Received: from mail-3-165.rch001.net ([52.124.3.165]:40395) by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with esmtps (TLSv1.2:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1h9Wc4-0003lr-Mr for Lojban@lojban.org; Thu, 28 Mar 2019 08:06:45 -0700 From: "Martin Foner" To: "Lojban@lojban.org" Reply-To: Subject: Publishing Newsletter ... Feature: The Impact of Printer Closings & Consolidations X-BPS1: 7063509 Feedback-ID: 2285357:e3f358ff3e2f409298df36d6dac03a14:marketing:reachmail X-BPS2: 73291 Message-ID: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click X-Mailer: RM Mailer (v5.4.960.0) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=-+0oxc55x5d25wMdU4vuEFQ==" Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 10:06:40 -0500 X-Spam-Score: 0.1 (/) X-Spam_score: 0.1 X-Spam_score_int: 1 X-Spam_bar: / X-Spam-Report: Spam detection software, running on the system "stodi.digitalkingdom.org", has NOT identified this incoming email as spam. The original message has been attached to this so you can view it or label similar future email. If you have any questions, see the administrator of that system for details. Content preview: Having trouble viewing this mail? Click here to view it in your browser. http://link.rm0004.net/v/R0WNvuGMEbQuEa8mfV-gdw2 Make sure that you always get our messages: Add martin@ppgcpublishers.com to your contacts. 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Click here to view it in your browse= r. http://link.rm0004.net/v/R0WNvuGMEbQuEa8mfV-gdw2 Make sure that you always get our messages: Add martin@ppgcpublishers.= com to your contacts. Click here to unsubscribe or update your email address. http://link.rm0004.net/subscription/?t=3DR0WNvuGMEbQuEa8mfV-gdw2 Martin Foner's Publishing Newsletter Volume 24, Number 8 Because You're Serious About Publishing Success... OR You're Not Keeping Publishers in Business Since 1995 Hello, Everyone... Well, the first quarter is drawing to a close. Printers are going bankrupt, merging, and disappearing. Literary authors are complaining their incomes have fallen four years = in a row. Having controversial authors can be a great PR hook, but sometimes the= ir controversy pulls the publisher into a very bad place. Governments are making copyright decisions for publishers...some good,= some bad, but all have to be honored. Piracy, ebook sharing, Kindle questionable reporting, fear of Amazon..= . So, with all of this as background, is there any way to save our indus= try? PRINTERS GOING UNDER, BEING SOLD OFF, COMBINING... IS THIS SOMETHING W= E SMALL & MID SIZED PUBLISHERS NEED TO BE WORRIED ABOUT...AND WHY? I got a notice in my Inbox just this morning that Thomson-Shore, who i= s in Chapter 11, is going to be sold to CJK Group as they exit bankrup= tcy. As you know, I put up a warning to all my readers many months ago= that, despite their protestations to the contrary, things were not ri= ght at Thomson. Turns out they just filed Chapter 11 this week... thin= gs weren't right. I am familiar with some of the companies that are part of the CJK Grou= p and have used one of them now since the mid 1980s, though, not latel= y since their pricing has not been in line with competitive companies. And this is one of my reasons for writing this now. Competition as we have known it in printing... is slowly, or rapidly, = depending on your perspective, disappearing. The two largest book and magazine printers in the U.S. recently announ= ced a merger. This set off a firestorm of attention from the larger pu= blishers who used one or the other for longer print runs. They were af= raid to challenge the printers on their own, for business reasons, so = two author groups have wanted the government to oppose the merger on a= nti-trust grounds saying that it would leave only one company to print= longer runs of books and magazines, controlling the market. See: http= ://link.rm0004.net/go/R0WNvsebD21aobYaKJEQpQ2/ http://link.rm0004.net/= go/R0WNvsebD21aobYaKJEQpQ2/ . And for those of us in the 'short run' world... 500 to 10,000 copy run= s... Edwards got into trouble and combined with Malloy... that lasted = a year maybe two... and they simply closed up shop. Now, Thomson is go= ne, though they say they are going to be a separate company within CJK= ... I wouldn't believe they will be doing separate and competitive pri= cing. That model wasn't very successful recently. I won't go into saying, 'going back 20 years, here is a list of all th= e short run people who have gone out of business', but it is a decent = sized list. So, what is going on, how did it happen, and what does it = mean for small and mid sized publishers? What is going and how it happened is three fold: first, is a move away= from physical books to ebooks. In the more 'commercial' book markets,= a decent percentage (18-21% if current estimates are accurate) of phy= sical sales now are ebook sales, reducing print runs. Second is the emergence of digital printing. If you