Writers and Editors

• Articles, blogs, and debate about book publishing, e-publishing, and digital libraries
• Publishing and bookseller organizations and resources
• Courses on Book Publishing
• On Amazon's Kindle, the Sony Reader, and conflicts about e-book markets and rights

You will find many "how-to" links under Self-Publishing.

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"Since I joined the publishing business as an editorial assistant in 1951, I have been obsessed with the preservation and distribution of backlist, for I understood from the beginning two important truths about our business: the first is that publishing is not really a business at all, at least not a very good business. If it's money that you want to make, go into a real business and take your chances. The second truth is that publishing is a vocation, a secular priesthood, for publishers are caretakers of our collective memory, indispensable servants to those other caretakers, poets, storytellers, librarians, teachers and scholars. The cultivation of backlist is not only our business but our moral responsibility."
~Jason Epstein, "Backlist Maestro: Mr. Epstein's Dream Machine," an excellent article about the changing nature of publishing and the ideal possibilities of print-on-demand publishing, in the Winter 2009 Authors Guild Bulletin, excerpted from a speech given at the 2008 Hong Kong Book Fair. Among other things, Epstein launched the first "trade paperback" line, Anchor Books, at Doubleday--when he'd been working in publishing only six months.

Lynn Chu: Agent Unplugged, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's informative interview with this principal of Writers' Representatives LLC, appears in the public part of the January 2010 issue of ASJA Monthly (the confidential section goes to members only). This is as helpful an analysis of what authors should know about their rights in the new electronic world as you are likely to read. It starts on pp. 6-7 of this PDF file,then jumps to p. 13. Print those pages out and highlight them! Her most valuable comments are on book publishers trying to becoming licensing agents for e-rights while taking a print publishers' share of income and without doing what a licensing agent ought to do, and since authors will very quickly learn how much they can do without the publishers, they are playing a dangerous game. Authors: there IS no standard on e-publishing terms, so do your homework. At a minimum, read this article.

Bob Miller: The Coming Editorial Crisis. HarperCollins chief Bob Miller tells Media Bistro about economic variables shaping publishing industry and prospects of "more work for fewer people" ahead, with YouTube video of his comments.

Book design: a primer. Dick Margulis has some useful material on his website about book design. Go here to read a sequence of clear, brief explanations of typography, the architecture of the page--especially the chapter opening, the color of the paper and ink, and font choice and spacing.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books by Harold D. Underdown, 3rd edition--as reviewers put it, a cheatsheet to the very specialized separate world of children's and adolescents' book publishing

The eBook Wars: The Price Battle (1). Rich Aden, on his An American Editor blog, writes about what happens to the quality of books when accountants call for outsourcing at prices so low that a well-edited book is unlikely.

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future. Jason Epstein, NY Rev of Books, 3-11-2010, on "the inevitability of digitization as an unimaginably powerful, but infinitely fragile, enhancement of the worldwide literacy on which we all--readers and nonreaders--depend."

Publishing Careers blog (An online "informational interview" for college students, new graduates, and career changers interested in knowing what a job in publishing is like and how they can get one)

Reusable cover art. Sarah Johnson's site showing how certain art gets used and reused for covers on historical novels (and Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of Love, hardcover edition). Art directors: your secret is out!

Time to Change: Authors'--and publishers'--shifting responsibilities. Jesse Kornbluth, in PW (11-23-09) writes: "Online book promotion requires more than a marketing assistant's willingness to drill down through 20 screens on Google. To be effective, it requires imagination, the out-of-the-box quality that in-the-box people like to think can be turned on at will. Not so." (It's worth reading the whole piece.)

Time to rethink contracts, writes Trevor Dolby, in an opinion piece on BookBrunch. "Author advances are the original no-doc mortgages. They base their lending decision on nothing more than a feeling that the author is good for the money." So goes this poor-publishers-screwed-by-authors opinion piece, suggesting it's time to be less generous. If you want to save the industry, the last thing to do is add one more reason for writers to wonder if it makes sense to go the traditional publishing route. Trevor thinks it's time for a more equitable sharing of risks, as if taking a year or more of one's life to write a book is not a major risk.

Tools of Change for Publishing Conference, 2009
The O'Reilly Tools of Change Conference explored emerging trends in digital publishing. Missed it? Click here for links to videos of interesting talks that may change your thinking about how to publish fiction and nonfiction in today's market. Titles you may find of particular interest:
• E-books: How Soon Is Now? (Peter Balis, Wiley)
• "Where Do You Go with 40,000 Readers? A Study in Online Community Building" (Ron Hogan interviewing science fiction novelist John Scalzi and Tor Book editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden)
• The Long Tail Needs Community
Lessons from a Book's Simultaneous Publication in Print and on the Web (Stephen Smith, talking about the 2700-page ESV Study Bible, which went through first two printings in two months and has sold more than 150,000 copies)
• New Reading Habits, New Distribution Models
• "What Happens When Anyone Can Edit Your Book, Online?" (John Broughton, author of Wikipedia: The Missing Manual)

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Courses on Book Publishing

Columbia Publishing Course
www.journalism.columbia.edu/​cs/​ContentServer/​jrn/​1175372207611/​page/​1165270091617/​simplepage.htm

EEI (the publishing think tank, Washington DC area)
www.eeicom.com/​training/​

New York University
Summer publishing course
www.scps.nyu.edu/​areas-of-study/​publishing/​continuing-education/​summer-publishing-institute.html
Continuing education
www.scps.nyu.edu/​areas-of-study/​publishing/​continuing-education/​

Radcliffe Program (now at Columbia)
Salon.com article about:
www.salon.com/​it/​career/​1998/​11/​23career2.html

University of Chicago editing courses
https:/​/​grahamschool.uchicago.edu/​php/​editing/​

University of Denver (The Publishing Institute)

Copyeditors' Knowledge Base KOK Edit's useful directory to places to get training and certification as an editor, copyeditor, or proofreader.

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On Amazon's Kindle, the Sony Reader,
and conflicts about e-book markets and rights

Apparently the two places to find out what's really going on in the e-book world are TeleRead (news and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics), which has a good blog, and MobileRead (excellent forums "for mobile geeks seeking information and advice for keeping their gadgets happy").

Amazon Kindle for PC E-Book Software. "Amazon's Kindle family gained a new member today with the arrival of the free Amazon Kindle for PC reader app," writes Yardena Arar, of PC World, in a review of the new Kindle software for reading books on a computer (Washington Post, 11-12-09)

Amazon lets publishers and writers disable Kindle 2's read-aloud feature (Alana Semuels, Business, Los Angeles Times 2-28-09: The Authors Guild objected to device's text-to-speech function, saying Amazon doesn't have the right to essentially turn e-books into audio books)

Apple's disruption of the ebook market has nothing to do with the tablet (Mike Shatzkin on the implications of Apple's switch from the "wholesale" model to the "agency" model, putting control of ebook prices back in hands of major publishers)

Baker & Taylor has the next big thing ij ebooks. Really! (Mike Shatzkin, Idealogical,12-8-09) and Ray Kurzweil Teams with Baker & Taylor on New eReader Software (Calvin Reid, PW, 10-15-09). Blio software can work on "any device with an operating system."

Bend me, shape me, any way you want me: Flexible display screens (The Economist, 1-22-09, reports that electronic screens as thin as paper are coming soon)

The big guys don’t see the fundamental problem, Mike Shatzkin, The Shatzkin Files 12-17-09. He says: "selling content as a publisher is a business that is going to just get harder and harder until it won’t really be much of a business anymore." He holds Publishers Marketplace as an example of a model that does work in this marketplace for eyeballs. "Publishers have always focused primarily on the content. Survival in the future will require focusing on the market." The answer: "In the digital age it will make much more economic sense for the owner of the audience to find the content rather than the way we’ve always done it, which is the other way around." Read this article!

Cader's analysis of the e-book price wars: Two blogs start their discussion by saying anyone who wants to be in the know about book publishing should pay $20 a month for a subscription to Michael Cader's
Publishers Lunch Deluxe or at least subscribe to his free Publishers Lunch. They then relay his criticism of the NY Times piece on e-book pricing, E-Book Price Increase May Stir Readers’ Passions (Rich and Stone 2-10-10). In Notes from a lecture by Professor Cader(2-13-10), Mike Shatzkin quotes Cader as saying that Amazon (and Sony and Apple) are making their money from the sale of expensive e-readers (Kindle, $200) and Amazon is losing money on the $9.99 prices of bestsellers that that they are using as loss leaders to sell their reader. Moreover, they're not giving credit to the publishers who are making backlist titles of bestselling authors available free as e-books, in hopes of bringing new readership to those authors. Read Shatzkin on the subject, subscribe and read the original in Publishers Lunch, or check out Michael Cader's Masterclass (Dennis Loy Johnson's Moby Lives, a column about books and writers).

