La Bene Vita

The Publishing Industry: Dilution

The publishing industry is really getting diluted. My friend - NOT a WDC friend, but a local friend - announced on FB he's getting published by this company: http://www.alphawolfpublishing.com/

With no disrespect to him or his book, I was skeptical, because I've experienced too many small publishers. So I loaded the publisher's website and browsed through their categories. I found Children's (nothing), Drama (nothing), and Fantasy (two books.)

It seems like everyone and their brother is trying to be a publisher. Or a self-publisher. Or get published. As an aspiring author, how does one compete with that? How do you get your books FOUND and SOLD? The market is flooded, and a lot of it is junk. Anyone can publish, really. It's a logistical thing. You hire a printer, you get copies of books, you list them for sale somewhere. Voila. Published. You can even skip the editing step and still call it published. In fact, you can post a link to a .pdf or .mobi on your website, and it's now available for public consumption. Published. Hell, you can print it directly on a website. Published.

It's good and bad. On one hand, the big-boy publishers have been colossal giants with too much power for too long, and this is going to be humbling and hurt their bottom lines. But if it keeps trending like this, where self-publishers and little-boy publishers get a rap for being low quality, will it push consumers back to the big boys, because they'll know that's where the quality product is?

On the other other hand, people go to Walmart even though they know the products are lower quality, because it's cheap, and they can afford it. Walmart still makes billions because of their volumes. They take that volume out of the hands of the likes of Macy's and Big Bear grocery stores and put big boys into bankruptcy. Or at least the middle boys.

But the difference between Walmart and small publishers / self-publishers is that Walmart requires overhead - big buildings, utilities, employees, and INVENTORY. Publishing takes like ZERO overhead. You pay for the lack of overhead in your margins, since self-publishing and small-volume publishing is so expensive per-book, but there's no up-front investment. That's very attractive to wannabe's and makes them very willing to give it a try. It doesn't establish a market that weeds out those who don't belong.

The market is all screwed up right now. It's just not working properly.

Maybe one could compare it to a flea market. I buy handmade items because they're cool and unique. But handcrafted almost never equals higher quality. Even my made-in-China items last longer. Like it or not, the manufacturing industry has taken strides in quality control since the industrial age began. They invest in quality, and they have the trial-and-error of years of production and million of widgets going for them. The individual flea market salesperson who handcrafted my jewelry or bag or clothing has probably only made as many as "hundreds" or even "tens" of the items they sell, and chances are, they have very little feedback on their products, because, let's face it: who ever sought out a flea market vendor two months later to complain that their widget broke?

I suppose the publishing industry is like any other. The higher the investment, the higher the return. I wonder if I could open and run a successful publishing company if I started with, say, $1k, or $10k, or $100k? Could I compete with the dilution of all the little guys? Could I compete with a billion-dollar company like Amazon? Would it even be worth it?

I used to think I wanted to be an author so my name would live on. I read the classics and thought, wow, some of these authors died hundreds of years ago, and I still know who they are. Now I think it would be nice to earn a paycheck and pay my bills. I remember thinking I could earn a living if I were like Stephen King (you know the guy... that quintessential example of a successful author), because I would keep making money on royalties long after I actually wrote the book. My whole entire life, actually. Then I learned how publishing really works: While there may be some residual income on long-term sales, all the real money is made within the first month or two of publication. You're just a flavor of the month. So not only will I never be Shakespeare or Dickens or Austen or Tolstoy, but now, I'll probably also fail to pay my bills if I don't keep producing new books regularly.

I wish my friend the best, and I hope he makes lots of sales. I hate to be such a Debbie Downer. But I just don't see it happening.