can print 250 book= s for not a great deal more, per copy, than 1,000 books, why not? Back= in the mid to late 1980s, we had to print 5,000 copies of anything to= get what we felt was a decent price. Now, we can get that same price = if we print 500 copies. Competition is great, until it eventually eats= all the competitors but the largest who can play on very, very thin m= argins. Third is the advent of POD along the same lines. Why print even 500 co= pies of a book if you can print 50 at a time for a bit more per copy a= nd have virtually zero invested in inventory and the trade off is only= a smaller margin? When you are experimenting, as most self publishers= are, this makes sense. If you are a real publisher and expect to actu= ally sell books, this is a self defeating computation and explains oft= en why smaller publishers aren't profitable. They sell plenty of books= but make almost nothing on each one. I see this almost weekly in my consulting work. "We're selling plenty = of books," they say, "but we're losing money." Let me relate one personal story to make a major point that still appl= ies in publishing no matter the year 1990 or 2020. We did a series of = 48 page 'booklets', 5.5 x 8.5, with nice full color, 12 pt, covers. In= 5,000 and even 10,000 runs they were costing us $1.50 delivered to ou= r warehouse. We were very successful in Bulk Sales and sold the variou= s titles in the series for $5.95 each and on down to $1.95 for 1,000 u= nit purchase. But I wanted to do more. I KNEW if I could reduce my printing cost I c= ould sell at full pallet levels (5,000 units) to some customers if the= price was right. SO I did my homework and discovered if I printed 100= ,000 units at a time, I could get a delivered price of $.30 per copy. = Yes... Thirty cents! Well, damn, if I could do that, I could offer to = sell 5,000 units, a full pallet, for $1 each and STILL make more on th= at than I was making selling 1,000 units at $1.95 each... and I was se= lling 5,000 at a time. We netted $3,500 per pallet sale and made plent= y of those sales because customers could get a $5.95 book for only a d= ollar! (Our pitch was, buy 2,500 at $1.95 price and we'll give you 2,5= 00 copies FREE!) What's my point? I haven't met a publisher in many years who looks at = his/her markets this way and says, hey, I can make oodles more money i= f I do a longer run and add $1 per unit to my profit margin on 20,000 = or 50,000 books. If they did, they would be making that extra $20,000 = or $50,000 and wouldn't be in such deep shit all the time. No, not on = every title, that is nuts, agreed... but there are titles, and we know= which ones they will be, where this is not beyond reality, and once t= he selling starts... it confirms our judgment. The first impact of this new printing era is going to be less options = for us to have competitive pricing. When the short run people competed= with each other it kept prices down for all of us Now, that is going = to disappear, as it has been for the last few years. The second impact is obviously that costs going up means retail pricin= g is going to have to go up with them. Now, I have always been a propo= nent of higher pricing for books than most publishers. Your $14.95 is = my $19.95. And in many cases your $19.95 is my $24.95. (And, FYI, when= ever I see $12.95 or $16.95 on a book, I know I am dealing with a rank= amateur in marketing.) So, we will start hearing the crying soon abou= t how expensive we have to make books to print them...and more and mor= e migration to ebooks. God forbid. Somehow the concept of taking your = $8.00 margin and turning it into a $3.50 margin sounding normal is far= beyond my ability to do the new math. So, plan NOW to raise prices on= your books... I am sure I had an article recently about how raising p= rices actually raises your margins, so for those of you who listened, = good...if not, now is a good time to start listening before your book = printing goes up 20% and you have to react instead of being proactive. The third impact, thus, is going to be more ebooks and less physical b= ooks which is going to drive down the overall margins for publishers, = making a bad situation worse. There are more impacts on us but I will advise that one, running out o= f the country to print, has serious pitfalls...and I will cover them s= eparately in the next issue since this article has gone on long enough= . Final piece of advice for now, that I will also explain in the next is= sue... Find a decent printer who can handle 90% of your printing requi= rements at pricing that is 90% competitive and they are 90% responsive= . Better to be 90% happy than constantly in turmoil about your printin= g needs. LITERARY AUTHORS' INCOME HAS FALLEN SUBSTANTIALLY IN=C2=A0THE LAST FIV= E YEARS TO A CURRENT LOW OF $6,000+/- So, what exactly does this mean for publishers? A few things we can ex= trapolate and watch for in our own companies. If you look at the