E-book Self-Publishing: Instant Gratification, at What Cost?

This paper examines some of the promises and peril posed by the digitization of books.

Empowered Authors, Embittered Publishers

The e-book market removes entry barriers for authors who have been hampered by or excluded entirely from the traditional publishing process. Since print publishers count on a small crop of bestsellers to recoup the losses from underperforming manuscripts, they extend advances to a select few. Authors who manage to land deals must then launch a marketing blitz to drum up in-person sales. For example, J.A. Konrath recounts the uphill battle he faced when his first hardcover novel hit stores. Konrath's publisher did not want to pay coop fees for an incognito to host official bookstore signings. Konrath instead cobbled together his own signings, and, when he graduated to an official book tour, squeezed in hundreds of extra road shows to make the long slogs cross-country more efficient.

A once-weary Konrath now sits comfortably at home while his Kindle sales drive tens of thousands of monthly profits in the background, a few dollars at a time. The same can be said for Amanda Hocking, who went straight from unsigned blogger to Kindle millionaire, pricing her works in the "impulse buy" range of $.99 to $3. Their success, however, is uncommon: to date, only 56 writers have sold 100,000 or more e-books on Amazon.

As some self-made authors take the reigns of their digital careers, spurned Big Six publishers strive to cannibalize their cut of e-book revenues. Displeased that more than eighty percent of Kindle titles have been priced at $9.99 or less, the Big Six joined Apple to pressure Amazon into dropping its wholesale strategy in favor of their agency model. With wholesaling, Amazon bought titles at a bulk discount and set its own resale prices; under the agency model, publishers set list prices ($12.99+) and pay the online retailer a ~30% commission on sales. Amazon caved to the demands, but the Big Six/Apple bullies are now subject to a class action antitrust lawsuit for conspiring to fix prices.

Penguin also launched its own self-publishing platform last month, BookCountry? , which quickly garnered scathing reviews from Konrath and other authors. BookCountry imposes steep fees and meager revenue shares on literary hopefuls: joining requires a $99 to $549 outlay for formatting/design services, and rev shares drop 30% in comparison to Amazon's program because Penguin has re-inserted itself as an intermediary. Furthermore, Penguin restricts authors' DRM choices; whereas all Amazon self-publishers can choose to post their works DRM-free, BookCountry? prohibits DRM-free publishing for all works over $2.99 (which, incidentally, are the works that qualify for higher rev share).

These "frenemy" maneuvers by Amazon and the Big Six prompt consideration of how authors would fare if they chose instead to manage the entire e-publishing cycle. In theory, authors could learn Photoshop or tag an artistic friend for design help, host their own websites through Weebly, and encode their own e-books with open source software such as Calibre. But in practice, I think few overstretched authors, especially those with limited tech backgrounds, would devote resources to creating their own book distribution networks when the alternative is paying a 20-30% convenience fee to access existing channels. Such channels have achieved a network effect that no emerging artist can replicate alone. No matter how well SEO-ed an author's Website might be, it won't bubble up to the first page of search results when would-be customers run a generic search for "books." The indie seller would miss out on Amazon shoppers "primed" to make 1-click purchases of cheap reads alongside their other goods. And if the seller tried to juggle both Amazon- and self-run distribution, she would be disciplined into not offering promos on her site that differ from Kindle prices; one author learned the hard way that Amazon's algorithm searches other sites for free versions -- even excerpts -- and drops the Kindle price to match.

Commoditized Consumers

At best, dominant player Amazon offers aspiring authors an unprecedented chance to make a living from their creative talents; at worst, it and the Big Six are seeding writer dependence for their cartel's benefit. But how does the growing e-book market affect readers?

Kindle partnerships with libraries and schools can improve students' web-based reading comprehension and overall enthusiasm for literature in our tech gadget-obsessed society. As high school librarian Buffy Hamilton points out in the above article, the Kindle enables self-conscious teens to privately reading different books without incurring their friends' ridicule. (It's too bad this aversion to literature exists in our society, but at least the Kindle tries to help). Such partnerships would go even farther if Amazon would heed librarians' request to relax the six-device sharing limit imposed on Kindle files.

Over on the consumer side, critics bemoan the commoditization of literature. At the $.99 price point, books stop existing as cherished tomes, handpicked after an afternoon spent browsing curated titles at the local store, and assume new life as impulse purchases made because the cover art was flashy. The Kindle market place has been littered with spam, and with each additional purchase, the Web giant gains incremental knowledge of how to price discriminate among us. France and Germany have laws against selling books below cost to prevent this loss of local culture, meanwhile, Amazon hawks its discount-bundled, price scanning app in an effort to divert in-person purchases back to its site.

Conclusion

The present e-books landscape encourages new authors and increases reader access, provided we are willing to cede digital autonomy to Amazon and the Big Six.

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Instant Publishing, on Amazon's Terms