Hugh Howey - Must Read...

That. Is. Superb.

I spoke with a few editors and agents at Fantasycon, and it was surprising how many felt completely restricted by a business model imposed by the men in suits at the board of the company - men who do not yet "get" the internet, and thereby the modern world - yet expect to run a successful modern business.

I mean, seriously - DRM? The music and film companies have already fought tooth and nail over that and finally give in - because that's what consumers wanted. And it hasn't proven to have hurt sales. But - publishers are scared that the internet means piracy. Get with the program - learn from what's happened before - and stop trying to push DRM.

Luckily, not all publishers are like that. But, sadly, all publishers remain in a position of power over the market and agents do not feel able to push for changes.

Btw, interesting what Howie notes about the bestsellers - I've been looking at Amazon's fantasy charts and also noticed how many self-pubbed books there are in there, directly competing with major best sellers such as Martin and Abercrombie.
 
Very interesting. His margins on books don't reflect the reality in big bookstores, though, who already get c. 50-60% and 100% returns. It also means bookstores will take less buying risk, which will hit debut authors more than established. And, frankly, selling them at 50%off makes for shoddy displays and dated ranges. I can't see his argument holding water with the big stores.
His local promo is a good idea and one that small chains will support, as is the imprint restrictions.
 
springs said:
I can't see his argument holding water with the big stores.
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I've been thinking a lot about book sales figures recently.

It's often touted that Amazon has a 40% market share in book sales, with Waterstones, WHSmith, independents and the Supermarkets etc making up the rest.

However, I don't think many debut authors get any real shelf space these days. And if they do, it's only because the publishing company is paying for it.

Simply put, the big chains only want to sell books with proven sales records. Tesco is not going to stock a debut author book without good reason.

In which case, Amazon is going to be the main outlet for new authors. It has to sell online before it hits real-world bookshelves in stores.

It's just a hunch at the moment, but I'm increasingly convinced that publishers who talk about Amazon only having a 40% marketshare are completely missing the point, because if I'm right it means Amazon has almost 100% marketshare of debut novels - and supermarkets and other chains only have a marketshare of the bestsellers.

If so, it would be misleading if anyone used the sale operations for established best sellers as a guide for selling an unknown debut.

Simply my thinking at the moment. Next time I'm in Waterstones I'm going to take note of the actual names on the SF/F shelves and see if there are any debuts, and if so, how many.
 
You might be surprised - but it often comes down to individual buyers' knowledge. But I do know that both Francis Knight and Anne Lyle's debut books were available in the local Waterstones when they came out - as was Dark Eden before the hype and his earlier book, The Holy Machine.

To take the reverse argument - bookstores drive Amazon sales. A percentage of books bought online are first sampled in a bookstore where browsing is easier and quality assurance (ie getting published with full editorial input and a sales push/ belief in your book evidenced) has been considered.

The two are disparate but linked markets. Both strengths, both weaknesses, but they're symbiotic to each other. Personally, I hate purchasing on Amazon. I'll buy the thing I went there for and leave. Stick me in my local Eason's (Smith's equivalent here) and I'll come out with
Interzone, Analog, and about four books. Darn I miss my staff discount.... :(
 
Yeah, the whole returns - debut authors - amazon thing is more than a bit muddled. And projecting how things will play out in the wild is a far cry from making predictions.

Publishers instituted the modern returns paradigm so that bookstores would be less skittish about debut authors and trying new things. Any hit to the returns paradigm will adversely affect debut authors and bookstores.

Amazon having 40% market share is astounding, but still sounds incredibly low. With the big box stores in the area folding around here we have a large independent bookstore and a smattering of small independent bookstores to choose from. Of those only the larger indie has a functioning website with anything resembling an online catalog / inventory system. The long-term employees at the smaller indie bookstores know *roughly* what they have in stock, but not exactly. Newer titles yes, older stuff no. So trying to find something older than a year is a choice between driving to every smaller indie bookstore in town or checking the larger indie store's website, or Amazon.