Can e-publishing overcome copyright concerns? by David Pogue (New York Times 5-22-08)

"Debut pricing" for ebooks: a better idea than withholding them (Mike Shatzkin, The Shatzkin Files, 8-23-09) and Debut pricing: my idea, great idea, unfortunately can’t work (Shatzkin's follow-up entry). In a follow-up story, also on ebook pricing, Shatzkin writes, about the race for market domination:"Epub is probably the publishers’ best defense against Amazon and the Kindle. With all other device manufacturers able to coalesce around a non-Amazon standard, we have a situation analogous to the VHS-Beta conflict of the 1980s and the Mac-Windows duke-out of the late 80s and early 90s. On one side, we have a standard that remains closed to enable “control” (Beta, Mac, Kindle.) On the other side, we have a wide-open standard to enable multi-player use (VHS, Windows, Epub.) In the two cases we know about because they are historical, the consensus was that the “loser” of the numbers race (Beta and Mac) provided a superior technological performance. Kindle does not seem to have even that element in its favor. Whether you use something larger that does e-ink (Kindle, Sony Reader) or something you’re carrying anyway that is backlit (the iPhone or any other smartphone) is a matter of personal preference. But does anybody doubt that a world full of hardware creators will soon make a device that is similar but demonstrably better than the Kindle?" Read this if you're trying to figure out which device to buy, or whether to wait.

Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers (Electronic Frontier Foundation white paper)

Digital Perception, thriller writer JA Konrath's entry on his blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, makes a compelling case against publishers trying to raise the price of e-books: it will encourage more e-book piracy (which is easy). Elsewhere Konrath talks about the money he's making selling e-books of his old titles that NY book publishers didn't want. In June, his royalty rate went from 35% to 70%. Surely Amazon would have kept getting its 65% if it weren't under pressure to create more favorable terms--first from Sony and now, more effectively perhaps, from Apple.

Digital Text Platform (lets you upload and format your books for sale in Kindle Platform

The digital transition really IS harder for trade publishers than for other publishers (The Shatzkin Files 7-3-09)

Dual display e-book reader (story on NewScientist blog 6-25-08)

E-book complexity: good news for publishers (Mike Shatzkin, The Shatzkin Files, 6-3-09)

Ebook growth explosive; serious disruptions around the corner Mike Shatzkin, 8-12-09

E-Book Price Increase May Stir Readers’ Passions (Motoko Rich and Brad Stone, NY Times 2-10-10)

eBookGuru(digital magazine devoted to eBooks)

The e-book revolution favours the agile (but deep pockets help), Dan,The Casual Optimist (books, publishing, ideas)--like their quote: "The basis for optimism is sheer terror." ~Oscar Wilde

E-books: Not so fast! (Bryan Rosner on what publishers have to fear, IBPA)

The e-Book Test: Do Electronic Versions Deter Piracy? by David Pogue (New York Times, Personal Tech 6-19-08)

The ebook windowing controversy has subtext (Mike Shatzkin, 12-10-09). Shatzkin writes: "This is really about the agents and publishers trying to take control of ebook pricing, and value perception, back from Amazon." And this: "There are two important aspects of this that will play out later. One is that what the publishers can do to Amazon today, the authors can do to the publishers tomorrow. If the publishers could sell the ebooks of big books successfully from their sites, then the big authors could also sell them directly without a publisher. The other is that this is a 'last gasp' of a 'static product' publishing economy. Big moneymakers ten years from now won’t often come from just selling the same content over and over again, but will more often come from content that triggers a more extended interaction. The most future-oriented thinkers are already past this battle, although there’s still a lot of fighting left to be done."

ebrary (a content platform)

Fear the Kindle: Amazon's amazing e-book reader is bad news for the publishing industry (Farhad Manjoo, Slate, 2-26-09), admires the Kindle 2 but fears its implications: "Amazon's reader is a brilliant device that shanghais book buyers and the book industry into accepting a radically diminished marketplace for published works. If the Kindle succeeds on its current terms, and all signs suggest it'll be a blockbuster (thanks Oprah!), Amazon will make a bundle. But everyone else with a stake in a vibrant book industry — authors, publishers, libraries, chain bookstores, indie bookstores, and, not least, readers — stands to lose out." An honest look at the 800-pound gorilla that endangers the publishing industry: Amazon.com.

