"I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. This imposes certain logistical constraints on me. For example, if you want me to give an evening talk in London, it will chew three days out of my schedule — one day to prepare the talk, then a day to fly down to London (flying is the easiest/fastest/cheapest way to get there), deliver the talk, spend a night in a hotel, and then a day on which I fly home and deal with whatever correspondence has been piling up while I took time out. And the picture for speaking anywhere in North America is even harder. For example, to give a 30 minute presentation in Palo Alto takes me an absolute minimum of 3 days, even if I'm just repeating a talk I've already prepared."
]]>First off - Paper books will be marginalised in the near-to-medium future. If they're 95% of the sales today, they'll be less than 20% of what people acquire for feeding a reading habit in "somewhere between 5 and 25 years".
Second off - Bits in a file WILL get copied, no matter how much DRM is slapped on top. Worst case, transcribe what's displayed on the screen.
Those two, taken together, leads to royalty income trending towards 0. I don't know how much of authorial income is royalties (for purposes of argument, I am classing the advance as something different right now), but for authors where this is significant, this will substantially change the amount of income.
Third off - The "ideal" economy behind ebooks with decent production values are significantly different than for paper books. Paper books need a distribution chain, printers, warehouses, stores (brick or electronic). An ebook needs a store (electronic, maybe brick-based). They both need editing, however.
This, to my mind, is close to the ideal setup for "ransom"/"street performer protocol" (and similar).
In this set-up, I see the publisher also acting as the broker, saying "for the next book by Author Authorsen, we will need to collect $AMOUNT, no later than DATE, please donate". Once donations are met, a portion of the collected sum is handed over to the author, as an advance and writing commences. When the writing is finished, editing and (a fraction of) publisher running costs are deducted, ebooks produced and to the extent there's a market for paper books, a small print run is prepared for those who want a physical object. Then the remainder of the lump sum is handed to the author and it's all repeated for the next book.
Royalties are still paid on anything actually sold, although I suspect (as mentioned above) that the amount of royalties generated will progressively shrink.
There's also the issue that this model is MUCH less forgiving about missed deadlines than the current model, as there must be some sort of deadline where the initial donors are handed their money back if the work is not published. Thus the reason for the split advance.
I honestly don't know if it is a workable model, but to my only-slightly-initiated eyes, it looks like a possible starting point for more thought.
]]>But you may have noticed smartphones catching on. And screen resolutions edging up towards 800x480 (WVGA). And microprojectors built into phones are just around the corner. Smartphones are the next iteration of the personal computing business, and already have screens good enough to read books on. All that's missing is a delivery channel, and the Kindle app for iphone shows the way ahead -- give away the reader app, make money off the content.
Japan's ahead of us on this curve; already last year a couple of the bestselling novels were published as weeky subscription-model piece works distributed to subscribers' mobile phones.
]]>Since output of authors is constrained, it would need be bundling of New Shiny with Classic from Back Catalogue, and/or New Title from author X with recent title from author Y (hopefully getting both sets of rabid fans and benefiting from the cross promotion and having multiple names on the cover).
If things get really dire you'd probably need some of 'supporting act' system where lesser known authors get bundled with name authors to promote new talent.
]]>The current publishing model is so borked that the nearest bookshop with new books I might voluntarily buy is about 100 miles from here, in a city I avoid. (rant) And the price of books in NZ is so bad that it's cheaper to buy from a UK website and have chunks of dead tree shipped to within 10 degrees of the most distant point on the planet's surface than to buy from a business in the same country. (/rant)
Oh, and when I discover an author, it turns out that only one of his books is still in print, so that for the rest, about $2 goes for the book, $10 for postage, and fscking $0 to the author!
I'm happy to pay for my reading habit. I want to be able to have some of my $$$ going to help Charlie live in a modicum of comfort while writing whatever he wants. (The results have been good so far and I don't want to interfere with that)
I want whatever future book model emerges to have the following constraints:
Most of what I pay goes to the author (or author+publisher if the relationship in Charlie's discussion of why there is no tipjar continues)
DRM means no sale. I'm perfectly happy to be responsible for backing up and care & feeding of whatever device I read with (although dead trees have a pretty good user interface imho)
Having to buy $iKoolAid(tm) device to read means no sale.
Having to use $iKoolAid(tm) software to access $iKoolAid(tm) store to buy the book means no sale.
If at all possible, there should be a dead tree as well as electronic version for purchase.
If at all possible, it should be possible to but out of print books and have as much as possible of the purchase price go to the author.
(substitute any proprietary hardware or software for $iKoolAid(tm) - I don't want any of it)
This probably means that I'm going to end up as a cranky old git lugging 2 pounds of Open Hardware Foundation device and mumbling obscenities at the Kewl Kids as they tell their implants to install ServicePack8.4 of Microsoft AllYourMindsAreBelongToUs_1.9 (tm)
And that's the optimistic future...
Ian Mackenzie
]]>Here's a clue: publishing is international. Copyright legislation is international too, because it's drafted in order to comply with international treaties (notably the Berne Convention and subsequent WIPO agreements). A government solution would be great -- if you could get 190-odd governments to agree on what constitutes protecting the public interest (while subject to pressure by lobbyists working for rapacious multinationals).
Adam @204: I know who you are (I was reading TidBITS in the early 90s). However, you're confusing my online audience with my book-reading audience. The former is typically around 9-11,000 unique site visitors a day, spiking to 15,000 (at times like this when somewhere like HN or Slashdot links to me). Most of them are recurring readers. It's the latter that is hard to reach -- I have no idea who buys my books in airport bookshops in foreign countries like the USA, for example.
