Has 'Silicon Valley-style Startup Disruption' Arrived for Book Publishing? (thebaffler.com) 37
The Baffler says a new publishing house launched earlier this month "brings Silicon Valley-style startup disruption to the business of books."
Authors Equity has "a tiny core staff, offloading its labor to a network of freelancers," and like a handful of other publishers "is upending the way that authors get paid, eschewing advances and offering a higher percentage of profits instead." It is worth watching because its team includes several of the most important publishing people of the twenty-first century. And if it works, it will offer a model for tightening the connection between book culture and capitalism, a leap forward for the forces of efficiency and the fantasies of frictionless markets, ushering in a world where literature succeeds if and only if it sells....
Authors Equity's website presents its vision in strikingly neoliberal corporatespeak. The company has four Core Principles: Aligned Incentives; Bespoke Teams; Flexibility and Transparency; and Long-Term Collaboration. What do they mean by these MBA keywords? Aligned Incentives is explained in the language of human capital: "Our profit-share model rewards authors who want to bet on themselves." Authors, that is, take on more of the financial risk of publication. At a traditional publishing house, advances provide authors with guaranteed cash early in the process that they can use to live off while writing. With Authors Equity, nothing is guaranteed and nothing given ahead of time; an author's pay depends on their book's profits.
In an added twist, "Profit participation is also an option for key members of the book team, so we're in a position to win together." Typically, only an author's agent's income is directly tied to an author's financial success, but at Authors Equity, others could have a stake. This has huge consequences for the logic of literary production. If an editor, for example, receives a salary and not a cut of their books' profits, their incentives are less immediately about profit, offering more wiggle room for aesthetic value. The more the people working on books participate in their profits, the more, structurally, profit-seeking will shape what books look like.
"Bespoke Teams" is a euphemism for gigification. With a tiny initial staff of six, Authors Equity uses freelance workers to make books, unlike traditional publishers, which have many employees in many departments... Their fourth Core Principle — Long-Term Collaboration — addresses widespread frustration with a systemic problem in traditional publishing: the fetishization of debut authors who receive decent or better advances, fail to earn out, and then struggle to have a career. It's a real problem and one where authors' interests and capitalist rationalization are, as it were, aligned. Authors Equity sees that everyone might profit when an author can build a readership and develop their skill.
The article concludes with this prediction. "It's not impossible that we'll look back in twenty years and see its founding as auguring the beginning of the startup age in publishing."
Food for thought... Pulp-fiction mystery writer Mickey Spillane once said, "I'm a writer, not an author. The difference is, a writer makes money."
Authors Equity has "a tiny core staff, offloading its labor to a network of freelancers," and like a handful of other publishers "is upending the way that authors get paid, eschewing advances and offering a higher percentage of profits instead." It is worth watching because its team includes several of the most important publishing people of the twenty-first century. And if it works, it will offer a model for tightening the connection between book culture and capitalism, a leap forward for the forces of efficiency and the fantasies of frictionless markets, ushering in a world where literature succeeds if and only if it sells....
Authors Equity's website presents its vision in strikingly neoliberal corporatespeak. The company has four Core Principles: Aligned Incentives; Bespoke Teams; Flexibility and Transparency; and Long-Term Collaboration. What do they mean by these MBA keywords? Aligned Incentives is explained in the language of human capital: "Our profit-share model rewards authors who want to bet on themselves." Authors, that is, take on more of the financial risk of publication. At a traditional publishing house, advances provide authors with guaranteed cash early in the process that they can use to live off while writing. With Authors Equity, nothing is guaranteed and nothing given ahead of time; an author's pay depends on their book's profits.
In an added twist, "Profit participation is also an option for key members of the book team, so we're in a position to win together." Typically, only an author's agent's income is directly tied to an author's financial success, but at Authors Equity, others could have a stake. This has huge consequences for the logic of literary production. If an editor, for example, receives a salary and not a cut of their books' profits, their incentives are less immediately about profit, offering more wiggle room for aesthetic value. The more the people working on books participate in their profits, the more, structurally, profit-seeking will shape what books look like.
"Bespoke Teams" is a euphemism for gigification. With a tiny initial staff of six, Authors Equity uses freelance workers to make books, unlike traditional publishers, which have many employees in many departments... Their fourth Core Principle — Long-Term Collaboration — addresses widespread frustration with a systemic problem in traditional publishing: the fetishization of debut authors who receive decent or better advances, fail to earn out, and then struggle to have a career. It's a real problem and one where authors' interests and capitalist rationalization are, as it were, aligned. Authors Equity sees that everyone might profit when an author can build a readership and develop their skill.
The article concludes with this prediction. "It's not impossible that we'll look back in twenty years and see its founding as auguring the beginning of the startup age in publishing."
Food for thought... Pulp-fiction mystery writer Mickey Spillane once said, "I'm a writer, not an author. The difference is, a writer makes money."
adverbs (Score:1)
Re:adverbs (Score:4, Insightful)
AI mechanical Turks
That an oxymoron. The whole point of the Mechanical Turk was it was meant to be an AI but actually had a human hidden inside and didnt't do anything automatically.
Books? (Score:2)
Books have been disrupted a long time ago. Sure, they still exist. But if you have some used books, good luck getting rid of them. Nobody wants them. The "half price" bookstores are gone. Even the full-price stores are going the way of Macy's.
This article might as well talk about a Silicon Valley-style disruption of pay phones.
Re:Books? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, retail has long ago been destroyed by Amazon, but people still consume books. This is talking about the publishing side of it. Many authors are still beholden to publishers, who will take care of a lot of the crap that would normally be distracting to an author... like editing, layout, marketing, promotion, providing advance payment and making sure the book actually gets written, etc.
Amazon has already "disrupted" this area of the business through their self-publishing program, although you can often easily tell a "self-published" book from a "real" book based on how many typos it has, awful or inconsistent font choice, poor layout, terrible cover art, meandering writing that is in dire need of editing, etc. I once purchased a self-published children's book that was typeset entirely in the Microsoft Jokerman font, I kid you not.
A real publisher can do a lot for an author, but often it's far too expensive for niche genres or unknown writers. There's a real need for a low-budget publisher who can help these independent writers, since a lot of their works could be improved dramatically by simple proofreading and advice on a few design choices, so this might actually be a good thing. Until it gets bought by one of the big publishing houses, that is... which I'm sure is this company's real goal.
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I give up, WTF are you even on this site? Nerds are, by definition, literate. Every one I know has tons of *physical* books, not just ebooks... and I'd guess you have zero ebooks.
What's old is new again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Have they not heard of the existing print on demand book services? This summary would have you believe they are the first to the market...
Why do they think most established publishers started offering advances to authors??
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Self publishing used to be for vanity projects, but now some authors are making a living from it. Chuck Tingle is a good example, having built up a brand entirely from self published works with covers made from stock images. His books are actually good of course, there has to be real talent there.
These guys seem to be trying to find a half-way house, where they act as publishers but give authors much of the freedom and better returns that come from self publishing.
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Kinda. It more seems that they're trying to "disrupt" publishing by not paying anyone properly.
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Yeah...,PoDS had bupkis to do with that. Author advances have been a thing going on 50+ years. Advances are either a gamble on the author's future content or in the case of many a (auto)biography a political payoff.
Saying your the disruptor - collect VC cash- IPO (Score:2)
and make a run for it.
Get rich or die trying.
Maybe you get lucky this time.
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What do they mean by these MBA keywords? Aligned Incentives is explained in the language of human capital:
Yeah, they're pretty obviously fishing for VC money, and once it's in hand they'll bail.
ChatGPT writes all my books now (Score:2)
Not sure whether they are fact or fiction though.
Which will win? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm curious whether the assumption is just that people who aren't the author are fungible cogs to be picked up and discarded with as much 'agility' as possible; or if they believe that first-time authors getting decent sized advances is an inefficiency and they seek to rectify that by ensuring that authors who don't sell can be discarded at minimal cost; just with a less-depressing focus on the part where authors who do sell do get paid.
Lulu (Score:2)
Lulu.com has been around since 2002. You can get a black and white book of reasonable length with a full color cover printed for under $4. And they can do additional work so your book can be sold directly on Amazon.
This isn't dealing with the publishing side. It's dealing entirely with the teams of people used to write some books and how to manage profit sharing.
If you can write your own books and have your own audience, this isn't for you. If you need 20 people to write a book, this might be for you.
Le
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Less than 1000 individual fiction authors in the United States make a living at it.
Got a citation? I'm not saying this is wrong or anything; I'm genuinely curious.
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That cite is accurate, directly from Jeff Bezos' letter to shareholders in 2018.
Only 1000 KDP authors make more than six figures. That's not even enough people to fill my high school gym.
Re: Lulu (Score:2)
"makes six figures" is very different from "makes a living". Assuming a bell like distribution similar to other careers, you can expect at least 10x that making a living at $50k and even more making a living at $35k.
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There are plenty enough of us (I make a living writing fiction) here and there and all over—many of which don't suck Mr. Bezos off—that I wouldn't bother citing his company's results at all.
