Traditional Vs. E-Publishing by Author Thomas Brookside
Thomas Brookside is a popular novelist with two books currently available on Amazon. He is the author of The Last Days of Jericho and De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica. Brookside writes horror, and he has self-published two of his books to rave reviews. Currently, De Bello Lemures (a popular horror novel in the zombies genre) has a whopping sixteen positive reviews. Brookside makes all his books available on the Kindle and also in paperback. He has his own blog, Annotated Horror. He also regularly contributes on other popular blogs. Brookside has some pretty strong opinions about self-publishing and the future publishing in general. Here's one of his recent and excellently worded responses to a recent argument about Traditional Vs. Self-publishing:
If only 1 in 1000 [or less] of people who try to get published traditionally actually gets published, it is absurd to say something like "The vast majority of authors make way more money with a print deal." When the vast, vast, vast majority of people who attempt to make money at something make $0, anything that lets them make $1 is automatically the better deal.
This is basic game theory, and it applies to publishing as much as it applies to anything else.
Right now there is an "installed base" of published authors, many of whom will continue to make more money from print than from ebooks for a good while yet. But they are not relevant to the ultimate outcome. Attempting to analyze the situation from their perspective makes about as much sense as analyzing the sensibility of spending money on lottery tickets by interviewing lottery winners. "Lottery A Great Investment, Say Megabucks Winners!" reads the headline. Except it's a headline from the Onion.
The publishers' real problem will be generational. They have set up their business in a way that requires new authors to ritually humiliate themselves and make $0 for months or years while agents and publishers decide whether or not they've paid enough "dues". It will become progressively hard to get people to voluntarily submit to that process when there's an alternative available that offers readers and cash on the barrel within days to anyone who signs up.
To be a better deal for anyone not currently published, traditional publishing would have to pay not just "more" than self-publishing, but a multiple of what one can expect to make from self-publishing - and that multiple is equal to the odds against actually getting published the traditional way. If those odds are 1000 to 1, you'd have to make 1000 times as much by going the traditional route as you'd make doing it yourself for it to be a good investment of your time. And traditional authors just don't make 1000 times what even a no talent two bit hack schmuck like me makes. Not unless they're Stephen King.
If only 1 in 1000 [or less] of people who try to get published traditionally actually gets published, it is absurd to say something like "The vast majority of authors make way more money with a print deal." When the vast, vast, vast majority of people who attempt to make money at something make $0, anything that lets them make $1 is automatically the better deal.
This is basic game theory, and it applies to publishing as much as it applies to anything else.
Right now there is an "installed base" of published authors, many of whom will continue to make more money from print than from ebooks for a good while yet. But they are not relevant to the ultimate outcome. Attempting to analyze the situation from their perspective makes about as much sense as analyzing the sensibility of spending money on lottery tickets by interviewing lottery winners. "Lottery A Great Investment, Say Megabucks Winners!" reads the headline. Except it's a headline from the Onion.
The publishers' real problem will be generational. They have set up their business in a way that requires new authors to ritually humiliate themselves and make $0 for months or years while agents and publishers decide whether or not they've paid enough "dues". It will become progressively hard to get people to voluntarily submit to that process when there's an alternative available that offers readers and cash on the barrel within days to anyone who signs up.
To be a better deal for anyone not currently published, traditional publishing would have to pay not just "more" than self-publishing, but a multiple of what one can expect to make from self-publishing - and that multiple is equal to the odds against actually getting published the traditional way. If those odds are 1000 to 1, you'd have to make 1000 times as much by going the traditional route as you'd make doing it yourself for it to be a good investment of your time. And traditional authors just don't make 1000 times what even a no talent two bit hack schmuck like me makes. Not unless they're Stephen King.
