Category Archives: digital publishing

October 19, 2011   Miriam   Amazon, authors, bestsellers, competition, controversy, digital publishing, e-books, Miriam, self-publishing, selling  
9

Moneyball, Amazon and the end of publishing as we know it

In this week’s death watch, the publishing business is going the way of the Edsel.  E-books have won.  Traditional publishers don’t know what to do with themselves or their lists.  Agents are unnecessary.  Anarchy reigns among authors.   And, oh, yeah, Amazon is getting closer to world domination (tricky bastards).  There is no leadership.  The darkness is encroaching.  The center cannot hold!

Let’s see, that about covers it, I think.  Except, does it?

The afore-linked-to New York Times article contains a quote from Russ Grandinetti (whom we’ve met a few times at Amazon seminars we’ve attended and whom the Times refers to as “one of Amazon’s top executives,” leading me to believe they don’t know exactly what he does) which I actually loved: “It’s always the end of the world. You could set your watch on it arriving.”  It also mentions some other shady (unnamed) Amazon characters twirling their mustaches while claiming that “publishers [are] in love with their own demise.”  As wary as  my colleagues and I are about Amazon and their plans to expand into publishing, I tend to agree with their assessment that traditional publishers can come across as a self-indulgent, hand wringing bunch who’d rather blame the big bad corporate entity for poaching their authors and re-drawing the battle lines than take effective steps to compete and prosper.

Enough, already.  If the model is broken or the times have changed and there’s a new model out there, then learn it, adapt your systems, and make it work for you.  Publishers are sitting on gold mines of backlists.  They seem to be unable or unwilling to competitively price and promote the e-books  they are putting out.  They’re still paying too much for that “sure thing” Jane was talking about earlier this week.  Most of all, they are loath to innovate at the speed the new paradigm requires.

Gerry Howard writes movingly in this week’s PW about how you really can’t apply the principles of Moneyball to publishing because you’d be ripping out its heart and doing away with all that wonderful serendipity that made The Bridges of Madison County, Tuesdays with Morrie, The DaVinci Code and countless other “small” buys into huge bestsellers.  I agree.  But, the thing I take away from Moneyball (the book and the film) is that you’ve got to look at your game differently if you are up against a rich behemoth who outpitches, outhits, and outfields you because they can buy all the talent out there.  Whether you’re talking about the Yankees or Amazon, I think the lesson is the same:  you can win playing smart small ball too.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Angry rebuttals?

September 27, 2011   John   adaptation, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, John, opinion  
0

What’s your backstory?

Nifty little piece yesterday from Fast Company on how Amazon laid the groundwork to swipe the e-reader market from Sony, despite Sony having produced the first e-reader three years earlier. Evidently, Jeff Bezos saw Sony’s Librie reader at a conference and realized that it could put him out of business as a print bookseller—so instead, he decided to beat Sony at their own game.

Okay, not exactly a new story. But what’s interesting here is Slywotsky’s thesis that Amazon’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering with publishers to supply a huge library of available titles positioned Kindle to outstrip Sony’s sales 3 to 1. Obviously, a smart business strategy, and ironically, it’s a twist on what publishers do as a matter of course. Most big publishers spend a year marketing their new titles to booksellers in the hope of making as many titles available in stores as possible—a process that’s mostly hidden from public view. According to Slywotsky, Bezos turned the tables and stocked as many titles as possible under the radar pre-launch—he just did it in a new format.

So, what does all this have to do with us? Well, it got me wondering about submissions in terms of project launch, and how behind-the-scenes maneuvering plays into the acquisition stage, as opposed to publication. Certainly, as agents, we lay as much groundwork as we can before sending out a book—getting to know editors, teasing them with ideas and samples, using the media, publishing our newsletter, etc. But I wonder if there are other approaches and tools we could utilize—maybe there’s still a game-changer out there?

More importantly, what about you? What kind of background work do you do to land representation or a book deal? Any advice/tips for your fellow writers?

