Hi, writing stars! Sorry I've been AWOL lately, but I've been writing and editing books and stuff. In the meantime, check out this discussion between authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath. Very enlightening!
Source: A Newbie's Guide to Publishing
Donna Marie
This is a live Google docs discussion. It examines the history and mechanics of the publishing industry as it exists today, analyzes the way the digital revolution reflects recent events in Egypt and the Maghreb, and considers a completely inappropriate YouTube video featuring a randy monkey and an unlucky frog. It clocks in at 13,000 words, and reveals some pretty startling things.
Joe: To the casual observer, you appear to be heavily invested in the legacy publishing system. They’ve been good to you, they helped you get onto the NYT bestseller list, made you wealthy with several large deals, and seem to have treated you fairly.
Barry: Well, I don’t know about wealthy, but I’ve been making a living writing novels for almost a decade now, which is a pretty great way to live.
Joe: You had six-figure and seven-figure deals. Logic dictates anyone offered a deal like that should leap at it.
Barry: You wouldn’t.
Joe: But I never had the treatment you had from legacy publishers. I would walk away from a big deal now, most certainly, because I have two years of data proving I can do better on my own.
However, what if a NYT bestseller were offered, say, half a million dollars for two books?
Or, more specifically, let's say you were offered that.
You'd take it. Right?
Barry: Well, I guess not... ;)
Joe: So... no BS... you were just offered half a mil, and you turned it down?
Barry: Yes.
Joe: Holy shit!
Barry: I know it’ll seem crazy to a lot of people, but based on what’s happening in the industry, and based on the kind of experience writers like you are having in self-publishing, I think I can do better in the long term on my own.
Joe: Holy shit!
Sorry. That needed to be said twice.
Barry: It’s okay, I like when you talk dirty.
We are living in remarkable times, aren’t we?
Joe: Indeed. "Barry Eisler Walks Away From $500,000 Deal to Self-Pub" is going to be one for the Twitter Hall of Fame.
Barry: Here’s something that happened about a year ago. Anecdotal, but still telling, I think. My wife and daughter and I were sitting around the dinner table, talking about what kind of contract I would do next, and with what publisher. And my then eleven-year-old daughter said, “Daddy, why don’t you just self-publish?”
And I thought, wow, no one would have said something like that even a year ago. I mean, it used to be that self-publishing was what you did if you couldn’t get a traditional deal. And if you were really, really lucky, maybe the self-published route would lead to a real contract with a real publisher.
But I realized from that one innocent comment from my daughter that the new generation was looking at self-publishing differently. And that the question--“Should I self-publish?”--was going to be asked by more and more authors going forward. And that, over time, more and more of them were going to be answering the question, “Yes.”
This is exactly what’s happening now. I’m not the first example, though I might be a noteworthy one because of the numbers I’m walking away from. But there will be others, more and more of them.
Joe: Over a year ago, you wrote a Huffington Post blog called Paper Earthworks, Digital Tides. You basically predicted that digital would become the preferred reading format...
Barry: You’re being kind to me--you predicted that switch way before I caught on to it. In that blog post, I was more building on what I’ve learned from you. But my general point was that digital was going to become more and more attractive relative to paper. First, because the price of digital readers would continue to drop while the functionality would continue to increase; second, because more and more titles would become available for digital download at the same time more brick and mortar stores were closing. In other words, everything about paper represented a static defense, while everything about digital represented a dynamic offense. Not hard to predict how a battle like that is going to end.
Apple sold 15 million iPads in 2010, and the iPad2 just went on sale. And Amazon sold eight million Kindle books in 2010--more digital books, in fact, than paperbacks. Meanwhile, Borders is shuttering 224 stores. So I think it’s safe to say the trends I just mentioned are continuing. And the trends reinforce each other: the Borders in your neighborhood closes, so you try a low-priced digital reader, and you love the lower cost of digital books, the immediate delivery, the adjustable font, etc... and you never go back to paper. The reverse isn’t happening: people aren’t leaving digital for paper. There’s a ratchet effect in favor of digital.
