Quotation for the Week of August 29

"A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp."
-- Joan Rivers

Random House-Wylie Pact Births New Ebook Royalty Rate

Yes, strictly speaking, that headline is true. Random House and The Wylie Agency have reached an understanding about who gets to publish the ebook versions of Random House's backlisted titles (i.e., Random House won). You can read more details about the dispute here.

This came to light last Tuesday after Random House and Wylie issued a joint statement on the matter, which said that "Random House shall be the exclusive e-book publisher of these titles for those territories in which Random House U.S. controls their rights. [Um, and if the contracts don't address e-rights, how do they determine if Random House controls those rights? Oh, never mind.] The titles soon will be available for sale on a non-exclusive basis through all of Random House's current e-book customers. Random House is resuming normal business relations with the Wylie Agency for English-language manuscript submissions and potential acquisitions, and we both are glad to be able to put this matter behind us."

The article goes on to say a lot of stuff about Odyssey, talks with literary agents, blah, blah, blah. But let's get to that "new royalty" bit, shall we?

According to one source, "Random is offering a royalty, on digital editions of backlist titles, built around a sliding schedule that can approach 40% 'rather quickly.' [What's that mean? I don't know.] The source explained that the royalty is based on a certain number of books selling over a specified period of time and, depending on what's negotiated, the rate will rise per the rate of sale."

So, if your agent is a good negotiator and you sell enough ebooks, an author could get as high as a 40% royalty? (I guess. And is that before or after the agent's cut? Again, I don't know.)

The article goes on to state:

"The presumption is that Random House's improved offer on backlist digital royalties--the source said this new approach is a 'good rate' and notably better than the standard 25%--will spark the other major houses to follow suit with similar offers."

Well, isn't that nice? But, um, 25% was piss poor to begin with and 40% still doesn't beat the 70% royalty offered by Amazon (subject to certain conditions) if authors self-publish their ebooks. A sum that goes entirely to the author.

I'm not knocking agents. I know agents often handle other deals involving ancillary rights (e.g., audiobooks, foreign translations, movie adaptations and so on), making them useful. I just think that if you're going to have an agent, make sure there's something more to be gained than a (possibly) 40% (possibly gross) royalty on your ebooks.

Just saying.

Quotation for the Week of August 22

"The squeaking wheel doesn't always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced."
-- Vic Gold

The Great Kindle Smackdown - Redux

Way back in February, I did an informal market survey of various authors' ebooks and rankings (noting the price of each ebook, since I thought that might be a significant factor with respect to generating sales). For four weeks, I kept track of the rankings of the bestselling book by three unidentified authors (adding in a New York Times bestselling author at week #4, just for kicks).

You may also recall that Author Y believed that there were three major criteria for achieving ebook success: 1) have a good-looking cover, 2) set the right price ($1.99, at that time) and 3) have "an established reputation . . . as a writer."

You can read the original post for the details about the different authors, but to put it in a nutshell, Author X is traditionally published and has a highly respectable industry track record (in terms of reviews, etc.), Author Y is a relatively well-known author (respected within the industry) who markets like crazy and Author Z is a new, relatively unknown indie author with good to great reader reviews who markets like super-crazy (and priced the book at 99 cents). (Author A is the New York Times bestseller. A-list. Ha ha. Okay.)

I decided to do another study of these same authors. Now, here's where it gets interesting. At week #3, Author X lowered the ebook's price by a dollar. Probably (I'm guessing) to boost sales and rankings. At week #4, Author Y put up a new book cover. One (it was hoped) that would encourage more people to buy the book.

Oh, and Author A's ebook is a recent bestseller priced at $7.99.

Let's take a look at the results (again, comparing average ranks over the course of four weeks):

Week 1 Avg. Rank: Author X #52,383 - Author Y #645 - Author Z #457 - Author A #15,615

Week 2 Avg. Rank: Author X #72,370 - Author Y #460 - Author Z #436 - Author A #17,104

Author X lowers ebook price by $1.00.