earni= ngs of some of the major players as reported, they seem to be fine. Th= us, it might appear that just "literary" publishers are having a hard = time selling books and thus their authors are earning less and less ea= ch year. SO, if you are in the literary genre, you might want to take = heed of these changes. This also speaks to the fact we have lost many of our more famous 'nam= es' who draw large audiences. The Pattersons, Steeles, Wolfes, and oth= ers...are just gone. And gone with them is the pull they had on the ma= rket. One thing we don't know about the current surveys is if they surveyed = self published authors as well. If that is the case, we have our answe= r, so I am going to guess they didn't do that. Even surveyors know sel= f publishing is for the most part a losing proposition. This also seems to indicate that some other genres of publishing are d= oing very well, if overall the companies are doing well but literary i= sn't a good category. My first guess would be non fiction, political, = do it yourself, true crime, self improvement, and related categories a= re doing gangbusters. If you look at the list of top sellers, by dolla= rs, for 2018, I am going to risk saying Michelle Obama's books is #1, = Michael Wolfe's narrative of the White House is on the list... a few b= ooks about losing the world to Russia are on the list. Turmoil in the = White House looked like a strong category in 2018. Literary? Not so much. When was the last time you heard about a new li= terary giant? Or even an old one with a new title? The author income c= ould also be down because productivity and production of new titles in= that genre is down. Audiobooks up again over 30%...but ebooks are flat to slightly down fo= r 2018. Moral of this whole story: Stay on top of the trends in your industry. Watch what is going up and= down. Make sure you aren't caught in a down draft of categories and n= iches that are going out of favor. Also, don't give in to authors or the Guild screaming that authors hav= e to have more of the pie. I have already covered that non-issue many = times for you. Authors get their share of the pie and they can help to= create more pie by going out and helping the marketing efforts. Let's= look at their demands another way and move on. So, their books are le= ss and less popular, so you, the publisher, have to make up for their = lack of excitement to excite their audiences by paying them more money= for less sales? Really? One other point. A paperback book at $19.95 is far different than an e= book at $4.99. 10% of $20 is $2. 20% of $5 is $1. See a pattern here? Let publishers stick to being profitable and selling books and likely = good things will happen for the underlying authors too! DID YOU KNOW THAT ALICE WALKER, AUTHOR OF COLOR PURPLE FAME IS A VIRULENT ANTI-SEMITE? I DIDN'T BUT I DO NOW. AND WHY DOES THAT MATTER TO ME AS A PUBLISHER? It simply brings up an old adage about knowing your authors. We are so= busy these days soliciting good works, or reading what comes in over = the transom, we often forget to do deep... very deep... background che= cks on potential authors. But, you reply, I would be honored to have Alice Walker as one of my a= uthors. She would add prestige to my list and profits to my bottom lin= e. So would Harvey Weinstein at one point, or even Bill Cosby... but n= ow, these names are toxic. You run so many risks with someone who offe= nds an entire ethnic group, including boycotts, and worse. You don't n= eed issues on top of the day to day of making sales and keeping the do= ors open. Here is the NYT article confirming: http://link.rm0004.net/go/R0WNvsBsI1n-OEV_VrmDGQ2/ http://link.rm0004.= net/go/R0WNvsBsI1n-OEV_VrmDGQ2/ No, you can't always know in advance where you stand, particularly if = you are in the pop culture or current events genres... but erring on t= he side of caution will avoid potentials for lost sales and/or very, v= ery bad and damaging publicity. I must admit as much as I wanted to lo= ok up and read some of her works after seeing the Color Purple as a mo= vie (yes, shame on me) once I understood who she really was... I want = no parts of her, regardless of her supposed greatness. Is this a boycott on my part? Am I somehow infringing on her First Ame= ndment right to think or speak what she wants? No. I just realize that= her writings are a reflection of her attitudes and thus will be tinge= d if not completely colored (sorry for that pun) by her attitudes. I d= on't want to have to sift through her prejudices to understand her dee= per meanings is all. THE E.U. JUST PASSED A NEW LAW THAT BODES WELL FOR US PUBLISHERS AND N= OT SO WELL FOR THE AGGREGATORS OF THE INTERNET LIKE GOOGLE AND YAHOO A= ND OTHERS. SINCE IT IS LIKELY THIS LAW WILL FLOAT ACROSS THE POND, WE = SHOULD ALSO BE IN FAVOR OF IT IN ADVANCE BEFORE IT GETS HERE. Here is a simple explanation of the new law:=C2=A0 http://link.rm0004.= net/go/R0WNvsEuQwcM-fLYtQwXxg2/ http://link.rm0004.net/go/R0WNvsEuQwcM= -fLYtQwXxg2/ We as publishers spend a great deal of money to create or publish copy= righted materials for the benefit of our readers and customers. If we = are a newspaper or magazine, often our content is protected behind a p= aywall. That makes sense. Readers have to pay to read our publication = so pieces of our publication should also be protected from free riders= . When we publish books, our product is automatically protected in tha= t someone has to buy the book to benefit from the material (unless of = course you are sufficiently unwise as to give it to Kindle for free an= d let them plaster it all over the internet for damn near nothing to t= housands of readers). Let's do news items first. They are easy to understand. Google is argu= ing that news they aggregate is what is already on the internet, paywa= ll or not, they have a right to aggregate it and pass it along to thei= r readers. Sounds reasonable until you go back 6 or 8 years in Belgium. Google wa= s arguing the same thing but every newspaper in Belgium at the time ha= d paywalls. Google argued in court for the greater good and the fact t= hat once 'up' on the internet everything is fair game for anyone who w= ants to reuse it. The Belgian courts didn't agree and fined Google a f= air amount of money for their transgressions. Google doesn't care...remember, their tag line is "It is better to ask= forgiveness than permission." The courts fined them a number of milli= ons and told them not to do it again. Well here they are again, so the= E.U. simply made a law out of the issue. And despite Google's argumen= t that they are providing valuable advertising for the various publica= tions, they will have to either get permission in advance, or simply n= ot reprint anything. Both personally and as a business person in publishing, I rail against= Google and others believing they are omniscient and have global permi= ssion to do whatever they want with anything that is on the internet. = If I have to pay for the daily newspaper, then so should everyone else= who wants to read the articles. It is just that simple. One last thing... it is just this attitude from Google, et al, that ha= s put them in this position in the first place. So I am not crying any= crocodile tears for them. I AM PROMOTING OUR EDITING AND PROOFING SERVICES I have sent out a few emails advertising our editing and proofing serv= ices, at an introductory discount for the months of March and April, a= t two cents a word... yes, two cents a word, and that INCLUDES proofre= ading after copy editing. Of course, after April, our rates will go ba= ck to the original base rate of between 2=C2=BD and 3 cents a word... = 25% to 50% more. So, if you have projects to get done, this month and next would be the= time to get them done, professionally, quickly, efficiently, and righ= t! Not to mention inexpensively! Contact me directly=C2=A0 mfoner@nplc= onsult.com mailto:mfoner@nplconsult.com =C2=A0 for details. PUBLISHERS AVAILABLE FOR ACQUISITION I sent out a separate newsletter two weeks ago about the companies I h= ave available for acquisition. If you missed it or want to see it agai= n, email me=C2=A0=C2=A0 mfoner@nplconsult.com mailto:mfoner@nplconsult= .com =C2=A0 and I will be happy to send a copy over. Do keep in mind, we have a group of magazines if you want to or are in= the magazine biz... all selling below full value and all very interes= ting. I also have books of course, from a single amazing coffee table title,= to small series for elementary readers, to an unusual map company, an= d an underpriced ebook company. Just let me know. AND... if you are think about selling your company... NOW IS THE TIME.= The closer we get to 2020, the worse, I believe, it will get for publ= ishing sales. We can talk about it, but based on the current level of = sales... now IS the time! Contact me=C2=A0 mfoner@nplconsult.com mailto:mfoner@nplconsult.com =C2= =A0 and I will send you a brief Questionnaire. Complete it and I will = give you, no charge, no obligation, a 'ballpark' valuation of your com= pany in the current marketplace. Then, if you want, we go from there. Thanks for reading. Copyright Martin Foner, 2019. CAN SPAM Legal Information: There should be an unsubscribe button somewhere at the footer of this = email, but if there is not, simply email me directly at=C2=A0 mailto:m= foner@nplconsult.com , and I will have you removed from future emailin= gs. If you don't unsubscribe, we will consider you as approving us to cont= inue to send you newsletters and related publishing information. If yo= u do not approve, you need to unsubscribe. NPL Publishing Consultants, a division of Professional Publishers Grou= p Corporation, Post Office Box 1010, Ventura CA 93002. http://link.rm0004.net/go/R0WNvsInC3gUEYDWbXojtQ2/ mailto:mfoner@nplconsult.com This email is being sent to Lojban@lojban.org. 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3D""

