An interesting opinion piece by Tamara Pearson, author of the novel, The Butterfly Prison (Open Books, 2015). She is an activist, journalist, and editor living in Latin America— The publishing industry’s focus on profits amounts to a censoring of a diversity of viewpoints and experience.Books are lives compressed, humanity summarised into screaming or striking stories. One would think the book world would be a safe haven from inequality, but instead the traditional publishing industry – the big corporate publishers - is perpetuating prejudice and limiting ideas by elevating certain authors, characters, and thoughts above all others, with significant social consequences.The big publishers are big businesses with monopolies over a product, as much as other industries. They are driven by profit, rather than the social importance of books, and only publish books that are a sure thing, causing quality to be lost to lowest-common-denominator marketability. Sure things are books by celebrities, books with a guaranteed (forced) market such as text books and required readings in … [Read more...] about The Traditional Publishing Industry Is Killing Books | Opinion | teleSUR English
Amazon’s Objective: Lower E book Prices
In the ongoing battle of perception between Amazon and Hachette, we've had to speculate on the substance of the conflict. An intriguing post in the Kindle Forums by the Amazon Book Team makes a bold statement to publishing and Indie authors; lower e book prices are on the table. With this update, we're providing specific information about Amazon's objectives. A key objective is lower e-book prices. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there's no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out-of-stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market -- e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can be and should be less expensive. It's also important to understand that e-books are highly price-elastic. This means that when the price goes up, customers buy much less. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would … [Read more...] about Amazon’s Objective: Lower E book Prices
Barbarians at the Gate! Indies vs Big Publishing
The Fall of Rome is still debated. How could such an empire fall? Various theories are floated; taxes were too high, barbarians joined the army, borders became too porous, corruption and incompetence were rampant. But I would argue that these were mitigating factors. Empires always fall for the same reason. They stop adapting. Adaptive Capacity is the technical term for an ecological or social system's response to changing conditions in the environment. A system that cannot adapt, self destructs. Traditional publishing is just such an empire, built over half a millennium (if we go by the invention of the Gutenberg press) the industry has had a long run. Now, e book publishing and print-on-demand technology have changed the landscape. Within a short amount of time, the book market has transformed. Some of the new players are Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Kobo, Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble Nook Press and distributors like Smashwords and BookBaby. Barbarians are at the gate, in the form of indie writers and upstart publishing imprints ( Amazon has … [Read more...] about Barbarians at the Gate! Indies vs Big Publishing
Brave New World of e-books
1. Write book on typewriter 2. Send to typesetter 3. Receive galley proof 4. Mark up galley proof 5. Create layout 6. Corrected proof arrives 7. Paste type to boards (including page numbers) 8. Send boards to printer 9. Correct blueline proof 10. Print 11. Distribute Sound crazy? Back in the day, publishing had a slow, relentless tempo, like a sacred choral work. Individual voices rose in gestalt to make a whole. Books were planned a year in advance. The minute there was a cover, the sales force courted bookstores and distributors. Editors and proofreaders checked every dangling participle and questionable fact. Copywriters wrote sales pitches and back covers. The art department assembled the physical object. Finally, the book was printed, boxed and sent out into the world. Licenses were handed out to foreign publishers and the process repeated. The Heirarchy of publishing grew around this process; writers, publishers, editors, copy writers, art directors, proof-readers, traffic controllers, marketers, publicists, salespeople, etc. … [Read more...] about Brave New World of e-books