No one can doubt now that the publishing house is changing. As much
as traditional publishers and book stores have tried to slow the trend and
diversify their business model to adapt, the trend to e-readers is on an ever
increasing pace. With the recent merger of Random house and Penguin books,
giant publishing companies that once dominated the industry now finding themselves pushed into a
low margin, negative growth business, the change is increasing its pace. How they choose to tackle their ever
decreasing market share will at the very least be a Herculean task.
Publishers
have seen a steady decline in margins for the past fifteen years with giant
bookstores dominating the market and demanding greater margins and established author website demanding larger
advances. This has propelled the industry into a risk adverse strategy,
unwilling to gamble on new authors and titles thus continuing the spiral
downward.
Publishing is just like any
industry. Where once they were dynamic, fighting for the next literary genius
that walked through the door, the next great American classic, the next Opus,
now they churn out guaranteed themes from guaranteed authors. Publishing was a
noble and admired industry that has been pushed into a corner of their own
making, awaiting the next J K Rowling to once again renew and excite the market
for a brief period.
It has become a fantastic
opportunity for authors that have always wanted to publish, and there's been no
shortage of opportunists promising new authors fame and fortune while
delivering nothing more than massive costs. Authors are left with published
manuscripts that never should have seen the light of the day for at least a
couple more edits, if in fact there was one done at all, and readers are left
with a sub-par product.
The reason for this first and
foremost is that although many authors may be great storytellers and writers,
they lack the services that publishers, bookeditor and a team of marketers, publicists, and sales people bring to bear
on a book.
The number one complaint authors
have is insufficient marketing resources and know how to properly promote their
book and the number one reason reader complaint and reason for a bad review is
poor or non-existent editing. The e-book industry right now is exactly where
the dot com industry was two or three years from the bust.
For the industry to survive it needs
to take itself out of the wild west stage and institute some controls on both
the author side and the publishing side. We need to give authors the resources
to publish a professionally completed novel and publishers need to band
together to eliminate the myriad of fly by night operations that promise the world
and deliver nothing.
We need to at the very least
institute the following;
1.
A clear, defined set of guidelines and industry
standards need to be set for vanity
press, publishers and distributors.
2.
An editing and publishing standard needs to be
established for authors.
3.
A clear,
free and fair marketing platform needs to be established that will naturally
allow great authors to rise to the best sellers lists and other authors to have
an avenue to improve their writing, marketing or promotions as needed.
4.
Authors need to have access to professional,
experienced editors, cover designers and marketing professionals in a platform
that can be trusted, with standards and ethics established for the industry.
We are in the midst of an exciting,
potentially explosive industry but will soon start to lose readers if authors
don't have access to the high standard
of book editing (many companies are
using offshore editors whose English is a second language and are nothing more
than glorified spell checkers), publishing companies aren't held to a higher
standard and the fly by night companies that are preying on the dreams of
people are eliminated and readers are guaranteed a professionally produced novel if that is
what they are promised.
If anyone wants to learn more about
what a truly great editor can do for a career, read Max Perkins; Editor of
Genius. He was F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe's editor
to name just a few. It's a great insight into what it takes to make a great
writer's manuscript into a great published work.
Rick Momsen is the CEO of Pegasus Publishing