Dismantling the returns paradigm will stop bookstores from trying anything outside of the huge genres (mystery & romance) and keep to the clear bestsellers. Howey's spot on in a lot of what he says across these two articles, but I don't think this one will play out how he imagines. Bookstores won't want to be stuck with every title that doesn't sell. They'll close ranks and only order what will be a guaranteed sell or only order from the publishers who continue to offer returns.

Don't get me wrong, I despise the returns system, but it kinda works, basically, for what it's meant to do, which is as an olive branch to the bookstores from the publishers. It's one of the only ways that small indie bookstore has managed to survive. If they're stuck with everything they order, those places would fold in no time.

Skipping ahead a few decades and glossing over the misery involved, yeah. No more returns and a much larger ebook market share, but in the meantime, that one suggestion makes me shiver.
 
Hi,

Two things. First Hugh posts on KindleBoards a lot so you can probably get a flavour for all his posts there. I find him usually pretty good.

Second you get returns from Amazon too on ebooks. I think it's a one week return on kindle books. Returns on my books are usually between 1 and 3 percent. So I'm not so sure that that's a huge issue. But if bookstores were to deal with Amazon directly I'm sure they could get the same olive branch through them.

Cheers, Greg.
 
Returns through Amazon are due to a customer not liking the book or other sundry excuses. For brick and mortar stores any book, for any reason, can be returned to the publisher for full price. By and large bookstores don't have to actually ship the books back, rather the front cover is stripped off the book block and sent to the publisher (for paperbacks at least). The book is thrown out, or at times sold illegally. The cover is sent to the publisher who counts them and throws them away.

If a bookstore orders books that don't sell, they can return them to the publisher for a full refund. No reason. Just return them. Extra stock on the shelves? Return them. Any reason or none. Publishers put limits on this, like certain types of books can't be returned. Others have to be shipped whole, at the publisher's expense of course. New books have a time limit on, sometimes. Returns are huge for bookstores and publishers.

The publisher prints thousands of paperbacks, sells 10 copies through distribution to some bookstore. The store sells two copies over six months and decides to return the extra 7 (they keep one on the shelves, just in case). So they tear off the cover, ship it back to the publisher, and get a full refund for the cost they paid for the book. And this happens at every bookstore throughout America at least.

The only reason bookstores can take the risk on new, untested authors is because they can make returns. If bookstores can't make returns, they'll soon only stock what sells the most reliably. If you think bestsellers and celeb books clog book shops now, just wait till returns end.

It really is as ridiculous as it sounds.
 
Stripped jackets rarely happen in the UK now, which is a good thing - it costs the bookstores more to return a full book which has, I think, improved matters. Also most big retailers eg Waterstones will operate with a central supply network which replenishes stock much quicker, so there tends to be less shop-floor stock. But at Christmas, all those piles of books displayed in bulk - many of those will be sent back and either remaindered or sold to bargain bookstores.

It is, indeed, a ridiculous sounding practice but it is one which gets debut authors into shops...
 
I sincerely hope someone sits up and notices what Hugh is getting at here...
 
Hi,

My point about Amazon's return policy is that book stores could use it too. The only real issue they would have is the return time of one week. But if they were to negotiate a contract with Amazon to get say thirty copies of a book etc, which I suspect they would do anyway to get better prices, I suspect as part of that the time period could be extended. Lets face it Amazon already makes loads of deals with suppliers to sell stuff on their behalf and take a cut.

Cheers, Greg.
 
Some of those things are already being done -- some have been going for a long time afaia. Close releases? Yup, already there, and Orbit at least has been doing this for a while. Author buddy groups? Already there, have been for years in some cases (and longer if you include cons/emails as author buddy groups!) Authors at publishing houses already have communities. Maybe not in quite the form he's advocating, but still. I'm on about 5 author loops I think....People from various houses that I know of go to SP sites already, and have done for a while. That's how they picked up several SP'd books?


And if the catalogues are all for lit fic, why has my local shop got shelf upon shelf of SFF? Why is there more of everything BUT lit fic? That one has me scratching my head tbh. I know damned well that SFF imprints put out catalogues that include SFF.


