PulpLit.net

A New Kind of Evil & A List of Publishing Stuff

Somewhat melodramatic but interesting article about push polling.

In other news, I continue ranting about how it's nearly impossible to get Publishers Weekly (PW) to review a self-published book. Which is why here at PulpLit we're more than happy to review self-published books (because we like to stick it to The Man.) My ruminations on the subject are as follow:

1) Given the fact that 100,000 books are produced a year, deciding what to review is basically a sorting issue. As anybody who has taken a computer science course will tell you, sorting isn't trivial; unless you have a chance to use sophisticated algorithms (Google "qsort" for an example), you're looking at (at best) a linear function. So say each book takes six hours to read (I know that's ludicrous, but bear with me.) That's 600,000 man hours.

Assuming one person works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, that's 2,080 hours worked per year. 600 thousand divided by 2 thousand is roughly 300. So, PW would have to have on staff 300 people who only read and rated books to be "equitable". That's without all the staff needed to produce and market the magazine etc.

Since that is unrealistic, they compromise, and only review books that someone with a (relatively) large amount of money has backed with an offset print run. Since the PPB cost for a POD book is so much lower (in theory the plate cost should be the same, but rarely is; POD publishers are too good at cutting corners), it means each POD book any particular individual has to "believe in" less, which is both good and bad (good that publishers take more risks, bad that the "sorting problem" mentioned above gets that much harder).

2) Of course, there is also no doubt an institutional bias. Since most of the advertisement space in PW is bought by the big publishers, it is easy to see why PW only reviews big publishers. Keep in mind, I am by no means saying that PW is corrupt; rather, that the way they make money *requires* a certain behavior that appeals to who pays their bills. If small press publishers started to buy all the ad space in PW, I'd bet you even money that they'd start reviewing more small press books.

3) If you didn't know, publishers give booksellers/wholesellers a big discount (sometimes 55%), and the power to return as many unsold books as they like. It is an immutable fact of publishing that publishers bitch about. However, in my opinion publishers do not readily discount the books they sell through their website/direct enough.

Usually, publishers give a nice discount for direct sales, but it in no way reflects the real savings they get from selling direct. The discount should be *even greater* than the 55% (or whatever you use for your wholesale discount) that you give bookstores, because direct sales have a much lower rate of return. So, instead of 30+% returns, you have 1-2% returns. That should make the direct sale discount *much higher*. But nobody seems to be picking up on that fact.

4) Barnes & Nobles has taken to cutting out the middle man of the publisher on their shelves, allowing them to sell hardcover books on the cheap. Publishers should focus all their efforts on making sure that direct sales through their website are the cheapest means for consumers to get books. Maybe direct sales will never replace bookstore sales; but I seems to me that they are the best response to this strategy from B&N.

5) You can tell a POD book because they almost always have glossy covers, slightly eschew binding, and a slight curl on the front cover away from the front matter. Also for some reason the interior paper is often blindingly white. Generally the covers are poor too.

6) I wish there was a hedge fund type vehicle? After all, a publisher of an imprint is basically a rarified investor who makes investments in books. Would be nice, easy access to capital; each imprint would be like a fund, and each publisher a money manager, with a their own private jet..