| visions & revisions |
Interim Report The last month four months have been full. Since returning from Bologna I've conducted two workshops on "Editing for Writers," attended BEA, spoken to two SCBWI groups, one in Chicago and the other in Hammond, IN, taught at the Highlights Foundation writers conference at Chautuaqua, and, last weekend spoke at NYPL on all things digital. At namelos, we've licensed the paperback and ebook rights to our first novel, POD by Stephen Wallenfels, to Penguin to be published next summer on their adult list. We've also licensed Aus/NZ rights to Allen & Unwin. We've published our second title, a brilliant first novel entitle DEPARTURE TIME by Truus Matti (translated from the Dutch by Nancy Forest-Flier) which has received starred reviews from both Kirkus and School Library Journal. Our third novel, THE FORBIDDEN LAND by Betty Levin is available now with an official publication date of December 1, 2010. And our fourth novel, THE SUNDOWN RULE by Wendy Townsend, will be available in a few weeks with a spring 2011 publication date. Life has been busy as well. Our second grandchild, Gustandean, was born in May.He's growing into his name. Our 400 raspberry bushes are in and coming along well. Our house in Pennsylvania is on the market, although that process was interrupted when thieves broke in a stripped all the copper piping out of the basement. And, a great sadness, our beloved dog, Shadow, died. Life continues to deal a mixed hand. As we move into middle of August, the industry rattles and shakes. On the digital front by far and away the most interesting development is the deal Andrew Wylie cut allowing Amazon to publish exclusively ebook versions of titles by some of his agency's most prestigious authors. There are only 20 or so books involved, but this is all about the principle. If authors and their agents succeed in separating ebook rights from print rights, publishing as we know it is over. I can't imagine this opening gambit will succeed, but I do love opening gambits and there will be more as these issues are tested. In other news, Amazon announced that ebook sales have surpassed hardcover sales. Surely they will surpass paperback sales soon. And Barnes & Nobles is for sale. For publishers, these are interesting times. We're hoping to take some "slow time" between now and Labor Day. Given all the wheels that are turning, it's not at all clear what that will look like. Be that as it may, enjoy the rest of your summer! We'll be back after Labor Day. So many (e)books, so little (real)time The last month has been invigorating and exhausting. The official publication of our first title, POD by Stephen Wallenfels, the Bologna book fair, and the launch of the iPad account for much of the busy-ness. I'm about to head off to conduct a workshop on "Editing for Writers" for the Highlights Foundation, and, so, I can't write at length now, but here are some items that I will address at more length when I land. The eBook Caper that Kent Brown and I concocted, involving giving away ebook editions of four Front Street novels, was, to my mind, an unqualified success. I have yet to slice and dice the data we collected from the promotion, but the anecdotal evidence suggests that many people, including the four authors and the hundreds of readers who downloaded the books, were pleased. What part of that isn't good? When I've had an opportunity to assess the data and draw conclusions, I will share that with you in detail. The Bologna "Fiera del Libro per Ragazzi" was enormously exciting. Last year, the fair felt like a wake: this year's fair was optimistic, energetic, and, in all ways, light filled. Although the industry worldwide is still largely unconscious about the digital revolution, there were immanent signs of awareness. The next step is action and I am confident that the coming year will show significant initiatives on the part of publishers to address the digital future. Right now, people are clinging to print technology because it informs their business models. Those models need revision and the industry knows it. These are, in the words of the old proverb, "interesting times." It's going to be an wild ride. The iPad introduces, in my not-so-humble opinion, the dawn of a new age. This is not Apple worship—although I say give credit where credit is due, and Apple gets mega kudos for building and launching this machine—but rather my intuition that a powerful tablet computer with a high-resolution screen and intuitive operating system is the face of the future of reading. I can hear the scoffing even as I write this, but mark my words and like it or not, screens are the future of content delivery, not ink on paper. And, yes, by "content delivery" I mean novels, poetry, picture books, narrative non-fiction, and, to make my point succinctly, story. The sooner we all acknowledge that inevitability, the sooner we can get on with enjoying the considerable benefits that derive from the innovations that technology enables. Remember, back in its day, the Gutenburg press was a "new" technology. Enough e-vangelizing. More anon. eBook Caper—Front Street and namelos In cooperation with Boyds Mills Press, we are very pleased to offer you free copies of four new Front Street novels. Here is Kent Brown's letter explaining the caper. I normally trash any e-mail that includes the word free in it. And I often ignore any that mentions e-book, as I'm not up to date on that technology. But I concocted this experiment and egged on my friend Stephen Roxburgh, who is an early adopter of e-books and things high tech. I got used to seeing him in a rocking chair engrossed in his Kindle. Stephen has been a student of the book in whatever format most of his life and is articulate on the importance and magic of story, independent of platform. Front Street, founded by Stephen and now part of Boyds Mills Press, has among its recent publications four great novels, which we selected for this experiment. They are characterized by the gentle hand of Stephen Roxburgh and the skills of colleagues he trained and inspired. The novels are According to Kit by Eugenie Doyle (2ce4), City of Cannibals by Ricki Thompson (d35f), The Dog in the Wood by Monika Schröder (3bd5), and Warriors in the Crossfire by Nancy Bo Flood (2ac4). To get your free electronic copies, go to www.namelos.com and locate the book by title or author by browsing or use the "search" option. When you get to the book page, enter the unique code provided for each book (shown in parentheses above) in the box in the lower-left corner of the page (under the list of prices) and click "submit." You will be asked to provide your name and e-mail address and to select the file format you want. You will receive an e-mail with a link that will download the file you selected to your hard drive, from where you can transfer it to your preferred reading device. The code will allow you to download one file format per title. If you need a file format that is not provided, write directly to Stephen (roxburgh@namelos.com) and he'll provide it. Frankly, it's an increasing challenge to get attention for novels, particularly first novels. So, in cooperation with Stephen Roxburgh and his new venture, namelos llc, we are offering for a limited time downloads of the four novels. From now until April Fools' Day, you can put these on your e-reading device without charge. And since we are doing this to get the word out, we would be very happy if you shared the opportunity with your friends. We want everyone to know about these books. Boyds Mills Press has the hardback editions in stock, and they are available through all the places you buy books. Namelos llc will be selling the e-book versions of these titles in April and beyond. Almost all other Front Street novels are available now for purchase to download at www.namelos.com. If you take advantage of this special offer, you can expect namelos to keep you up to date on the books they are offering in e-book format. If that's not to your liking, you will have a chance to opt out. I cannot answer your technical questions—Stephen can do that—but I'd be happy to hear about your experience with this experiment. Kent Brown I will add only that it is enormously exciting to be part of this effort. A lot of publishers are resisting eBooks, fretting about DRM, piracy, "windowing" (i.e. delaying the release of the eBook edition), and pricing. It's said that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. While they figure it out, we are publishing and delivering compelling new titles to the fastest growing segment of the reading public and the book market. That's where we want to be and I invite you to join us. Enjoy the books! Caveat Venditor The wrestling match between the established print media and the new digital media is now a tag-team match: Macmillan/Apple vs. Amazon and everybody vs. Google. Publishers and agents and many authors have a strong vested interest in the match and have had a lot to say. But not much is being reported about what consumers think, and, as I see it, they are footing the bill. I have been a voracious reader and purchaser of books all my life and currently spend about $2,500 a year on books. I'm the kind of customer publishers and authors need. In the last two years I have shifted from primarily reading print books to ebooks. I have four pieces of hardware that I read on, a Kindle DX, a nook, an iTouch, and my laptop, but my primary device is the Kindle DX. My wife and son also have Kindles (both have K2s). I will order an iPad the second the "Buy button" is activated. We can share books because all the devices are on the same account. Of course, given our diverse tastes, only about one in ten books is something two out of three of us want to read. We have yet to find a unanimous choice. I have 363 books on my ereader today, but that number goes up and down as I add books and manuscripts, read them, and delete them. They are backed up in the cloud and on a remote hard drive on my desk so I can access them whenever I want. Of those, I paid for about 100. I am not a pirate (although that is my Halloween costume of choice), i.e. I don't download unauthorized free copies of books. I don't need to because so many good books are free. Project Gutenburg, ManyBooks, The Book Depository, and Feedbooks are a few established sites that offer tens of thousands of free books. There are many more sites out there as well, and more coming on-line. Moreover, I believe all of those books Google scanned, which are currently unavailable to most readers because they are out of print and not easily found in used book stores or libraries, will become available to the consumer one of these days, and the prices will be reasonable, however the proceeds end up being split. All of this is to say that I find myself choosing between buying a new book or digging around in one of these sites to see what interests me. Some times I go one way, some times the other, but if I pay for a book I have to really want it, and I don't spend money on books I think are overpriced unless I really want them or I'm really desperate for something to read. These days I don't find myself desperate for something to read often, because I've got 50 or more unread books in my hand all the time now, and ready access to more.
The saying "So many books, so little time" has never been more true. The number of books is increasing and the amount of time is decreasing. In light of that, I say seller beware. Go ahead, fix the price of your new books at whatever level you feel is right, but consumers (aka readers) have yet to weigh in and this match is still in the early rounds.
"Completely negative and pessimistic" I recently read a manuscript that I loved and offered the author our contract which the author then submitted to the Authors Guild for review. The author wrote back to say that the response was "completely negative and pessimistic." In light of this, the author, although still enthusiastic, understandably had a few questions for me. Here they are, along with my response. Dear _________, Thank you for your enthusiasm in the face of the "completely negative and pessimistic" response of your advisers. These are all good questions and I want to give you a substantial response. Before I do, I'd like to establish a context. The ability to print small quantities of books, aka "short run" or "print-on-demand" or POD, has long been associated with so-called vanity presses and other self-publishing operations that offer a menu of fee-based services. They are all disparaged by the publishing establishment. While namelos also takes advantage of print-on-demand technology and, in one of our divisions, offer services for a fee, we are based on a different, hybrid business model and have a somewhat better reputation. Ironically, I faced the same attitude from the establishment when I launched Front Street, which, at the time, was as radical a business model as namelos is today. The skepticism implicit in the response to our contract is understandable but, to my mind, lamentable because it ignores the revolution taking place in the publishing industry right now. If authors can find a traditional publisher, that's great. If they can't, the skeptics seem to feel those authors are just plain out of luck. namelos is our attempt to create a viable alternative that, looking forward, accommodates the evolution of publishing and offers competitive terms. On that note, I'll take your questions in order: (1) Could we limit the contract to a term of two or three years after which time it can be renewed or terminated? I have read that the kind of termination provision that is found in other POD contracts allows the author to terminate after giving “notice.” namelos is a publisher, not a manufacturer or a vanity press. We are making an investment in the author and in the book. We need to recover that investment and, hopefully, make a profit. If we successfully develop and publish the book only to have the author terminate the contract when a better offer comes along, we'll go out of business in very short order. Therefore, we are not prepared to reduce the term of the license or allow it to be terminated on "notice". The contract includes a clause specifying that sales of a certain level need to be achieved to keep the contract valid. Incidentally, this is increasingly incorporated in trade publishing contracts now that print-on-demand technology has made the old “out of print” clauses irrelevant. (2) A few POD books have received positive attention and subsequently a traditional publisher has acquired them. Could this contract allow for the acquisition of “hard copy-traditional” rights by another publisher? Would you see this as a plus in that hard copy would support electronic sales rather than compete? The contract already allows for the licensing of print rights to another publisher, and we are certainly open to that option. We will split the proceeds of any such license on the same basis, 50/50, that we split any and all profit. We believe that hardcover, paperback, and ebook sales are critical segments of the market moving forward. That is why we are publishing the books we originate in all three formats simultaneously. (3) Most of the concerns about POD publishers involve marketing and promotion matters. What is your experience so far? Are bookstores ordering copies of POD books to have on hand even though unsold copies cannot be returned to the publisher for a full refund? Are reviewers accepting POD books? Do they require/prefer a “traditional” or POD copy? If so, will that be at my expense as author? Both of us want to attract readers. How will they learn about my bookif it is not available in bookstores or reviewed by major reviewers? Although I do understand that you are sending copies to a selection of places. Are they accepting them for review? We have spoken to the editors of the major review journals. They have agreed to consider our books for review (nobody will ever guarantee that they will review a book, only that they will consider reviewing it). I am pleased to say that they did this in spite of implicit and, for some, explicit restrictions, and did so based on our reputation for publishing high quality books and, presumably, the recognition that things are changing. I am confident our books will be reviewed. We have provided reviewers with print copies unless they specifically request electronic copies. I anticipate more and more will request ebooks in the future. Our first title has an official publication date of April 1, 2010, so we'll know pretty soon if my confidence is well placed. Our books are carried by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, etc. and are listed in the Bowker databases, including Books in Print. In addition, we will use the marketing techniques we have used over the years at Front Street and elsewhere,, adapted to and incorporating the new opportunities provided by the internet. In short, we will market our books the same way everybody markets their books. Incidentally, most publishers send advance reading copies (ARCs) to reviewers. These ARCs are virtually all manufactured using short run, i.e. print-on-demand, technology. Relatively few people can tell the difference between a print-on-demand book and a book printed using traditional offset printing. In all likelihood bookstores will not stock copies of our books because they are non-returnable. Most will only order our titles when a customer requests it. The bookstore model is in transition and I think in the future there will be more ways for booksellers to work with electronic and non-returnable items. A point to consider is that bookstores stock very few hardcover juvenile novels, and those are almost exclusively by brand name authors or classics. (4) All costs of editing, producing and marketing this book are mine – or 50% mine? I have no control over what those costs will be. In other words, it appears that I will bear a significant part of the costs of production. This isn't standard practice in other contracts I have seen. I would like to have some idea what those costs are projected to be and if they exceed a certain amount, could we agree that I be consulted or the costs shared? Answer below. (5) If you don't sell enough books to make up for those expenses, do they become your loss? Or would I be required to pay Namelos the balance? namelos will invest the cash required to publish the books. The author will incur no out-of-pocket cash expenses except for books they choose to purchase at the manufacturing (plus shipping) cost. When we start to sell books or license rights and there is income, we will recover the direct costs incurred by namelos first, then we split anything above and beyond that. Authors will receive itemized statements of expenses, which will only be book specific, i.e. not including any overhead charge. (To date, these "pre-publication" or "fixed" costs are running in the $2500-$3,500 range. I fully expect they will increase.) If we never recover those costs, the author will not have to pay anything. namelos will take the loss. We will consult with authors on extraordinary expenses—this is a partnership— but, because we will incur the risk, we reserve the right to make the publishing decisions. So, to answer your question, yes, half of the expenses will come out of your share of revenues, but you will receive a much higher than traditional share of profits once those costs are recovered. All publishers build recovery of costs into their budgets. (6) What are the advantages for Namelos to acquire rights in all languages and for all countries? Does the phrase “dramatic and non-dramatic visual…” refer to audio books? Movie or video rights? namelos is asking for the cluster of rights traditionally assigned to a publisher. We have long term relationships with a great many publishers, domestic and foreign, as well as with an array of companies that license other subsidiary rights. If there are specific subsidiary rights that an author would like to retain, e.g. dramatic rights (i.e. "movie and video"), we can discuss what they are. The question you will want to ask yourself is, if you retain them, how will you exploit them? I hope I have answered your questions. namelos is a new thing and all I can guarantee is that you will get our best efforts to publish your book successfully. I regret that your advisers are so negative and skeptical and I certainly don’t want to try to convince you to participate in a venture that makes you feel anything but excited. If I didn't think your book is very good, I wouldn't offer to publish it. Therefore, I would be surprised if you couldn’t find a traditional publishing house to take it on. If you choose to go that route, I wish you the very best of luck and every success. Sincerely, Stephen Roxburgh
Publishing the new, old way. Part II Enormous changes are taking place in publishing even as I type. Last Tuesday Publishers Lunch broke a story that Apple has been negotiating with the Big Six (Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins) to supply content for what we all assume is the imminent arrival of a tablet device, possibly to be announced this Wednesday. The next day, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon was changing the deal with its Desktop Publishing clients (individuals and small publishers), from a 65/35 split in Amazon's favor to a 70/30 split in the client's favor, starting in June. It's worth noting that the current Amazon deal with the Big Six is reported to be a 50/50 split. A day later, the news broke that Amazon was releasing an SDK (Software Development Kit) for the Kindle, thereby inviting developers to generate apps (applications) for the Kindle, akin to the enormously successful Apple App program for the iPhone and iTouch. What does it all mean? It means that Apple and Amazon are wrestling, and when Titans struggle, the world shakes. Meanwhile, the Gaea (mother of the Titans) of the techno-cosmos is Google, which will launch a Google Partners program in the first or second quarter of 2010 offering a 70/30 (in the client's favor) split to deliver books from their cloud to any device. IMO, this is the game changer. In any event, when corporations the size of these move this quickly, something big is happening. We live in interesting times. For those of you who found everything I wrote in the previous paragraph either incomprehensible or noxious, there is good news. From my perch on the bleeding edge of the lunatic fringe, as volatile and unsettled as the publishing environment is these days, some fundamentals are adamantine. Let's review the basics. Publishing is a mechanism for "making public." That's not what writers and artists do. They "make." That is not changing. Editors are not publishers. Editors help writers and artists "make better" what they "make." That is not changing. When writers and artists and editors are done making what they make, then publishers do what they do. If you are a publisher, these are truly interesting times, because the old model is in deep, deep trouble in the face of economic and technological developments. If you are a writer or artist, it's the same old same old. You just need to make the best book you can make. If you are an editor, you need to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of the gate keepers entombed in the old publishing model and the brave new world of the unfiltered (read "unedited") deluge enabled by the internet. But, my friends and colleagues, take comfort from the fact that writers and artists do what they do and editors do what they do and nothing about that has changed. All that is in play is who gets paid for what by whom. It is not my intention to suggest this is not important, but it isn't the most important aspect of what we do. This is good because it is definitely not in our control, and, I submit, you should never let the most important thing you do be in somebody else's control. So, new models are emerging, but elements of the old model remain. Now anybody can publish, i.e. make public, anything. But readers won't settle for anything. Incoherent ramblings won't cut it, however freely available. Quality—however you define it—is as valuable as ever. How you get paid for that is in play. The upheaval we are living through is about marketing, sales, and distribution, not content. I take great comfort in that. namelos annual report: a toe-hold on the lunatic fringe We launched namelos a year ago on Inauguration Day, and we're still here. I consider this a resounding success. I promised to be forthcoming about how things are going—in the spirit of transparency and in service to the publishing community, which has been enormously supportive and encouraging. So here goes. In the first phase of our launch we announced our "services" division, designed to help authors and artists by offering a substantial (average length: 1500 words), objective editorial evaluation in a timely manner (two weeks) for a modest price ($200). This generated some controversy and skepticism and still does. Be that as it may, we provided evaluations for 77 clients in 2009. I know of only two who felt our services were unsatisfactory, and most have expressed great satisfaction. I find this approval level acceptable. Of these 77 clients, 10 have engaged our ongoing, higher level editorial services. I find this conversion percentage acceptable. Half of our higher-level clients have agents and several have publishers. They have come to us for our editorial expertise, which pleases me. Our growth is driven by word-of-mouth. It is slow and that suits us just fine. In September, we initiated the second phase of our launch, consisting of three new divisions. Our ebook store is stocked with ebook editions of approximately 80 titles—the entire Front Street list of fiction and poetry—that we licensed from Boyds Mills Press. Moreover, we are actively seeking and acquiring rights to titles that have gone out of print and are republishing them in both print and ebook formats. I am especially pleased to be republishing Carolyn Coman's first novel, Tell Me Everything, that I originally published at FSG in 193. The conversion process from print to electronic formats has proven interesting but we survived it