Monthly Archives: May 2012

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt disappears into Mordor

31 Thursday May 2012

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Tolkein's publisher enters business Mordor

 

In what is just the latest in an ongoing series of body blows to the traditional book  business, venerable book publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has recently announced it has entered into U.S. bankruptcy protection.

If you’re interested in the morbid financial details of this sad story, check out this article in the May 21st edition of Bloomberg Business Week.

I’m more interested in what this has to say about the present — and most importantly, the future — state of publishing.

The venerable Houghton has been publishing books since 1832. Over the past 180 years, the company has represented an impressive stable of authors, including the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, J.R.R. Tolkein, and Mark Twain.

Mark Twain was also a self-publisher -- an author who hedged his bets

Hell, they even published one of my all-time favorite children’s series, ranking right up there with Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstockings books, and Herge’s Tintin series…

H.A. Rey's mischievous monkey would be curious about Houghton's woes

HMH, as is the case with many other traditional book publishers, simply became too big for its britches. Like many a currently beleaguered major house (and plenty of medium and small ones as well), there are lots of very bright, very talented editors, designers, and marketing folks at HMH who are probably wishing they’d majored in  something useful back in college, like electrical engineering or basketball.

I encourage them — and all you shocked and dismayed authors out there — to take a deep breath. Industries, just like the civilizations that spawn them, come and go, and with them, specific business sectors — like traditional book publishing — to be replaced by… something else.

It’s what comes next that matters. Will it be indie publishing or a new wave of old publishers wearing new (and several sizes smaller) hats? Will ebooks or just-on-time, on-demand physical books win the day?

It’s all very Tolkeinesque. Just as the withdrawal of the elves from Middle Earth left a vacuum (who would fill it, orcs or humans?), creating a demand for seasoned “sellswords” like Strider, the hard-won skills and sensibilities of the best of all those soon-to-be-looking-for-another-job publishers will be increasingly sought-after.

HMH may be bound for Mordor, but the rest of us may well end up in Rivendell.

For those of who you are even the slightest bit Tookish — don’t you just love a good adventure?

Houghton may be in Mordor, but the future of publishing may be more like Rivendell

Book Covers in the Age of the Kindle and iPad

24 Thursday May 2012

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A bad cover is, well, a bad cover, regardless of medium

 

It seems trite to point out how many bad — no, horrible — covers have been unleashed upon an unsuspecting public since Gutenberg invented mechanical movable type 500 years ago.

Perhaps ironically, certainly unintentionally, bad covers do serve a good purpose: if it’s bad on the outside, watch out for what lurks behind the cover.

Craig Mod, a California/Japan-based writer, publisher, and designer has written a terrific essay on covers (called Hack the Cover), both for books and ebooks. Craig is a MacDowell Colony Writing fellow, a 2012 TechFellow, and was employed by Flipboard from October 2010 to January 2012, working mainly on the Flipboard for iPhone project. His writing has appeared in New Scientist, the New York Times, and the Codex Journal of Typography, among others.

While I don’t always find myself nodding at Craig’s taste (beauty is, as always, in the beholder’s eye), this is a lucid, thought-provoking discourse on covers — what they are and what they are not. Whether you’re an author, a designer, a publisher, or simply love books, this is well worth a careful read.

Craig’s original essay may be found at Craig’s blogsite.

Enjoy!

 

Common Book Design Mistakes

17 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Self-Publishing

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A cover like this certainly makes you wonder what's inside; and I mean that in a bad way...

When you’ve been doing something for as long as I’ve been a publisher — 35 years and counting — you get to know a few things.

Like what a decently designed book interior should look like.

I can usually spot a self-published book — at least one that’s been “designed” by the author — a mile away. Aside from all the whacky covers out there that make the task of spotting an amateur’s work so easy my dog Scout could probably do it, there are some recurring, fundamental errors self-publishing authors make when formatting their books’ pages that leap out at anyone who knows what a professionally designed book should look like, as well.

Here’s a terrific — and brief — video by pro book designer Joel Friedlander, talking with BookBaby president Brian Felsen, that highlights a few of the obvious design errors to watch out for if you’ve decided to design and format your next book yourself.

Self-Publishing, the New Wave

11 Friday May 2012

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What are you going to do with a garage-full of unsold, self-published books? Hey, summer's coming, it's BBQ season!

I can’t begin to tell you how often I hear from authors, concerned that (a) their publishers aren’t doing enough to market their books, or (b) much more commonly, they can’t find a publisher, period.

Sometimes of course the problem is that the author’s work just doesn’t deserve an audience, at least not in its present form. But there’s another, structural problem afoot — too many traditional publishers are wallowing in the past, while a grassroots publishing revolution passes them by.

