10 Shocking Truths about Book Publishing

[Jo Zebedee]

I believe it was 2015 when it was said that almost all the increase in "book" sales that year were a result of adult coloring books..... Sigh!

Yes - but more adult colouring books were sold by indies than big publishers!

But it's no longer a case of e vs paper, but bricks and mortar vs online.

 

[Parson]

But it's no longer a case of e vs paper, but bricks and mortar vs online.

Too true. I don't believe that the brick and mortar stores will ever completely disappear. But I don't see much hope for a lot of them in the long run. There is something about looking at a book in the flesh (as it were), but for someone like me who has to travel an hour by car to get to a bookstore outside of Wal Mart, which doesn't count!, that carries any S.F.

 

[Cathbad]

(Anyone know how/why I have 2,01 ebook credit on amazon?)

 

[Parson]

No, but don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Get your FREE BOOKS now.

 

[Ursa major]

but don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Alternatively: Beware of geeks bearing gifts....

 

[soulsinging]

I have a pretty even split in history and SFF when it comes to reading, but almost never (Space Captain Smith aside) read comedy.

I'm of the opinion that comedy is one of the most difficult things to write, because (as any comedian will tell you) timing is SO important to laughter, and that's virtually impossible to control as an author. Catch-22 is one of my favorite novels of all time, and yet most of the rest of his works I find impossibly dull. I love Kurt Vonnegut at his best, but his books are 50-50 on whether I'll actually enjoy any given one. I've always found Douglas Adams to be overrated, and will never understand why Confederacy of Dunces drew so much attention.

If I'm watching film or tv, comedy is far and away my favorite genre. In books though, not so much.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm of the opinion that comedy is one of the most difficult things to write, because (as any comedian will tell you) timing is SO important to laughter, and that's virtually impossible to control as an author. Catch-22 is one of my favorite novels of all time, and yet most of the rest of his works I find impossibly dull. I love Kurt Vonnegut at his best, but his books are 50-50 on whether I'll actually enjoy any given one. I've always found Douglas Adams to be overrated, and will never understand why Confederacy of Dunces drew so much attention.

If I'm watching film or tv, comedy is far and away my favorite genre. In books though, not so much.

Don't forget Douglas Adams really made his name on radio where timing is everything! The books came later and are much inferior.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Soulsinging, I think a further problem with writing comedy is that as well as writing everything else that's needed (characters, plot, world) and adding humour, particular types of humour turn off people.

A big plus, though, is that it's fun to write, and if you enjoy a particular comedic style it's a lot of fun to read too.

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

This article is a few months old, but it does underline some pretty horrible observations on the publishing industry:

10 Awful Truths About Publishing - Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Here are the main points it covers:

- The number of books being published every year has exploded.
- Book industry sales are stagnant, despite the explosion of books published.
- Despite the growth of e-book sales, overall book sales are still shrinking.
- Average book sales are shockingly small—and falling fast.
- A book has far less than a 1% chance of being stocked in an average bookstore.
- It is getting harder and harder every year to sell books.
- Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.
- Most book marketing today is done by authors, not by publishers.
- No other industry has so many new product introductions.
- The book publishing world is in a never-ending state of turmoil.

It doesn't make for the most cheerful reading!

I'm coming in way late on this, but I don't find these points particularly alarming, if looked at in context.

1. Yeah, but given the ability to self-publish or hybrid publish nowadays, and the new formats, how is this a surprise?
2. If by 'Book industry', you mean trade publishers, again how is this a surprise? If the big publishers aren't increasing their publishing capacity because they aren't seeing an increase in available publishable books (by their standards), then why would they increase their book count?
3. Do they include audio books? Because that area is exploding.
4. Average book sales what? Sales per book? This is or is not a problem depending on how you're calculating it. If you're including the sales of every SP novel on Amazon, most of which have a total sales of ten or less, it's not surprising.
5. And how does that compare to 20 years ago?
6. See #4
7. See #4
8. See #4
9. See #4
10. That's kind of a value judgement, and honestly describes a lot of industries.

I realize I'm responding to Brian's summary rather than to the original article, but just based on a glance, this sounds like clickbait. The rise of self-publishing has changed everything. It's changed the mix of books, it's changed (or been changed by) the new publishing channels, it's changed the range of quality. None of this is surprising or particularly alarming, IMO.