 

Martin Foner’s Publis= hing Newsletter

Volume 24, Number 8 =

Because You’re Serious = About Publishing Success… OR You= ’re Not

Keeping Publishers in Business Since 1995

 

Hello, Everyone= …

Well, the first= quarter is drawing to a close.

Printers are go= ing bankrupt, merging, and disappearing.

Literary author= s are complaining their incomes have fallen four years in a row.

Having controve= rsial authors can be a great PR hook, but sometimes their controversy = pulls the publisher into a very bad place.

Governments are= making copyright decisions for publishers…some good, some bad,= but all have to be honored.

Piracy, ebook s= haring, Kindle questionable reporting, fear of Amazon…

So, with all of= this as background, is there any way to save our industry?

 

PRINTERS GOING UNDER, BEING SOLD OFF, COMBIN= ING… IS THIS SOMETHING WE SMALL & MID SIZED PUBLISHERS NEED= TO BE WORRIED ABOUT…AND WHY?

 

I got a notice in my Inbox ju= st this morning that Thomson-Shore, who is in Chapter 11, is going to = be sold to CJK Group as they exit bankruptcy. As you know, I put up a = warning to all my readers many months ago that, despite their protesta= tions to the contrary, things were not right at Thomson. Turns out the= y just filed Chapter 11 this week… things weren’t right. =

I am familiar with some of th= e companies that are part of the CJK Group and have used one of them n= ow since the mid 1980s, though, not lately since their pricing has not= been in line with competitive companies.

And this is one of my reasons= for writing this now.

Competition as we have known = it in printing… is slowly, or rapidly, depending on your perspe= ctive, disappearing.

The two largest book and maga= zine printers in the U.S. recently announced a merger. This set off a = firestorm of attention from the larger publishers who used one or the = other for longer print runs. They were afraid to challenge the printer= s on their own, for business reasons, so two author groups have wanted= the government to oppose the merger on anti-trust grounds saying that= it would leave only one company to print longer runs of books and mag= azines, controlling the market. See: https://www.piworld.com/article/authors-= groups-try-to-block-quad-lsc-merger-based-on-antitrust-concerns/.<= /span>

And for those of us in the &l= squo;short run’ world… 500 to 10,000 copy runs… Ed= wards got into trouble and combined with Malloy… that lasted a = year maybe two... and they simply closed up shop. Now, Thomson is gone= , though they say they are going to be a separate company within CJK&h= ellip; I wouldn’t believe they will be doing separate and compet= itive pricing. That model wasn’t very successful recently.

I won’t go into saying,= ‘going back 20 years, here is a list of all the short run peopl= e who have gone out of business’, but it is a decent sized list.= So, what is going on, how did it happen, and what does it mean for sm= all and mid sized publishers?

What is going and how it happ= ened is three fold: first, is a move away from physical books to ebook= s. In the more ‘commercial’ book markets, a decent percent= age (18-21% if current estimates are accurate) of physical sales now a= re ebook sales, reducing print runs.

Second is the emergence of di= gital printing. If you can print 250 books for not a great deal more, = per copy, than 1,000 books, why not? Back in the mid to late 1980s, we= had to print 5,000 copies of anything to get what we felt was a decen= t price. Now, we can get that same price if we print 500 copies. Compe= tition is great, until it eventually eats all the competitors but the = largest who can play on very, very thin margins.

Third is the advent of POD al= ong the same lines. Why print even 500 copies of a book if you can pri= nt 50 at a time for a bit more per copy and have virtually zero invest= ed in inventory and the trade off is only a smaller margin? When you a= re experimenting, as most self publishers are, this makes sense. If yo= u are a real publisher and expect to actually sell books, this is a se= lf defeating computation and explains often why smaller publishers are= n’t profitable. They sell plenty of books but make almost nothin= g on each one.

I see this almo= st weekly in my consulting work. “We’re selling plenty of = books,” they say, “but we’re losing money.”

Let me relate o= ne personal story to make a major point that still applies in publishi= ng no matter the year 1990 or 2020. We did a series of 48 page ‘= booklets’, 5.5 x 8.5, with nice full color, 12 pt, covers. In 5,= 000 and even 10,000 runs they were costing us $1.50 delivered to our w= arehouse. We were very successful in Bulk Sales and sold the various t= itles in the series for $5.95 each and on down to $1.95 for 1,000 unit= purchase.

But I wanted to= do more. I KNEW if I could reduce my printing cost I could sell at fu= ll pallet levels (5,000 units) to some customers if the price was righ= t. SO I did my homework and discovered if I printed 100,000 units at a= time, I could get a delivered price of $.30 per copy. Yes… Thi= rty cents! Well, damn, if I could do that, I could offer to sell 5,000= units, a full pallet, for $1 each and STILL make more on that than I = was making selling 1,000 units at $1.95 each… and I was selling= 5,000 at a time. We netted $3,500 per pallet sale and made plenty of = those sales because customers could get a $5.95 book for only a dollar= ! (Our pitch was, buy 2,500 at $1.95 price and we’ll give you 2,= 500 copies FREE!)

What’s my= point? I haven’t met a publisher in many years who looks at his= /her markets this way and says, hey, I can make oodles more money if I= do a longer run and add $1 per unit to my profit margin on 20,000 or = 50,000 books. If they did, they would be making that extra $20,000 or = $50,000 and wouldn’t be in such deep shit all the time. No, not = on every title, that is nuts, agreed... but there are titles, and we k= now which ones they will be, where this is not beyond reality, and onc= e the selling starts… it confirms our judgment.

The first impac= t of this new printing era is going to be less options for us to have = competitive pricing. When the short run people competed with each othe= r it kept prices down for all of us Now, that is going to disappear, a= s it has been for the last few years.

The second impa= ct is obviously that costs going up means retail pricing is going to h= ave to go up with them. Now, I have always been a proponent of higher = pricing for books than most publishers. Your $14.95 is my $19.95. And = in many cases your $19.95 is my $24.95. (And, FYI, whenever I see $12.= 95 or $16.95 on a book, I know I am dealing with a rank amateur in mar= keting.) So, we will start hearing the crying soon about how expensive= we have to make books to print them…and more and more migratio= n to ebooks. God forbid. Somehow the concept of taking your $8.00 marg= in and turning it into a $3.50 margin sounding normal is far beyond my= ability to do the new math. So, plan NOW to raise prices on your book= s… I am sure I had an article recently about how raising prices= actually raises your margins, so for those of you who listened, good&= hellip;if not, now is=20 a good time to start listening before your book printing goes up 20% a= nd you have to react instead of being proactive.

The third impac= t, thus, is going to be more ebooks and less physical books which is g= oing to drive down the overall margins for publishers, making a bad si= tuation worse.

There are more = impacts on us but I will advise that one, running out of the country t= o print, has serious pitfalls…and I will cover them separately = in the next issue since this article has gone on long enough.

Final piece of = advice for now, that I will also explain in the next issue… Fin= d a decent printer who can handle 90% of your printing requirements at= pricing that is 90% competitive and they are 90% responsive. Better t= o be 90% happy than constantly in turmoil about your printing needs.

