The Battle for Independence
This is the first of a six-part series on building an audience of independent book buyers.
Publishers
It’s been a brutal decade for publishers. You know the story: the Internet kicked their asses. Where I live, our largest newspaper was recently sold for barely more than the asset value of the building they owned. Listicle-warehouses are eating magazines alive. And so on and so forth.
However, book publishers are bucking that trend. Overall book sales have increased in the age of the internet. The Kindle didn’t kill Trade Fiction but it did kill the brick and mortar store. Even so, Amazon and Apple seem to have have both expanded the market and dominated it via their storefronts (more on that later).
What do I mean by “expanded the market?” They increased revenues for publishers from print only to print + eBooks. You can see why when you consider that pre-eBook sales of three consistent-output best-selling authors are nearly double in the post-eBook era:
Add to the popularity of the new eBook format the fact that eBooks have better margins and you’ll find that the top 5 publishers are making more money in a the Kindle era. They are doing it through best-sellers.
This is a problem.
Selling more best-sellers is fine for the big 5 publishing houses. But what about mid-list? That is, how is the market for high-quality fiction that’s not destined for the front page of Amazon and Apple’s bookstores going to find an audience? A quick survey of Apple’s store front and this is what I see:
Mostly best-sellers. Some new voices. Some old mainstays. It looks pretty innocuous until you see the impact it has on authors.
Put succinctly: authors are earning a lot less on average.
For one, there are more authors self-publishing. A huge boom is happening in that arena. Most of it is non-fiction. And of the fiction, most is amateurish and therefore crap. Yes, I said it. Even amongst the pros, the sales go to self promoters, which by nature, takes time away from writing. This focus on ‘selling’ as opposed to ‘writing’ seems to fly in opposition to what readers are really looking for: great stories.
For two, publishers are risk-averse. They invest less into prospects and more into sure things. In doing so, they operate more like the Yankees and less like the Royals.
I don’t begrudge the self-promoter for her success. Nor do I blame the publisher for pitching best-sellers. I am a fan of the former when it becomes the latter. Who doesn’t like a good rags-to-riches story after all?
To borrow an awful cliche, the marketplace is what it is: stale, riddled with loud-mouths and dominated by suits. Meanwhile, for mid-list authors and well-intentioned agents, managers and editors, even winning major prizes are no guarantee for sales.
Who can we blame for this?
Bookstores
Confession time. While I don’t begrudge publishers, I have a loooooong-standing grudge against Barnes & Noble. It goes back to my childhood. My mom owned two bookstores. They were children’s bookstores. One in each of the cities we lived in, Columbus and Cleveland. She sold one to start the other when we moved. Shortly after we arrived in our new city, Barnes & Noble moved in too. And poof, there went mom’s bookstore. Same thing happened to the one she sold.
On the one hand, you can see that I’m thrilled that the once venerable giants, Borders and Barnes & Noble, have had their proverbial lunches eaten. However, that doesn’t tell the whole story. You see, we moved because my dad is a writer; a well-known critically acclaimed writer of short fiction. But he never made much money at writing. Instead, he made money teaching. Hence our move.
What mom and I share with my dad was not a love for the book business but love for books. Before the early 90’s, a love for books in the book business mattered.
I see that love for books on Amazon and Apple. Honestly, I do. I know that there are teams who help promote undiscovered talent. And that’s a great thing. But as we see above, there’s only so much room at the top.
And that — that lack of alternatives — that’s the real problem.
Publishers have no channel to promote great alternatives.
Readers have no alternative bookstore to discover new great writers.
Great writers have no alternative market to support their work.
When I say “no” above, I don’t mean “none”. What I really mean is that there is no meaningful alternative in each of those three markets. There is no meaningful place for publishers to grow a best-seller. There is no trusted and reliable place for readers to go to explore and discover new talent. This paradigm is also problematic for writers as well. The fact that there there is no platform to pitch from or place to turn that will help drive new sales options in a way that publishers would appreciate is a problem; writers are often left out in the cold.
And yet.
Did you know that the number of independent booksellers is on the rise?
More on that in Part 2, coming soon.
This is part 1 of a 6-part series on why I started Great Jones Street, an alternative marketplace for readers, writers, and publishers who want to support great prose. Our publication, which earned an honorable mention from Medium earlier this month, features some of the best working writers in the business. Follow Great Jones Street here.
Follow me to get notifications for parts 2–6.
And one last thing: click the little green heart below. Each heart is a vote cast for alternatives and the restoration of indie spirit in books.