Joe: In the history of technology, when people begin to embrace the new media tech, it winds up dominating the marketplace. CDs over vinyl and tapes, DVD over VHS. The Internet over newspapers. Even Priceline over travel agents--
Barry: Yes! Sorry to interrupt, but this is something that interests me so much. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard saying, “But paper isn’t going to disappear.” That isn’t the point! If you ask the wrong question, the right answer to that question isn’t going to help you. So the question isn’t, “Will paper disappear?” Of course it won’t, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that paper is being marginalized. Did firearms eliminate the bow and arrow? No--some enthusiasts still hunt with a bow. Did the automobile eliminate the horse and buggy? No--I can still get a buggy ride around Central Park if I want.
Now, some new technologies really have completely displaced their forebears. For example, there’s no such thing as eight-track tape anymore. And yet some people still do listen to their music on vinyl, despite the advent of mp3 technology. The question, then, is what advantages does the previous technology retain over the new technology? If the answer is “none,” then the previous technology will become extinct, like eight-track. If the answer is “some,” then the question is, how big a market will the old technology continue to command based on those advantages?
Joe: You’re talking about niche markets.
Barry: Exactly.
Joe: We’ve discussed this before. Paper won’t disappear, but that’s not the point. The point is, paper will become a niche while digital will become the norm.
Barry: Agreed. Lots of people, and I’m one of them, love the way a book feels. I used to like the way books smelled, too, before publishers started using cheap paper. And you can see books on your shelf, etc... those are real advantages, but they’re only niche advantages. Think candles vs electric lights. There are still people making a living today selling candles, and that’s because there’s nothing like candlelight--but what matters is that the advent of the electric light changed the candle business into a niche. Originally, candlemakers were in the lighting business; today, they’re in the candlelight business. The latter is tiny by comparison to the former. Similarly, today publishers are in the book business; tomorrow, they’ll be in the paper book business. The difference is the difference between a mass market and a niche.
Joe: I also love print books. I have 5000 of them. But print is just a delivery system. It gets a story from the writer to the reader. For centuries, publishers controlled this system, because they did the printing, and they were plugged into distribution. But with retailers like Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords, the story can get to the reader in a faster, cheaper way.
And publishers aren't needed.
Do you think publishers are aware of that?
Barry: I think they’re extremely aware of it, but they don’t understand what it really means.
Joe: I believe they've gotten their business model mixed-up. They should be connecting readers with the written word. Instead, they're insisting on selling paper.
Barry: Yes. There’s a saying about the railroads: they thought they were in the railroad business, when in fact they were in the transportation business. So when the interstate highway system was built and trucking became an alternative, they were hit hard.
Likewise, publishers have naturally conflated the specifics of their business model with the generalities of the industry they’re in. As you say, they’re not in the business of delivering books by paper--they’re in the business of delivering books. And if someone can do the latter faster and cheaper than they can, they’re in trouble.
Joe: You say they're aware of it, and some evidence points to that being true. The agency model is an attempt to slow the transition from paper to digital. Windowing titles is another one. So are insanely high ebook prices.
Barry: All signs that publishers are aware of the potential for digital disintermediation, but that they don’t understand what it really means.
Joe: Because they still believe they’re essential to the process.
Barry: I would phrase it a little differently. They recognize they’re becoming non-essential, and are trying to keep themselves essential--but are going about it in the wrong way.
Joe: You and I and our peers are essential. We're the writers. We provide the content that is printed and distributed.
For hundreds of years, writers couldn't reach readers without publishers. We needed them.
Now, suddenly, we don't. But publishers don't seem to be taking this Very Important Fact into account.