Flexible display screens: Bend me, shape me, any way you want me (The Economist, 1-22-09, reports that electronic screens as thin as paper are coming soon)
The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age (John Siracusa, ars technica, 2-1-09 — check out the comments after reading the article)

Google sides against Amazon in e-book format wars (Brennon Slattery, PCWorld, 8-27-09)

How much should an e-book cost? (Motoko Rich, "Steal this book, for $9.99," NYTimes, 5-16-09)

How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write (Steven Johnson, Wall Street Journal, 4-20-09)

In a Digital Future, Textbooks Are History (Tamar Lewis, NYTimes, 8-8-09) Mind you, participants on one discussion list questioned that printing and shipping would add up to only 12.5 percent of costs--that figure, it was felt, was too low, especially with postage rates going up.

Is This the Future of the Digital Book?
Are books too one-dimensional for readers in the digital age, as Vook's Bradley Inman tells Brad Stone (NY Times 8-4-09) Will readers be expecting video in their novels?

Kindle and the future of reading (Nicholson Baker, The New Yorker, 8-3-09)

The Kindle Swindle (Roy Blount Jr., Op Ed, NY Times, 2-24-09, on the Authors Guild's objections to the Kindle in terms of authors' rights)

Legal Battles Over E-Book Rights to Older Books (Motoko Rich, NYTimes, 12-15-09) on authors' and agents' claim that publishers don't own e-book rights to older backlist titles

**Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book (Motoko rich, NYTimes, 2-28-10, making the case for i-Pad e-book prices)

**The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age (John Siracusa, ars technica -- check out the comments after reading the article

Publishers and authors battle over digital (e-book) rights (Pat McNees, Writers and Editors blog post, 12-13-09)

Random House Claims Digital Rights to Past Books (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, WSJ, 12-14-09)

Random House's Retroactive Rights Grab (an alert from the Authors Guild)

Smashwords (your ebook, your way--a digital self-publishing platform and online bookstore)

Some Fear Google’s Power in Digital Books (Noam Cohen, New York Times, Link by Link, 2-1-09)

Stephen Covey's digital rights deal with Amazon startles New York publishers

TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home (a blog with news & views on e-books, libraries, publishing etc.—including recommended free reads)

A Walk Through a Crop of Readers (Danielle Belopotosky, NY Times, Personal Tech, 2-25-09), compares Amazon’s Kindle 2 to Kindle 1 and the Sony Reader.

Will Books Be Napsterized? (Randall Stross, Digital Domain, NYTimes 10-3-09)

With Kindle, the Best Sellers Don’t Need to Sell (Motoko Rich, NY Times 1-22-2010, on why publishers are giving "sample" books of little-known authors away for free).

Finally, the Authors Guild, in The Right Battle at the Right Time, writes: "Macmillan's current fight with Amazon over e-book business models is a necessary one for the industry. The stakes are high, particularly for Macmillan authors. In a squabble over e-books, Amazon quickly and pre-emptively escalated matters by removing the buy buttons from all Macmillan titles (with some exceptions for scholarly and educational books), in all editions, including all physical book editions. Thousands of authors and titles are affected; hardest and most unfairly hit are authors with new books published by Macmillan that are in their prime sales period."

And Amazon is tough on its own behalf, not on readers' behalf. The Authors Guild again: "Amazon has a well-deserved reputation for playing hardball. When it doesn't get its way with publishers, Amazon tends to start removing "buy buttons" from the publisher's titles. It's a harsh tactic, by which Amazon uses its dominance of online bookselling to punish publishers who fail to fall in line with Amazon's business plans. Collateral damage in these scuffles, of course, are authors and readers. Authors lose their access to millions of readers who shop at Amazon; readers find some of their favorite authors' works unavailable. Generally, the ending is not a good one for the publisher or its authors -- Amazon's hold on the industry, controlling an estimated 75% of online trade book print sales in the U.S., is too strong for a publisher to withstand. The publisher caves, and yet more industry revenues are diverted to Amazon. This isn't good for those who care about books. Without a healthy ecosystem in publishing, one in which authors and publishers are fairly compensated for their work, the quality and variety of books available to readers will inevitably suffer."

AG links to a quick rundown on media reactions to the fight over control of e-book prices: Amazon Revealed: It Hates You, and It Hates Publishers (Kit Eaton, Fast Company, 2-1-10). Eaton adds: "It's clear the move was inspired by Apple's iPad and simultaneous iBooks launch event, which promises a fairer share, more favorable terms and conditions than Amazon, and higher price points." (Fast Company's pieces on the iPad include Peripherals: The Forgotten Killer Feature of the iPad and How the iPad Could Drive Up College Tuition .