Indie Publishing Brings a little Democracy to the Elitist Publishing Industry
The internet changed how people get their music; now it has changed how people get their books. Every year e-reader and ebook sales rise while brick-and-mortar bookstores close. The ebook revolution has also opened up new opportunities for indie publishers and authors. Publishing costs are dropping rapidly, allowing smaller presses to compete with the bigger publishers. The once elitist, oligarchical publishing industry is transforming into an open, egalitarian marketplace.
It started with the music industry. In the late 1990s, the internet allowed consumers to share high-quality recordings via computer and later through cell phones and iPods. The big record companies fought furiously to end the practice of music sharing but failed. In the end, they had to adapt. Today, start-up record labels are able to sell their music on iTunes and other retailers at low cost.
The big publishers had the same iron-grip on the book market. A group of five or six giant publishers dominated, largely because it was so difficult to be profitable selling books. Publishers lose money on most of their books, hoping that a few bestsellers will cover those losses and get them to profitability. Unless a manuscript came from an already famous author, a publisher was taking a serious risk. Normally, the publisher purchases a book from an author, do some editing, slap a cover on it, and print thousands of copies to be distributed to thousands of bookstores across the country. Before a single book is sold, the publisher is in the hole hoping the sales revenue covers its cost.
A publisher can make money as long as it has a giant catalog improving their chances of one of their products becoming a bestseller. Otherwise, they needed deep pockets to cover their short-term losses from bad books.
That was the old way. The ebook and print-on-demand (POD) services has reduced publishing costs dramatically, making it easier to turn a profit. There are no printing or distribution costs for an ebook. E-commerce has also made POD services a viable option. Today, millions do their shopping online. Publishers can now sit back and wait for online orders to determine how many need to be printed. No more books sitting in warehouses unsold.
Indie publishers are taking full advantage. They now control a majority of the book market share. The days of the publishing oligarchy dominating the marketplace are over.
The changes have benefited authors as well. The old career track for an aspiring author was a long and difficult one with a very small chance of success. To get a book published, an author had to send their manuscript to literary agents and hopefully gain representation from one of them. Publishers almost never read a manuscript unless it comes from a literary agent’s hands. Even then, an author’s chances were slim. There’s always been smaller indie publishers but the odds of getting your book to the bestseller list through them was close to nil. There was also the self-publishing route but it was almost certain to fail. One would have to pay to have thousands of books printed then go to bookstores one-by-one in hopes they’d shelf it.
Unless you got a big publisher to buy your book, you weren’t going to do well. Authors tell stories of getting their first few manuscripts rejected before finally getting through years later. That is years of work with zero income to show for it. Suffice to say most working class writers couldn’t afford to spend that kind of time writing a book without earning something. Only those dedicated to the profession or those with enough leisure time could afford to write novels.
Their time is over. Every year more sales are going to indie published or self-published titles, and every year more authors are making a living selling their books through indie publishers. More authors means more opportunities to get your manuscript read and acquired.
Nowhere has indie publishing been more successful than in genre fiction. If you look at the top 100 science fiction & fantasy bestsellers on Amazon, you will find many are from small presses or are self-published. For example, Hugh Howey’s Wool became a bestseller despite being self-published with no advertising or marketing whatsoever.
If you go to http://www.authorearnings.com you’ll see an even clearer picture of the revolution taking place in publishing. I am not 100 percent sure if the data at Author Earnings is accurate but based on my own experience I think it is. Check out some of their reports and you’ll see a number of things stand out.
On Amazon, 80 percent of the bestsellers come from indie publishers or are self-published. For the Barnes & Noble Nook, it is 72 percent of bestsellers. The big publishers still have a firm grasp on printed books, whether hardcover or paperback. Yet ebook sales represents a growing share of the overall book market.
Competition is almost always a good thing. With more publishers come more books, more choices for consumers, and more opportunities for new authors to earn a living doing what they love.
Some publishing experts argue that the trend is to the detriment of literature. Without the wise gatekeepers, the market is going to be flooded with inferior books, drowning out the quality ones. They have little faith in the marketplace or readers to recognize quality literature. For the snobby elitist, the impressive sale numbers mentioned above don’t matter. It is all about what the literary aristocracy think is superior literature. Only the worthy should get published.
Like any other marketplace, quality inevitably rises to the top. Anyone who has read Wool, will tell you it is an excellent sci-fi novel. After reading many of the bestsellers from indie/self-published sources, I think most belong at the top. Like anything else, there are exceptions but that was true before the internet revolution.
Looks like the big publishers will just have to get over it. The publishing world is now much more egalitarian and competitive. It is a golden age for indie publishers, authors, and readers. May it last a thousand years.
J
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