The Enemy

It’s a difficult confusing world for the author or the wannabe author to come to come to grips with. In many ways it’s a better and less opaque one than ten years ago… but that’s rather like comparing Afghanistan now with Afghanistan ten years ago. It’s better than under the Taliban, but you still wouldn’t really want to live there. And in some ways it was ‘easier’ under narrow-minded traditional Talibs, because you knew what would happen. Nothing good, true (unless you sang their tune loudly), but at least you had certainty.

You knew what sura you had to sing to stay alive. If you didn’t work it out, you died. You knew girl-children would never go to school, no matter how bright they were, or you wanted them to. And fear or the Stockholm syndrome saw that you at least pretended to everyone that those in control of the system as right and good. Quite a lot of people got to believing it true. Some (particularly those who did their praise-singing well, and got benefits far beyond their due) still cling to the belief that ‘those were the good old days’ (one still hears it from East German Communist apparachniks, so it didn’t have a particular political or national requirement – it’s more about total control, than left or right wing). The country now… well to my jaundiced eye it looks as if perhaps 30% is free of Taliban. The powers-that-be there are not particularly nice either, but your daughter might go to school. There is another 40% of contested ground which sways in which proportion the old guard hold. And there is 30% which is still firmly under their control. At the moment it looks like control is slipping from the Talibs. But this too is fragile, and the new powers may have to reach an accommodation with them, as their allies find this is all too expensive to be worth it, and leave. And your daughter might not go to school after all.

Now the big 5 legacy publishers are not the Taliban. Well, not as far as I know, anyway. They are fond of 14th century office practice… well no. That’s an exaggeration. Let’s just say they’re more comfortable with accounts in cuneiform (or something indecipherable without a lot of expertise, and hitting yourself on the head with a Rosetta stone or two) rendered for a six month period, up to a year late for that, while the reason for doing so disappeared about 30-40 years ago. There really is no reason why they can’t move to monthly settlement, and daily warehouse figures available at the click of a mouse. And it would not actually be that difficult to make these clear and easy to follow.  In my darker and more paranoid moments I suspect publishers of keeping another set of books which does work like this, just so THEY actually know what is going on. But I gather that this is not the case. However: While big 5 publishers haven’t fired rockets at Kabul or suicide bombed anything or trafficked opium*there are similarities. In the 10 year ago oligarchy of near total control of retail space, you knew what master you had to praise-sing to, and the recipe for success (which was still a 1:3000 crapshoot) was clearly set.  If you didn’t work it out and play along your career was over, or never started, or confined to the few parts of publishing outside their control (which had its own rules, if less narrow than the mainstream). The book that was brilliant but didn’t fit the profile (wasn’t, in Taliban terms a male, quoting the Koran and screaming death to America**) was never going to be published.

Then–as I’ve explained before–along came Amazon and took away their monopoly to retail space. Now if you believe that they did this for Authors, then I’ll ask you to believe that the US helped out the Anti-Taliban for the sake of the girl-children who were denied the chance of being equal humans by the Taliban. They did this to break the big 5. And right now I’d guess the situation in publishing is comparable about where the Talibs have lost total control. It’s not just the mountainous 5% in the North that they no longer totally pwn.  There is a realization sinking in very slowly that their very existence is threatened ( no I don’t think they’re dead, injured: yes.  Turning nasty as a result, well, nastier: yes.  Going to die for definite: No.).  And that means that it has gone from an indolent‘domination’ to ‘war’.

And in wars there are enemies.

Which naturally implies the possibilities of ‘friends’ too. Obviously, the big ‘Enemy no. 1′ has been Amazon. Of course B&N, Apple, Smashwords are doing the same thing, while not ‘friends of Amazon, are purporting–in a rather half-hearted way, because they still get 3/4 of their business via the big 5–to be friends of the Afghan people… uh the authors. A long and growing list new e-book publishers are doing a lot more genuine looking–if less powerful (because they need Amazon, B&N etc.) job of it. And of course you have the moderately ridiculous position of the agents-who-are-assisting-self-publishing-for-a-lot-more-than-they-got-as-agents, who are trying to say that they can serve two masters (just so long as the one master isn’t listening while they ‘serve’ the other, and vice-versa).