Um, I haven't signed away my rights for eternity, and neither has anyone I know. So, um???


I'm scratching my head at the escalation clause too, because everyone I know thinks an escalation clause is when you get more money/better royalties the more books you sell. It has nothing to do with anyone else's rates. So I'm not getting that point at all, tbh. Maybe some uber sellers do have that clause (don't know what they call it though, if it exists)

My non compete isn't at all restrictive, and the same goes for the authors I know (where we've shared that info) so....???


One or two fair points (DRM etc, though they've been made before and several pubs do indeed have no DRM), but there's more head-scratchers than OMG Great Ideas! imo
 
springs said:
Stripped jackets rarely happen in the UK now, which is a good thing - it costs the bookstores more to return a full book which has, I think, improved matters.
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Returning title pages/back pages has been the norm for decades. It's been a while since I worked at Waterstoness, so I don't know how complete this process is these days.

As for local book buyers in retail chains knowing what they're talking about... if ONLY the head honchos would listen. But they never do.
 
Stephen Palmer said:
Returning title pages/back pages has been the norm for decades. It's been a while since I worked at Waterstoness, so I don't know how complete this process is these days.

As for local book buyers in retail chains knowing what they're talking about... if ONLY the head honchos would listen. But they never do.
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Mills and Boons were the last major publisher to stop stripped jackets as a returns policy - they did this in the early nineties when I worked as a bookstore manager for a large chain. Our returns used to go direct to the publishers unstripped. My hubby is still a bookseller and their returns are all returned as full books to their central distributor - what happens next I'm unsure about but given that returns in my store were direct to publisher, as they were in Mr Springs' old shop (which also sent full books and not stripped jackets) I assume they follow the now-industry-standard of returning full copies.

Occasionally a rep will allow you to do it and issue credit, but it is a rare practice these days, certainly compared to the 80s when half my reading material had no cover.

Kmq - I agree, some of this is not startlingly new.
 
springs said:
You might be surprised - but it often comes down to individual buyers' knowledge. But I do know that both Francis Knight and Anne Lyle's debut books were available in the local Waterstones when they came out
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That's good to hear - I wonder how many major outlets do sell debut authors, and in what volume? Simply thinking aloud. :)
 
springs said:
Mills and Boons were the last major publisher to stop stripped jackets as a returns policy - they did this in the early nineties when I worked as a bookstore manager for a large chain. Our returns used to go direct to the publishers unstripped. My hubby is still a bookseller and their returns are all returned as full books to their central distributor - what happens next I'm unsure about but given that returns in my store were direct to publisher, as they were in Mr Springs' old shop (which also sent full books and not stripped jackets) I assume they follow the now-industry-standard of returning full copies.

Occasionally a rep will allow you to do it and issue credit, but it is a rare practice these days, certainly compared to the 80s when half my reading material had no cover.

Kmq - I agree, some of this is not startlingly new.
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I think we sent Faber books back as rear jackets long after 2000, but my memory is rubbish these days so I won't quibble!

I still have unread title-paged books from 10+ years ago! Thank you, lovely Waterstones... :D
 
There's a fairly comprehensive thread on Absolute Write that's been going on that has been closed to new posts but still interesting.

The main contention - which I agree with - is that HH is very knowledgeable about selling a serialized self-published fiction, but his experience in trade publishing is limited, so he makes a few claims that were well off the mark (don't know I can link, it's in the self publishing forums, a few clicks in).
 
Kissmequick said:
Um, I haven't signed away my rights for eternity, and neither has anyone I know. So, um???


I'm scratching my head at the escalation clause too, (snip) My non compete isn't at all restrictive, and the same goes for the authors I know (where we've shared that info) so....???
(snip)
but there's more head-scratchers than OMG Great Ideas! imo
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Yeah, the consensus seemed to be that he was talking about a world he had no experience with, having chosen a completely different discipline.

I know that he wants to do the right thing by writers, but much of the so-called traditional routes of publishing, from agents to advances to book returns were all set up to protect the writers and booksellers from the risks of publishing to a fickle audience.
 
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