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There will be no more professional writers in the future
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This article is several months old, and as many successful UK "indie" authors observed at the time, Ewan had his facts, even the most basic ones based on Amazon royalty rates etc, wrong. He has no experience whatsoever of epublishing or independent publishing, and he is vehemently antagonistic towards it in the press etc.
He is feeling the beginning of print-based income waning...(or perhaps the middle of the wane, not the beginning!)...and is mistaking that for the demise of professional writing.
In response, he shifted away from writing novels, and actually toured the UK at end of 2011 talking on the "death of the novel", after which he announced that he had made more money from that tour than he ever did writing.
Independent, epublishing authors, on the other hand, saw greater financial returns in 2012 from ebooks than ever previously.
I was invited in April to travel 600 miles to give a talk at London Book Fair, on How I Went Indie and Why, after having had a very financially successful month in April, financially, and in terms of finding new readers, which is the most important thing.
I think the article is wrong on several points but correct on others. I wrote a blog post analysis of the article: http://mademers.com/globalindieauthor....
I don't agree with the basic premise. It's more of the "tradition is our way of life; we don't want change" mantra that so many legacy publisher supporters are saying.
M.A. wrote: "I think the article is wrong on several points but correct on others. I wrote a blog post analysis of the article: http://mademers.com/globalindieauthor...."I tried to view link M.A., but message came up saying "you are not permitted to edit article" and blank screen.
Ewan's 3rd article in this trilogy where he is making money from stating that "the self-epublishing bubble will have burst in 18 months" was published in The Guardian a fortnight or so ago...made quite a fuss!
He's insisting also that certain kinds of fiction, like literary, have no chance of success in epublishing, so I have written this blog post for UK collective Authors Electric on the subject, and will be forwarding it to Ewan Morrison (author of article referred to in OP) tomorrow!
http://authorselectric.blogspot.co.uk...
"My Fortieth! or I Write Ebooks!"
Something of a personal reply to Ewan Morrison's recent article in The Guardian, in which he announced the death of "the self-epublishing bubble" within 18 months.
John, great post! It's amazing given the rate at which the ebook market share is increasing that anybody would predict the existence of a bubble, let alone that it'd burst.
I appreciate and applaud those whip took time to counter the article. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I think my initial reaction, "who is Mr Whiny Pantswhen he's at home?" sums me up.
I think Joe Konrath did a pretty wicked job shooting down this guy's assertions. :) I think there will be many more professional writers than there are now, and far more writers making a livable wage from their craft.
M.A. wrote: "Interesting article in The Globe and Mail about the demise of professional writing -- or, more specifically, the ability to earn a living. What's your thoughts on this issue?http://www.theglobean..."
I think the article was an interesting take on the concept of change, and more specifically, the unwillingness to change that many suffer from. It is certainly true that self-publishing has changed how big business publishers like Penguin do business. Welcome to the wonderful concept of supply and demand, Penguin. Prices get lower as demand goes up, and demand increases as prices get lower. Everyone's making less money per unit, but selling a lot more units to make up for it (hopefully). I doubt that self-published authors are really spoiling everything for everyone. Realistically, only a select few see great, or even moderate, success by self-publishing. That being said, everyone still deserves the opportunity to build a readership, even if that means giving their work away for free. Giving away my book doesn't mean my reader won't still pay for this week's bestseller, too. I think its a little bit assumptive to predict that professional writers will go by the wayside.
Another aspect that I thought was interesting was that Penguin has purchased a self-publishing company for the purpose of charging writers fees to publish their work (as the existing company has been). That seems really wrong when you take into account that most books don't produce instant profits to compensate (and some don't produce profits at all). It's one thing to be like Smashwords and let authors publish ebooks for free (for an eventual percentage) but fleecing new authors for something they could get for free elsewhere seems downright despicable.
Penguin's purchase shows that even the Big 6 are starting to see that there's money to be made in self-publishing, which is a step forward for them.As for their business model, Smashwords lets you publish for free, but they get a cut of future profits. If your book does okay, it might have been cheaper to pay up front. BookBaby (which I've used) has a pay-up-front business model. It costs a few hundred bucks (depending on the package) to get your book formatted and distributed, but almost nothing ($19/year IIRC) to keep it distributed. At $3 a book, I have to sell a few hundred books to recover my formatting and distribution costs, which isn't a lot over the next few decades.
I don't know Penguin's business arrangement, but I like to see that indie authors are getting more and more options. The more choices we have, the easier it is for us to find the best one for us.
@Kevin-You make an interesting point about paying up front vs giving up a cut. For those of us who are just starting out, a cut makes more sense considering we haven't figured out all the kinks in building a readership. On the other hand, it makes complete sense for someone who has already been working towards building their audience to just pay the money up front knowing they'd make back their investment. I was speaking more towards the idea that a large publisher is more likely to charge a greater fee in the interest of better profits - but then again, that's just stereotyping a large business as something that exploits the little guy (which may or may not be true in Penguin's case). So ultimately - I agree with you. Up front cost might be a better option for some authors and it's always better to have more options to get our work out there!
Wow. Sounds like someone has a problem with indies, and how they publish. It also sounds like they're hanging on to their old ways as long as possible. I read an article like this before that said essentially the same thing. My response is that any writer who spends a lot of time working on a book isn't going to give it away for free. They might do that as a promotion every now and then, but if they value their work they'll expect to get paid for it at some point. Our time and effort is valuable.
Oh, and as long as there are aspiring writers out there who can't get the attention of big publishers, the ebook market will be fine. I self-publish because to get to a publishing company I need an agent, and I don't want and can't afford one.
The revolution is here baby. I've read plenty of self-published books that are better than some that were traditionally published. You'll find smut in both markets and you'll find literary gold in both as well. With the digital age, these changes were bound to happen and now the many writers who were tossed aside by big daddy publishers have a chance to shine and be heard. Nothing wrong with that!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/b...
M. A. Demers
Author, Baby Jane,
The Global Indie Author: How anyone can self-publish in the U.S. and worldwide markets, and
To Kindle in Ten Steps: The Easy Way to Format, Create and Self-Publish an eBook on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing