ROBUST discussion

Publishing is the ninth largest industry in the world. An influential part of it stands at the cusp of a major change, as reported, with authoritative numbers, by ROBUST member David Gaughran on his blog:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/20...

Nice work, David. We shouldn’t write off the big corporate publishers yet. They are in business to remain in business in order to earn a return on capital. The essence of their talent at the very top is not literary or even publishing, but the same adaptability one finds in every other management. Just don’t expect such behemoths to be nimble. What we’ve seen so far is the inertia of overly large organizations. Once they start rolling, they are likely to do the job at least half-right.

However, it seems to me that a large chunk of their business is already in Amazon’s hands, with the indies simply being an extension of Amazon policy and empire. That will be very hard to pull back, very likely impossible. Greed is a powerful motivator for individuals exactly as it is for corporations!

I'm curious to see what will happen as the economy gets stronger.

I'm buying a lot of cheap e-books because I can afford them. They are my primary source of entertainment.

What will other readers buy as their financial confidence grows? Will the book business thrive or shrink?

I've often heard it said, by publishers who held it as an article of faith (not necessarily a good indication of the facts!), that people read more in bad times, because they have time, and books are cheaper than the movies and gas. I offer it as pure speculation -- I've never bothered to investigate the hypothesis.

I've seen several articles saying how Romance Novels have taken a extra chunk out of the overall book market as the economy slides down.

I think it was 25% of the total market share.

David's blog is always worth checking out; his book of blog articles about self-publishing is worth checking out too.

Amazon have played a blinder so far; but they are getting bigger and more cumbersome by the day. If the percentage of self-published stuff that isn't dross doesn't grow, they'll have to do something drastic before it eats into their reputation...

Mark Coker was bragging that he was adding 3500 books per month. One must assume Amazon is adding multiples of that every month.

What do you think it will cost to hire even high school graduates to be "editors", even only on a yes/no basis after reading three pages? I'm not suggesting Amazon will even cost that. Amazon is very keen on getting services free of charge.

I think it more likely that Amazon will just one morning at 10am Seattle time disappear KDP and tough out the outcry. The outcry might even be muted, as the indies have a consistent track record of being supine doormats for Amazon's activities. They might decide you can't publish on Amazon until you can show x number of sales on Smashwords.

Why would they pull the plug?

It isn't costing them anything and they make a lot of money at it.

They also probably sell a lot of Kindles to people who want to see their own books.

At this point in time - with the crap economy and all - the more cheap books the better.

The 'pulp-fiction' of the new age is perfect for these conditions. An unlimited number of authors vying to get their book on the greatest number of Kindles - for the lowest possible price.