and most of our titles went live on Amazon on Christmas Eve. At this point the titles are also live with Ingram and are posted in partnership with Google. We are systematically loading the books into a wide array of ebook venues. And, mirabile dictu, we are even selling books from our website. I want to emphacize that we (i.e. namelos and the authors) make much more money from sales on the namelos site than through other on-line stores so if you are interested in acquiring any of our ebooks, please buy them here. We launched our publishing program with Pod by Stephen Wallenfels, the first volume of a science-fiction trilogy. The first review is in: 11-year-old Robert declared it the best book he has ever read. The official publication date is April 1 (the same day I launched Front Street in 1994) but the book is available now from our website. We are breaking from the traditional publishing model by offering our books simultaneously in hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats. Pod is out with all the major reviewers (who need more lead time than Robert) and we are orchestrating the distribution of materials to the rest of the review media over the next two months. I'm very excited about the book and expect good things for it. Just this week I've sent contracts off for four new books: The Forbidden Land by Betty Levin, The Sundown Rule by Wendy Townsend, The Punk Ethic by Timothy Decker, and No Name Baby by Nancy Bo Flood. In addition we have three books in the pipeline from our long-time Dutch partner, Lemniscaat: Departure Time by Truus Matti, Ramiro, Child Soldier by Ineke Holtwijk, and It's a Wonderful Life by Jesse Goossens. We are seeing more and more exciting projects coming our way. The third division we launched is our "development" program. Our business model does not allow us to publish full-color picture books at this time, but we love to work on them. So, very, very selectivey, we have entered into agreements to develop and attempt to place some picture books with publishing partners. To date we're working on only three new projects. This year we were able to place Carolyn Coman and Rob Shepperson's The Memory Bank with Arthur Levine at Scholastic, and Donna Diamond's The Shadow with Joan Powers at Candlewick. We've also successfully introduced three authors to agents who have taken on their representation. All well and good, you say, but what about the money? I'm not prepared to release our financials (and probably won't go quite that far, even in service to the community) but I will say that we've recovered the cash invested in launching the company, paid all our bills including fees to contributing members of our consortium, and there's enough left over to invest in the next phase of our growth. So, there you have it. I'll close the report by saying that I haven't been this excited or challenged by publishing since my time as an editorial assistant at FSG in the late 70's and the launch of Front Street in the early 90's. We are publishing at the most elementary and fundamental level—finding authors, editing books, and bringing them to the public, and using all the skills we've acquired over decades. We are learning new things on a daily, almost hourly basis. Our authors are excited by our partnership and by the opportunities we see in the evolving publishing world. This is what publishing is all about. We're making a few good books and, maybe, just maybe, we'll make some money at it. Thank you for your interest and support. Please, stay tuned. Publishing the old, old way. Part I A recent experience on the bleeding edge of digital publishing made me realize that my business model is more akin to Gutenberg's and Newbery's than to that of the international conglomerates that dominate the industry in these early days of the 21st century. This will be the first of several posts on various aspects of new/old publishing. I spent much of the last few days fixing some book files that I discovered were badly broken after having them go live on Amazon and elsewhere. In one file the capital letters were dropped about a third of the time. In the other, the entire book was set in italic. These things happen because the conversion process from p- to e-books is neither exact or standardized. Because there are a great many more e-readers being used now than there were just a few days ago, I felt it was important to correct the files before too many people downloaded them. I'm not an expert or a geek when it comes to this stuff, so the learning curve is vertical for me. Using InDesign, Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, PDFXML Inspector, Adobe Digital Editions, Calibre, and two pieces of hardware—a Kindle DX and a nook—to proofread, I dug around in pages and pages of XHTML source code for hours. I discovered that a single keystroke can wreak havoc on how a text displays. I discovered the key to the kingdom in the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) files and was able to fix the files. Eventually I was able to generate new .pdf, .epub, .mobi, .lit, .rtf, .pdb, and .asc4 files, and re-upload them to their various repositories. Then I called it a day. This effort reminds me strongly of my experiences 30-odd years ago handsetting lead type from trays using a type stick. Each font and point size of type was different. The letters were all reversed, i.e. mirror images, because the process was direct transfer, and kerning and work-spacing a line involved inserting thin slivers of metal—and, occasionally, a piece of paper matchstick—into the tray to justify each line of type. Nowadays this level of attention is called "granular". Back then it was just painstaking. Looking for a single keystroke in a page of XHTML code is very much the same. Working at this level of granularity puts you into a book in a way that has long been lost, especially if you are also the editor and publisher of the book. The file in which the capital letters were lost was THE MARK OF THE HORSE LORD by Rosemary Sutcliff. The book was orginally published in the US by Henry Z. Walck in 1965. I read it then—I was fifteen years old—and it changed my life. It depicted a model of heroism, loyalty, and sacrifice that inspired and thrilled me. I went on to read almost everything Rosemary Sutcliff wrote and, to this day, I consider her the best writer of historical fiction I've ever read. Many years later, when I was the publisher at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, I was able to republish many of Sutcliff's historical novels, most notably the Legionnaire's Trilogy, and, I was able to publish THE SHINING COMPANY, Sutcliff's last book. In 1985 I personally collected, on her behalf, the Phoenix Award, given to THE MARK OF THE HORSE LORD by the Children's Literature Association. The book didn't become available for me to publish until 2006, when I brought it out in paperback under the Front Street imprint. Now, it pleases me immensely to be publishing the first digital edition under the namelos imprint. These last few days, while many people were opening presents, eating wonderful things and, generally, kicking back, I buried myself in the source code, i.e. the words, of a story that has held me in thrall for almost 45 years, reading it very, very closely, comparing it word for word to my copy of the first Walck