I love me print books, reading them, writing them, publishing them. But I am disheartened by the stall in eBook sales.
Figures show eBook sales have plateaued in the past 12 months
The New York Times tells us eBook sales fell by 10 percent in the first five months of this year. The NYT quotes the Association of American Publishers which collects data from 1200 publishers. AAP crunched numbers to declare digital books to be about 20 per cent of the market, the same as they were a few years ago.
Those of us who predicted eBooks would dominate the market are still many a year shy of seeing it happen.
I believe it will happen and I do not see much downside. Print books will always remain viable just as stand-up comedians preserve the oral tradition which dominated story-telling before universal literacy.
A.G. Chambers
is a young author resident in New Zealand and her first novel Jaded Rein is a cross-genre
piece which for convenience I have labelled dystopian fantasy. You have come
this far you might as well read my review.
THE
flat-earth priests from the Wall Street Journal have joined their counterparts on
The Guardian in pre-emptively performing the last rites on ebooks.
Nicholas
Carr in a recent WSJ article made this quite extraordinary prediction:
…‘the initial e-book
explosion is starting to look like an aberration.
‘….E-books, in other
words, may turn out to be just another format—an even lighter-weight, more
disposable paperback.’
Of course, the WSJ lives
and breathes hallowed statistics and this is what Carr’s argument rests on.
‘Sales of e-readers
plunged 36% in 2012, according to estimates from IHS iSuppli, while tablet
sales exploded.’
As with much internet
news, you get the opinionated background in the main piece and the real story,
succinctly put, in the comments.
In this case, Michael
Fawkes wrote:
‘The 36% reduction in stand-alone e-readers is
irrelevant. The question is how many e-book reading devices (including tablets)
were sold in 2013?’
Major etailers such as
Amazon and Barnes and Noble this year made FREE ereader apps readily available
for tablets and smart phones. In other words tablets (with explosive sales) became
ereaders as well as retaining other functions.
Carr admits ebook
sales increased by a third last year but he puts it in such a convoluted way it
sounds like failure.
‘…the annual growth rate for e-book sales fell
abruptly during 2012, to about 34%.’ Bugger me, the industry is in crisis
because ‘it is a sharp decline from the triple-digit growth rates of the
preceding four years.'
The ebook critics like to toss around that one about pass-ons because they know the ebook commercial model cannot sustain private lending in the digital world. But the fact is being able to pass on a dead-tree book barely informs the reader's buying decision. Commenter Steve
Shelton nailed the real problem with ebooks. ‘I prefer printed books because I have found so
many spelling and formatting errors in e-books.’
That is it in a nutshell.
Publishers are using automated programs to create books for eReaders and the programs
just do not work properly. This is a technical problem which will soon be
solved as with the header/ footer and page numbering omissions.
When these drawbacks
are overcome and a cheap dedicated 6in X 9 inch ereader, capable of storing 1000
books is created, we will all want one.
IF there is
an author’s grand plan for successful writing practice we would fail to have
the rich diversity which makes literature a thing of beauty.
I write all the time: it is my day job and often my night occupation.
Deadlines focus the mind but when I set out to write something which I suspect
might turn out above average, I let the work ferment in my mind, and perhaps my
heart and soul.
Once the idea is ripe I tend to write it all out without revision until
the end. It kind of works, but I suspect some semi-scientific creative process works
on the raw idea before I put finger to
keyboard.
Today I came across an article which might have some of the processes I
employ sub-consciously.
The article is by a media editor, but I imagine it could assist authors
of short stories, novellas and
full-length books.
The article is called 6 questions journalists should be able to answer
before pitching a story.
Below is the reference. You can either read the thing whole or my derivation
for book authors.
First, you will note the title has a number in it, a strategy beloved
by internet marketers. Everybody seems to be on that sort of stuff these days including
the article’s author, Tom Huang, is
Sunday & Enterprise Editor at The Dallas Morning News.
Even indies should be pushing their story to their
publishers, themselves.
Si here are the six questions with my thoughts on
them.
1.What piques
your curiosity about the story?
This is will be
the theme of your story or the underlying reason you are telling it. You do not
need to write down that theme or even understand it completely as you will
tweak it in the writing process. Be aware
that it is there; it is basic; it is important.
2.What’s new
about the story, and why do you want to tell it now?
Most good stories
are universal and timeless, but geography and timeliness will make readers more
perceptive to them. Is this the right time and place for your story?
3.Why will the
reader or viewer care about the story?
