So, How Clueless Are Traditional Publishers?

I’ve featured Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath here quite a few times—the two most interesting posts being Some Publishing Advice from Two Extremely Successful Authors and More on The Konrath/Eisler Conversation.

Well, Barry gave a talk at the Pike’s Peak Writers Convention and got some surprising responses and Joe carried Barry’s explanation on his blog: Eisler on Digital Denial.

I’ll put just a few excerpts here and encourage you to click the link and read the whole article…

“As I’ve noted, an author who wants to reach a mass audience in paper needs a paper distribution partner. But an author who wants to reach a mass audience in digital needs no distribution partner at all. It is simply a fact — a fact — that a lone author can distribute 100% as effectively by herself as she can with the assistance of a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate (again, editing, marketing and all the rest is a separate story; for the moment, we are talking only about distribution).”

“To put it another way: a publisher offering an author digital distribution services is like someone offering me air. I already have it and I don’t need to pay extra for it.”

“One difference I consistently see — and that consistently concerns me — between proponents of choice in publishing on the one hand, and proponents of establishment publishing on the other, is the willingness of the first group to engage critics, and the latter’s refusal. I know behaviors like sniping to your followers on Twitter, or walking out of a keynote in dudgeon, can offer some brief emotional satisfaction, but what do such behaviors do to help writers? I’ve tweeted this post to the people I named in it, and I hope they’ll come by to offer their thoughts. Why not? Wouldn’t writers benefit from such a discussion? And in the end, isn’t that what we all want?”

Do go read the whole article—eye-opening and informative…

But, to round things out, here are a few statements that Joe Konrath gave in that same article:

“Self-pubbers can bring their books to market much faster, days or weeks instead of months or years.

“Self-pubbers have control over things that writers deem important, like editing, cover art, and title.

“Self-pubbers get 70% royalties.

“Self-pubbers set the price of their book.

“Self-pubbers can make changes to their books quickly.

“Self-pubbers can reach just as many, if not more, readers with their ebooks than legacy publishers can.

“Self-pubbing has no gatekeepers or barriers to entry. It doesn’t take months/years of querying with fingers crossed to reach potential readers.”

So, go read it :-)
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