July 28, 2011   Michael   blog-to-book, deals, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, Michael  
5

A note to Publishers

Dear Publishers,

We’re friends, right? And when you’re friends with someone, you can be honest. So I’m going to be honest with you today, Publishers. I think you have a problem. You’re addicted to blogs. You can’t help yourself, I know. They’re funny! Everyone is talking about them, and all of your Facebook friends are totally on board. So you snatch them all up and turn all of them into books. But here’s how I know you have a problem, Publishers: you don’t really seem to notice or care about how good they are or how well they might adapt to a book. Yeah, there are some good blogs out there, and some of them might translate well to the page. But what don’t you  need? A book based on every single one of them, especially when most of these books go nowhere.

Yes, I realize that a majority of books fail, and publishing is always a bit of a crapshoot. But one of the issues you have, Publishers, is the failure to learn from mistakes. For every I Can Has Cheezburger, there are 20 This is Why You’re Fat, which, while it was a cute Tumblr account with a big following, was not a popular book. An internet meme does not a book make. And I also realize that if you check out my sales history, you’ll find a few blog-to-book deals. But I’ve tried to choose ideas that I think have immediate appeal and staying power. Books that will not be on the remainder table a month after their release. And Publishers, I think you’d be wise to think about the same things. Don’t get caught up in the excitement about a site that got popular in five minutes and will fade just as quickly. Books are supposed to last longer than fresh milk.

But if you’re so insistent on trying to turn a profit on something that would be otherwise free, maybe there’s an electronic path to take. Recently, one of my favorite sites, Ars Technica, released an e-book version of their Mac OS X Lion review. While the review is free to anyone who wishes to read it on the web, Ars made a downloadable copy available through e-book retailers for $4.99.  According to reports, they sold 3,000 copies of the review in the first 24 hours. Might there be a way to more quickly capitalize on the fleeting popularity of these internet phenomena? As the media landscape changes around you, Publishers, you need new solutions to old problems. Time to get creative.

Yours,

Michael

June 29, 2011   Jane   changes at DGLM, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, Jane, self-publishing, selling  
32

How many publishers is enough?

So one of the questions that we have been getting a lot with regard to Monday’s announcement is this:  “How do you define the point at which you stop shopping a MS to publishers and go for this option?”

For us this is an easy question to answer.

First of all we take on projects that we truly believe we can sell traditionally and sell well.  As many of you know, we work hard with our clients to get their material to where it should be for submission and then we send it out to publishers.  There are times when we sell books quickly and then there are those times when we go many, many rounds.  This year alone, I went to well over forty publishers with each of two different novels before I found them a home.

There are those times, though, when we cannot find a buyer no matter how many houses we go to.  Sometimes, after a number of rejections, I might see what the publishers are saying—if there is a common theme in their comments—at other times we simply run out of viable publishers.

When we get to that point, I would now be able to give the author a choice.  Up until now, actually, there has been no choice. We would simply tell the author we can’t go any farther, give him/her the complete list of where we have been with his/her work and send him/her all the comments we have received and hope we’ll be able to work together on the next project.  Now, though, we would tell them we’ve struck out with traditional publishers and then ask if they would like us to help them publish their manuscripts online or simply put the project aside and move on to something else.

This decision is obviously one we will discuss in-depth when/if the time comes. Our clients will have the option not to do this at all or even not to do it with us.  And, in some cases we might even advise against digital publishing.

The point here, though, is that our intention is to exhaust all traditional publishing possibilities before we suggest the self-publishing route.  I hope this clarifies the issue.

June 29, 2011   Miriam   changes at DGLM, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, Miriam, self-publishing, technology  
0

Thank you

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the response to our announcement has been both gratifying and challenging.  We appreciate your questions and your interest and we are taking your suggestions and comments very seriously.  In fact, many of you have raised issues that we think need further review.   This program is in its infancy and so we have the opportunity to take your feedback and consider incorporating some of it into our business plan.  Although we’re not prepared to discuss specifics at this time, we will be keeping you updated on our progress as we go.

June 28, 2011   Miriam   changes at DGLM, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, Miriam, self-publishing, technology  
18

Answering questions

And we thought that in the sultry days of summer no one was reading our blog.  Well you are and we’ve gotten a tremendous reception to our “Announcement,” not just on this site but in several industry publications.  So, instead of blogging on Wednesday (my usual day) I thought I’d address some of your comments here.