If you’re an author these days, you have a stark choice: stick with the Czar, or join the revolutionaries and build something new.

Self-publishing's been around a long time. Ask Edgar Allan Poe. Oh, sorry, he's dead

Some pundits have taken to calling what’s going on in the publishing industry, “disruptive innovation,” led largely by self-publishing authors who are rapidly refining their publishing & marketing techniques, and finding new, often novel ways of engaging directly with their potential readers (aka “customers”).

Meanwhile, many traditional publishers, burdened by much higher operating costs, mired in old, 20th-centrury-ish ways of doing things, are staggering toward oblivion, taking their authors with them.

Bookstores. You do remember them... don't you?

In “the old days” (as in 30 years ago, max), there was a scarcity of information in the world. If you wanted to know what was happening in the world in any depth, you read a newspaper or a magazine. If you wanted to be entertained, you read a book. The only way for an author to find an audience was through a publisher; the only way for a reader to find a book was to first find a bookstore.

My, how times have changed.

Today, hundreds of millions of folks read things untouched by the corporate hands of big publishers. Things like, for example, this blogpost. Those special places people back in the 19th and 20th centuries went to to find books — you know, bookstores? They’re disappearing faster than bison from the prairies. Replaced by whatever device you’re currently using to read this.

It's still Pooh

This is self-published content. Whether a post like this or a full-blown novel, this is content the big boys haven’t had a hand in shaping. And since all traditional media are in bed together, they conspire to collectively sneer at such content, or simply ignore it all together.

They remind me of whale oil merchants at the dawn of the petroleum era, or the orchestra on the stern of the Titanic.

So what will emerge from this chaos? Good question. No doubt new arbiters of taste will step forward, as self-publishing authors vie to ensure their works stand out in the crowd. This is good news for old publishing types (like me), who would rather lend a hand than stand in the doorway, helping ensure more and more self-published works have the same decent (or even, on occasion, excellent) editorial and design standards as works published by the large, traditional houses.

Top-down is dead. The new publishing mantra is bottom-up. So all you struggling, confused self-publishing authors out there, take heart — you’re the New Wave.

We’ve seen the Future, and it’s You.

 

 

 

Authorcloud’s Randy Morse on Self-Publishing

08 Tuesday May 2012

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“The challenge the big book publishers are facing is that a perfect industry is being replaced by one filled with chaos and opportunity.”
Seth Godin

 

Publishers have persisted for over 500 years — since Gutenberg’s invention of mechanical movable type — for a reason.

Gutenberg's invention of mechanical movable type ushered in the Age of the Book

Writers are to the publishing process as Formula One or NASCAR drivers are to racing. They’re the stars — no author, no book.

However, just as professional drivers need the services of professional mechanics and tire experts and pit crews and marketing and promotion gurus to be successful, most writers need the assistance of professional editors and designers and marketing gurus and printers to succeed.

Those are all roles traditional publishers play. And, whether good news or bad, the fact is that traditional publishers are disappearing, like buffalo from the prairies.

The odds are greater you'll be trampled by one of these than your next book will be picked up by a traditional publisher

To be fair, even during the heyday of traditional publishing, only a handful of authors were lucky enough to have access to those services — everyone else was simply out of luck, and most of their books never saw the light of day.

What’s changed is that the very technology that has gravely undermined the traditional publishing model, now allows authors to take control of the production of their works themselves. Between high-quality digital printing and the internet, it’s become possible for virtually anyone with a manuscript to self-publish his or her book. No need to send out hundreds of query letters to publishers, then sit and wait, usually months, sometimes years, for that dreaded form rejection letter. Just find a reputable digital printer (not always the easiest of tasks), and away you go.

Millions of authors are doing just that.

The problem is that, in the rush to take advantage of this tremendous new opportunity to reach an audience, many authors are forgetting why publishers came into being in the first place.  The result? Scores of poorly written books. Poorly written because most of them have never been touched by a professional editor.

Many self-published books are deadly, for all the wrong reasons

These same self-published works also often look amateurish, their pages badly formatted, their covers crude and clunky.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Speaking of reputable printers, Fidlar Doubleday has been in business for over 100 years

Which is why Authorcloud has teamed with venerable, Iowa-based printer Fidlar Doubleday, to bring discerning, self-publishing authors an array of tips, advice, suggestions, and support, as well as a range of editorial, design, and printing  services, all designed to help ensure authors are proud of their works when they’re published.

We’re excited about this relationship. We like to think of it as a new, 21st century publishing paradigm. If you’re an author, we think you’re going to like what we’re bringing to the table, too.