edition, to make sure I got it right. Who would have thought that the perils of publishing ebooks would bring me back to the core of story that I find so immensely satisfying? What a gift! Our first title is live! I am very pleased to publish Pod by Stephen Wallenfels as the first title on the namelos list. POD is Steve's first novel, and there is nothing an editor finds more exciting than discovering new authors and publishing their first books. I met Steve when he participated in a Highlights Foundation Whole Novel Workshop, taught by my wife, Carolyn Coman, and Tim Wynne-Jones. I didn't know anything about what he was writing but over dinner I learned that he and his son have an annual holiday tradition of rewatching Die Hard and I knew then and there that he was someone to keep an eye on. (You can take that any number of ways, but I mean it positively.) Subsequently Steve let me read a draft of the novel and I knew immediately that I wanted to publish it. I’m all cried out. I’m still alone. The sky is full of giant spinning black balls that kill anyone stupid enough to go outside. Pod is the story of a global cataclysmic event, told from the view points of Megs, a 12-year-old streetwise girl trapped in a hotel parking garage in Los Angeles; and 16-year-old Josh, who is stuck in a house in Prosser, Washington, with his increasingly obsessive compulsive father. Food and water and time are running out. Will Megs survive long enough to find her mother? Will Josh and his father survive each other? Pod is the first book in a trilogy and is now available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats on our website. NBA Afterthoughts The National Book Awards evening was as elegant and exciting as always. Authors and publishers can be dressed up and taken places. I'm pleased to say that the children's award provided the most moving moment of the evening: Phillip Hoose escorted Claudette Colvin onto the stage. They were spectacular. Sadly, Melanie Kroupa, the editor and publisher of the book was not at the ceremony, having parted ways with the Macmillan USA group some months ago. Melanie was gratefully and eloquently acknowledged by the author and roundly applauded by her many friends in the audience. One aspect of the evening was off-putting to me. Numerous speakers felt the need to disparage the advent of ebooks and the assembled movers and shakers vigorously cheered. I understand the impulse, but it seemed to me somewhat hypocritical. Every author, publisher, and agent in that room is trying to figure out how to accommodate the technological revolution that is currently taking place. Putting aside the obvious hypocrisy of the moment, I genuinely don't understand why people get so worked up about another means of presenting literature to an audience. Ironically, the premier sponsor of the event was Barnes & Noble, whose new e-reader, the "nook", is sold out even before its launch at the end of this month. Ebooks are a major new source of revenue, and represent an innovation akin to the development of mass market paperbacks. It is early days, but the growth is phenomenal. This week figures for Random House ebook sales (primarily Kindle) were leaked, revealing year-to-date sales of $22.6 million, an almost 700% increase over last year's $2.9 million. A lot of that was Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol which sold 100,000 ebooks in its first week of sales, but industry-wide growth in ebooks, according to IDPF figures, is up 300% over this time last year. Why aren't authors and publishers celebrating? What is it about this new platform for reading that has people so fretful? Do they really think that books and ebooks are inherently incompatible and mutually exclusive? The anxiety smacks of hysteria. But, there is nothing new about that. A scholarly friend of mine tells me that one of the Lippincotts opined in the 1890s that the runaway success of the bicycle would spell the end of leisure reading. On the road My wife and I are on the way to Ireland for a week. It's the first trip to the country for either of us. We'll be based in Galway, but immediately head to the Aran Islands for a couple of days. I was infatuated with John Millington Synge's plays in my youth and I very much look forward to going to the remote islands that he wrote so much about. On the publishing front, this week brought a number of significant developments. There is so much going on that it is easy to miss the forest for the trees and I am disinclined to regale you with every twitch and jerk of the process that is transforming publishing. There are some very smart people out there who spend far more time than I do attending to all of this. One of them is Mike Shatzkin and I highly recommend that you take a look at his more recent thoughts on his blog. One of the most exciting developments of the week was the announcement by Barnes & Nobles of a new ebook reader, the nook (yes, it is a lower case “n” … but no relation to namelos). I, of course, had to order one because I am a habitual user, perhaps even an abuser. This will be my sixth ebook reader: a first generation Kindle, two second generation Kindles, a Kindle DX (which is my always with me), an iTouch, and, now, a nook. I’m fear I’m headed down a slippery slope. Intervention may be needed. There will be probably ten or more new e-readers on the market by the end of the year. A good friend assures me that I’ll be all right, it’s the deniers who are hardest to cure. I am curious to see what Ireland offers on the ebook front. More anon. Stephen Roxburgh Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—Of cabbages—and kings … Of books: For many authors, a hardcover copy of their own book has a totemic significance that has nothing to do with the thing itself, das Ding an sich. It connotes an achievement on the order of being allowed to put Dr. before or Esq. after your name. On a shelf in a bookstore or a library, it is a public testimonial of achievement. All of this, I believe, is what Moses was so cranked about when he destroyed the golden calf. Be aware that when the object becomes detached from its meaning, it becomes a false idol. The ne plus ultra for an author is having his or her words in the mind of a reader and the more readers, the better. Paperback and ebook editions are ways to achieve that end. So, with all due deference to the hardcover books we adore, welcome and embrace the evolution that will extend and expand your readership. Of Google: This week's announcement that Google will start selling books from the "cloud" early next year is cause for celebration, not because Google is the be all and end all of anything, but because it means that a major competitor has entered the marketplace to temper the dominance of Amazon and Barnes & Noble. When Apple releases it's much-anticipated tablet (possibly in early 2010), another major player will enter the fray. This competition is good for the consumer and what is good for the consumer is good for those of us who want to put our words in their minds. Of Amazon: I've been talking with a neat group of people at Amazon this week. We hit a roadblock when we uploaded our first few titles. Amazon, burned by the Orwell incident, sought confirmation that we, in fact, had the right to sell those books. We received a form email asking