Tenebris

The Empirical Photographer

           

Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, June 29, 2005:   the photography books of Mike Johnston, including The Empirical Photographer. Johnston also edits a photography newsletter called The 37th Frame.  And yes, I have been bad about posting new storefronts of the day lately. On the other hand, the treehouse in the backyard is almost finished.

The Empirical Photographer consists of collected essays and articles  about photography previously published in magazines in the U.S. and England between 1984-2000. The author writes for various publications, and his  column "The Sunday Morning Photographer" appears on the web on The Luminous Landscape, Steve's Digicams, and Photo.Net.

Worst beach reads

Businessweek (via the Associated Press) has picked up the nichebusters story:

Lists of hot books are all the rage for many newspapers and trade publications. But have you ever considered tomes destined to be read by only a few, the anti-Harry Potter, if you will?

And, on a related note, I failed to blog recent remarks by POD-dy Mouth on Lulu's marketing strategy:

Perhaps the most appealing thing about Lulu (besides the ability to make your book available to the public at no cost (no ISBN, no distribution)) is the fact that you feel like you are dealing more with the guys who started Napster than a bunch of executive types.

I can tell you that Henry couldn't have been more thrilled to be compared, as he put it, "to the old Napster." High praise, from our point of view.

Publishing news round-up

A recent Tenebris post got a nice mention from Robert Nagle of the blog Idiotprogrammer, as well as a nod from David Rothman at Teleread, who is one of the web's leading authorities on e-book standards. As usual, I am behind in posting the latest news from the independent publishing front.

Don't Publish and Be Doomed, by Paul Carr, appeared recently in the UK Guardian advocating the digitization of books by authors who would then charge Google for the privilege  of offering their books through print-on-demand. [excerpt: "The horrible truth is that, with a few exceptions, publishers are some of the most backward people in the world."] He claims, erroneously, that Google has already purchased a print-on-demand service. He meant Amazon.com.

Publisher Web sales not clicking with traditional booksellers, proclaims a recent headline from Canada's Globe & Mail. This is not new news, exactly, but the story details publishers' upcoming plans to sell directly to consumers, a move that could provide one more variable in the shifting world of publishing. [excerpt: "'In the end, it's better for the consumer because it will give them access to more products at a lower price,' Pearson's Mr. June says. 'The lines between supplier and merchant are increasingly becoming blurred, he says.'] The story does not mention if the 50% difference in price between selling through a bookstore and selling direct will be passed along to authors.

Amazon.com, Ebooks and  "Chump Change," by Robert Nagle (see first paragraph), appeared recently on Kuro5hin.org, the brainy sibling of Slashdot. This is the only essential reading of this batch of stories. [excerpt: "By acquiring a Print-on-Demand (POD) company and an ebook software company, Amazon.com is retooling itself to offer a complete publishing solution to authors disenchanted with the current state of publishing."]

Book Keppers editing

Looking for an editor who can help you develop your own unique voice?  Head on over to Book Keppers Editing ... "so sign up today and it will be great."

Poetry and Technology

I was fortunate enough this past week to have been invited to appear on Dr. Andy's Poetry and  Technology Hour, a radio show based in Sacramento, Calfornia, to talk about Lulu. I'm not sure how long the audio file will be available, but for the time being you can hear it by streaming or downloading the file here. My segment doesn't start until halfway through the one-hour show. I have no idea how many people listen to KDVS, but if you heard about this blog on the radio perhaps you'll drop me a note and let me know. I had fun.

How many novels?

MJ Rose has a good post on Buzz, Balls & Hype on the difficulty of nailing down the real number of novels published last year. She notes that while Bowker reported 25,000 or so books in the adult fiction category, that total includes 8,000 "self-published" books which, for the sake of argument, she subtracts from the reported total to come up with 15,000 fiction books, or 288 per week, released by "publishing houses." She then makes an important point:

There are about 1,500 what Bowker calls "very large publishers not named Random, Simon, Harper, Penguin and Holtzbrinck," and they publish adult fiction. Then there are what Bowker calles "7000 to 8000 very respectable mid-size, publishers who publish adult fiction."

But my guess is that those 7000-8000 are not all traditional publishers. My guess is that many of them are self publishers. I was there once. My company was called Lady Chatterley's Library. Nothing quantified it as an author's own publishing company. So what percentage of the 7000-8000 are authors own companies that do a single title a year? I don't know. But I'd guess at least 2500.

Of course there is no accurate number to be gotten because the individuals in question have no interest in conceding that their 'publishing company' might in fact be a vehicle created specifically to publish their books. And what if I create a publishing company to publish my own book but then I decide to publish my wife's book, too? Or my friend's? Or a book by a guy I just met at a cocktail party who mentioned that he had a book? Am I suddenly no longer a self-publisher?

