earlemerson.com

I appreciate all the comments on my previous post. Here are some more thoughts on publishing in today’s technological and business climate. With permission, I am reproducing an e-mail exchange with Mark W. As always, your comments are welcome. I’m learning a lot from you readers.

 

Hi Earl,
I’ve been a huge fan of yours since you signed my Fat Tuesday hardback at
the old Tower Books by Seattle Center in 1987. Since then I have bought
every hardback of yours within a week of publication, many times through
Seattle Mystery Bookshop. Thus my concern.

Bookstores have always held a piece of my heart since I read my first
Hardy Boy book. It pains me to see the demise of so many new bookstores
caused by the Kindle, Nook etc. Very soon Amazon will have a monopoly on
the book business. Many don’t seem to care, but I do.

The bottom line is that as much as I love your books, Cape Disappointment
being your best, I will never purchase, nor read your book in e-book form.
I wouldn’t be able to place it next to your other books on my shelf, I
wouldn’t be able to hold it, nor would I be able to have you sign your
book. I’m trying not to get on my large soap box.

You explained your frustration with the publishing houses convincingly.
Hopefully the publishers will figure out that they need to streamline the
process and make it more attractive to authors to use them to sell the
book.

Just a note: I read Cape Disappointment while camping at my father-in laws
property along the Methow River at Carlton. I was suprised to see the
picture on your web page. Also, like the Blacks my wife and I spent 5 days
of our honeymoon at the Sandpiper Resort in 1993. We go back often with
our kids.

Thank you for the many hours of reading pleasure.

Your fan,
Mark W., Puyallup

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Mark,

Thanks for the long and well-considered note. Your points are all well
taken. I haven’t made any decisions about the publishing of my next book
yet, just thinking out loud. A lot of this depends on what the New York
publishers say, if anything. Given the state of the industry and the mindset
of mainstream publishers these days, I am not hopeful. Most of those
publishers have black hoods over their heads and don’t even know it. Most of
their writers are in the same place. In publishing, we’re where bridle
makers were in 1910. The old mantra, “adapt, migrate or die,” takes on new
meaning in these times.
I understand the love of paper books, the feel of them, the utility, the
history. I love books, too. I don’t collect them, at least not too many of
them, but I do love them. I understand your history with me. You bought my
books, met me in a bookstore, and now you have a collection, many of them signed. My paperbacks used to be stocked in every grocery store in the
northwest. Hardcovers, when they were still new, in virtually every
bookstore in the Northwest, and in the majority of bookstores in the
rest of the country. Now, through no fault of mine, most of those bookstores
are no longer in business. Adams News Service would sell ten to twelve thousand paperbacks in the Northwest of each title without even blinking. They were the company that distributed to grocery stores and drugstores and so forth. They were bought up by a national company that makes all their decisions back East.
Because nobody’s enforcing the Sherman Anti-trust act
(people’s eyes glaze over when I mention this in a conversation—I believe
most people have actually forgotten what that act was all about) we got a
duopoly in the bookstore business which drove a great majority of the small
bookstore owners out of business. Then came the Internet and Amazon quickly and while nobody was watching, established a near monopoly of e-books, not quite, but near. This will
change.
Things are changing in huge ways every ten years and it will not be
the same a decade hence — I can almost guarantee that.
I know if I’m not out in a physical book form, I will lose customers. Many,
many customers. I will try my best not to let that happen.
On the other hand, e-book royalties are such that an author can probably
sell a fifth as many books and make twice the money. When an author goes
with a mainstream publisher, he or she has to know that the vast majority of
the sales of his or her books will now, or eventually be in e-book form. Maybe not in the first year. Maybe not in the second, but ten years from now he or she will be able to look back and see most of the sales were e-book sales. Right now publishers want half of the royalties from an e-book.
They get around 35%, the way I understand it, so the
author gets around 17 %, and 15% of that is passed off to the author’s
agent. Now, I would be the first to tell you that money isn’t everything,
but it definitely is something. A guy publish’s himself — say, with
Amazon — he gets seventy percent of the cover price. He can do that
without an agent. He can set his own prices. Take charge of cover design,
which isn’t all that important in e-books anyway, and release the book in
his own timeline, instead of the publisher’s. Then, ten years from now,
instead of getting around 14% of each sale, he will still be getting 70%.
Granted, over time, the prices will be driven down, but by then there will
also be more e-book outlets, more places to sell and more people will be reading on e-readers.

You decide you want an Earl Emerson book. You try to remind yourself next time
you’re out and about to walk into the nearest bookstore and pick one up. You
might remember. You might not. Most people won’t. If you do remember, you’ll pay for some
dead trees and the bookstore will take their cut and their wholesaler will
take their cut and the publisher will take the lion’s share and Earl might get a few pennies. If you buy a paperback for $7.99, the author should take home, after his agent takes a cut,
something quite a bit less than a buck. Maybe less than fifty cents. Chances
are, the publisher will fudge their royalty statement and he won’t take home
anything.
Now let’s look at that book in e-form, published in e-book form by the author.
You decide it’s time to read the latest Earl Emerson. You’re lying in bed, just finished a biography and you’re ready for a really good mystery. You don’t have to remind yourself to visit a bookstore next time you’re driving around in your car. You log onto a website right there in
your bed, and within sixty seconds you’re reading the latest from these hallowed
shores. How much easier is that than driving to a bookstore? How much
quicker is sixty seconds compared to next week? How long do you have to keep it in mind to remember to shop for the book? If the book is priced at $7.99, the
author should take home $5.50. In the first year — in the last year. The assumption here is that the Internet dealers won’t be screwing authors with phony royalty statements the way
traditional publisher’s have been doing for years. Yeah, that’s right. I don’t trust my publisher, any of my publishers. If they were on the up and up, my I would be able to decipher my royalty statements. Now — which publishing path would you choose?

There are other considerations, of course. Library sales would be close to
non-existent. Also, a good agent gets more money in the advance than the
author will earn back in royalties, so all of these numbers can become
moot if the advance is large enough, though the days of large advances for midlist authors are about over. On the other hand, if you’re not one of the few authors
dragging down a huge advance, e-books are very tempting right now.
Don’t blame the author. The earth is shifting under our feet. Adapt, migrate or
die.

Just thinking out loud.

Your friend

Earl Emerson

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Mark’s reply:

Hi Earl,

Thank you for your detailed response. If I were in your position I would leap at the chance to gain more control of my work. I can’t blame you, especially when in their arrogance the publishing houses have made the e-book choice so easy. I’m sure that they are quaking in their boots with the thought that many writers may make the same choice that you are considering.

We all remember how dismayed we were that the big box bookstores were putting the independent stores out of business. Now we may lose all of the new bookstores. In Puyallup we lost our Borders so the closest new bookstore is Barnes and Noble in Lakewood or Federal Way.

I’m sure that there are those that share my concern so I feel that your response will help others plainly understand the position you are in. Thank you again!

Your friend,

Mark