Now, there are some ways in which trade publishing is changing or should change. One of the commonly repeated truths of book publishing these days has to do with royalties--the idea is that going with a trade publisher gets you a smaller piece of a larger pie, while going the SP route gets you a bigger piece of a smaller pie. This is, in my limited experience, very true, and it's something that I haven't seen the trade publishers react to yet.

In my case, I went hybrid--published through Audible, and self-published (kind of) on Amazon. Actually, the Amazon books are done through my agent's private-label publisher, which he has normally used to put clients' out-of-print books back up on Amazon for backlist sales. Anyway, because of this, I'm getting 70% of Amazon sales instead of some much smaller royalty through a publisher. Ditto Audible, since there's no publisher in the middle. I could probably get more unit sales if I went through a trade publisher, but I very much doubt I would have made as much total $ (Ethan agrees with this).

So what you're going to get over time, I think, is the most successful authors moving to a hybrid model designed to take advantage of the publishers' channels where appropriate, and self-publishing otherwise. This may result in trade publishers having to be more service-oriented and value-added, rather than just a distributor and middle-man.

 

[soulsinging]

Don't forget Douglas Adams really made his name on radio where timing is everything! The books came later and are much inferior.

I actually did not know this, fascinating! It makes complete sense to me.

 

[Toby Frost]

Just to respond to the comedy thing:

Comedy is really difficult. Telling good jokes is hard - especially since one person's good joke is another's awful pun - and putting them into a coherent narrative is even harder. Because of the precise nature of timing and world-play, it is a real discipline for writing.

However, comedy is down there with Romance and Westerns in the amount of respect it gets. In the Anglophone West, at least, a work of proper literature is seen as a difficult, hard slog, generally without trivialities such as exciting events, happy endings or laughter. Alternatively, once in a blue moon, a literary novel will be described as very funny and contain nothing amusing whatsoever.

So basically you're producing something that requires considerable understanding of language and timing, and isn't respected as an art form. So you'd better enjoy writing it!

(Not that I'm bitter about not getting this year's Booker prize, you understand)

 

[thaddeus6th]

Toby, it's a bit ironic given the original two styles of literature were comedy and tragedy.

 

[Vertigo]

I actually did not know this, fascinating! It makes complete sense to me.

Ah well, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was originally a radio production, the books came next, the TV next and the film last. At least I think that's the order. And the radio is far and away the most superior of them all! There's a lovely story I that was told on a TV documentary about the making of the original THGTTG in which he needed to have a rendition of the corporate song of something (I forget what but I'm sure someone will chip in) and he needed it to be sung off key as that was an important (and glorious) part of the humour. But when he tried to get professional singers to do this they simply couldn't; they were either in tune or so way out of tune the humour was lost. So he went out into the hallowed corridors of the BBC and pulled in the first dozen or so people he came across; gave them the music and told them to sing it. One take and he had what he wanted apparently!

 

[Ursa major]

they were either in tune or so way out of tune the humour was lost

There was someone on the radio the other day explaining that Les Dawson's "not entirely accurate" renditions of pieces of music (played on the piano or sung) were rather clever in that they managed to tread what is a fine line between being funny and just being bad.

If this is true, Douglas Adams was rather fortunate to get what he wanted in just the one take.

 

[Vertigo]

There was someone on the radio the other day explaining that Les Dawson's "not entirely accurate" renditions of pieces of music (played on the piano or sung) were rather clever in that they managed to tread what is a fine line between being funny and just being bad.

If this is true, Douglas Adams was rather fortunate to get what he wanted in just the one take.

Yes I heard that, fascinating when they explained and demonstrated the subtle difference. But in Adams case it was intentionally quite bad. I think I remember now that it was the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation who might have been responsible for Marvin.

 

[Ursa major]

It'll be the Share and Enjoy song.

One of my WiPs (not a comedy) has a world with a chain of computer stores called Sharon'N'Joy. I'll leave you to guess what their customer service might be like. (Note: one of the characters has an office near one of the stores, so the name is mentioned when giving direction as to how to get there.)

 

[Vertigo]

Yep that's the one!