There is no meaningful difference between independent publishing on a scale of one book (my own) and publishing on a scale of five or ten or twenty books (by other authors). I know of one aficionado of horror writing who developed his own publishing company--CyberPulp Press--and started publishing e-books by people he knew and then eventually paperback books through Lulu (currently he offers 25 or so paperbacks by various authors). He has a day job that's not related to books. He does all his own editing and typesetting. The books he offers are neither better nor worse than any other book on Lulu, on average. He, by some  definitions, would be considered a mid-size publisher.

And what about the thousands and thousands of books on Lulu that don't have ISBNs at all, which means that they go untracked by Bowker in its annual publishing totals? What about the novels being published on the Internet in serial form on blogs, like Monster Planet, by David Wellington? These books are being read by someone, even if the audience is very small.

What to make of all this? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I think most reasonable people would agree that there are both positive and negative aspects to the proliferation of books and other content. The overabundance of books is certainly bad from the standpoint of profitability if your business is based on making blockbusters (as opposed to nichebusters). If you are the author of a book--especially a novel--and you want as many people to read it as possible, then the environment may seem depressingly competitive. But for anyone who believes in free and open markets this should be an inspiring sight. For those publishing from among traditionally underrepresented populations it is inspiring.

NPR ran a story a few days ago on self-publishing that, as in other recent national stories on the same subject, was woefully under-reported in that it repeated the cliche about paying $500 to get published and then named only the usual, tired suspects--Xlibris, iUniverse, and AuthorHouse--with the addition of BookSurge, which is still riding a wave of newfound respect thanks to its recent purchase by Amazon.com. The best thing about the story, which was put together by self-published author Gloria Hillard and set at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, is a quote from someone in the conventional publishing industry who laments the loss of the essential filter provided by editors and publishers [who, like benevolent fathers, protected us from being exposed to bad books]. A better or more willing villain in the drama of the great publishing revolution would be hard to cast.

The most important thing to remember about the proliferation of books--good, bad or indifferent--is that it is primarily the product of changes in technology. Technology has altered the  economics of publishing to allow anyone to enter the market. You don't even need $500 to pay the likes of iUniverse; you can publish a book for free on Lulu. There's no going back--there are no thin-lipped editors who can stop the man in the street from saying what he has to say--in print if he so chooses--as tempting as that may be. There's no sense in complaining about the advances made possible by technological progress, a mistake the music industry has made repeatedly and loudly. The only sensible answer is to adapt. I, for one, am looking forward to having plenty to read.

Interview with iUniverse CEO

It's been blogged pretty much everywhere already, but in the better-late-than-never category, anyone interested in POD and independent publishing really should read the POD-dy Mouth interview with Susan Driscoll, the CEO of iUniverse. Even as a Lulu partisan, I like iUniverse for its professionalism and integrity and often recommend their services to less technically adept authors. I continue to feel iUniverse is bound too tightly to the publishing-industry-as-it-has-always-been to really play the role of revolutionaries. That said, Susan Driscoll comes across as both intelligent and refreshingly candid in this conversation:

The POD-dy Mouth Susan Driscoll Interview

Isn't That Bigamy?

           

Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, June 13, 2005: Isn't That Bigamy, by Mike Vogel (mentioned in an earlier post), reviewed today in the print-on-demand blog POD-dy Mouth. Reviews on this on-demand blog appear to be in-demand, so congratulations are in order to Mike. Good work. I'd love to see this book take off. See also: Boston.com / A&E / Books / Getting the word out POD-dy Mouth (girlondemand.blogspot.com), an anonymous published writer from Washington, DC, recently set a goal to read 50 Print On Demand (POD) ...

Authorgeddon: The End of Publishing

Lots of ink has been spilled over the proliferation of books and the (allegedly) shrinking number of readers, most recently on the occassion of R.R. Bowker's annual release of book publishing statistics, which show that in 2004 over 195,000 titles were published in the U.S. alone. Just to add to the fun (and to take the wind out of the handwringers) Lulu put together a study predicting the date of authorgeddon, or the year in which the number of people who publish a book will actually exceed the number who read one. That story was picked up nicely by the Atlanta Journal Constitution today in an article titled "Volumes chase elusive readers" (registration required) in its coverage of BookExpo:

That grim prediction hasn't slowed the publishing juggernaut. At the recent industry trade show BookExpo in New York, some 2,000 publishers and other exhibitors rolled out their wares in hopes of attracting the attention of booksellers and librarians who are looking beyond this summer's Harry Potter for the best sellers of autumn.

Authorgeddon also popped up in an article on Publish.com (Booksellers Assess the Future of Publishing) and again today in an exchange on BookExpo on The Book Standard.  [A skeptical, but accurate, mention also appeared on Dr. Joe's Printing Industry Blog.] My personal favorite display of navel-gazing on this topic in general is the slim 2003 tome by Mexican poet Gabriel Zaid called So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance (you can read a sample of the work in an old blog entry on makeoutcity).

