Given the economics and the extra favorable dynamics in connecting with the audience it seems like a tall order to me that a publisher can add enough value to justify itself. For feedback on writing being mentored by other writers sounds much better, and to figure out what sells a direct relationship with your audience sounds like a much better deal. This is especially true as the number of books isn't artificially limited by the logistics of paper and everyone can be shooting for a niche of readers.

As for the value currently provided by publishing companies, everything I've ever read by successful authors about their relationships with their editors when they were starting out indicates that the mentorship provided by the editors at traditional publishers is absolutely critical. I'm not saying that there aren't other ways to get such mentorship, I'm saying that right now traditional publishing companies are the only ones providing it effectively at scale. That's why I said, in my original post, that one of the requirements for disrupting the publishing industry is to come up with a new system for helping new writers grow. Having experienced authors provide mentorship sounds like a great idea--I would love to see someone execute it by building a system that connects aspiring writers with mentors, at scale.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

It's by a traditionally published author that used to hold much of the same opinion as you and has now moved to self-publishing and argues that newcomers should do the same.

If what publishers provide is good editors it would seem a simple solution would be for good editors to go freelance and take a direct cut of the sales.

Key passage (original emphasis):

1) He has had books in print 2) He was not a total unknown 3) He busted his ass on the Net for years to get better known

But many, many people are out there doing number 3 and getting nowhere.

So for him to tout his New Religion while ignoring 1 and 2 is like those experiments Cory Doctorow periodically engages in, where he wants people to forget who he is, as if he’s starting from scratch, but while still using his well-known Cory Doctorow name.

And that’s why I will always say Konrath’s name with an emphasis on con.

Because unless you out there have numbers 1 and 2 and also 3 going for you, there is no damn way in hell you are going to even come close to the alleged number of sales Konrath brags about (over and over and over again…).

As for the only meat in the argument - that "many, many people are out there doing number 3 and getting nowhere"- it suffers from the bias I mentioned in my original reply. This is also true for print, you just don't see it because they don't get published at all. And even if the percentage of unsuccessful authors is higher for ebooks (for which no evidence is presented) that's ok since higher margins for authors and more direct access to their readers should be able to support more niche authors.

The argument that Konrath does better than most because he has a backlog and name recognition is just comparing apples to oranges. Of course established authors will make more than newcomers. The real question is will an established ebook author earn more than an established print author. And the math I do there is that for the margin the publishers take they provide very little that can't be provided more efficiently, so they will die when they cease to be gatekeepers to distribution (very soon).

There is far, far more to becoming a successful author than building up a critical mass of fans. I completely agree that, with middle-men eliminated, the number of readers required to support any given author is much lower, but even to get to that lower number you have to achieve a certain level of proficiency as a writer, and right now there are no mechanisms in place to safely build up to that point outside of the traditional publishing industry.

This is a quote attributed to Jim Baen by Eric Flint, editor of Jim Baen's Universe (original emphasis):

"Eric, almost no first novel is worth a thin dime, in cold-blooded money terms. Most first novels lose money for the publisher. But publishers--smart ones, anyway--aren't really buying 'first novels.' What they're really doing, when they pay an advance for a first novel, is taking a gamble that the author will someday be writing books that will bring in a lot of money. It's an investment in an author's future earning prospects, not the purchase of a book..."

Along with the payment for that first book (to help put food on the table), freshman authors also get a lot of mentorship to help them grow. More importantly, they get good editing so that their first novel won't be so disastrous that it destroys their reputations as authors and handicaps all of their future work.

An incredibly talented first-time author will probably succeed no matter what. Likewise, a bad author will never succeed, no matter how much he tries or how much help he gets. I'm concerned about the authors with potential--the ones who aren't great yet but have the potential to be great. If they start out in traditional publishing, they will get the help and support they need to realize their potential. If they start out self-publishing, they will encounter economic failure and, more importantly, will establish reputations as mediocre authors, reputations which will be incredibly hard to overcome.

I'm sure it's possible to separate the "grow new authors" aspect of the publishing industry from the "gatekeeper" aspect, and I'd love to see it happen. Unfortunately, right now there is nothing out there to serve that purpose.

This is the bit that is still in [citation needed] in all this discussion. Maybe the new world order is that more people try, more people fail, and more people succeed. It seems self-publishing electronically is being judged by the standard of the print publishing world. "Oh you don't have an editor to mentor you, you'll never succeed". There seem to be plenty of successful authors that started self-publishing electronically. Maybe now authors aren't helped as much but they get easier distribution access and direct access to readers. Self-publishing doesn't have to beat publishing houses point by point for every author. It just has to win on average to kill the publishing industry.

I'm also skeptical of the continuing value of these great editors. Unleashing experienced editors on new authors probably reduces variability in writing. You get less amazing new stuff and much less crap. This might have been needed when there was a physical limit to how many books humanity could produce. That has now been lifted, so let people publish. The web has developed plenty of crap and comparatively few great things, and we've been great at figuring out what's what for ourselves.

