I met up with Michael Stackpole over the Labor Day weekend at Dragon*Con. He was in "con business mode," which meant we discussed his view of the publishing industry. With his permission, I’m paraphrasing the conversation here for your consumption.
The gospel according to Michael starts with a reality check for the regular big publishing houses. Even though a few of them apparently purchase or retain digital rights for work, they aren’t really doing anything with those rights. So all these hard copy books you see at the book shelves? Some of them could be published electronically by their publishers. However, the big houses have a mentality stuck in the 19th and early 20th century. Publishing costs money, regardless of format. So even if they published e-books, they’d have to charge a fortune for the book. Therefore, they’re sticking to what they know best.
Except I’m not so sure the cost premise excuse is entirely true. Think about it. Paper and ink cost money. Binding and glue cost money. So does editing the book, running the printing press, maintaining the press, resetting the press for the next book… And that doesn’t even include the costs of marketing. So, in the context of hard copy, the publishers absolutely have the right idea. You have to charge high rates to cover the costs and pay the author and cover artist. Right? Yet in e-publishing, there is no printing press to maintain, no paper, glue, ink and binding to purchase. You need an author with a good book, an editor and someone (if not the editor) to format the book. Then you zip it up with a nifty little software program, of which there are a few dozen, and sell it.
When you take the physical materials out of the equation, e-books should cost less than their counterpart hard copies. Michael has run the numbers. Approximately 80% of an e-book’s earnings would normally be taken up in hard copy by expenses that you don’t have in e-books. Therefore, authors can earn more than the usual 10% royalties. And any remaining funds could be sunk straight into marketing. Therefore, technically, the big houses have no excuses for not doing e-books. They certainly don’t have any excuses for refusing to give authors more royalties.
It’s an interesting scenario. I can see his reasoning perfectly. He said lots of other stuff too, especially on the issue of self-publishing. Stay tuned to my blog and I’ll post those thoughts separately. In the meantime, what’s your take on "Big House Publishing" and digital rights?