The trouble of course is that the big 5 haven’t just come out of a fight with the Russians. They’re fresh from… a very, very long time of effectively doing nothing more than skirmish with little foes (the few un-Borged remanets) that they outweighed by 1000:1. And they still hadn’t managed to crush them. They do have vast resources, and they still control 50-80% of the ‘country’. Only the enemy just brought in the ‘surge’ – or the $79 kindle.  Let’s put it this way – I think 50% non-ebook sales will be considered high by the Christmas after this one. And given the economic situation, people pricing ebooks (not, typically, at the moment, your big 5) at $2.99 – $4.99 will be outselling $9.99-$15.99 (Big 5 prices) by 2 to 1 at least.  Which has interesting implications for authors, who are at the moment getting 70% from Amazon (and 65% from the rest IIRC) if they cut their publisher, and getting (at best) 25% OF NET – ie. around 15% of gross (IF they’re lucky) from their big 5 publisher.

Most Afghan peasants… er, authors aren’t trying to do much more than make a living, maybe see their favorite daughter get an education/beloved manuscript get read. Being rich would be nice, but if they’d really only done this for the money — well, there are lots of other professions which are easier routes to wealth. They’ve been Stockholmed into saying my publisher and my agent LOVE me (that’s why they hit me, to HELP me, because I am so bad). But they’re beginning to see other authors who have got out. Who are doing rather well for themselves, and their daughter has just got her PhD/manuscript that no agent or publisher would touch just sold a million copies.

So the war just escalated. Authors will become human shields soon with contracts designed to protect their publishers. But the next phase has begun. The propaganda war. Fueled by their old guard loyalists, the teacher’s pets, the cool kids of publishing (the ones who believe they would not survive or would be infinitely worse off without the push and support they get. Which might be true, sometimes) and particularly the young and insecure authors who crave the affirmation, have started on the latest ‘you can’t trust Amazon, it is our enemy just waiting to devour us when the publishers that protect us die’ whispering campaign. ‘They took books off your kindle without your consent’. ‘They delisted Macmillian Authors’ books’.

The simple truth is…

They’re right. We can’t trust Amazon. We can’t trust B&N. We can’t trust Apple. We can’t trust Smashwords. If they get a monopoly position, they WILL cut our share and screw us.

But they are not our ENEMY – and by same token publishers and agents (not even the ones ‘assisting’ authors) are not our ‘friends’ just because they’re Amazon’s enemy either.

We can’t trust THEM either. No matter how much we like Lulu-the-agent, or Aeglinda-the-Acquiring editor, and how much they like us, they are part of a vast conglomerate that is NOT our friend either. And, um, for every ‘they took back books/delisted etc…’ there are a long, long, long list of rather-best-not-thought-about dirty deeds done to various authors by these ‘friends’.

This is a business relationship, not one between buddies. And certainly not one between a doting and besotted nursie and the precious little fledgeling-author. The relationship will work well for authors, while (and only while) it is not in the interests of the other party to screw them. If traditional publishers would adapt to that, they could very easily win the war, even if the days 94% of the gross going to anyone _but_ the author are over. Because there is no way that authors who have seen 70% are going back to 6% (what newbies get on a Paperback).  Amazon can, and almost certainly will, erode the 70%. But it won’t happen overnight, or their competitors will get the entire author body to walk on Amazon, and just as the authors and readers, NOT the publishers, broke Amazon on the Macmillan impasse. It’s not impossible to sell from your own site (where you will get 100%), or Apple, or B&N or Naked Reader or 50 others. Amazon could do a Borders and sell tatt until it went bust, or compromise. The wise author, and moderately not so idiotic one, will spread their eggs in as many baskets as possible (I have stories with Baen, Pyr, Naked Reader, myself and Eric on Amazon, and I will be selling off davefreer.com too.)

The author does have an enemy in this war. And yes, it could destroy him or her. Pogo got it right. “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Because this ‘enemy’ seems to send us rushing out to look for ‘friends’ (the enemy of our enemy, anyway) to help*** us.  We already have friends and they WILL help us. They are ourselves and fellow authors, and most importantly, our readers. The rest… are business associates. Some of the individuals we’ll like and some will do us favors. But in general: If it is in their interest to be good to us, they may decide be.

*some of the books that acquisition editors have a acquired–or turned down–may make you think one should avoid that street-corner, but honestly people are capable of insanity without narcotics. Look at me, for example.)
**Some things they did have in common
*** As in: “Ahm from the gubbermint, Ahm here to he’p you.”