This blog is the most effective marketing tool I have direct access to.
Ryan @208: your facile slogan, "writers are going to have to work harder", ignores the fact that writers are already working hard: what it means if taken to its logical conclusion is that writers are going to have less time to write. Do you really want that?
daf @210: I'm a monopolist only insofar as nobody else can write what's in my head. I'm also a sole trader selling input materials to a cartel or a monopsony (the big publishers have aspects of both). And the monopoly aspect of my work means that I can't scale up by farming it out to other people -- I can't simply hire more staff and produce more product. Your point on price discrimination is well-taken, though, and I'd love to be able to explore models based on it.
Ian Mackenzie: forget Microsoft, Microsoft are so 20th century. The coming threat is Google, or maybe Apple. (Robot advertisers who want to own all your data and bandwidth, or a design-fetishizing control freak Dear Leader who will deliver a wonderful end-user experience as long as you Think Similar.)
Jonathan @212: Yes, ebooks free us from the physical production and logistics constraints that made the 200-400 page book block the dominant format for fiction. In the long run, this can only be a good thing.
CT @214: You seem to forget that my audience doesn't consist of advertising-innured teenagers; I see it as consisting of folks like me (read: degree-level-educated tech savvy adults who probably use Adblock Plus).
Nor is a dislike for advertising luddite. The problem with advertising is that it causes an alien aesthetic -- that of the advertiser -- to intrude in the experience I'm trying to deliver to my customers. It damages the immersive experience. And you know what? The stuff I'm selling is bought because it's immersive. Folks who can cope with 44-minute TV drama format with four 11 minute scenes separated by 4-minute ad breaks, and the first 2 minutes of each scene devoted to a rewind-and-recap for the channel surfers who just tuned in, can find that elsewhere. I like to communicate in concepts that take more than nine minutes (or a two-minute recap) to deliver ...
]]>-Problem with the ransom model: what is known as "the Prisoner's dilemma" (incentives to "free ride" are huge). Stephen King tried this model with "The Plant", and I think it was a failure.
-Problem with self publishing: In a world where attention is scarce, we still need someone to be the "filter" -be it the publisher or a friend (who has had to learn about the content somehow). So I don't think it's viable to move to a completely disintermediated model...
Therefore, probably tiered pricing is still the best option I can think of...
]]>http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4361.html
Whilst I love your work as is, I think it has an even brighter, possibly lucrative future. Pick any of the links on the show notes for much more..
Personally I especially like the concept of reading groups, where a group, having paid to spend some money to spend time with you read and discuss issues raised, tech, and so forth in your latest release, current work in progress etc.
I guess the idea is not for you to work harder - just in a different way, that people will want to keep their copy of your books in different ways, perhaps annotate them, pay for publisher annotated versions(the uber original), "Ray Kurzweils" annotated version from 10 years ago (at a higher price of course), which by the way may contribute to an annuity income not yet envisioned..
Well listen to the podcast, he explains it much better than I do, and ends on a positive note, a rare thing in the publishing debate..
Regards Dean
]]>As things are, you want a book, you go to the shop and buy a book. Or you order one online. Or perhaps you download an e-thingy (ugh).
In that future, instead you have to join in an auction, or wait till your author's ransom point comes up, or sign up as a sponsor. I just can't see people doing it, much - I think you need to retain the immediacy of a sale (whether of a physical item or something else).
]]>-Problem with the ransom model: what is known as "the Prisoner's dilemma" (incentives to "free ride" are huge). Stephen King tried this model with "The Plant", and I think it was a failure.
Incentives to a "free ride" are indeed huge, but once the work has passed through the ransom/street-performer bit, the end results are (in essence) paid for. That means you can charge a much smaller amount for tangibles afterwards and could even provide an electronic version for free.
davharris @ #235:
The main idea of ransoms and/or auctions is taht they're only ever entered into by a relatively small core of harccore fans, once they're done with, the work is then available and people who are not part of the crunchy fancore can just enjoy the results.
I must say that I've only read theoretical papers on the street performer protocol, not really seen it implemented. There are definitely some things that NEED to be done for it to work (it relies on trusted parties to accept the small up-front payments and either hand it on or return, depending on if performance target(s) are met).
J. Kelsey and B. Schneier abstract (link to full paper) or Wikipedia descriptions of possible models of the ransom/street performer idea.
]]>"The main idea of ransoms and/or auctions is taht they're only ever entered into by a relatively small core of harccore fans, once they're done with, the work is then available and people who are not part of the crunchy fancore can just enjoy the results."
So the core fans end up subsidising the halo? I suppose they already do that to a degree, as they're more likely to buy earlier therefore hardbacks. But at present presumably publisher counts on making money from a reasonable mass paperback run, which would go, on this plan, so core fan subsidy is greater.
A problem I can see is, what happens with a breakout success - at present publisher and author benefit from load of paperback sales, presumably, under the ransom/ auction plan there's no mechanism for charging (much) for those.
]]>Well, my ideal "author", "publisher/broker", "consumer" model has the publisher/broker printing paperbacks and sending that on to retailers, as long as there's a perceived market for them. Don't know what a sensible price point would be (printing cost, royalty, shipping cost and retailer profit; maybe?).
I suspect a sufficiently slim operation could take enough profit from the ransom stage (not necessarily as an actual cut of the money, purely from interest gathered holding on to it between initial gathering and either returning it or handing it to the author) so as to be able to treat physical books as advertising and not take a cut from them.
But, central to the whole idea is that the bulk of the income from a book is collected at the initial stage, not from "the long tail".
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