According to this Author's Guild briefing, Simon and Schuster is trying to fix the royalty rates for ebooks at 15% FOREVER.


MODERN WAMPUM?

Really...what exactly are "publishing companies" doing when they publish an ebook, besides providing their illustrious name and allowing writers to come into the office and poke around; to chat with interns; to act all big?

Several British men all agree that "if I do the work of picking an apple, then it is my apple, and I can do what I want with that apple, including put it into a bag for my lord." So what are publishing companies doing for ebooks, and why should authors let them take 85% of the NET on a pure-profit investment that requires no WORK?

If you can copy and paste words from a text document, you can "publish" an "ebook." Writers expend 95% of the effort here, and publishers do actually, literally nothing, except provide validation, and pay for the ebook to be "designed," which I am willing to value at 5% of the labor.

They don't need warehouses, a supply chain, ink, dye, paper, flap-copy, NOTHING. Writers already do their own book tours and promotion...and now they are going to give publishing companies 85% of the profits on their books made from blood and divorces?

Writers: do not listen to vanity publishers like Simon and Schuster! Know what your product is worth! Know who is doing the work! Do not let them stroke your ego while they steal your wallet and the wallets of your friends and fellow writer-wretches!

IN FACT, think about this: by letting your publishing company turn your book into an ebook, you are tanking the SHIT out of the future potential for making money off your print edition. I steal books all the time from the internet. Those files are so cute and petite! You can get 1000 ebooks in maybe three minutes, and that's this year. What about next year?

Writers are gonna lose money in the long run because of ebooks, and publishing companies are gonna disappear altogether -- poof. Watch it happen! Maybe they will be replaced by private editing cabals. I don't know.

But 15%?

DO NOT LET A FAST-TALKING WAG WHO HAS ACCESS TO AN INTERNET CONNECTION AND A TALL BUILDING IN MANHATTAN SHACKLE YOUR ANKLES TO SAGUARO CACTI, STRIP YOU DOWN TO YOUR HOMBURG AND SOCKS, AND RAPE YOU WITH A JAGGED BOTTLE OF TONER THAT HE OR SHE NO LONGER NEEDS FOR THE PRESSES THAT ARE NO LONGER RELEVANT.

If you need someone in New York to be your friend, I will be your friend. Especially if I can sleep on your couch next month.

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Posted by miracle on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:55:27 -0400 -- permanent link