Barry: Well, again, I think they’re taking it into account, but they’re drawing the wrong conclusions. The wrong conclusion is: I’m in the paper business, paper keeps me essential, therefore I must do all I can to retard the transition from paper to digital. The right conclusion would be: digital offers huge cost, time-to-market, and other advantages over paper. How can I leverage those advantages to make my business even stronger?
Joe: We figured out that the 25% royalty on ebooks they offer is actually 14.9% to the writer after everyone gets their cut. 14.9% on a price the publisher sets.
Barry: Gracious of you to say “we.” You’re the first one to point out that a 25% royalty on the net revenue produced by an ebook equals 17.5% of the retail price after Amazon takes its 30% cut, and 14.9% after the agent takes 15% of the 17.5%.
Joe: Yeah, that 25% figure you see in contracts is really misleading. Amazing, when you consider that there’s virtually no cost to creating ebooks--no cost for paper, no shipping charges, no warehousing. No cut for Ingram or Baker & Taylor. Yet they're keeping 52.5% of the list price and offering only 17.5% to the author. It’s not fair and it’s not sustainable.
Barry: I think what’s happening is that publishers know paper is dying while digital is exploding, and they’re trying to use the lock they’ve always had on paper to milk more out of digital. In other words, tie an author into a deal that offers traditional paper royalties, which are shrinking, while giving the publisher a huge slice of digital royalties, which are growing. The problem, from the publisher’s perspective, is that their paper lock is broken now.
Joe: I feel all writers need to be made aware that there is finally an option. Not just an option, but an actual preferable alternative to signing away your rights.
Barry: It’s inevitable that more writers will be realizing this is true. It’s being demonstrated by more and more self-published authors: you, Amanda Hocking, Scott Nicholson, Michael J. Sullivan, HP Mallory, Victorine Lieske, BV Larson, Terri Reid, LJ Sellers, John Locke, Blake Crouch, Lee Goldberg, Aaron Patterson, Jon F. Merz, Selena Kitt, hopefully me... :)
Joe: You're on track to make $30,000 this year on a self-published short story. I'm not aware of any short story markets that pay that well.
Barry: Well, it’s early yet, but yes, The Lost Coast has done amazingly well in its first few weeks, netting me about $1000 after the initial fixed cost of $600 for having the cover designed and having the manuscript formatted. I plan to continue to publish short stories and I’ll be getting the new John Rain novel, The Detachment, up in time for Father’s Day, and I have a feeling that each of the various products will reinforce sales of the others.
Joe: That's a really smart plan. My own sales, and the sales of other indie authors doing well, pretty much confirm that a rising tide lifts all boats. Virtual shelf space functions a lot like physical shelf space. The more books you have on the shelf, the likelier you are to be discovered by someone browsing. And when a browser reads you and likes you, she buys more of your work, and often tells others about it.
In other words; the more stories and novels you have available, the more you'll sell.
Barry: Gotta just jump in here to point out the significance of this. It means that a writer’s best promoting tool is once again her writing. Advertising costs money. New stories make money.
Joe: I told you so...
Barry: You did. Glad I listened late rather than never. It’s amazing: for most of the history of publishing, outside a brief book tour and maybe a few public appearances throughout the year, a writer couldn’t do much to promote. Then the Internet happened, and writers had to do a tremendous amount of online promotion--blogs, social networking, chat rooms--to be competitive. Now, with digital books, once again there’s no more profitable use of an author’s time than writing. Not to say that authors don’t need to have a strong online presence; of course they do. But anytime you’re thinking about some other promotional activity--a blog post, a trip to a convention, an hour on Facebook--you have to measure the value of that time against the value of writing and publishing a new story. The new story earns money, both for itself and your other works. The social networking stuff doesn’t.
Joe: Yes. But it’s even more than that. Because there are two major difference between virtual shelves and physical shelves.
First, a virtual shelf is infinite. In a bookstore, they have a limited amount of space. Often, my books are crammed spine out, in section--and I'm lucky if they have a copy of each that are in print. Many times they only have a few, and sometimes none at all. But a virtual shelf, like Amazon or Smashwords, carries all my titles, all the time. And I don't have to compete with a NYT bestseller who has 400 copies of their latest hit on the shelf, while I only have one copy of mine. We each take up one virtual space per title.