Consider an author who has great potential, who will, given enough development, write bestselling novels. Unfortunately, he's still too inexperienced and his current work could be described at best as mediocre. If he tries to self-publish, his books will be (rightfully) criticized as being not worth reading. He will not make any money, and will likely be forced to give up writing and take up another profession. If he is especially persistent he might try again, but without a mentor his skills won't improve very quickly, and even if they did he still has to fight against his well-earned reputation as a second-rate hack. On the other hand, if he sends his work to a traditional publisher, there is a chance that someone will see the potential in his work, pay him for the book, and work with him to improve it to the point where people will want to read it. Then he'll get a crack at a second book, and the help he needs to make it better than his first. In this way, he has a chance to grow into a truly great author.

As long as there are publishers who are able to successfully identify and develop such diamonds in the rough, and unless someone comes up with a different way to perform this task, the traditional publishers will not go away. Even if they lose all of the authors who are good enough to jump right into self-publishing, that still leaves them with a significant role in the market, growing great authors.

I strongly suggest that you check out Baen's Universe: all of the issues are electronic and DRM free, and since publication has ceased, you can buy every issue ever for $30 (+ $6 for the very last issue). Every issue has at least one (usually more) article about the publishing industry, usually focused on copyright and DRM. The first issue includes an article explaining why the magazine was started, and it was to provide exactly the sort of development opportunities to new authors that I've been talking about here: http://www.baens-universe.com/articles/editorial_one The last issue includes an article explaining why publication was ended (in short, the magazine had served its purpose): http://www.baens-universe.com/articles/So_Long__and_Thanks_F...

I'm not arguing for what is the ideal system. I'm arguing the position that market dynamics are such that publishing houses will lose to self-publishing. The casualty of that may very well be authors that can't make it without a lot of mentoring. I'm not saying that publishing houses don't and can't have good impact on the creation of good writing. I'm saying that their contribution won't be enough to justify their cost and they will be put out of business.

> so I'm really not all that concerned that "unleashing experienced editors on new authors probably reduces variability in writing.

I'm not concerned about this. I think it's an argument for why losing the mentoring and distribution barriers will create more niche markets, fueling the success of self-publishing.

> As long as there are publishers who are able to successfully identify and develop such diamonds in the rough, and unless someone comes up with a different way to perform this task, the traditional publishers will not go away. Even if they lose all of the authors who are good enough to jump right into self-publishing, that still leaves them with a significant role in the market, growing great authors.

Finding "diamonds in the rough" may not be enough to sustain a publishing house. This may today be a valuable service but that doesn't mean that it will still be profitable in the future. When amazon launched the kindle, ebooks were mostly priced at 10$. These publishers fought to be able to raise the prices. When all the "truly great" become self-publishers they will lower the price of ebooks so now as a publisher you've lost your sure bets and have to instead spend considerable resources (paying all these mentors/editors) on riskier bets that when/if they succeed will have to be priced lower to compete with the self-publishers. I just don't see the economics favoring publishing houses. Being a freelance editor/mentor sourcing authors from first-time self-publishers may very well become a profitable venture though.

You are making the mistake of conflating "the most successful authors" with "authors who achieve major success with their first books." The publishing companies will lose out on the latter, but they will still get plenty of the former. As I mentioned before, Frank Herbert was a very late bloomer. A more modern (but less extreme) example would be Dan Brown: his first book, Digital Fortress was just barely good enough to get him a second book deal; Angels and Demons made the best-seller list, barely; he didn't achieve superstar chart-topping success until his fourth book, Da Vinci Code. He's now one of the top-selling authors in the world. As long as publishing companies continue to grow authors like that, they will do just fine. They may see their margins shrink due to competition from self-publishers, but books are not commodities and people will pay more for better books. The only thing that will dislodge traditional publishers from this role is, as I have asserted repeatedly, a competitor which provides the same service, at the same or better level of quality, for less.

I also firmly reject the notion that "truly great" authors will necessarily lower their prices of ebooks when they transition to self-publishing: they will charge whatever price the market will bear. I think that a far more likely change is that book prices will become much more a function of book quality, with the very best charging a premium for their books compared to other authors, as compared to the current system where dead-tree books are priced mostly as a function of form factor.

No I'm not. What I'm saying is that the home-runs will move over to self-publishing, reducing the profitability of traditional publishing. Say you're a new author, why not release your first book online under a pseudonym and see how it does. If it does ok, why go to a publisher? So now if you're a publisher you have to make do with the authors that need development and you're hoping for Dan Brown sized successes in a market that is tending towards more, not less, diversity. The successes you do find will now be competing in a much broader market that is priced at a fraction of what you're used to. Doesn't seem like a great place to be.

> I also firmly reject the notion that "truly great" authors will necessarily lower their prices of ebooks when they transition to self-publishing: they will charge whatever price the market will bear.

The point is that as an author you can charge a third or less of the price and get the same money because there are less middlemen. Since buyers will buy more of your books if they're cheaper you'd be crazy to charge the same price when you move to self-publishing. As a buyer I'll also spend more on books if they're 3$ each than if they're 15$ each so for the industry this may also be a total net gain.

