-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The disappearing virtual library
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:37:44 -0600
From: Joseph Spinden <[email protected]>
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
I talked yesterday with someone who was in the publishing industry for
several years. Although she was on the mass market scientific side of
the business, rather than the textbook side, she emphasized several of
the same points as Ed. She expects the move to ebooks to be lead by
authors that have an audience already and want a larger share of the
profits. Think Stephen King.
However, she observed that the publishing business has lower profit
margins because retailers can return books for the full price. That
cost would be cut out by selling ebooks directly to the consumer, much
as Amazon has eliminated the retail stores. In that case, you could
sell physical copies on-demand only, with no option for return.
I do not see this as an either-or situation: either you stay with the
present model or you go it alone. I think there might be a market for
epublishing entrepreneurs to take on the roles of the current publishers
without the costs associated with physical books. This need not
preclude individual authors going it alone, whether to get a larger
share of the profits or because they could not find a publisher willing
to take them on. But for those authors unwilling or unable to take
those risks, the epublishers could do that -- for an anticipated profit.
In either case, Amazon could be used for distribution, as Doug
suggested.
Eliminating the costs associated with the physical books would bring
down the cost of producing the ebooks.
An effective Digital Rights Management system would be needed to ensure
that the copyright was protected.
Joe
On 4/21/12 7:10 AM, Edward Angel wrote:
Although I am no fan of the present broken publishing system, the
recent posts have led me to think about the steps that an author has
to go through to get a book out. If you look at what it takes, all the
proposed alternatives don't solve the problem for an author. I'm
addressing my comments mostly to textbooks but it's not much different
for trade books or even for other endeavors like filmmaking.
To start with, it takes six months to a year of effort to write a good
first draft. Then the publication process can involves the following
entities:
1. Editor
2. Development editor (especially for a first edition)
3. Reviewers (maybe 5-7)
4. Production manager (responsible for among other things securing
copyrights and permissions)
5. Typesetter
6. Copy Editor
7. Proof Reader
8. Printer (if not an ebook)
9. Marketing and Distribution
At the present, all of the first 8 eight tasks except for 1. and
perhaps 4. are contracted out by the publisher, so as Russell points
out, the author could get these services done without the publisher.
However, there can be considerable expense involved and at this point
you would have not only spent a the six months to a year writing but
also paying for these services and spending lots of time contracting
and supervising the process. And at this point you haven't received
any royalties and probably have no way to market your work, a step
which is crucial and has not been addressed in these posts. Nor do you
have any reason to believe that your work will be successful enough to
pay for the above expenses or to compensate you for your time. So even
if the author isn't seeking to get rich or even to make any money, I
don't see any good alternatives for most of us to the present broken
model. Even though my royalties are a small fraction of the selling
price and the price students have to pay for books is outrageous, at
least from the author's persective, my up front costs are minimal
(mostly my time) and I can focus on the parts I enjoy.
Ed
__________
Ed Angel
Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory
(ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
1017 Sierra Pinon
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home)[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
<http://www.cs.unm.edu/%7Eangel>
On Apr 20, 2012, at 6:33 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
This has already been done. See, for instance, Amazon's CreateSpace
(previously known as BookSurge). There is also a competitor based in
Canada, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. Both paper and
eBook is supported.
Editing, typesetting you can source yourself, or you can avail
yourself of their services. Another source of technical editing
services I'm associated with is Online English. They're not the
cheapest, but they do take quality seriously (manuscripts are edited
by native English speakers who either have an editing background, or a
technical background - eg ex-academics).
For Theory of Nothing, I used CreateSpace, and recently did a Kindle
version. It has been available as a free PDF since a year after its
publication date, prior to that, the PDF was available for sale at the
price of the book royalty (Kindle version is not much higher), and
bundled with the physical book sale. I
skimped on the editing services, because it didn't make business sense
(editing costs would have consumed several years worth of
revenue). Alas, it shows, but my readers mostly forgive me :).
I found:
a) Physical books sold well - better than expectations even.
b) The sales of the unencrypted PDF were very poor (about 5% of the
physical). And few physical book purchasers claimed their PDF version.
c) Free PDF downloads went through the roof (about 5 times as many
downloads as physical copies sold, before it was torrented, and I lost
track of the downloads :). The availability of free downloads didn't
affect sales of the physical book (maybe it sustained it, perhaps).
d) Sales of the Kindle ebook have been poor. This is somewhat
surprising, as the rendering of the free PDF on the Kindle reader is
attrocious. Maybe very few of my readers bother with Kindle - not sure
- there is a review somewhere of my PDF book on a Kindle out there in
the internet, so obviously people tried it.
In conclusion - I would still do a physical copy of a book as well as
an ebook. Ebook monetisation is still a problem.
Cheers
On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:09:39AM -0600, Joseph Spinden wrote:
Here's an article I came across today:
Opinion: Academic Publishing Is Broken | The Scientist
http://the-scientist.com/2012/03/19/opinion-academic-publishing-is-broken/
This started me thinking about what services publishers perform in
general. As this article points out, for the scientific community,
some publications are necessary for historical reasons. Also, I can
see great value in peer review.
But, what is to prevent someone from setting up a web site devoted
to eBooks not subject to the publishers' restrictions ? E.g.,
self-published books or books marketed by "ebook agents". By taking
the copyrights out of the current publishers' hands, presumably, the
prices could be drastically lowered while the authors could get
higher fees and/or royalties !
This would not do away with the need for editors. But do editors
need to be employees of the existing publishers ?
So, what are the compelling arguments for the ability of publishers
to maintain their control over content delivered electronically ?
Joe
--
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
-- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1913.
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Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
--
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
-- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1913.
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