Second, virtual shelf life is forever. In a bookstore, you have anywhere form a few weeks to a few months to sell your title, and then it gets returned. This is a big waste of money, and no incentive at all for the bookseller to move the book.
But ebooks are forever. Once they're live, they will sell for decades. Someday, long after I'm gone, my grandchildren will be getting my royalties.
Currently, my novel The List is the #15 bestseller on all of Amazon. I wrote that book 12 years ago, and it was rejected by every major NY publisher. I self-published it on Amazon two years ago, and it has sold over 35,000 copies.
Barry: That is insane. Aside from some major external event--a big movie release, something like that--it’s almost unheard of for a backlist paper book to suddenly become a bestseller. Yet that’s exactly what just happened to The List.
Joe: Because I dropped the price.
Barry: Well shit, legacy publishers use dynamic pricing to move books all the time.
Joe: Sorry, I just spewed beer all over my monitor.
Barry: I apologize.
Joe: No problem. But right, with digital you have the option to put an ebook on sale. I originally self-published The List in April of 2009. It went on to sell 25,000 ebooks at $2.99. Now, two years later, I lowered the price, and it's selling 1500 copies a day. Things like that don't happen in paper. But in self-publishing, I'm seeing more and more books take their sweet time finding an audience, then take off.
Forever is a long time to earn royalties. So it makes sense for forever to begin today, not tomorrow.
If you had taken the deal for The Detachment, when would it have been published?
Barry: This was one of the reasons I just couldn’t go back to working with a legacy publisher. The book is nearly done, but it wouldn’t have been made available until Spring of 2012. I can publish it myself a year earlier. That’s a whole year of actual sales I would have had to give up.
Joe: We can make 70% by self-publishing. And we can set our own price. I have reams of data that show how ebooks under $5 vastly outsell those priced higher.
Barry: This is a critical point. There’s a huge data set proving that digital books are a price-sensitive market, and that maximum revenues are achieved at a price point between $.99 and $4.99. So the question is: why aren’t publishers pricing digital books to maximize digital profits?
Joe: Because they're protecting their paper sales.
Barry: Exactly.
Joe: It's awfully dangerous for an industry to ignore (or even blatantly antagonize) their customers in order to protect self-interest.
Barry: Not that it hasn’t been tried before. Just never successfully outside a monopoly. And the advent of digital has broken the monopoly publishers used to have on distribution.
Joe: In the meantime, I'm selling 3000 ebooks a day by pricing reasonably. There aren't too many Big 6 authors selling that well. And I'm getting much better royalties than they are.
So what’s going on with legacy publishers? It seems like either willful ignorance or outright stupidity. They're irritating their customers, alienating their content providers, and refusing to embrace the future.
Why?
Barry: I think there are a lot of things going on, some emotional, some institutional. Clayton Christensen wrote about a lot of this in a book called The Innovator’s Dilemma. Fundamentally, it’s extremely hard for an industry to start cannibalizing current profits for future gains. So the music companies, for example, failed to create an online digital store, instead fighting digital with lawsuits, until Apple--a computer company!--became the world’s biggest music retailer.
Joe: Simon and Schuster or Random House should have invented the ereader. They should have been selling ebooks from their websites a decade ago. Instead, an online bookseller, Amazon, is leading the revolution.
Barry: Exactly. The same outcome as in the music business. It’s one thing for a single media company to make these mistakes--but one after the other? What’s that Oscar Wilde line? “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
Joe: Or, as your character Dox would say, “This isn’t really about hunting, is it...”
Barry: That Dox has a way with words.
Joe: Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. I also think the Upton Sinclair quote is appropriate: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Denial is a powerful opiate.
We both dig quotations too much.