Week 3 Avg. Rank: Author X #46,030 - Author Y #581 - Author Z #449 - Author A #15,740

Author Y changes cover.

Week 4 Avg. Rank: Author X #45,293 - Author Y #943 - Author Z #349 - Author A #11,087

Wow. The drop in price appears to have improved Author X's sales, but not by much. And the cover change to Author Y's book was, oddly enough, followed by a marked drop in rank.

In the interest of fairness, I figured the rank may have dropped due to some strange intangible factor associated with changing covers. I decided to wait a few weeks and check again. Here's what I found:

Week 5 Avg. Rank: Author X #57,543 - Author Y #1,439 - Author Z #304 - Author A #5,427

Okay, it looks as though matters have deteriorated further for Author Y with the new cover. Weird. It could be that there's no connection between the cover and sales at all. Which leads me to believe that the emphasis on cover is misplaced, along with reputation and traditional publishing record.

Author A is doing relatively well with the $7.99 ebook, but this IS a New York Times bestseller and something of an outlier, anyway. Even so, at least at this point, Author Z is cleaning everyone's clock.

Bottom line on ebooks: worry more about the quality of your content than the look of your cover; lower prices sell more books; strong marketing/promotion and happy readers (i.e., good word of mouth) trump traditional publishing track records.

Quotation for the Week of August 15

"Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation."
-- Judith Martin

Reports of the Print Book's Demise Are Highly Exaggerated

You heard me. (Or, to be more precise, read me.) Yes, ebook popularity is exploding. Print sales have declined, enough to cause this latest stir. Oh. My. God. Did you see that headline? "Mass Paperback Publisher Goes All Digital" -- is this the part where I should gnash my teeth or rent my clothes in a panic?

First, as Douglas Adams so delightfully put it, don't panic.

Second, the headline fails to mention a small (but not unimportant) detail in the lead paragraph. And I quote:

"As digital books continue to gain market share, one of the country's oldest mass paperback publishers is abandoning its traditional print books and making its titles available in digital format and print-on-demand only."

Huh? Did you see those last two words? Print-on-demand only. So, in fact, this publisher is NOT abandoning print publishing entirely. The headline is completely wrong. Bollixed. F*cked up.

If print sales are down, it stands to reason that a publisher would choose to publish using print-on-demand technology. It's cheaper. It's more flexible. It eliminates the need to warehouse large numbers of books that may not sell. Blah, blah, blah. It also shows that print isn't dead just yet.

A few ages ago (in Internet time :)), I did a guest blog post on Poe's Deadly Daughters called "Print Books Will Never Die." I still believe that this is true. They may become a smaller part of the market, but I don't think they're going to die.

You can read the post here (along with some of the most spectacularly weird spam comments ever) and see what you think for yourself.

I'm not saying that ebooks aren't important. I'm personally doing quite nicely selling (and reading) ebooks myself. All I'm saying is that I don't think they spell the absolute end for print books.

The continued interest in this contraption suggests that print books are still hanging onto life. Talk about your print-on-demand technology!

This Newsweek article raises some of the same issues I did, without going so far as to make a brash prediction. (But, hey, no one listens to me. So I can make any brash prediction I like.) (And, just as an aside, even if ebooks supplanted print ones, that wouldn't necessarily put libraries, which are starting to offer ebook downloads out "on loan," out of business. Ugh, those headline writers! But I digress ...)

And I can't seem to find the article, but I know I read somewhere about a middle-aged man with a young daughter who preferred print books to ebooks and was scandalized at the thought that she would only read ebooks in the future. I have heard that most e-reader users are in the 35 to 50 age group (or thereabouts). They're the people who can afford to buy these contraptions, right?

Anyhow, I will leave you with one last image. And another reason why print books should continue to exist.

Quotation for the Week of August 8

"Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch."
-- Orson Welles