There
are two answers to this question. The first is because it is well written. The
second is because it speaks to some readers who hear it clearly. A book has
never been written which every reader hears. If you try to please everyone you
end up pleasing no-one.
4.How can we
tell this story digitally?
Critics of eBooks are quick
to affirm their drawbacks, such as their lack of the comfort of physicality.
But eBooks have comforts hard copies do not – the ability to link anthology authors
to their stories and bios, as an example. Linking to other digital works is
another. It is early days for eBooks. Be aware of break-throughs in formatting
and linking
5.What questions
will you need to ask to get this story, and what sources will you need to
consult?
This is the basis of your research. If you do
not enjoy research, you might need to change your mindset. Similarly if you
enjoy research too much, you may delay the telling of your story.
6.How much time
will you need to produce the story, and how much space/time do you think the
story deserves?
If you set out
to write a novel, your story had better be up to that length. If you are
writing a short story, it needs to be compact, even if told in a light style.
It is a good
idea to set yourself a minimum number of words a day. If you write 1000 words a
day, your first draft of a novel will take about 90 days or 4 months, given
that you are unlikely to write seven days a week when starting off. Four months
for writing; eight months for revision and editing will give you that book in a year, the
goal heritage publishers love,
If you set a deadline,
you will likely fail. If you do not sett one you will certainly fail.
Remember even
the Boulevard of Broken Reverie has an end to it.
I
thought we would quickly see the end of the absurd term “real books’’ favoured by counter revolutionaries in publishing, literary retail and media. It seems not.
The
homage to the 3D book – I think that is a term we can agree on – the video The Joy
of Books’ has rightly
gone viral on You Tube. It approached two million views when I last looked with
28,000 likers and 160 dislikers. I think many of the naysayers were more turned
off by the propaganda than perceived lack of quality. At the end of the comes
the moral: "There is nothing quite a like a real book.’’
Well, those books in the video appearing on our flat computer screens look much like 3D books, thanks to digital
technology. Here’s the rub: this surreptitious attack on digital books is only
possible because of digital technology. If the story was told in a 3D book it
would never have reached two million readers in a short space of time.
Irony is a much abused
word but it is an appropriate description here. Let us vow to poke fun at real
books as humour is a good debunker of silliness.
Most real books are
fiction with fantasy, romance and the supernatural some of its popular genres.
Almost all reality in 3D books is rendered by text which comes from the Latin
to weave thoughts. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=text
Most reality is comprised of thoughts. Descartes was right: I think therefore I
am. Unfortunately the first ``I’’ presupposes a human before they start
thinking or reading real books. But that quibbling is for the philosophers to
worry about. The counter-revolutionary literati know what’s real.
Text in eBooks looks much the same on a
flat screen as it does on the flat page of a real book. But there is obviously
a difference beyond some book fonts translating better than others to the
screen. I created a controlled experiment reading Alice in Wonderland in the 3D
book and as an eBook.
I was quite disturbed when the Walrus
said, “The time has come, my
little friends, to talk of other things Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of
cabbages and kings / And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wigs.’’
I knew we had climate change but I had no idea the sea had turned boiling hot.
Yet I could not shrink from this disaster which was in a real book. Only when I
read the digital version a couple of times did I realise Lewis Carroll made it
up to make us laugh.
My adverse experience with
a real book aside, I wish the counter-revolutionaries well. I, too, like 3D
books and I have four of them sitting near my computer screen. Let’s just have
the debate within a circle of sense and sensibility and exclude the nonsense of
a real book. Elsewise, we will need to continue to extract fun from it.Can you think of anything else funny about real books?
It is about time Bent Banana Books explained itself as we prepare to publish
our first eBook titles in January 2012.
The ultimate aim is for Bent Banana Books to promote as eBooks some of the best
self-published titles from around the globe.
The baby steps in January set us on the path by ePublishing three
quality titles from out home-town district of Pine Rivers. Australia.
Self-published authors now have the opportunity to attain world-wide
distribution through Google or Amazon and Apple will be a player shortly.
The problem for self-published authors without a marketing team behind
them is how to present their book to the eyes of potential readers when there
are a million books between their masterpiece and those eyeballs.
Bent Banana Books thinks self-publishers marketing their books under one
brand could be one way to go.
We will find out soon enough if the idea has legs.
If your eyes glaze over when it comes to maths, just try to absorb the
following figures. Of you thinks my maths Or the assumptions behind it when it
comes to book royalties are dud, let me know.
