Everyone knows that the real estate market is a mess. The collapse of the real estate market has been, in many ways, the central issue in the economic crisis in the USA. Banks are now involved as the seller in 50% of all housing transactions. Especially in the lower end of the housing market. That number may still be growing. The problem with the bank being involved as the seller is that the bank doesn't care about anyone other than itself, and, since it's not a person, it cares for nothing more than getting the most money it can at the expense of anyone else involved.
Anyone paying attention to it knows that the publishing industry is a mess. Its infrastructure is collapsing due to technological changes and the growing demand by authors to have more control over their work (When someone like Dan Brown switches from a major publisher to a POD (print on demand) model, it's about control). The publishing industry, so far, refuses to change. It continues to cling to the way it's always done things, and, since it's not a person, it cares for nothing more than getting the most money it can at the expense of anyone else involved.
My wife and I have been trying to buy a house for a number of months, and this is the thought that occurred to me this morning (This is only a thought, a parallel; there is no real point beyond this. I just found it interesting.): the real estate market and publishing are a lot alike, at the moment. In our price range, virtually all of the houses are bank owned or soon-to-be bank owned (short sales (that's when the owner needs to sell the house for less than what they owe on it (usually because they're going into foreclosure))), so we've been dealing with banks more than we've wanted to.
We had an offer accepted on a house a few weeks ago. It's a short sale, so there's a lot that has to happen between the bank (the actual owner (because banks do actually own most everyone's homes)) and the seller (the person (family) living in the house) before anything actually happens with that. The problem is this: one of the inspections shows extensive dry rot in the siding on the house. It may have affected the structure of the house, but they don't know, because they'd have to remove the siding to find out. Will they do that? No. And why not? The current price is a fair price if the structure is intact; however, it's much too high if there's structural damage to the house. Does the bank want to have to lower the price? No. Does the bank care about anything beyond how much they can get? No. It's better for them not to know about structural damage. At some point, someone will come along and either not know to check that stuff or not care about it.
We've run into this problem over and over again looking at houses. Bank owned properties come as they are. Period. In short, they don't care about the actual product they're selling as long as someone buys it. As an aside, the thing I'm finding morbidly amusing is the investors that are buying these houses from the banks, fixing them up, and, then, finding, because the housing market is still in a decline, that they can't sell them for more than they paid for them even after pouring in thousands of dollars to fix them. Sometimes, they have to sell them for less. The publishing industry mirrors this lack of care for their products. They do this by what I'll call marketing genres. Vampires are popular, right now, so, they say to their agents, find us some people writing about vampires. No, we don't care if they're any good, vampires sell. Until everyone gets tired of vampires because of all the crappy vampire books that are coming out. But they'll just move onto whatever replaces vampires.
Then there are the agents. We like our real estate agent as a person. We often have doubts about her as a real estate agent. She keeps wanting us to buy the house she wants us to buy. Insisting that we should look at houses that don't fit the parameters of what we're looking for. And she's always pushing us toward buying at the high end of what we've been approved for instead of the range we keep saying we want to purchase within. And why not? The more we spend on a house, the more she makes. We understand her motivation, and we try to work around it as best we can, especially knowing that that is what we will have to deal with no matter what agent we have.
Likewise, literary agents are, also, interested in their paychecks. It's understandable. However, when you're working for an organization that's collapsing, it can make you kind of desperate. Oh, and if you think agents work for the authors, you really need to look, again, at the structure of the industry. The money stream is from the publisher, to the agent, then, finally, to the author. If it wasn't that way, there would not be various scandals in recent years about agents syphoning money away from their authors to themselves. At any rate, agents are clinging more and more tightly to the publishers and the publishers demands rather than working for the author and/or looking for new things. Publishers don't want new things; they want what's already proving to sell.
I know these parallels aren't exact, but, when I have a bank that wants to unload a house on me that may have structural issues, I'm reminded of some of the books I've read. Here's the thing, though, what's good for me is not what's good for someone else. Most people don't have the standards I do for books, and that's fine for them. Just like, I'm assuming, most people don't have the standards my wife and I do for a house. After all, the house with the special pot lab in the garage sold soon after we looked at it. Different people have different needs. And, well, if the buyer was planning to set up a pot lab, he was getting just what he needed. Cheap!
