Actually, I Like My Traditional Publisher or “You Leave My Dill Pickle Alone!”

[ursulav]

This will be long. I may ramble. Sideways. Through walls. You’ve been warned.

So in the last few weeks, I have found myself, for whatever reason, tripping repeatedly over things on the interwebs about self-publishing. I didn’t do it deliberately, at least at first, but Google+ makes it easy to fall over this stuff, and then you chase links or read

Comments

[ursulav]

My royalties actually come in envelopes from Pearson. I think they're pretty deeply intertwined at this point...

[zwol]

Thanks for writing this. I'm not a writer myself but I have lots of friends who are and who angst about different strategies for publication.

A factor you may not have considered: I think a lot of people on the "traditional publishing bad" side of the fence are aware that in various other arts (music, TV, movies, comic books) the publisher-equivalent screws the talent over as a matter of course, has in fact raised screwing the talent over to an art form in its own right. But I think it is much less commonly recognized that book publishing isn't like that, that the worst thing that traditional publishers commonly do to authors of book-length text is drag their heels about admitting that the book has gone out of print and they have to give the publication rights back!

(A pretty solid rule of thumb for "am I getting screwed here?" seems to be "do they want a copyright assignment, or will they be happy with a license?" To go right next to "money flows toward the author", of course.)

[bellinghman]

A lot of people are in the business of making and/or selling books because they love it. That's going to ameliorate the greed side of an industry no end.

[zwol]

I dunno, I imagine if you asked the average A&R man he would say he does that job because he loves the music, too. I think it's partly a matter of custom and partly about just how much more money is involved in a recording contract than even the high end of a book contract.

[bellinghman]

This.

Charlie Stross every now and again also says this, over on his blog, or at least, things similar.

[shatterstripes]

> you can dismiss me as a hopelessly inept dweeb who wants to make no decisions and be the literary equivalent of a kept woman

[kaypendragon]

"eventually the physical book will become a rarer thing."

I am not convinced of this. At the very least, it will not be TOMOROW! as everyone has been claiming since Border's downfall. I'm pretty sure there will always be a demand for "I need that book NOW" which online stores can not fulfill, and I know for a fact that our locally owned bookshop has gotten bigger in the past few years due to a good marketing campaign (not due to Border's silly decisions).

[funwithrage]

The Kindle desktop has actually gotten me to buy more stuff on impulse: due to a minor phobia of having physical stuff (moved sixteen times in ten years) actually purchasing physical books for keeps is a serious decision for me, but downloading them to a desktop? Sure!

That said, until they invent a waterproof, coffeeproof e-reader that is fine with being dropped down staircases and attaches itself to your wrist so you don't leave it on the train, I will probably always do a significant portion of my reading physically.

[archangelbeth]

You can liquid-proof most e-readers by putting them in a ziploc bag or two! The wrist-attachment could probably be done with a bit of crochet or knitting talent. But the dropping part, not so much, alas.

Also, I can't clone my tablet when I want to lend someone a book, so paper books always win there. And in re-sale/re-gifting value.

[vr_trakowski]

*happy sigh*