, with the advent of e-books, one doesn't need actually to cross the lion-guarded threshold of one's local library to borrow books; one can simply download reading material directly to one's e-reader (unless, apparently, it's a Kindle--not sure what that's all about). The books will remain on the reader for the allotted lending period, after which they will simply disappear.
When a publisher sells an e-book to a library, the publisher understands the library will lend the book out. Until now, publishers have treated e-books the same as physical books: When a library buys an e-book, the library owns the book. HarperCollins, though, has instituted a policy whereby e-books disappear from the library's collection after being lent out 26 times--after which the library must buy another copy if it wishes to continue lending it.
The publisher fears it will lose money if it does not engage in such skullduggery. We fail to see how, aside from losing the money libraries would pay to replace lost or damaged physical copies. Indeed, we imagine libararies will lose money by lending e-books. Not only will they be unable to hold as many fundraising book sales, as was noted in the article; they will also, we imagine, be unable to charge late fees. Which, as mentioned above, may run into the billions of dollars.
Now, we know Tea Partiers and Wisconsin politicians will take great pleasure in the thought of fatcat librarians being stripped of their lavish lifestyles, generated on the backs of hard-working, blue-collar late-fee-slaves. But we feel that libraries, although obviously overfunded, are worthwhile institutions. Publishers should thank libraries for the part they play in the uphill battle to promote literacy, not force them to pay (and pay and pay again) for materials they have already bought.
Solipsistography
"Publisher Limits Shelf Life for Library E-Books"
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