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Rebecca:
Because of marketing, authors within the big publishing houses are often
left out of the design process; do you think this is a good idea?
Holly:
I will do my utmost to keep this brief because it is a potentially enormous
subject for writers and self-publishers and a question I have given a
lot of hours to sorting out in my own mind. Here we go:
The
major houses are book factories. They have honed their
methods, their design standards, their marketing plan and their preferred
public presence to a formula that works for them. They take very few chances,
particularly nowadays when times are getting harder for everyone. When
they do take a chance with design it is most often simply to appear to
have an edge over the other houses, to appear to be bold. The
thing to remember is that in the vast majority of cases it is only the
thinnest veneer of innovation present.
The
major houses are firmly entrenched in the idea that they are right
at all times, in all ways, about every aspect of publishing
and are reluctant to the point of complete immobility to consult the aesthetic
desires of the author. When you invest in a print run of 30,000 units,
trucking them hither and yon, sending company reps on the company dime
to negotiate (bribe) the finer points like table and window placement
in the brick and mortar stores you really don't want to get jiggy with
The Formula by consulting the lowly author about much of anything.
When
you factor in that the usual first-time author has a success arc of only
three months - think of that, three months - and that you can
expect to recoup only a fraction of what you have spent on producing,
storing, transporting and placing the title it makes you very reluctant
to take any chances.
So
with a sales rate like this, how do these big houses stay in business?
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The answer is by wining and dining the one or two celebrity names they
can nab for a tell-all or by regurgitating a previously proven concept,
something along the lines of The Secret Rules of Harry Da Vinci's
Prophecy Code The Next Generation.
As
POD authors this could be a reason to celebrate. By educating ourselves
we can establish and maintain complete control over our own projects,
from writing to layout to cover design.
I
can imagine a day when POD will be the norm, when you can go into a brick
and mortar store, browse shelves full of books to select what you want,
walk up to the counter with the store copies, hand them over to the counterperson
who scans in the ISBN's and at that moment a large press in the basement
will whir into life and print the books on the spot for you to pay for
and take home. Still warm from the press. Like fresh-baked bread.
The
present system of cutting down a forest of trees, trucking the logs to
the paper mill, trucking the paper to the printers, trucking the bound
books to the distributor and trucking them again to all the bookstores
in the world is unsustainable in terms of oil and energy resources. It
doesn't end there, either. After the magic three-month arc, two-thirds
of the books are remaindered. Pulped, to make room on the shelves and
tables for the next belle-of-the-ball coming off the conveyor belt.
It
is all just fantastically wasteful, as well as making the author feel
like just another commodity. Just another day in the life of a big corporation.
Next.
When
I call them book factories...in the past ten years the major publishers
have had to cut costs and cut costs time after time to survive. Can you
guess where they cut these costs? Editing staff. Really. They seemed to
feel editing staff were more expendable than the suits who negotiate the
placement deals with the bookstores.
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Editing
staff are probably the only department in the big house who actually care
about the project they are working on, namely, your book.
They - if they are any good at all at their job - are the only people
in the entire publishing firm who have an intimate relationship with your
creation and who care about doing their best to refine, shape and polish
your manuscript until it glitters. And the big houses think these people
are more expendable than the bean counters, vice presidents and company
reps.
So
in answer to your question, authors within the big
publishing houses are often left out of the design process; do you think
this is a good idea? I would have to say that they think it's a
good idea for them, even though they are steadily losing money as a business.
Their bottom line has always been profit first. To this end, they have
streamlined their methods as any factory would do. Like McDonalds. Like
Budweiser. Like Toyota.
As
independent artists determined to express ourselves in the fullest sense
with our creation, we now have a choice if we are willing to learn the
business. Our achilles heel has always been marketing, but this is changing
month by month.
This
might make you feel better: the success arc for an author in trad pub
is three months nowadays. For the POD author it could take three months
just to get rolling, but you can maintain your success arc much longer
through steady effort and imaginative marketing.
I
would urge anyone to
take their own power. Maintain full control of their own project. Educate
themselves. If you are reading this now then you have Internet access.
Use it. There is a wealth of infomation and inspiration when you know
where to look.
And remember, there's a reason it's never crowded on the leading edge. |