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11,000 people making just enough to afford groceries is not a healthy market. The fact that Amazon has undoubtedly sold tens of millions of Kindles and installed apps on hundreds of millions of mobile devices makes those numbers even more pathetic.
The average person wouldn't know a successful indie author if one fell through the ceiling. Hell, the average person couldn't name five authors if they were offered a new car to do it.
Again, if there were such a thing as AI, the book market could be multiplied by
Re: Lulu (Score:2)
Even if this 11k was the tally for all authors (which it most definitely is not), why is that not "healthy"
There are fewer than 11k football players who can make a living. Most people see the NFL as a healthy market. Why do you think authors aren't subject to the same market dynamics? They have the same unlimited cap in income. The same demand for only the best of the best.
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11k is your number.
The market for professional football is microscopic compared to the market for the printed page. The latter predates the former by about 400 years. There are 125,000 libraries and 75,000 schools in the United States. How many football fields are there?
The notion that only a thousand people can make six figures or more writing fiction is absurd, especially considering they are all allegedly backed by a multi-trillion dollar company and a worldwide electronic network that can deliver a book
The Elephant in the room... (Score:2)
Save Yourself the Expense (Score:3)
The publishing industry was shoved in a bag, tied off and thrown in the river 15 years ago. There is no market for books any more. Half the adults in America can't read. Kids don't read unless forced. Amazon walled off the publishing industry and smothered it with a pillow.
Notice there isn't a word, not one word in this about actually marketing anything. The whole thing is about dividing the microscopic smear of money that might accidentally get made if some very special person actually takes any of this seriously.
Imagine a fifty dollar bill taped to a wooden door in a place where the stench of cheap filth will linger forever.
There's no money up front. It's all back end. In the video game business we call this a "rev-share" project. That's where we invest 30,000 man-hours in a "game" that will never see the light of day and get nothing in exchange.
Note their CEO helped launch the Kindle. Now all of a sudden she's got all these great ideas about publishing. Imagine a mountain of bullshit that would blot out the sun. That should serve as a fine metaphor. The other clowns are some guy from Random House and some other guy from Random House. That'll light up the scoreboard won't it?
Hey, Harvard people? I have news for you. Authors would make more money panhandling.
This is nothing more than one final attempt to loot a dead body before it is rolled into its grave.
If they make it to summer I'll eat my hat.
Re: Save Yourself the Expense (Score:2)
The market for books is bigger than ever. But the barrier to entry getting published is lower than ever, so you're bumping up against more competition.
Check your facts (Score:2)
Growing book sales is what the statistics show
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
Yes most of the population doesn't read. This is not a new situation, Getting kids to read is problematic - but if it can be achieved, it's great for everyone.
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That chart shows flat sales. 2024 is almost exactly the same as 2004. That's appalling considering the events which took place in the interim. You had the rise of ebooks, the rise of e-readers, the rise of social media, the last two Harry Potter books, ten billion dollars worth of Harry Potter movies. Billions of dollars worth of Marvel movies. On and on and on.
Nobody managed to capitalize. Not Apple. Not Google. Not Amazon. Not Disney. Not Scholastic.
There's a Harry Potter theme park. You know, the most p
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Note - just printed books...
To the extent the ebooks of every format need to be added to the picture, the overall trend of reading appears to be upwards.
Sales gibberish (Score:2)
Anyone know how this is an improvement on self publishing? That being an industry that has been widely available for many years...
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They're just fishing for some VC money, that's what all the "MBA keywords" are for. They're industry insiders so they'll get some, then sell out to a major publisher and pocket it all.
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These jokers can't wait to squeeze small writers and turn the self publishing industry into an as-a-service money printing machine.They'll extract wealth out of the bottom tier, just like they did with ride sharing industry.
Race to the bottom (Score:2)
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All words are made up. But I agree the tech bro sales pitch vocabulary is especially stupid sounding and we as a society shouldn't promote it.
So, everyone is worse off? (Score:2)
Because that has been silicon-valley-style distruption for the past 20 years. Everyone works harder for less money, everyone loses, except for one VC person who somehow manages to make a few billion dollars off something that never makes a profit.
So let's ask the real questions (Score:2)
Speaking as a published writer... what are they offering that, say, Amazon doesn't? Are they going to provide copy editing, and covers, etc, the way my publisher, a small press, does - just like every other small press?
Who's going to pay for the "freelancers" - them, or the writer? In the latter case, there is *nothing* new about a vanity press... or a scam. Money should *always* flow to the writer, never the other way.