bookpublishing

Well it should have come as no surprise that our company was going to cut back on the types of books we publish. But I suppose I didn’t see it coming when one of my favorite genres would get cut: football books. You might wonder why… Football is an incredibly popular sport with hundreds of high-profile, intriguing stars to study. And I would argue that despite the brains vs. brawn argument one might make that it takes very little mental power to enjoy testosterone-crazed linebackers ram into each other play after play after play, football is actually a fairly complicated sport to fully understand (and don’t even get me started on fantasy football); why wouldn’t these fans enjoy books about their favorite sport? If they get the sport, they could easily handle a book about it, I say. I don’t actually think it’s the struggle of selling football books that is the problem. Football books are written by well-known sportswriters, coaches, players, hall-of-famers, commentators, and others in those related fields that require a hefty paycheck… and that’s the curse (or one of them…) of book publishing: the advance.

Most authors receive an advance of money when they sign a book deal and another advance of money when they finish a book; often authors receive yet another advance when they resolve the copyeditor’s queries. All that money is taken out of the author’s royalty payments, which means they won’t receive any more money until the advance is paid back in profits. Yet, it’s still money the publisher dishes out before any profit is made from the book. That is assuming that the book makes a profit at all. Sports authors tend to get deals including the highest advances and it’s getting harder and harder for publishers to accommodate those payments.

Part of the reason I applied for the position I have now officially begun is because I’d get to edit sports books. I’ve been lucky enough to edit three football books, one baseball book, and one memoir of a famous sportscaster. I’ve worked with some incredible (if high-maintenance) authors and learned a great deal from these projects. I don’t regret taking the new position–don’t get me wrong–because I’ve also been able to delve into other topics I had little experience with, like hiking, birding, and local interest. And not all the sports books have been canceled–it seems that baseball books are doing well enough to keep up with. Thank God because I’m lucky enough to be editing a book by the man who is practically the Red Sox’s mascot, Jerry Remy. But who knows what will happen in the future.

I’m wrapping up a beautiful and fantastically written biography about Vince Lombardi and waving off the last of my football books. I feel like I figured out my passion a few minutes too late and can only hope to get another opportunity to pursue it again in the future.

I found an interesting blog post about what e-tailers are missing in their efforts in e-Publishing. I think it’s excellent that this blogger, Jane over at dearauthor.com, has collected these issues together in a well-formed and easy-to-understand post about a difficult-to-maneuver retailing trend. Many people are hesitant about diving into the world of e-books, and for the reasons listed in Jane’s post, their hesitancy makes sense. But if e-tailers could address these problems, I think they could see an influx of customers.

Here are a few highlights:

Mass Downloads. Along with the eternal bookshelf should be the ability to re-download all of your books. This is necessary in the case of a computer crash or some other computer related malfuction. to Fictionwise is the only etailer/epublisher I know of that offers this.

If only iTunes would do this for music!

Buy a for a friend. The only site that offers this feature is Fictionwise. Amazon does not even offer this for Kindle which makes no sense. When a reader wants to buy a book for a friend, she wants to buy a specific book. She doesn’t want to send a generic gift certificate and hope her friend uses it for said book. I was quite shocked when I went to buy Kristan Higgins’ Just One of the Guys for a couple of friends of mine who had a Kindle and found that there was no option to do such a thing. It would seem perfectly suited to the Kindle’s internet connectivity to allow people to purchase books for others that would magically appear on the Kindle. Wouldn’t it? Harlequin also doesn’t have this feature. Ditto for Samhain Publishing or BooksonBoard, the other epublishers/etailers I visit.

I would be surprised if this didn’t catch on soon, especially with Amazon.

Paypal. I think every online merchant should allow consumers to pay via paypal. I find this particularly comforting if I am buying from a new vendor whose reputation I don’t really trust. I know that they’ll have very little information about me and that’s how I would like it to be. Additionally, paying with paypal is often so much easier because I need not fill in a dozen fields along with a credit card number that I don’t recall off the top of my head.