There is a positive, though, at least on the publishing side: there are alternatives. And, maybe, the publishing industry will evolve itself to meet the changes that are occurring in society (although, I don't really believe that). Authors do have other avenues they can use rather than trying to get on board a leaking ship. Unfortunately, in home buying, there aren't a lot of alternatives.
Showing posts with label POD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label POD. Show all posts
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Go Local! (or "Why You Should Buy My Book")
My wife and I have had a long running discussion about supporting local growers. When I first moved to CA, I had no idea of this as a concept. I'd like to say that it's because I grew up in the south and it was a normal practice there. My grandparents had a farm, so we did, actually, eat a lot of locally grown food, because it came from relatives. However, I didn't realize that this wasn't a normal thing to do. I used to go with my grandfather on Saturdays and sit in the stall at the farmers' market with him. Maybe things were just different then.
Of course, we had no idea of recycling, there, either, so I doubt it. I was surprised, when I moved to CA in '97, that there were two trash cans: one for garbage and one for recycling (more than 10 years later, they are only just now doing that where I moved from).
Anyway...
My wife wants us to buy as much locally grown produce and meat as possible. Meaning, she wants us to always buy locally when it's available. My stance is more pragmatic. I have to look at the money side of it and curtail our "local" spending to what we can afford. Unfortunately, buying locally grown stuff costs more, so it's always a balancing act of staying within what we can afford while including as much of the local market as possible. Buying local is good for the environment, though, and I'm all for raising environmental awareness. Thankfully, Safeway actually labels, now, what is locally grown, and I buy heavily from that produce when I shop.
But what does this have to do with books?
Well, supporting local artists is kind of the same thing, just on a more global scale.
Here's the thing:
Once upon a time, for an artist to survive as an artist, the artist had to find a patron. A rich patron. Someone who would put them on staff, so to speak, so that they could paint or make music or whatever it was they did. Mostly, it was painting or music related, although there was some sculpting thrown in here and there. And acting. Some of our greatest music and art has come to us because a patron supported a particular artist. Playwrights are included in this list of artists. Even Shakespeare had to have his patrons.
And when books began to be published, that meant that the author had to find someone who would pay the publishing costs so the book could be printed. Initially, this was more like giving the author a loan; later, it meant taking a percentage from the profits, not just being paid back. Of course, from that grew our "traditional" publishing model. That model says that the publisher gets to keep the bulk of the profit and makes the writer, in essence, an employee. No one looks at it that way, though.
Now, we could debate all the nuances of the publishing industry right up until it collapses in on itself in the same way the music industry is, but that's probably pretty pointless, so let's just skip that part.
One of the things I've made a practice of doing for a long time, all the way back to my teens, is buying music I liked from the artists at their concerts. At first, this was because I was seeing a lot of musicians that were unlabeled or on labels that were hard to find at your standard music stores. This was before the Internet, so, if you didn't buy it at the concerts, you didn't get to have it. As I got older, it was because I knew that the musicians got more of the money if I bought it directly from them as opposed to buying it at the store, and I thought that was a good thing, so I would actually wait to buy a new CD at a concert if I knew I was going to be seeing a particular band within a reasonable amount of time after the release of a new album. However, it was much later before I realized that the future success of a musician or band might be dependent upon whether or not I bought a CD [or cassette, because CDs weren't a thing, yet, when I was a teenager, so I have this huge collection of cassettes that I really can't play anymore].
Two things happened to really cement that idea in my head, and both of them had to do with me buying self-produced CDs from two different bands. Both of these bands went on to get signed by a label and shoot to the top of their particular genres. I bought one of these CDs because of one particular song. I heard it, and I knew, "this song is going to be a big hit." I started making people listen to the song and telling them what I thought of it. Mostly, people didn't listen to me. I was right, though; somewhere over a year later, the group's first labeled CD was released, and that was their first single. A huge hit. The CD went platinum. The biggest song in its genre to date, and it was released about a decade ago.
The other event isn't quite so spectacular. The group is hugely popular in its genre, but the important thing here is that the self-produced CD I have by them is, in many ways, better than any of their label releases. Some of the songs, good songs, have never been re-recorded. I still listen to that CD as often as I listen to any of their later music.