Barry: And I think it was Nelson Mandela who said, “Where you stand depends upon where you sit.” We’re probably all victims of those kinds of pressures, to one extent or another. But you have to try to be as aware as possible of the dynamic. If you’re not, you could lose a lot of money.
Joe: You might also lose your content providers. If you're selling eggs, don't piss off your chickens.
Barry: It’s not just the chickens. It’s the people who buy the eggs, too.
Joe: The readers. And the libraries. HarperCollins just announced they are putting a limit on ebook loans in libraries. After twenty-six check-outs, the library has to buy a new copy.
Talk about biting the hand that feeds...
Barry: Yes. The problem is twofold. First, by giving authors only 17.5% of the growth end of the business while keeping 52.5% for themselves, publishers are going to lose authors. Second, by attempting to retard the growth of digital--holding back digital releases until paper is ready, charging paper prices for digital books--publishers are thwarting their customers. Take a step back and consider it, and it’s hard not to see that this strategy is badly flawed. A business grows by giving customers what they want, not by insisting that customers take what the business wants them to have. It grows by cultivating its wholesale providers, not by alienating them with precentages so unfair that it motivates them to develop their own retail channels.
Joe: It reminds me of the golden age of television. You had three choices, ABC, NBC, or CBS. They dictated what you would watch.
But that model no longer works for TV. Now there are hundreds of channels. And it no longer works for books, either. If you look at the current Top 100 bestsellers on Kindle, twenty-seven of them are self-published. Many of those authors were rejected by NY. Yet consumers are showing us what they want to read, and voting with their wallets.
The "gatekeeper" model, where agents and Big 6 Publishers decided what would be fit for public consumption, is eroding. YouTube has proven that viewers are okay with having unlimited choices, and happy to surf to find things that interest them.
Barry: Yes! I mean, which of the networks would have broadcast that monkey raping a helpless bullfrog?
Joe: It wasn't rape. It was consensual.
Barry: I don’t know. I don’t think the frog was conscious. I’m not sure it was even alive.
Joe: I--
Barry: After the first five minutes, I mean.
Joe: I'm married. I see this all the time. The frog was conscious. Just not very active.
Barry: Yes, but he couldn’t speak.
Joe: So the frog croaked?
Barry: Aaaargh!
I still think about that frog. I feel sorry for him. What happened... it just couldn’t have been in the lexicon of normal frog fears. Maybe he was worried the monkey would eat him. But then... he’s thinking, “Dude, don’t do this! You’re a monkey, I’m a frog, it’s not right, it’s against nature, it’s mmmmmmmpppphhhhh.”
Joe: It's not easy being green.
How many people do you think followed that link and then, out of mistrust, never returned to our scintillating conversation?
Barry: Yeah, but the ones who returned will be our readers for life.
Joe: We're probably going to cut this entire section later.
Barry: A tear just rolled silently down my cheek.
Joe: You're twelve years old. I swear.
Barry: On my good days, yes.
I do want to go on the record at this point as saying that no frogs have ever been harmed in the production of my books.
Joe: But gay bashers are rightfully fair game.
Barry: Ask my character Larison, in The Lost Coast, about that... :)
Joe: So is this a revolution? Are writers and readers fed up with legacy publishing? And won't their opinions, and their options, hasten the Big 6's demise?
Barry: No question: there’s a revolution going on here. In fact, there are parallels between what we’re seeing in the publishing industry and what you see in social revolutions--the kinds with pitchforks and torches.
Joe: You need to elaborate on that. We once had an interesting conversation about kings and peasants which could apply...
Barry: I remember that conversation. That was the one with the mescalin, right?
Joe: No. That was the one when you confessed your secret love for me. This one was about royalty and peasants.
Barry: Oh, right... right. Part of what’s going on in the industry now is that publishers are resisting the way technology is empowering writers. I’m sure some publishers will read this and disagree with it, but that’s because they’re genuinely unaware of the resistance.