If a writer under contract with one of the Big Six international publishers
receives a 25% royalty, that is a quarter of the PUBLISHER’S RETURN from book sales.
Let us say the publisher has a generous 70% deal with retailers –
Google, Amazon, Borders and so on.
The author’s royality is now 17-5% of the eBook cover price less any taxes or
duty payable on the book’s sale. That is still a lot better author’s royalty than
on a paperback version of that eBook.
Let’s say a self-published writer is on a less generous deal from the retailer,
say 50%. (There are a lot higher deals out there but as the percentages rise so
too do the restrictive publication clauses and/ or additional charges.
The self-published author receives 50% of the cover-price less any taxes
or duties.
Sounds like heaven compared to the paperback author receiving as little
as 5% of the cover price and an average of probably 8%.
But of course you as a self-published author have to sell the book, the
hard part, handled by a team of experts in the case of the paperback writer.
That is where we think Bent Banana Books fits in.
The self-published author receives 70% of the 50% of the eBook cover
price (35%) and BBB does the selling and product uploading for you. There is a
bit more to it than that, but that is the bare bones of it.
How’s that sound? If you are interested in this deal froma any
perspective - writer, self-publisher, ethical book buyer – visit www.bentbananabooks.com.au
The emerging author will grapple with a copyright
issue early in their writing career.
If they do not, chances are they have breached
copyright without knowing it and that is absolutely no defence at law.
If you think copyright is there to protect your
creativity – I unlike the phrase “intellectual property” – you are partially
right.
If you think copyright is there to allow big
companies to stifle your creativity, you are partially right.
Copyright, throughout its history, has had these
contradictory purposes.
I am indebted to John Lanchester for his
explanation of early copyright laws. (Memo to John’s lawyers: don’t take that
word indebted literally) Here
I quote from the above: “With the creation of the
Stationers' Company in 1556, printers had to register their books, in order to
make it easier for the monarchy to censor their "heresy, sedition and
treason….”
If you take books to be a form of media, as I do,
copyright came into existence as a form of media licensing, still practised
around the world by dictatorships and advertisers. (Advertisers effectively
withdrew the licence to print of the News of the World after the phone hacking
scandal)
The legal bunfight between Apple and Samsung also
centres on media licensing.
While the stoush is over copyright of smartphone and tablet
technology, the real value for Samsung and Apple is in their royalties from the
media content they are able to convey.
The outcomes of the Apple V. Samsung barney – 20 cases in 10
countries and counting – will have ramifications for content producers,
including eBook self-publishers. (Amazon has announced it wants to play at the
lawyers’ picnic, too.) But the copyright
cases are no direct threat to the livelihood of self-publishers.
Such is not the case if an eBook self-publisher is sued or
criminally charged for copyright violation. Many countries have providers of
free legal advice on copyright. In my experience, the advice errs on the side
of caution and avoids being too specific about your query – probably concerned
with being sued if specific advice goes pear-shaped. But authors should use
such services if they feel the need. Also check internally on the copyright of an
article or photograph. Check externally as well. Creative Emptor: let the
author beware.
As a reward for getting this far, you receive an explanation
of the cryptic headline: Copyright is your friend just like
Joe Orton’s.
Playwright Joe Orton’s friend (partner) Kenneth
Halliwell murdered the successful Orton out of jealousy.Here
It’s a somewhat dodgy analogy with this blog’s content
but I thought I would grab your attention if not that of search engines.
I came across another mainstream publisher at a conference the other day - very depressing. I don't mind so much they are in denial that ebooks will send them spiralling into obsolescence just like epublishing sent the big record companies down the drain. If I was in their shoes, I would be dreading the future of the ebook.
What gets up my nose is the high and mighty attitude of the BPs -Big Publishers. Ebooks will savagely lower the standard. New authors will not be nurtured.
Hello: the standard has been dropping over the past 40 years. A mainstream publisher could not sell a novel of ideas to Socrates. That is if they were interested in trying.
New authors have to pay for their own editing and acquire an agent themselves - things publishers used to do for someone they ``nurture''.
Bent Banana Books is my publishing hut, set up to promote local self-publishing throughout the world, aligned with global e-publishing.
It will develop a resource base of honest and reliable self-publishing facilitators, provide handy hints for emerging writers and promote ebooks of self-published authors.
Bent Banana Books will engage in the discussion on the future of the book, through its website and this blog.
I will post faithfully, every Wednesday and Friday.
If you have a passion for books and their future, have your say on this space. If you need a topic: will a flood of ebooks lower the standard and prevent quality breaking through?
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