that we send our contracts to the desktop people. Well, contracts contain proprietary information and publishers are loathe to share such information with disinterested third parties, especially anonymous ones (i.e. Amazon.com). With the help of a well-placed friend I was able to speak with the head of a new team established by Amazon to address author/publisher relations. These folks, at least the ones I spoke with, come from traditional book publishing and were very sympathetic to my concerns and came up with a way to resolve the situation. Amazon is enormous and, as was pointed out to me, is not a publisher. It sells stuff and sells it as well as or better than most other retailers in the world. They deal with an astronomical number of authors, publishers, and books. Their systems need to be scalable at a level that is incomprehensible to me (remember we publish only "a few good books"). Bridging the gap between their needs and ours presented a hurdle for them and for us. They could easily have ignored us: it's not like we're the tipping point. But they didn't and thanks to their new support team we've cleared the hurdle. I applaud their effort and thank them. Of reviews: As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we have been discussing our business model and our forthcoming books with reviewers, major and minor. I am very happy to say that, without exception or abstention, they have agreed to allow us to submit our books for review. And that is all anybody can ever do. So now we just need to publish a few good books. Of cabbages: … and other fall vegetables. I volunteer every Friday at my son-in-law's farm stand, hawking vegetables and swapping recipes. The cabbages aren't in full shriek yet, but the rutabagas, beets, potatoes, and kale are to die for. And the turnip soup I'm making will bring you back to life. Of kings: … and queens. Norma Fox Mazer died this week. A sad loss. An enduring legacy. Requiescat in pace. Stephen Roxburgh Extraordinary publishing delusions and I'll take a break from namelos to
rant about the trade book publishing industry. From my perspective on
the lunatic fringe, it seems ripe for a Gibbon's-like treatment (you
remember The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). In other
areas of publishing, e.g. medical/technical and scholarly, publishers
are adjusting their business model to accommodate the array of challenges
we all face. Trade book publishing seems to be clutching its braces,
puffing out its chest, and shouting we're going to keep on doing what
we've always done the way we've always done it … and even more so. A case in point. I'm a life-long
reader and rabid fan of genre fiction, primarily mystery and thrillers,
and I'm a big fan of Dan Brown. I've read all his books. I have a prized
first edition/printing of The DaVinci Code that I bought before
it became a mega-bestseller. I thought at the time that it was very
good, although not as good as his earlier books. I was surprised when
it became so enormously successful. Subsequently people sought out the
other books and the whole thing seemed like an example of what publishing
is all about. You publish someone until, if you're lucky, a book breaks
out, and he/she builds an audience, the back list flourishes, and everybody
is happy. Then came the long interim between
The DaVinci Code and The Lost Symbol. Rumors would surface,
mention would be made of when the new book might be published and what
it might be about, and the back list titles would show another little
bump in sales. Then came the frenzy and hysteria of the launch. The
revelation of the jacket alone was cause for headlines. A first print
run in the millions was announced. Much speculation ensued regarding
how Amazon would price the ebook version. Security usually reserved
for presidents and popes surrounded the printed copies. Finally, the
book was published and set a first day sales record … a million copies
or some such figure. I've read somewhere that the first print was 5
million and, based on the first day's sales, the publisher went back
to press for 600,000 more copies. The marketing team was on steroids,
pumping out smoke. Their fun-house mirrors slimming, trimming, and glittering.
The book world was all aquiver. The Lost Symbol was going to
save the industry. Beautiful! But there is a problem. The book
just isn't that good. To give it its due, it has all the allure of a
particularly engaging crossword puzzle. But, as fiction, the characters
are one-dimensional and the plot is transparent, at least the bit that
involves characters. The fat lady sings well before the book ends. The
long coda is reveal-ation (you have to read the book to get that reference)
of the esoteric puzzle that informs the book combined with some philosophical
speculation. Okay, I didn't like the book. Enough already. I'm not alone
in that assessment: read Maureen Dowd's review in today's The New
York Times Book Review and of the almost 1000 readers' reviews
on Amazon, the majority are negative. These are people who bought the
book and were disappointed enough to feel compelled to post a review! However, the point I'm making is
not about Dan Brown's success or failure. He wrote the best book he
could and maybe his reach exceeded his grasp. Following an enormously
successful book is always rough. I'll buy his next book and hope he
hits his stride again. My real point is about our industry which is
counting on the sales of this book to offset a disastrous year. We're
looking for salvation to a book that is disappointing a great many of
its readers. These are loyal fans who have been hyped to rush out and
buy a book that does not deliver. When those 5.6 million copies don't
sell through, when the mountains of them in bookstores stand undiminished
on Dec. 26th, and booksellers start returning them in the new year,
it will be a sad day in Mudville. This was inevitable in the biggest-is-best
(whether it's any good or not) mentality that pervades trade publishing
these days. Everybody is just doing what they get paid to do. But if
this kind of publishing is what is supposed to save the industry, then
we're in terrible trouble. If we save ourselves by disappointing our
customers, we aren't worth saving. Our operating principle should not
be caveat emptor. That's what I'm saying. Stephen Roxburgh Reasonable Questions The last two weeks have been busy and productive and not without frustration, but that is to be expected. We are talking about publishing, which has a lot in common with roller derby and rugby, albeit in a more psychological context. We are preparing to publish our first two titles, both first novels: Pod by Stephen Wallenfels, and Departure Time by Truus Matti. (By the way, in this case, Pod is not the acronym for print-on-demand, although it is an amusing coincidence.) To that end I have been talking with the book review editors of major and minor media, describing our business model and answering any questions they may have regarding our program. These are smart, experienced professionals and I thought it would be worthwhile to share a few of their questions and my answers. So, with no further ado, here goes. Q. Are you self-publishing? Q. Are you publishing books for a fee? Q. Are you an ebook publisher? Q. How will you submit titles to reviewers and awards committees?