Most of the feedback thus far has been very positive.  But there has been some confusion as well and, of course, some folks have accused us of being money grubbing ambulance chasers.  We love the supportive, kindhearted folks who are rooting for us to make this work, and you all know we also relish the snarky naysayers who call us names because they challenge us to keep it real.

Again, we don’t see a conflict of interest in this opening up of our business.  We provide services for our clients that have always gone far beyond selling their books to a traditional publisher.  As we have said time and again, selling is the easiest part of our job.  Making sure your book is published well, that you get paid (accurately), that you’re not signing away your hearth and home in your agreements, that there is someone who is willing to listen and advise you on your creative (and sometimes personal) dilemmas; selling rights and following up on those sales—ask Lauren Abramo if trying to get a $500 advance from a foreign publisher who refuses to answer phone calls, e-mails, or carrier pigeon messages isn’t a soul-crushing job; cajoling and browbeating when necessary to get you to join the 21st century and start blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, etc.; being the voice of reason when you think that the genius idea for a novel about a poultry farmer with a phobia of chickens is going to make you the next John Grisham (even if we know you’ll scream, cry, and curse us when we tell you it won’t work).  These are just some of the other things agents do every day.  So, helping our clients get their books published electronically, if that’s the direction they choose to go in, with all of the above still part and parcel of what we will continue to do for those clients, seems to us a natural extension of our roster of services.  If we don’t offer this service, our clients will either miss out on the opportunity, go it alone (which some may do, but many will not want to), or be forced to seek out another company that might not have their best interests at heart, as we know we do.

So no, we’re not running out on to Fifth Avenue to yank unsuspecting writers posing as bicycle messengers off their rides and force them to e-publish and pay us 15% for the privilege.

We will also not be forcing any of our clients who want to self-publish to work with us on it, and if they do choose to, we will not be forcing them to choose our cover designers, copyeditors, etc.  Because, as some of you have pointed out, this is self-publishing (and, again, we are not publishers) the client has full control over these issues if s/he wants it.  We have a project manager whose job it is to coordinate, advise, and make sure that the process goes smoothly with minimal work on the part of the author.  This, because we want our authors to write, not have to engage in a 47-e-mail exchange with someone about font size.   Everything is subject to the author’s approval.

Which brings up the question posed by several of you, both here and on Joe Konrath’s blog: what are you people doing to earn that 15% commission?  Pretty much what we do now to earn that 15% commission.  Our commitment to this is more than just uploading and watching the dollars trickle in.  In addition to all we do as agents, managing self-published properties will be part of our job: updating metadata, copy, next-book excerpts, etc.  It’s not just vague managerial duties, but concrete tasks that we will be adding to our other duties.

For some authors it will be the beginning of building a publishing career which may eventually include a traditional publisher because of the success generated by the e-book.  For others, it will mean making worthy books available that are out of print and which still have potential readerships.  And, we will want to try to exploit subsidiary rights whenever possible, with the understanding that even with traditionally published books some of these rights do not get picked up.

If you don’t think an agent’s services are worth that fee, this post will not change your mind.  And we sincerely wish those of you the best of luck doing it yourself or with another kind of company.  Really.  We never begrudge an author success and we can’t represent everyone.

The last question everyone seems to be asking is whether they can terminate their agreement with us if they’re not happy with the job we’re doing.  Yes.  Of course.  With proper notice, we can each go our separate ways with, hopefully, no hard feelings.  (In that event, we will continue to collect our commission on properties we still manage.)  We’re counting on people wanting to keep using our services not just because we make their lives easier but because we have a lot of experience and know-how and we’re hoping that the books that we represent in this way will reflect that level of professionalism.  Some of you have accused us (and our publishing colleagues) of being “gatekeepers.”  Yes.  We will not be representing anything and everything.  We will continue to do a certain amount of gatekeeping.