You just did it again: the "home runs" are not necessarily the most profitable authors. Those authors that need development very often turn out to be the most profitable in the end. They're also far more common than the "home runs," meaning that by losing the "home runs," the publishers are only losing a small fraction of profitable authors.

>you're hoping for Dan Brown sized successes in a market that is tending towards more, not less, diversity.

The growing diversity will impact the volume of mid-list authors far more than chart-toppers. I see no sign that the human propensity for mass trends is diminishing, and those mass trends (and the mega-influential opinion-shapers who drive them) are what carry the top-selling authors to the top and keep them there.

>The point is that as an author you can charge a third or less of the price and get the same money because there are less middlemen. Since buyers will buy more of your books if they're cheaper you'd be crazy to charge the same price when you move to self-publishing.

Any given author can charge less and make more by self-publishing. If all authors were equally good, you might have a point here. However, a great author who has to pay middle-men (because they helped him become great, amongst other reasons) will still be able to charge a high enough price to make orders of magnitude more than lesser authors who self-publish.

That's fine, because what I'm saying is that the home runs will get to market fast and cheap so they're a very big competitive threat. Add to that a bunch of small niche authors that also have incredibly small cost structures and the decade long lead-time bets the publishers are now making are much riskier.

>The growing diversity will impact the volume of mid-list authors far more than chart-toppers. I see no sign that the human propensity for mass trends is diminishing, and those mass trends (and the mega-influential opinion-shapers who drive them) are what carry the top-selling authors to the top and keep them there.

I agree with this completely. I didn't mean to say that chart-toppers will cease to exist. What will happen though is that some of them will be self-published and more importantly the mid-list will probably be taken over by self-publishers. So as a publisher your portfolio now has a higher percentage of decade-long bets and they have to pan out for you to stay in business.

>However, a great author who has to pay middle-men (because they helped him become great, amongst other reasons) will still be able to charge a high enough price to make orders of magnitude more than lesser authors who self-publish.

So we do agree that prices will be pushed down? Cause for a publishing house that's monumental, their margins are pretty low as it is. Can we at least agree that self-publishing is a long-term threat for publishing houses? You don't think it will wipe them out, I think that at least the existing ones will get replaced by new firms that understand the new dynamics better.

Even among the sub-set of best-selling authors, first-time best-sellers are an extremely small minority. They simply won't represent a big enough chunk of the market to seriously threaten the traditional publishers.

>What will happen though is that some of them will be self-published and more importantly the mid-list will probably be taken over by self-publishers. So as a publisher your portfolio now has a higher percentage of decade-long bets and they have to pan out for you to stay in business.

Even if all first-time best-sellers go the self-publishing route, they are a small enough segment of best-sellers that their loss will not be crippling to traditional publishers. All but a very few mid-list authors also go through the same process of growing (except that they plateau before achieving best-seller status), so the traditional publishers won't lose many of them, either. Even if they did lose all of the mid-list authors, though, I don't think it would hurt the traditional publishers all that much because they don't really make much money from mid-list authors. Traditional publishing houses keep the mid-list authors onboard because they don't lose money, and because there is always a chance, however slim, that they might someday tranform into best-sellers. Limiting traditional publishers to nothing but decade-long bets won't really hurt them because that is already where all of their profits are concentrated. Mid-list authors are just a byproduct of a process designed to occasionally pop out a chart-topping superstar.

As self-publishing really takes hold, I think that the career path for a typical mid-list author will look something like this: Start out by selling a (mediocre, money-losing) first book to a traditional publisher. Show enough potential to get signed for a multi-book deal. Write enough books to fulfill the contract, never doing poorly enough to be cut loose early, but never making the best-seller list, either. After fulfilling the contract, transition to self-publishing. Losing a mid-list author to self-publishing won't really hurt the publishing company, but cutting out the middle-man will help the author immensely.

>So we do agree that prices will be pushed down?

Mean prices will almost certainly go down, but that doesn't mean that all prices will go down. I actually think that prices for best-sellers might very well go up: the center of the distribution will move towards lower prices, but the best-selling tail will stretch out far enough to more than make up for that shift.

>Can we at least agree that self-publishing is a long-term threat for publishing houses? You don't think it will wipe them out, I think that at least the existing ones will get replaced by new firms that understand the new dynamics better.

It depends on what you mean by "long-term threat." I agree that their profits will be reduced, but reduced profits are not inherently disruptive. Industries adapt to such changes all of the time, even ones that supposedly can't survive any further reduction in margins. Some of the traditional publishing companies will almost certainly fail to adapt and go out of business, but others will most likely adapt and survive, possibly even thrive in the new environment. The only thing that could completely destroy all of the traditional publishers would be if somebody else came along and provided the still-valuable service they currently provide, but more effectively and/or at lower cost.

I think that one possible business model would be incubator-style publishers: small teams of editors and marketers who "invest" in up-and-coming authors. A typical contract might be something along the lines of, "We will edit and market your first book. You will pay us x% of revenues from any book we edit and market for you. For the next n years, you will also pay us (x/2)% of revenues from any book we don't edit and market for you, unless you offered us the chance and we declined."