Boring stuff about the publishing industry

[ksmith]

Unless you're a writer, that is.

I've been following the tale of the apparent power shift in the music industry from the behemoth record companies to the indie labels. The indies do not have a majority of the market, but they account for almost 20-25% of sales depending on which numbers you look at.

This NYT article is all about the apparent power shift in that industry from the Big 4 to indie labels. I found it fascinating--I read the descriptions of the current state of the music industry, and in my head, I switch out the word "music" for "publishing" and "album" for "novel". Then I get to paragraphs like this, and I find myself nodding:

"They're all terribly under the gun to justify every investment and tie it to an immediate return," said Steve Gottlieb, chief of TVT Records, which is home to acts like Lil Jon and Ying Yang Twins, two of a handful of independent acts to secure placement on major radio playlists. "That type of discipline doesn't allow for the extra time or the extra album it took to break a U2 or a Bruce Springsteen. The majors are really just focusing on platinum artists and no longer have an appetite for artist development except in the rarest instances."

I'm a fan of two of the artists discussed in the article. I don't remember if I learned about Belle & Sebastian after clicking on one of those "If you like this, you might like these bands" link on an online music site, or in a newsgroup. IIRC, I first heard Interpol on the radio, then learned more while poking through the iTunes alternative section. I had heard of Arcade Fire and Spoon through iTunes, and might spring for one of Arcade Fire's releases any time now.

I can't remember the last time I bought a CD at a brick and mortar music store. I still listen to the radio on occasion, but I can't stand most DJs and I'm sick of all the commercials. I thought I'd lose my connection to new music if I stopped listening to the radio regularly, but that hasn't proved to be the case. I first heard Franz Ferdinand on the radio, but I heard of Sigur Ros in online discussions, and the New Pornographers from a Best Alternative Albums of 2005 list on iTunes. In other words, I hear about new music from many places, and if one place faded away, I'm betting something else would come along to take its place.

It took a few months with iTunes and an iPod to pretty much wean myself away from CDs. I had to buy one the other day--I really wanted a copy of a song, couldn't find it on iTunes, couldn't use the music service that did have it, and won't do file-sharing. So the connection isn't completely severed, but the thread in unraveling fast.

The point of this ramble is that I see a number of the same issues affecting midlist recording artists and midlist writers. Books don't lend themselves to the online marketplace as well as songs and albums, I don't think, so I have no idea if what is happening in music is a harbinger of publishing things to come or not. I have a nasty feeling that it's going to get a lot worse for midlist novelists before it gets better, but that could just be my Slavic fatalism talking.

Comments

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I think shadowhelm has tagged onto an important point: distribution channels. The rise of the internet opened up a whole new distribution channel for indy music. However, the big recording companies still have hegemony in the brick-and-mortar stores.

Contrast with books. They don't download (well, not as easily, nor as demanded as music). Most consumers still want their books to be paper and ink, not glass and electrons. The advantage the Big Publishers enjoy is the distribution--you can bet that every B&N and Borders in North America will carry copies of all the lead books of the Big Five publishers, and most of the superstores will carry at least a copy or two of all the new releases at all list positions.

Amazon and suchlike have leveled the distribution somewhat, and as more people grow accustomed to ordering books online, that influence will increase even more. Mid-sized presses have bestsellers all the time--they just usually have one or two, not twenty, in a year. (But how much of that is because their lists are 1/20th the size of the Big Five's?) Small- or niche-presses don't usually have bestsellers, though when they do, it's usually a crazy big bestseller.

The problem that starts to happen is that as soon as a small press starts to get a track record, or a backlist, one of the midsize or large publishers buys them up. And the small press is not likely to refuse, because the lure of better distribution and a large sales-and-marketing force is very tempting, even for those motivated by the desire to sell good books, not just make filthy lucre.

Distribution has ceased to be as much of a lure for music producers. I don't know anything about the sales force in the music industry, but in the publishing industry, though of course they push some books more than others, they do at least list all books in the catalogue, and do in general hope that everything with the company's imprint on the spine can get into as many bookstores as possible. There is some prioritizing, but in practice, a particular publishing company's books are not competing against each other (they time the releases to avoid that).