As this new electronic publishing world evolves (at the speed of light, it seems) we will continue to find ways to earn our 15% commission.  As many of you have rightly pointed out, some self-published authors don’t make a ton of money and so neither will we.  But, you know what? Some of our traditionally published clients don’t either.  That doesn’t keep us from going to 40 publishers with their proposals/manuscripts.  Or from working on their projects on our evenings and weekends.  Or from writing encouraging notes to their sixth grader who wants to be a novelist when he grows up.  You get the idea.  Most of us didn’t get into this business to get rich.  We did it because we love and believe in the written word.  Whether it’s on vellum or an iPad, the written word is still our stock in trade.  All we can vouch for is our effort and our hard work.

June 27, 2011   DG&B   changes at DGLM, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, self-publishing, technology, What's New at DGLM  
70

Announcement!

Word gets around the publishing industry pretty quickly (which is not surprising since we’re in the communications business).   So, we wanted you to hear our news from us first rather than pick it up through inaccurate scuttlebutt in seedy back rooms on the web.

As those of you who’ve been reading this blog for the last few years know, we have been following developments in e-publishing with great interest.  As an agency that has  prided itself on being a bit of a maverick among the stodgy old guard, we have always been more intrigued than scared about this new world of e-books.  The consensus among us, even after listening to the doomsayers, has been that e-publishing will re-energize our business and create more readers.  That’s right, instead of bemoaning the death of publishing as we know it, DGLMers have always felt that e-books and electronic media offer a tremendous opportunity to expand our reach and that of our authors.

That said, we have been very clear all along that we are literary agents.  We are proud of the job we do, the services we provide, and the help we’ve given to countless authors over the years in fulfilling their dreams of publishing their work.  We are also more cognizant than most of the superb work traditional publishers have done and continue to do in producing beautiful, lasting, quality books.

Over the past months and years we’ve come to the realization that e-publishing is yet another area in which we can be of service to our clients as literary agents. From authors who want to have their work available once the physical edition has gone out of print and the rights have reverted, to those whose books we believe in and feel passionately about but couldn’t sell—oftentimes, after approaching 20 or more houses—we realized that part of our job as agents in this new publishing milieu is to facilitate these works being made available as e-books and through POD and other editions.

Right now, you’re thinking, oh, DGLM is going to be another of those agencies that has decided to become an e-publisher and charge clients whose books they can’t sell 50% of their income for the privilege of uploading their work.  Some of you may be mumbling, “Uh…that’s a conflict of interest.”    We get it and we understand how that can be the perception.  However, we have no intention of becoming e-publishers.  As we said above, we have too much respect for the work that publishers do and too much respect for the work we ourselves do to muddy the waters in such a way.

Again, what we are going to do is to facilitate e-publishing for those of our clients who decide that they want to go this route, after consultation and strategizing about whether they should try traditional publishing first or perhaps simply set aside the current book and move on to the next. We will charge a 15% commission for our services in helping them project manage everything from choosing a cover artist to working with a copyeditor to uploading their work.  We will continue to negotiate all agreements that may ensue as a result of e-publishing, try to place subsidiary rights where applicable, collect monies and review statements to make sure the author is being paid.  In short, we will continue to be agents and do the myriad things that agents do.

Our intention is to keep on trying to find books we think we can sell to traditional publishing houses, to negotiate the best deal (always), and to give our authors as many options as we can.  Because we will continue to be commission-based, we will not be automatically pushing authors into e-publishing.   Again, we want to give our authors options and empower them to do what they set out to do all along: have their work read by the largest possible audience.

We are excited about this new part of our business and hope you will be as well.  We welcome your thoughts, comments, and concerns.

June 23, 2011   Michael   digital publishing, future of publishing, Michael, multimedia, self-publishing, selling  
5

Would you buy a book before it’s written?

Joëlle Anthony, one of my lovely clients, pointed me to this article about a new crowd-funded book project, Unbound. Much like Kickstarter, but only for books and only in the UK, the site allows you to make contributions to a project that’s been conceived but yet begun. There are several levels of support, starting at merely £10, which gets your name in the back of the book plus a free e-book, up to £250, which gets you two tickets to lunch with the author, tickets to the launch party, goodie bags, signed books, e-books, etc. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. In addition to all of this, readers also get access to what they’re calling the author’s “shed,” where the author will post updates on the book, interviews, and even material from the work in progress.

What makes this even better is that the authors that they’re working with have, for the most part, already been published. There’s already an audience for their work. This could be an ideal set up for an author who is trying to branch out, say a novelist who decides to write nonfiction, or vice versa. It could work when a publisher says to an author, “You know we love your writing, but there’s no audience for this idea.” It’s a safer way to test the waters, even for the author, who won’t be committing to writing the book until the funding is secured.

I don’t think this is a system that would be appropriate for every author or every book, but I know I’ve been in situations with clients in the past where I wish this had been a possibility. Anyone out there going to crowd fund (oh, how I hate buzz words!) their next book? Or has anyone supported an author in this way?

May 25, 2011   Miriam   authors, bestsellers, buzz, digital publishing, e-books, fun, Miriam, self-publishing, technology  
6

If you get it for free…

Conventional wisdom (and mothers concerned about their daughters’ virtue) holds that if you give something away for free, you’ll never find someone to actually pay you for it. That is so clearly not the case in the e-publishing world that it seems almost suicidally pigheaded to hew to that line of reasoning.

This morning, Jane and I sat with longtime client, author Joe Konrath, at Coffee Shop on Union Square for a very early breakfast. As usual, the waitresses were rude and inattentive and the coffee only okay. But, I digress. Some of you might know Joe as one of the founding fathers of the electronic self-publishing movement. He is also a very smart man who made it a point to educate himself about traditional publishing prior to heading out into the then uncharted e-book waters. He is an evangelist who knows whereof he speaks, whatever your opinion on what he has to say.

Anyhow, we were talking about file sharing and free content and the subject of Go the F**k to Sleep came up. The book is, of course, a publishing phenomenon. Currently #4 on Amazon on the basis of pre-orders alone, film rights are already sold and an article about it in New York magazine this week attempts to analyze what particular nerve it’s struck for harried parents. The book is putting Akashic Books, a small Brooklyn independent publisher on the map.

The interesting thing about this story is that this 34-page book has already been read by, well, everyone. The .pdf was leaked weeks ago and went viral so fast it was back in your in-box before you’d sent it out to all your friends. It’s funny that the e-version is just now being announced. Did I mention that everyone has already read this on their computers?

To me, this only supports the theory that offering free content and file sharing is a good idea in order to get people to buy books. Yes? No? Maybe in certain cases but not others? What do you all say?

May 04, 2011   Miriam   agents, controversy, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, Miriam, optimism, publishers, self-publishing  
16

If an agent or publisher came calling

With electronic self-publishing becoming the latest tulip mania, one of the questions hashed and rehashed in publishing circles is whether authors who are finding success in this venue would be willing to give it all up in order to be published by a “traditional” publisher. E-publishing evangelists deny that there is any point or desire to go back to the shackles of mainstream publishing. Why would you sell your art for pennies and let agents and publishers take the bulk of your earnings, they query. Take your work back, do it yourselves, and make 70% of the income, they encourage the masses.

We publishing types have been losing sleep lately over our own future. Gatekeeping has gone out of vogue in this new democracy. Also, we worry that our services may become obsolete now that anyone with an internet connection can upload their work and start getting their check from Amazon or Kobo within days. Even enterprising houses are getting into the self-publishing business and calling it community building.

So, over our coffee and bagels on a recent morning, the staff of DGLM wondered whether all of the above is incontrovertibly true. Anecdotal evidence leads us to believe that many people who self-publish (including some of those who are making nice money doing so) are actually interested in traditional publishing as an outlet for their work and value the services that an agent, editor, production team, and sales and marketing force provide. Many are excited when we offer representation and seem to feel that the most important thing we agents bring to the table is allowing them to focus on their writing instead of the “business” side of the business. (This, by the way, is something I think all authors appreciate, as finding the time to be creative can be difficult even in the best of situations.)

Clearly, the future of publishing is electronic media and we love a literary success story, whether it’s generated by Random House or by a self-published author. But amidst all the greatly exaggerated reports of traditional publishing’s demise, here’s an informal survey. Would you still go the traditional route even if you were making the big buckaroos doing it yourself?

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