Paypal is also a good option for people like me who do freelance work that is paid via PayPal. Instead of depositing my money, I could use it toward buying books. Not a bad investment, right? Easy to keep track of how much I’m spending as well.

Multiple formats. All books should be sold in all formats at the same time. I have no small irritation with those books that are available in only one format on one site and still another on another site. I.e., why doesn’t Harlequin offer ereader format at its site, but you can buy the same books in ereader at Fictionwise. Or some books are offered in Amazon’s Kindle format earlier than others. I am finding that with Simon & Schuster releases. It is very frustrating.

I would be surprised if this ever happened. It doesn’t make sense from a marketing perspective. However, people are tech savvy and will find ways around it. Some smart hacker will write code to convert one format to another (in fact, I’m told there is a converter out there). Since all books are sent to e-tailers as PDFs, it would be simpler for all books to remain PDFs and all readers to read PDFs, but again, not market-smart.

The rest of the post can be found here.

I think the e-book industry is getting there… but they do have to fill these holes to appeal to the paperback crowd.

Borders appears to be coming to a dramatic final stand. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Borders Group Inc. has only five more days to announce a deal to sell itself before it must give its largest investor a large block of warrants that could further bolster his control of the nation’s second-largest book retailer by sales.

Under the terms of a deal struck earlier this year, the Ann Arbor, Mich., company will have to grant Pershing Square Capital Management LP 5.15 million warrants to purchase company common stock at $7 per share on Oct. 1 unless it strikes a deal to sell itself before that date.

We’ve been wondering around here lately if Borders was actually doing a little better. They’ve been making some large orders on some books while passing altogether on others. If they sell, I sure am curious to see who will buy!

In other news, Virgin Comics is taking a new name: Liquid Comics. All previous deals will remain in number although dates will likely change, dates TBA. Other news on the comics front is DC Comics shutting down Minx, a line of graphic novels targeting teen girls. Lots of shaking around over there!

I’m really interested in the way book publishing is discussed on Fox’s hit show “Bones”, in which the main character, Temperance Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist and bestselling author. In last night’s episode, the murder victim was also a bestselling author, but the publisher decided to replace the author’s photo and bio with a more attractive stand-in. The “imposter” turned out to be not a bad writer either and ended up replacing the original author while maintaining the pseudonym (also the real name of the original author). It made me curious about how often this is really done in publishing–to the best of my knowledge, my company has never done something like that and it seems fairly ludicrous to think it would. But obviously some publishers do. How much do you think the author’s attractiveness actually affects the reader? Typically I don’t even know what an author looks like until I finish the book and catch a glimpse of their photo and bio on the last page. In my opinion, that’s pretty much ideal.

What was also interesting on Bones was their interview with the character who played the murder victim’s book publisher. He was a total jerk! And totally not what I expected as a character to fill that role. It bothered me a bit because he came off as a self-important, profit-seeking loser who didn’t care at all about his authors. But Booth later insulted him and made it clear to Brennan that this guy wasn’t a good example of the publishing industry and that it shouldn’t have an effect on how she felt about her own writing. The show has had other characters to play publishing professionals who I’ve enjoyed… this one, not so much. But at least they acknowledged that he stood out in the industry… as a dirtbag.

Just gotta keep reminding myself the show is fictional. Right.

One of my favorite times during the week is the part of our department meeting when the publisher announces any books that are raking in high Bookscan numbers that week. Nielson Bookscan is a data provider for the book publishing industry that tracks point of sale data. Every week the publisher keeps track of the sales figures for our books and also where the books are selling well and announces any that have large orders (generally for us that means over 100 per week). He mentioned two of my books this week! One had well over 200 orders and the other was near 150. I was really pumped! Because my books are only just starting to track, it’s one of the first times I’ve heard them brought up. The over 200 one was not a big surprise because it’s a celebrity author and a very good book. The 150 one was a surprise because it’s an historical sports book that wouldn’t necessarily appeal to just any sports fan, so I was certainly pleased to hear that! Here’s to many more!!