 

 LITERARY AUTHORS’ INCOME HAS FALLEN SUBSTANTIALL= Y IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS TO A C= URRENT LOW OF $6,000+/-

 

So, what exactly does this me= an for publishers? A few things we can extrapolate and watch for in ou= r own companies. If you look at the earnings of some of the major play= ers as reported, they seem to be fine. Thus, it might appear that just= “literary” publishers are having a hard time selling book= s and thus their authors are earning less and less each year. SO, if y= ou are in the literary genre, you might want to take heed of these cha= nges.

This also speaks to the fact = we have lost many of our more famous ‘names’ who draw larg= e audiences. The Pattersons, Steeles, Wolfes, and others…are ju= st gone. And gone with them is the pull they had on the market.

One thing we don’t know= about the current surveys is if they surveyed self published authors = as well. If that is the case, we have our answer, so I am going to gue= ss they didn’t do that. Even surveyors know self publishing is f= or the most part a losing proposition.

This also seems to indicate t= hat some other genres of publishing are doing very well, if overall th= e companies are doing well but literary isn’t a good category. M= y first guess would be non fiction, political, do it yourself, true cr= ime, self improvement, and related categories are doing gangbusters. I= f you look at the list of top sellers, by dollars, for 2018, I am goin= g to risk saying Michelle Obama’s books is #1, Michael Wolfe&rsq= uo;s narrative of the White House is on the list… a few books a= bout losing the world to Russia are on the list. Turmoil in the White = House looked like a strong category in 2018.

Literary? Not so much. When w= as the last time you heard about a new literary giant? Or even an old = one with a new title? The author income could also be down because pro= ductivity and production of new titles in that genre is down.

Audiobooks up again over 30%.= ..but ebooks are flat to slightly down for 2018.

Moral of this whole story:

Stay on top of the trends in = your industry. Watch what is going up and down. Make sure you aren&rsq= uo;t caught in a down draft of categories and niches that are going ou= t of favor.

Also, don’t give in to = authors or the Guild screaming that authors have to have more of the p= ie. I have already covered that non-issue many times for you. Authors = get their share of the pie and they can help to create more pie by goi= ng out and helping the marketing efforts. Let’s look at their de= mands another way and move on. So, their books are less and less popul= ar, so you, the publisher, have to make up for their lack of excitemen= t to excite their audiences by paying them more money for less sales? = Really?

One other point. A paperback = book at $19.95 is far different than an ebook at $4.99. 10% of $20 is = $2. 20% of $5 is $1. See a pattern here?

Let publishers stick to being= profitable and selling books and likely good things will happen for t= he underlying authors too!

 

DID YOU KNOW THAT ALICE WALKER, AUTHOR OF CO= LOR PURPLE

FAME IS A VIRULENT ANTI-SEMITE? I DIDN&rsquo= ;T BUT I DO NOW. AND

WHY DOES THAT MATTER TO ME AS A PUBLISHER?

 

It simply brings up an old ad= age about knowing your authors. We are so busy these days soliciting g= ood works, or reading what comes in over the transom, we often forget = to do deep… very deep… background checks on potential au= thors.

But, you reply, I would be ho= nored to have Alice Walker as one of my authors. She would add prestig= e to my list and profits to my bottom line. So would Harvey Weinstein = at one point, or even Bill Cosby… but now, these names are toxi= c. You run so many risks with someone who offends an entire ethnic gro= up, including boycotts, and worse. You don’t need issues on top = of the day to day of making sales and keeping the doors open.

Here is the NYT article confi= rming:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an= ti-semitism-is-not-just-another-opinion-the-new-york-times-should-know= -better/2018/12/24/7531887a-07b9-11e9-a3f0-71c95106d96a_story.html?nor= edirect=3Don&utm_term=3D.d39435aa95d4&wpisrc=3Dnl_opinions&= ;wpmm=3D1

No, you can’t always kn= ow in advance where you stand, particularly if you are in the pop cult= ure or current events genres… but erring on the side of caution= will avoid potentials for lost sales and/or very, very bad and damagi= ng publicity. I must admit as much as I wanted to look up and read som= e of her works after seeing the Color Purple as a movie (yes, shame on= me) once I understood who she really was… I want no parts of h= er, regardless of her supposed greatness.

Is this a boycott on my part?= Am I somehow infringing on her First Amendment right to think or spea= k what she wants? No. I just realize that her writings are a reflectio= n of her attitudes and thus will be tinged if not completely colored (= sorry for that pun) by her attitudes. I don’t want to have to si= ft through her prejudices to understand her deeper meanings is all.

