Writing On Your Palm

Publishing Reborn

18 February 2002

A few weeks ago I outlined the insanity that is the publishing industry at the dawn of the twenty-first century. We live in a time when successful writers can't get published in New York because when it all comes down to the numbers, they aren't quite successful enough. If you wake up one day and find out you can't get any of the New York majors to look at you, what can you do?

The Small Press

A man went to the doctor. Holding his arm behind his head, he said, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." The doctor said, "Then don't do that." If you can't sell a book in New York, don't sell it in New York.

While the New York majors account for the bulk of what you see in bookstores, there are lots of smaller independent publishers all over the world that are not only open to finding new talent, they're actively looking for it. Many of these publishers want you to have an agent, but some of them still accept unsolicited submissions.

There are a few downsides to working with small press publishers, notably that they tend to be pretty limited in terms of distribution and don't offer the huge advances you'd see with the majors. Some don't offer advances at all, offering only straight royalties. But when you think about it, these are only downsides compared to the treatment you'd get in New York, which you can't get unless your name is King, Grisham or Clancy. Compared to not being published at all, the small press looks pretty good.

Because they're smaller than the majors, many small press publishers only publish a handful of books per year, and they tend to specialize. So it pays to do your homework before submitting your manuscript.

Self-publishing

Of course, you could opt to just do it yourself and forgo even the small press. Self-publishing has a long and distinguished history. Huckleberry Finn was self-published. So was Leaves of Grass. And Tarzan. Not to mention more recent self-publishing successes like What Color Is Your Parachute?, The One-Minute Manager and The Celestine Prophesy. Many authors think they can do it themselves as well as anyone else, particularly authors of targeted, "niche" books that know their intended audience very well.

I'm planning on going this route myself. I'm working on a completely new version of Writing On Your Palm, written to focus less on specific hardware and software, which always changes by the time the book is finished, and more on technique, the "whys" and "hows" of mobile writing rather than the "whats." When it's done, I plan to self-publish it in print as well as an ebook. Regular readers can count on an in-depth look at the process as I do (self-publishing as performance art!).

While you have the advantage of doing things your own way, you also don't get an advance, and you have to be as much as businessperson as author. Those without any business sense would be better off sticking with the small press. As a self-publisher, you are very much starting your own small business, and you should treat it as such. You'll need a business plan, and at least a shoestring budget to get off the ground (although Print On Demand makes this far less today than just five years ago, when self-publishers pretty much had to pay up front for a print run).

The Collapse of Big Publishing/Big Distribution/Big Chain Bookstores

Traditionally, small press publishers and self-publishing have had one major disadvantage. They don't allow a book the same distribution deals as the big boys. Although self-publishing has become cheaper now than ever before, and is finally a real, viable option financially for authors, it's still almost impossible to get a chain superstore like Barnes & Noble to carry a self-published book. They get the vast thundering majority of their books from the giant distributors, who give them things like the no-risk return policy and low up-front prices (as much as a third to half the cover price of some books goes to the distributor, not the bookstore, publisher or -- ahem -- the writer). It's not worth the time for the acquisitions guy at Barnes & Noble to negotiate carrying 500 copies of a self-published book.

That said, the outlook isn't as bad as it sounds. Why? Because the chain superstores can't afford to go on this way for much longer. Eventually the whole silly system will collapse under its own weight.

It has to, because it just doesn't make financial sense. The big publishers have been roped into a business model that doesn't make money, at least not for them. The giant chain bookstores make out like bandits, operating at essentially zero risk; as long as they can afford the real estate for their warehouse-like stores -- not a given, at least here in America where the only thing that doesn't seem to lose value is land -- they can operate risk free. The "return for a full credit" policy makes it matter little whether they actually sell books or not.

It may matter little, but it does matter. Booksellers may not risk their own money to sell books, but they do have to have books to sell. And their current arrangement with the publishers throws the continuing availability of new books into question.

The publishers are caught in a vicious cycle, and we haven't seen the worst of it yet. The death of the midlist and the neglect of the backlist are just the beginning. As shareholders demand more and more return on their investment, publishers will be forced to focus more and more on only the most certain of their frontlist sellers. Just as a lack of diversity can kill a gene pool through in-breeding, it will kill a lot of the New York majors as well. As successful as he is, Tom Clancy can't carry Putnam all by himself.

If the current trend continues -- and since Wall Street stockholders aren't known for taking the long view, I think it will -- I expect at least half of the New York majors to fold in less than ten years, maybe even five. And the great irony is that when they go, they'll take the big chain bookstores that killed them with them.

Barnes & Noble, Borders and the rest can't function without big publishing and big distribution. They're just too... well, big. They need the big publishers and nationwide distributors to guarantee that each store pretty much has the same stuff as all the rest. There are three Barnes & Noble superstores within a convenient drive from my house, and which one I go to depends entirely on which one I'm closest to when I decide to go book shopping. I know they all have the same selection. The whole point of superstores is that they don't specialize, they don't cater to individual buyers. And without the New York majors backing their "we have everything" supply line, the chains will shrivel up.

But that doesn't mean bookstores will go away. They'll just get smaller. Again.

Neighborhood Bookstores

When the New York majors fold, they'll take Barnes & Noble, Borders and the like with them. In the absence of the chain superstores, smaller neighborhood bookstores will have the chance to rise again. Currently, these stores can only make money selling used books, or selling to very focused niche markets (there's one here in Denver called SoftPro that does good business selling only computer books, including the most extensive O'Reilly section I've ever seen). In the future, these stores will carry mostly small press and self-published regional titles, although I'm sure "name" authors like Grisham, etc. will be able to get national distribution no matter what. Bookstores will be places where you and your tastes are remembered.

I've made the point before that America is transitioning ever closer to a service-based economy as opposed a product-based economy. The small bookstores that do the best business and get return customers will be those that perform the service of bookselling, rather than just offering books for sell. They'll remember regular customers and make valuable recommendations. Wouldn't it be great to have a friendly neighborhood bookseller who knew your taste well enough to find the new books you'll like foryou, saving you the time of finding them yourself?

Our Old Friend, The Internet

That's not to say that bookselling superstores won't exist, they just won't have storefronts anymore. Even Barnes & Noble might stick around in the form of BN.com. Amazon will continue to do a brisk business. Why? Because they'll be the one place you can still get everything, including small press and self-published titles. In a few years, most self-published titles and many from small presses will be available primarily as either ebooks or Print On Demand. Not only does this save the publisher money by eliminating the need for a "real" print run, but it goes hand in glove with the way web sites like Amazon operate. They can list a book on their site, and then do nothing at all, not even store it in their own warehouse, until someone orders it. Then the order gets relayed to a POD facility like Lightning Source, the book is printed, bound and shipped directly to the customer just as if it had come from Amazon itself.

The combination of small, targeted neighborhood bookstores and web-based superstores offers a one-two punch that today's brick and mortar superstores can't match. You get personal service when you want it, and massive selection when you need it. And who's to say your neighborhood bookstore can't order from the web just as easily as you?

Of course, before you get your book into any kind of bookstore, you have to have a book. Stay tuned for the play by play as I self-publish mine.

Jeff Kirvin
Jeff@writingonyourpalm.net