I often wonder about other groups (whose CDs I own) who have faded away. Mostly, no one's ever heard of them. Some of these singers/groups were good. Good enough to make it. But they didn't. At least one of them, whom I had a slight association with, didn't make it because too many of the members of the band had to go out and get "real" jobs and no longer had time to do the music thing. Would they have made it if more people had supported them when they were just starting out? It's a hard question. Because what we want to say is that if they were good enough they would have made it. That's the easy way out. But it's not true no matter how much we'd like it to be true. But, you know, if it was true, it would absolve us of any guilt in the matter. The truth is many artists "don't make it" because they are forced to give up creating in order to survive. Because, in the past, their local communities didn't support them.
The world, though, is changing. There is no "local" community for art, anymore. The Internet has made the whole world the local community. The music industry has made that blatantly apparent. We, as a people, have the ability to become the patrons. We can support artists independently of producers, publishers, and gallery owners. We can support them directly, cutting off the leeches that want to feed off of others' talent.
Now, I'm not saying we should be indiscriminate in our support, but, you know, when we value music or literature or art, we should do our best to support what we like. That can be a bit more difficult when it comes to writing. I mean, we can evaluate a musician or band in a few minutes with just a few songs. Even if we don't like an album, we can probably buy just the songs we like, but a book... well, a book takes a time investment as well as a money investment, so we can find ourselves much less willing to throw in our support. Someone else has to prove to us, first, that it's worth our time.
Often, we rely on the publisher to tell us it's good enough. I mean, they published it, right? It must be good. heh Publishers don't even believe that. If they did, they would make an investment marketing the books they print. However, they leave it to the readers to be the marketers. We can do that without them being involved at all.
And to bring this back around to the environment, the publishing industry is one of the most wasteful industries on the planet. Every year, hundreds of thousands of books are destroyed because the publishing industry is built on a model of waste. [And I have first hand experience with this having worked in book stores and being involved in the comic book industry for a while.] But it doesn't have to stay that way. They won't change on their own, though. We, the readers, have to show them that there are better ways. e-books. POD (print-on-demand). Smaller, more personal book stores. Book stores willing to support the authors in their community and help them to find a voice.
How do we do all this? Support new authors. Buy directly from authors instead of from the big chain book stores. By POD books when they're available. Or e-books. But, you know, if you're like me and like to actually hold a book you can smell in your hands, POD is the way to go. And, you know, buy my book. >cheesy grin< No, not really. I mean, yes, do, if you want to. I'd love that. But what I really mean is that you should find new authors that you believe in, support them, prove that they don't need the big publishers to be successful. Become a patron. We actually have the power to change the industry if we want to do that.
And, you know, it really is just good for the environment! Go local! Save a tree!
And let the oil companies know we're coming after them, next!
Of course, we had no idea of recycling, there, either, so I doubt it. I was surprised, when I moved to CA in '97, that there were two trash cans: one for garbage and one for recycling (more than 10 years later, they are only just now doing that where I moved from).
Anyway...
My wife wants us to buy as much locally grown produce and meat as possible. Meaning, she wants us to always buy locally when it's available. My stance is more pragmatic. I have to look at the money side of it and curtail our "local" spending to what we can afford. Unfortunately, buying locally grown stuff costs more, so it's always a balancing act of staying within what we can afford while including as much of the local market as possible. Buying local is good for the environment, though, and I'm all for raising environmental awareness. Thankfully, Safeway actually labels, now, what is locally grown, and I buy heavily from that produce when I shop.
But what does this have to do with books?
Well, supporting local artists is kind of the same thing, just on a more global scale.
Here's the thing:
Once upon a time, for an artist to survive as an artist, the artist had to find a patron. A rich patron. Someone who would put them on staff, so to speak, so that they could paint or make music or whatever it was they did. Mostly, it was painting or music related, although there was some sculpting thrown in here and there. And acting. Some of our greatest music and art has come to us because a patron supported a particular artist. Playwrights are included in this list of artists. Even Shakespeare had to have his patrons.
And when books began to be published, that meant that the author had to find someone who would pay the publishing costs so the book could be printed. Initially, this was more like giving the author a loan; later, it meant taking a percentage from the profits, not just being paid back. Of course, from that grew our "traditional" publishing model. That model says that the publisher gets to keep the bulk of the profit and makes the writer, in essence, an employee. No one looks at it that way, though.
Now, we could debate all the nuances of the publishing industry right up until it collapses in on itself in the same way the music industry is, but that's probably pretty pointless, so let's just skip that part.