Music also does not have the equivalent of a "general fiction" category. Music is always in a genre. However, there seems to be a general recognition that music listeners will listen to a fair variety of music genres (well, I think there is this recognition. At least I am certain that if there isn't such a recognition, then recording companies are employing absolute idiots). That is, a rock listener may also listen to country or rap or was a disco fan when young or whatever. So I think that while there are "target markets" for music (traditionally, teenagers and college students), there is still plenty of music that will appeal to the general public, as long as they can find it are are looking around a bit.

Contrast with books. Lots of genres, and readers of a particular genre do pull the bulk of their reading from that genre. They may read other genres, or they may read a lot of "general fiction" (i.e. mainstream), but the likelihood is that they will buy more books by a particular author, and ergo, in that author's particular genre. And the publishing industry, by and large, does NOT recognize that people may go out of genre. The bulk of readers are "general fiction" readers. Those are the people the publisher pushes hardest for.

Genre readers, otoh, are not held in such regard (and "genre" in this case does not mean only SF; it means the big three genres: SF, mystery, and romance). They are considered more a dependable-but-limited market who will read whatever is published with a rocketship or clinching couple on the cover, or the word "death" or "murder" in the title. There's no need to push those titles--their fans will find them, and no one else (so the common wisdom goes) is interested in them.

(The fun begins when a genre book becomes a bestseller. Then it's no longer genre, and it and its spawn are moved from "genre" into "mainstream." Neat trick, that. Very nice self-fulfilling prophecy there.)

I've gone on overlong, so I'll call a halt now. :-)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

That's ok--I like hearing this stuff. It depresses me and gives me hope at the same time.

In the beginning of the career, I was told that the aim is to become one of those SF writers that the person who buys 1-2 SF books a year, your 'general fiction' reader, would buy. Only then would I reach breakout numbers. From what I've heard over the years, there are no SF writers who regularly do this. Clerks were always telling me that there were no new writers that filled the gaps left by Asimov and to a lesser extent, Clarke--the DUNE franchise may be the exception, I don't know. The ones who do seem to make it are either claimed by mainstream or make the conscious effort themselves to break into mainstream.

I agree that there are many differences between books and music. I think that some variation of e-paper--say, a book-sized display with turnable pages and the feel and sturdiness of a real book and sufficient memory to store 1000s of books, like an iBookPod--will become more and more common. I think the insistance that people will always want to hold a book in their hands and feel the pages will prove less well-funded than people think. Again, I'm comparing with CDs, which may still be apples and oranges, but I was very happy to pack away 100s of CDs into boxes and cart them down to the cellar. My office and bedroom look much neater, and the music is just as easy to play. A similar change for books may be ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road, but that's still in a timeframe that will impact our careers.

I agree that there are differences in the marketing, display, and distributions issues between books and music. I think that over time, some of these differences will fade away. Some will get worse--I swear that the same 30 used copies of CODE have been circulating on Amazon for the past 5 years.

And I could riff on this theme for hours, so I had better stop now as well. *g*

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

The ones who do seem to make it are either claimed by mainstream or make the conscious effort themselves to break into mainstream.

-->That's a marketing decision, part of that Darwinian "self-fulfilling prophecy" that I mention from time to time ("If it's selling like this, it must be good, and if it's good, it can't be sci-fi!"), and a phenomenon that didn't exist in the days when Asimov was alive. Back in those days, editors still edited, and didn't have to justify every freakin' book to the beancounters. (Not that I think it's a bad thing to be fiscally accountable, but I'm unconvinced that the current system is any better at predicting or generating revenue.)

The "death of the midlist" has been coming for lo these many decades--apparently the midlist is very catlike--but it has just occurred to me that in some ways, the collapse of the mass market distribution system may be the real killer of the midlist. There's midlist trade paperback and hardcover, sure, but the real midlist is still in mass market. Part of the cause of that (amusingly, to my mind) is that the hardcover and trade programs are generally reserved for the extremes of the spectrum: the bestsellers, so companies can maximize profits from high-demand books; and the books they're grateful to move 5000 copies of, so the higher cover price can minimize the loss (all things being equal, a trade paperback doesn't have a much higher unit cost than a mass market--or at least it doesn't have to; publishers often squander money on a trade book for reasons that I can only define as "pretentious and silly").