Joe: Again, are they truly unaware? Or purposely ignoring it?
Barry: I’m not sure, but in the end it probably doesn’t matter. For a long time, publishers’ lock on distribution has given them enormous leverage in the industry, a leverage they’ve come to view as the natural, desirable order of things. Legacy publishers are part of an establishment, and if you’re part of the establishment, you’re of course going to like and support the establishment, and to resist any attempts to change or circumvent it. It’s just human nature.
Joe: They think they're royalty, that they’re entitled to certain assurances. And we're peasants, who need to listen to what our lords and masters tell us. Naturally, a peasant uprising is unthinkable.
Barry: I’d tweak this just a little. In America, the concept of royalty as such isn’t popular, so no matter how many royal perks and prerogatives Americans might have, the people in question wouldn’t want to think of themselves as royalty.
But that said, certainly there’s a mentality in publishing about who has the power as between publishers and authors generally. There are exceptions--I doubt Stephen King’s publisher thinks it has the upper hand in that relationship--but overall, publishers look at authors as needing publishers more than publishers need authors.
Joe: That's changed. And they don't seem to realize it.
Barry: Right. Before the digital revolution, there was some basis for this viewpoint. But today it’s antiquated, and publishers are starting to need authors more than authors need publishers. If for generations you’ve been the lord of the land worked by your peasants, and you suddenly find yourself needing the peasants more than they need you, if you find them making new demands you don’t have the negotiating leverage to resist, you’ll probably find yourself resentful because damn it, this just isn’t the way God ordered the universe!
Joe: And despite all this, legacy publishers don’t realize a revolution is afoot.
Barry: I think they’re aware of it, but in an abstract way. I talk to a lot of people in the business, and when most of them talk about digital and the changes it’s causing in the industry, you can tell they’re imagining a future that’s safely abstract and far off. Something you acknowledge in conversation, of course--you’re not in denial, after all--but that fundamentally still feels to you like theory. Because you’re still having your Tuesday morning editorial meetings, right? And you just launched a new title that made the NYT list, right? And signed that hot new author, right? Sure, there are rumblings in the provinces, but here at court in Versailles, the food is still delicious and the courtiers still accord deference appropriate to your rank. When you live in the palace at Versailles, the rumblings in the provinces always sound far away. Right up until the peasants are dragging you out of your bed in the middle of the night and setting fire to your throne.
Joe: Sounds like Egypt.
Barry: It is Egypt. You think Mubarak had any idea of what he was facing at any time before he was being escorted from the palace? At one point, he actually believed that offering to fire his cabinet was going to appease protesters. And at some point, publishers will believe that offering authors 25% or 30% of digital retail instead of 17.5% will put down the rebellion. In fact, this is probably their current backup, hail-Mary, worst-case plan. But it’s already too late.
The royalty/peasant mentality is pervasive, largely invisible to the people who are part of it, and manifests itself in a lot of contexts. Look what happened when I published my blog post, The Ministry of Truth.
Joe: The one about your NPR essay?
Barry: Right, my essay examining Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four as a thriller, which I wrote at NPR’s invitation. The blog post examined the way NPR edited the essay, and how NPR’s edits revealed that fundamentally, NPR is an establishment media player.
Joe: Your editor was pissed.
Barry: He was. NPR called up Random House and complained about my blog post. And my editor then dutifully complained to me. At first, I didn’t understand the complaints at all. I said, “Why don’t they complain in the comments section of my blog? You know, the box where it says, ‘Leave Your Comment.’ Why not engage my argument? Why are they complaining to you in private?”
Joe: Because they didn’t want to imply you were an equal.
Barry: Bingo. Their attitude was, “If we argue in public with this unwashed blogger, by implication it puts the blogger on the same footing as NPR.” So instead, they called another establishment player, Random House, to settle it all privately. “Straighten out this peasant, won’t you? He’s making us all look bad.”