One of the things I've made a practice of doing for a long time, all the way back to my teens, is buying music I liked from the artists at their concerts. At first, this was because I was seeing a lot of musicians that were unlabeled or on labels that were hard to find at your standard music stores. This was before the Internet, so, if you didn't buy it at the concerts, you didn't get to have it. As I got older, it was because I knew that the musicians got more of the money if I bought it directly from them as opposed to buying it at the store, and I thought that was a good thing, so I would actually wait to buy a new CD at a concert if I knew I was going to be seeing a particular band within a reasonable amount of time after the release of a new album. However, it was much later before I realized that the future success of a musician or band might be dependent upon whether or not I bought a CD [or cassette, because CDs weren't a thing, yet, when I was a teenager, so I have this huge collection of cassettes that I really can't play anymore].
Two things happened to really cement that idea in my head, and both of them had to do with me buying self-produced CDs from two different bands. Both of these bands went on to get signed by a label and shoot to the top of their particular genres. I bought one of these CDs because of one particular song. I heard it, and I knew, "this song is going to be a big hit." I started making people listen to the song and telling them what I thought of it. Mostly, people didn't listen to me. I was right, though; somewhere over a year later, the group's first labeled CD was released, and that was their first single. A huge hit. The CD went platinum. The biggest song in its genre to date, and it was released about a decade ago.
The other event isn't quite so spectacular. The group is hugely popular in its genre, but the important thing here is that the self-produced CD I have by them is, in many ways, better than any of their label releases. Some of the songs, good songs, have never been re-recorded. I still listen to that CD as often as I listen to any of their later music.
I often wonder about other groups (whose CDs I own) who have faded away. Mostly, no one's ever heard of them. Some of these singers/groups were good. Good enough to make it. But they didn't. At least one of them, whom I had a slight association with, didn't make it because too many of the members of the band had to go out and get "real" jobs and no longer had time to do the music thing. Would they have made it if more people had supported them when they were just starting out? It's a hard question. Because what we want to say is that if they were good enough they would have made it. That's the easy way out. But it's not true no matter how much we'd like it to be true. But, you know, if it was true, it would absolve us of any guilt in the matter. The truth is many artists "don't make it" because they are forced to give up creating in order to survive. Because, in the past, their local communities didn't support them.
The world, though, is changing. There is no "local" community for art, anymore. The Internet has made the whole world the local community. The music industry has made that blatantly apparent. We, as a people, have the ability to become the patrons. We can support artists independently of producers, publishers, and gallery owners. We can support them directly, cutting off the leeches that want to feed off of others' talent.
Now, I'm not saying we should be indiscriminate in our support, but, you know, when we value music or literature or art, we should do our best to support what we like. That can be a bit more difficult when it comes to writing. I mean, we can evaluate a musician or band in a few minutes with just a few songs. Even if we don't like an album, we can probably buy just the songs we like, but a book... well, a book takes a time investment as well as a money investment, so we can find ourselves much less willing to throw in our support. Someone else has to prove to us, first, that it's worth our time.
Often, we rely on the publisher to tell us it's good enough. I mean, they published it, right? It must be good. heh Publishers don't even believe that. If they did, they would make an investment marketing the books they print. However, they leave it to the readers to be the marketers. We can do that without them being involved at all.
And to bring this back around to the environment, the publishing industry is one of the most wasteful industries on the planet. Every year, hundreds of thousands of books are destroyed because the publishing industry is built on a model of waste. [And I have first hand experience with this having worked in book stores and being involved in the comic book industry for a while.] But it doesn't have to stay that way. They won't change on their own, though. We, the readers, have to show them that there are better ways. e-books. POD (print-on-demand). Smaller, more personal book stores. Book stores willing to support the authors in their community and help them to find a voice.
How do we do all this? Support new authors. Buy directly from authors instead of from the big chain book stores. By POD books when they're available. Or e-books. But, you know, if you're like me and like to actually hold a book you can smell in your hands, POD is the way to go. And, you know, buy my book. >cheesy grin< No, not really. I mean, yes, do, if you want to. I'd love that. But what I really mean is that you should find new authors that you believe in, support them, prove that they don't need the big publishers to be successful. Become a patron. We actually have the power to change the industry if we want to do that.
And, you know, it really is just good for the environment! Go local! Save a tree!
And let the oil companies know we're coming after them, next!
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