Q. Will libraries be able to purchase your books?
Q. Will bookstores be able to order your books?
My answers seemed to satisfy their concerns. In response to my question, Will you allow us to submit our books for review? the answer was, Yes. This is all a publisher can ask. Then it comes down to the quality of the books, themselves, and my confidence in the titles we are publishing knows no bounds. Stephen Roxburgh That was the week that was. This week brought much appreciated attention to our launch. In a substantial article in Publishers Weekly, Karen Springen reported on our business model and discussed it with veteran industry player and observer, Richard Curtis. Curtis' comments were insightful, albeit, to my mind, skeptical. In particular, he said “namelos is open to Joe Blow, and the way it appears is that Joe Blow will be financing the development of these packages. The reading fee can be a sore point in the author community.” Yes, Joe and Jane Blow are welcome to submit to namelos and their work will get our full and undivided attention. No, I only wish the $200 income from evaluations would finance our development. And, yes, the reading fee is a sore point. I speak to the issue of why we charge for this service more fully here. I can only add that the people who have received evaluations from namelos overwhelmingly have felt they received value for their money. But fair enough, skepticism is reasonable. Digital publishing is the new frontier and it's risky out here, as others are finding. Most notably, in a surprise announcement Quartet Press, which launched a few weeks ago and planned to publish romance digitally, pulled the plug this week. Kassia Krozser, one of the partners explains some of what they learned in "How I spent my summer vacation." Her “pain points” are illuminating. As it happens, I, too, spent my summer vacation—actually most of the past year—the same way and, admittedly, the view from where I'm sitting is "through a glass, darkly." However, I recognize it as the same view I had when I started Front Street fifteen years ago, and I find it no more or less daunting now than then. Many friends out there—authors and illustrators and publishers—are cheering us on. Thank you all. We will forge ahead. To reiterate what I've already said, the old model is crumbling. The gatekeepers are still the major publishers, the so-called "Big Six", but the walls are coming down. Think of the ancient gates scattered around the centers of old Italian cities. They are lovely … and abandoned. Publishing is not there, yet, but publishers are struggling to come up with new models to accommodate the changing economic, technological, and competitive environment. namelos is our best shot. And, so, we are stocking our shelves. Within the next few weeks we expect to have all of the books up in the three primary ebook formats—.epub, .mobi, and .pdf. If someone needs another format, let us know, and we'll convert the file. This fall we will publish our first three original titles, Pod by Stephen Wallenfels, Departure Time by Truus Matti, and Ramiro: Boy Soldier by Ineke Holtwijk. These books will be available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats. Finally, by the end of the month we expect to have our development site up and running with a few good books to show interested parties. My intention is to post comments here on Sunday nights. I'll close each one with a question for you. I'm looking for an independent bookseller who will talk with me about ways that we can do business together. The old model doesn't work for us, and ours will be difficult for you. But we need to work together and namelos is open to any fair and reasonable arrangement. So, please, if you are or if you know a bookseller who is interested in tackling the nitty gritty of electronic and print-on-demand publishing, please contact me. Stephen Roxburgh |
| What is namelos? September 7, 2009 First and foremost, namelos is a publisher of books for children and young adults. You can see our publishing credentials on the "About us" page, but, short form, we have been editing and publishing books for over thirty years. At namelos we will continue to do what we have done in the past: we will find, develop, and publish the best books for young readers. In this respect, we are traditional. In all other respects, we are not traditional. We will be format independent, publishing digital editions of our books as soon as they are ready, printing copies on demand to fill orders. In summary, our intention is to provide high quality content and let the market dictate format. We are out of the manufacturing, shipping, and storage business. Our books will not be returnable (unless defective or damaged). Our authors and illustrators will be partners in a profit sharing contract. We will recover direct costs (exclusive of overhead) from gross revenues and split the balance 50/50. Initially we will not publish full-color illustrated books because print-on-demand quality for full-color work is not yet where it needs to be for our business model. Therefore, we will enter into an agreement to develop picture books and place them with publishing partners. We will retain 15-25% of the revenues from such licenses. Our marketing will be a combination of traditional and non-traditional. We will print copies for reviewers and anyone else who prefers paper to screens. We will also use social networking and viral marketing techniques, exploiting all of the new tools available on the Internet. We do not accept unsolicited submissions but we do offer evaluations and editorial guidance through our publishing services division for a fee. All projects that we evaluate will automatically be considered for publication. namelos is a new business model in an old business. Many of our practices are innovative. Some will be controversial. Our intention is to be as transparent in our operations as possible. To that end, and in service to the publishing community, we will post weekly a summary of how things are going. We are eager to engage in public dialogue with people in the field and we invite you to contact us. Thank you for your interest in our venture and, please, stay tuned. Stephen Roxburgh |