 

THE E.U. JUST PASSED A NEW LAW THAT BODES WE= LL FOR US PUBLISHERS AND NOT SO WELL FOR THE AGGREGATORS OF THE INTERN= ET LIKE GOOGLE AND YAHOO AND OTHERS. SINCE IT IS LIKELY THIS LAW WILL = FLOAT ACROSS THE POND, WE SHOULD ALSO BE IN FAVOR OF IT IN ADVANCE BEF= ORE IT GETS HERE.

 

Here is a simple explanation of the ne= w law:  htt= ps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/article-13-eu-approves-controve= rsial-copyright-law/ar-BBVeYek

 

We as publishers spend a grea= t deal of money to create or publish copyrighted materials for the ben= efit of our readers and customers. If we are a newspaper or magazine, = often our content is protected behind a paywall. That makes sense. Rea= ders have to pay to read our publication so pieces of our publication = should also be protected from free riders. When we publish books, our = product is automatically protected in that someone has to buy the book= to benefit from the material (unless of course you are sufficiently unwise as to give it to= Kindle for free and let them plaster it all over the internet for dam= n near nothing to thousands of readers).

Let’s do news items fir= st. They are easy to understand. Google is arguing that news they aggr= egate is what is already on the internet, paywall or not, they have a = right to aggregate it and pass it along to their readers.

Sounds reasonable until you g= o back 6 or 8 years in Belgium. Google was arguing the same thing but = every newspaper in Belgium at the time had paywalls. Google argued in = court for the greater good and the fact that once ‘up’ on = the internet everything is fair game for anyone who wants to reuse it.= The Belgian courts didn’t agree and fined Google a fair amount = of money for their transgressions.

Google doesn’t care&hel= lip;remember, their tag line is “It is better to ask forgiveness= than permission.” The courts fined them a number of millions an= d told them not to do it again. Well here they are again, so the E.U. = simply made a law out of the issue. And despite Google’s argumen= t that they are providing valuable advertising for the various publica= tions, they will have to either get permission in advance, or simply n= ot reprint anything.

Both personally and as a busi= ness person in publishing, I rail against Google and others believing = they are omniscient and have global permission to do whatever they wan= t with anything that is on the internet. If I have to pay for the dail= y newspaper, then so should everyone else who wants to read the articl= es. It is just that simple.

One last thing… it is = just this attitude from Google, et al, that has put them in this posit= ion in the first place. So I am not crying any crocodile tears for the= m.

 

I AM PROMOTING OUR EDITING AND PROOFING SERV= ICES

I have sent out a few emails = advertising our editing and proofing services, at an introductory disc= ount for the months of March and April, at two cents a word… ye= s, two cents a word, and that INCLUDES proofreading after copy editing= . Of course, after April, our rates will go back to the original base = rate of between 2½ and 3 cents a word… 25% to 50% more.<= /span>

So, if you have projects to g= et done, this month and next would be the time to get them done, profe= ssionally, quickly, efficiently, and right! Not to mention inexpensive= ly! Contact me directly  mfoner@nplconsult.com  for details.

 

PUBLISHERS AVAILABLE FOR ACQUISITION<= /strong>

I sent out a separate newslet= ter two weeks ago about the companies I have available for acquisition= . If you missed it or want to see it again, email me   mfoner@nplconsult.com&n= bsp; and I will be happy to send a copy over.

Do keep in mind, we have a gr= oup of magazines if you want to or are in the magazine biz… all= selling below full value and all very interesting.

I also have books of course, = from a single amazing coffee table title, to small series for elementa= ry readers, to an unusual map company, and an underpriced ebook compan= y.

Just let me know.

AND… if you are think = about selling your company… NOW IS THE TIME. The closer we get = to 2020, the worse, I believe, it will get for publishing sales. We ca= n talk about it, but based on the current level of sales… now I= S the time!

Contact me  mfoner@nplconsult.com  and I will send you a brief Questionnaire. Complete it and I will= give you, no charge, no obligation, a ‘ballpark’ valuatio= n of your company in the current marketplace. Then, if you want, we go= from there.

 

Thanks for read= ing.

© Martin F= oner, 2019.

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