The weird thing was how much sense the whole thing made to my editor and how little it made to me. I mean, it’s not like I took a dump all over NPR; I just pointed out that they’re an establishment media player playing by establishment media rules. An entirely legitimate and worthwhile argument. But they weren’t concerned about the merits of the argument; they were concerned that the argument was being raised at all, and by someone without the appropriate status to raise it. I just didn’t get it. I asked my editor what, is there some lese majeste law protecting NPR from respectful public criticism? It’s bizarre, how delicate establishment egos can be, how frightened they are of criticism from the wrong quarters.
Joe: Peasants aren’t allowed to criticize the royalty.
Barry: Yes. People don’t understand what this means. They see Fox fighting with CNN, Democrats fighting with Republicans, and they think they see real competition, competition that matters. But the old clans of Europe fought each other, too--they fought viciously. But you know what would bring them together as one?
Joe: A peasant uprising.
Barry: Yes. If a peasant spoke up, if a peasant suggested by word or deed that there was something fundamentally illegitimate about the very system within which the clans fought each other for spoils, that the system should be open to everyone--in the face of that, the clans would unite against the threat to the system itself. The clans hated each other, but they would work together to support the overall system.
Joe: Two beers and you’re already getting political.
Barry: You should hear me after two coffees. It’s worse. Anyway, “competition” between the major New York houses and other establishment players works the same way.
Joe: Other establishment players like the New York Times Bestseller List. Which, according to my calculations, I should have been on...
Barry: Yes, what the New York Times has been doing is a perfect example of the royalty/peasant mindset at work.
Joe: Let's set the Wayback Machine to 2009, when ebook sales began to really pick up speed. The NYT had ample opportunity to include them on their prestigious list.
Barry: Yes. Now, the natural, sensible, path-of-least resistance kind of thing would have been to include digital sales from the beginning, right?
Joe: Absolutely. Especially for a periodical that is considered the gold standard when it comes to reporting the news. It's a "bestseller" list, after all.
Barry: At least that's what it purports to be. So why didn’t the Times include digital sales from the outset? Or at least from some point after digital sales became more than a niche. Why did they wait until Amazon was selling more digital books than paperbacks?
Joe: Perhaps reporting the truth was somehow not aligned with what the NYT perceives as its interests.
Barry: Please don’t get me started on the Times’ cowardly insistence on calling waterboarding torture only when it’s done by other countries, and “harsh interrogation techniques” when it’s done by Americans. That’s their official policy, by the way.
Joe: I noticed you managed to sneak that sound bite into the Freakonomics movie. Which, incidentally, you never even told me you appeared in...
Barry: I still can’t believe I forgot to tell you that. But yes, I think it’s important that in a variety of critical ways the “newspaper of record” sees itself as the government’s partner and spokesperson, and believes that role is natural and desirable.
Joe: In the case of the bestseller list, I would assume that advertising dollars play a part. I'm a self-pubbed author. I don't buy full page ads in the Times for big bucks.
Barry: Surely this is no more than coincidence!
Joe: But even if we set aside the money, the Times has ample motive for not putting indie authors on their bestseller list. Newspapers, like Big 6 publishers, are remnants of the analog age. Printing and shipping paper is an antiquated form of distributing media. These companies are trying to stay relevant in a digital future, and aren't doing so well at it. Certainly the fact that I can sell more books than most bestselling Big 6 authors shows how ineffective the Big 6 are. So publishers, both newspaper and book, have an aligned interest in keeping digital at bay. Keeping it out of the public eye is one way to forestall things.
Barry: Right. Look, if the Times bestseller list were really just about sales--you know, if it were really just about the books that were “selling” the “best”--than you and a lot of other indie authors would be on it, because your numbers inarguably put you there. But the Times won’t allow it. What we can infer from the Times’ behavior, therefore, is that what they call a “bestseller” list is in fact a “those bestselling books we believe have been properly vetted and blessed by trusted establishment players with whom we see our interests as aligned” list.
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