What's really the case, of course, is that while the number of books is certainly growing, the number of readers is not really shrinking. Reading continues to be an integral part of daily life, as is, for many people, writing--albeit often writing in impoverished forms like email and instant messaging. I would argue that the Internet can be credited with having undone some of the havoc that two or three generations of television wrecked on the practice of reading.

Yes, anyone can publish something--blog or book, podcast or independent film. But by virtue of the same technology people are also reading and hearing and viewing a greater variety of viewpoints than ever before, a fact unsurprisingly lost on  San Francisco Chronicle books reviewer, David Kipen, who explained airily on NPR yesterday that the evil forces of capitalism are making sure that we aren't exposed to a variety of books.

Readers aren't just buying fewer books total, they're buying fewer different books. As conglomerates like WalMart come to dominate a larger and larger slice of the book market, the much smaller selection in stores like theirs has real consequences for the biodiversity of American thought.

Hah. Mr. Kipen thinks we are losing diverisity of thought? Send him over to Lulu, which if anything suffers from a distressing level of diversity.

Lulu at BookExpo America

  Lulu's first year at BookExpo 
  Originally uploaded by publishersmarketplace.

Publishers Lunch offers lots of tidbits from BookExpo, including commentary by Robert Gray. Lulu is there for the first time this year, and I am looking forward to the report back from the gang. I'll be in NYC for a post-BookExpo/ pre-Webby Awards party on Sunday night in honor of CraigsList, which I am  looking forward to, although I wish I'd been able to be there all week. Not surprisingly, a number of bloggers are in attendance at  BookExpo, including Mark Sarvas of The Elegant Variation, so there's no shortage of coverage. Hamlin Endicott, a friend and the proprietor of Sawgrass Books, is also in NYC at the moment walking the floor of the show. Perhaps he'll have some good comments, too.

The business case for print-on-demand book publishing

As BookExpo America rages on in NYC, the front page of the Wall Street Journal today features a story that puts a spotlight directly on the gross inefficiencies of the bookselling system as we know it and, without saying so directly, makes a terrific business case for: a) print-on-demand as a manufacturing technology, and b) selling books via the Internet.

The article, titled "Shelf Life: Quest for Best Seller Creates a Pileup of Returned Books" (subscription required) centers on the economic dependence of the bookselling industry on the  singularly anachronistic practice of returns. Bookstores, unlike other retailers, expect to be able to return their unsold inventory. The publisher has to then either destroy the unsold books or sell them at an enormous discount.

The inefficiencies begin, of course, with publishers ordering initial print runs of titles based on projected sales, which is always a gamble. In addition to warehousing these books and physically distributing them to retailers, additional print runs for titles that take off have to be ordered well in advance of the actual demand--a second round of gambling that is at least as likely as the first to produce great heaps of unsold books. These unsold books once again have to be shuffled across the nation's highways from warehouse to warehouse where eventually they are, as often as not, destroyed. What a waste.

Two elements of a solution:

Print-on-demand (POD) as a manufacturing technology (not to be confused with self-publishing, which is a business model) addresses the inefficiencies inherent in large print runs for titles with uncertain markets. POD manufacturing technology has developed very recently to the point where producing books on demand generates products that are sufficiently cheap and of sufficiently good quality to compete with conventionally produced books (which are manufactured through a process known as offset printing).

Internet distribution--which is the only really effective means of distributing print on demand titles--offers an answer to the inefficiencies of shipping books from one place to another. It also offers added advantages such as unlimited shelf space (see Chris Anderson's original Long Tail essay) and the ability to steer consumers to a greater variety of titles.

Need I point out that Lulu offers both of these? Which is why you'll see Lulu trying to push its services out to publishers more in the coming year. [Although I'm somewhat dubious about pursuing this business because Lulu's most compelling value is as a creator-to-consumer marketplace. But we'll see.]

And what about bookstores? What about the precious refuge of readers everywhere, a refuge that has already endured an almost unbearable siege from corporations bent on turning all of America into an unbroken, homogenous chain of retailers?  I loved bookstores growing up. I relied on the recommendations of booksellers as a teenage reader. I worked in a bookstore in college--that's where I first met the woman who eventually (long story) became my spouse. Without reservation, I love bookstores. But there's no doubt that they are wedded to an inefficient way of moving products. 

Perhaps the salvation of the bricks & mortar store is actually in its smallness rather than its largeness. BusinessWeek carries a story in the most recent issue on the survival of the independent bookstore as a haven for material on niche topics, "Indie Bookstores' Survival Stories." I like that idea, but I'm not entirely sure I buy it. The Internet's greatest strength, after all, is the ability it offers people to create communities of interest as opposed to geography. Your book club, in other words, used to be composed of other people within driving distance of your house. But now it can consist of the two hundred other people in the world who share your fetish for Havanese dogs. It's hard for a retailer to compete with that.

On the other hand, people still need places to go--to browse and shop and check one another out, or what essayists refer to as the "third space." That need will never leave us, but who will be able to make money from it --besides Starbucks--is anyone's guess.