Last weekend, Sonia Land said she would publish ebooks of Catherine Cookson’s backlist on Amazon, bypassing Transworld, Cookson’s traditional publisher.
This is just the latest example of author/agents “disintermediating” publishers and using digital distribution to go direct to market: established author Barry Eisler recently turned down a $500k advance from St Martins Press to publish his two upcoming books himself; and last summer Andrew Wylie set up his own imprint, Odyssey Editions, to publish a number of classic titles in digital format [Full disclosure: my company Enhanced Editions was involved in the Odyssey Editions project].
I don’t for a minute believe that these authors / agents are out to destroy the publishing industry, as some have implied. Rather, their actions appear to be driven principally by two things: the first is a frustration at a perceived lack of initiative amongst publishers to create, promote, and market titles effectively in a digital marketplace; the second is publishers’ refusal to offer authors anything more than 25% of net receipts on sales of digital books (i.e. what is left after VAT and the retailer’s cut).
This presents authors & agents with a tough choice: go with a publisher for 25% of net receipts, or self-publish for 100% of net receipts — and be damned. To stick with their publisher, authors & agents need to be confident that their publisher adds enough value to justify such a large share of net receipts. The actions of Land, Eisler, and Wylie indicate that they at least do not think so.
As digital reading rates rise, where and how and who in the publishing industry adds value needs to change. Certainly, a publisher must do more than simply digitise books and upload them to Amazon: this is an increasingly commoditised activity that costs just a few hundred dollars and in no way justifies receiving 75% of all future earnings. Publishers have always argued that they add value through the editing process. This is true — but again not enough to justify such a large cut, particularly on backlist titles.
After fourteen years in publishing and digital marketing, I would argue that in a digital market, publishers will add tangible value by defining and implementing an integrated digital and print publishing strategy, the objective of which is to connect readers and writers through a frictionless journey, with the publisher’s influence almost invisible at each step on the way.
This journey starts with the acquisition of all relevant rights for a fair price, and turning them into a range of products in digital and print format; it will generate well-timed buzz in traditional and social media; it will ensure the right products are discoverable through search engines or on retailer sites; it will optimise the marketing messages on retail partners’ product pages; and it will set prices according to what readers are willing to pay, rather than on the traditional cost-plus basis (assuming Agency remains in place).
An integrated strategy will deliver a flawless user experience (no typos or bugs!), a reactive and human after-sales support should things go wrong, and it will combine good user experience with sophisticated cross-marketing: the gentle recommendation of related products that readers might enjoy, the discreet prompt to check out a website, Twitter feed or Facebook page.
Underlying all this activity will be analytical engines gathering data that publishers can use to understand where they are — and aren’t — doing the right things, and providing the basis for future decision making, budgeting, production – even acquisition.
“Adding value” is the ability to do this at scale and at speed across your list. It requires a clear vision, a firm understanding of the assets you have to work with, investment in activities such as marketing and analytics, as well as understanding what gaps there are in existing skills and technology infrastructure.
We know that many publishers are innovating across a number of these areas. However it’s difficult to achieve all this in a consistent and integrated way.
By offering authors a greater share of net receipts, Amazon addresses authors’ frustration with the lower percentages offered by publishers. By owning one of the world’s largest digital marketplaces and excelling at analytics, Amazon can also go someway towards easing authors’ other frustration: effective promotion and marketing of titles in a digital market.
However, Amazon isn’t able to deliver all the features of an integrated digital and print publishing strategy and join writers and readers along the frictionless journey that we envisage. For example, Amazon will never link to anything that would take a user away from its site, even if it knows the user would be interested.
And herein lies the opportunity for publishers. By putting in place a properly integrated publishing strategy — along the lines of what is written above — publishers will be able to say that they add more value than self-publishing through Amazon and provide a truly differentiated and competitive alternative to the road taken by Land, Eisler, and Wylie.
Peter Collingridge is co-founder of Enhanced Editions, a digital publishing consultancy and software house. This post will also appear on FutureBook.