I think that some variation of e-paper...like an iBookPod--will become more and more common.

-->Oh, definitely. Generation Y is more computer-comfortable than Generation X, and their children will be more comfortable still.


I think the insistance that people will always want to hold a book in their hands and feel the pages will prove less well-funded than people think.

-->I disagree with this statement, and what's more, I find it contradictory with the previous sentence. "...a book-sized display with turnable pages and the feel and sturdiness of a real book..." is a book I can hold in my hands, with the feel of pages. The tech that puts the words on the leaves is irrelevant, so long as the type is crisp.


Again, I'm comparing with CDs, which may still be apples and oranges, but I was very happy to pack away 100s of CDs into boxes and cart them down to the cellar.

-->Hmmm...maybe it's because they don't take up so much space as records or books, but my hundreds of CDs don't seem (to me) to take up a lot of space. Don't get me wrong--my count for downloads from iTunes this year is several hundred songs--but if I'm buying a whole album, I'll tend to go for the real CD. I like having the liner notes, I like having the disc.

Another factor, of course, is that I hate all headphones except the big leather-padded kind (I have ear issues), and thus cannot think of a worse gift for me than an iPod. ;-) I love my stereo, though I long for the day when I can afford something expensively German.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I think the insistance that people will always want to hold a book in their hands and feel the pages will prove less well-funded than people think.

-->I disagree with this statement, and what's more, I find it contradictory with the previous sentence. "...a book-sized display with turnable pages and the feel and sturdiness of a real book..." is a book I can hold in my hands, with the feel of pages. The tech that puts the words on the leaves is irrelevant, so long as the type is crisp.

What was I trying to say? I think that for some people, the move to e-books will depend on how closely the new tech resembles what we think of as a book. Other people won't care, and will accept or even prefer the word delivery in another form--single scrolling screen, whatever. I'm not sure which side carries the majority, and how flexible they will wind up being in the end. I'm not sure myself which format I would prefer, and whether I would wind up using the e-book repository just for travel, while keeping the wood pulp books at home, or whether I'd decide to stick with all-pulp and stick the e-book in the bottom drawer. I am not sure how committed I myself am to the traditional book format. I have heard others maintain that readers will always want something that has the feel of the book they've grown up with. I can understand that, but part of me still wonders whether that will stand up in the face of something different-but-more flexible/versatile/whatever.

So, I do feel conflicted about some of this, because I'm not sure what to think.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I think that it will take a lot to supplant paper books completely. Humans have communicated via words on paper for some what--4000+ years? How long ago did the Egyptians start writing on papyrus? And of course before that people were using stone and chisels.

A human in a world without writing, only keyboarding...that would be a very interesting thing indeed. I was creeped out how in the movie version of Starship Troopers (I never read the book, so I dunno if Heinlein thought of this) they kept referring to the video letters to each other as "writing," as in "write to me when you get a chance, okay?"

It's not illiteracy, certainly, but in some ways it is akin to it. Imagine 100 or 200 years in the future. Everything is electronic, from government forms to books to, well, everything. People won't be able to physically write, in the hold-a-pen sense, because they'll never have developed the muscle memory. They won't have seen much handwritten material, except maybe academics who have to learn to read it so they can look at primary source material--but reading it isn't the same as making the marks on paper.

I wonder what that will do for, say, spying? Someone who knows how to write, can write in mirror-image cursive--that might be surprisingly difficult for the average schmuck to savvy, or even to recognize as communication.

Right, this is a story idea just waiting to be used, isn't it?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I think it will be wait and see as to whether we will go completely electronic. I hold by the philosophy in CODE--e-documents will become so everyday and the ability to forge them so pervasive that there will be a return to something immutable. And for the most part folks will not have seen it for so long that they will think it's really, really neat.

Paper with both immutable and electronic properties. That's where I think things will wind up.

As for handwriting--that's really interesting. Considering that biometrics are likely to become the new way to imprint one's identity into a credit card or approve e-transactions, you won't even need to know how to sign your name anymore. if speech ever becomes a standard method of input, you won't even need to know how to write.

reading is the tricky part, unless things like manuals and such become either spoken word or we reach the point where the knowledge needed can be directly downloaded into the brain.

A world of technically advanced illiterates is a possibility.