Black Plastic Glasses » Authors Guild

Pass the Gestalt, Please

Evan — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:08:24 +0000

In the past two weeks I have heard forcefully stated pronouncements by agent Andrew Wylie and chair of the Society of Authors, Tom Holland, regarding ebook royalty rates. A 50/50 share between author and publisher is the only possible outcome they can accept, citing the tired and somewhat old argument we have heard before:

The publisher has little or no incremental out of pocket cost to create ebooks, therefore the income should be split in the same manner as subsidiary rights, which is generally 50/50.

The average person would be hard pressed to disagree—certainly in this day and age the digital file created to make a print book cannot cost much to...

What’s Next in Digital Reading?

Evan — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:15:02 +0000

The history of digital reading in a fascinating one and I believe exploring its development arc helps predict the trends that may lie ahead. Thinking about what worked early on – meaning what was read in digital form - use cases where search, find, and quick read were the primary means of interacting with the content, such as encyclopedias and reference works, directories and other data driven compendia. This was brilliantly summarized in 2003 by Niko Pfund, OUP’s VP of Academic and Trade Publishing, when he referred to this kind of reading as “extractive, as opposed to immersive.” Extractive reading is an extension of search – its primarily purpose is to “extract” information from searched databases. Extractive reading is easily done...

I’m Coming Back!

Evan — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:36:48 +0000

Watch this space in early March for my return to blogging. I am taking suggestions here for topics you want to see me cover. I will be checking the comments section daily and take on all serious ideas. See you all soon!

TTS is Not a Four Letter Word

Evan — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:24:41 +0000

To be perfectly clear, this blog is not sanctioned by, endorsed by, or even remotely associated with, Oxford University Press, my fantastic employer. What I say here is my opinion and my opinion alone. This is especially true for this article as I am in no way representing the view of OUP. For reasons that aren't entirely obvious to me, the Text-to-Speech (TTS) debate continues to rage months after Amazon was forced to disable TTS functionality on the Kindle. Unfortunately, as with most things, the debate has devolved into discrete business or political vantage points. The Authors Guild sees TTS as...

There Will Be Disintermediation

Evan — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:28:06 +0000

The first two parts of this series, Disruption and Generation On-Demand, explored my own personal content consumption disruption and traced it through the seismic shift in my reading, listening, and watching habits. My experience seems to align with the generational experience of content at one’s fingertips, on-demand. I called this phenomenon Generation On-Demand because this generation has grown up with and expects that everything and anything (content) be available to them, however, whenever, and wherever they want. I traced the dramatic decrease in my own immersive reading, music listening, and TV and movie watching in the last few years and cited my ability to work and play whenever and wherever I want as the primary reasons. Accessing...

Generation On-Demand

Evan — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:52:20 +0000

Generation On-Demand is the second of a 3-part series. The first installment, Disruption, explored my personal content consumption over the years and ended with the observation that everything that I used to enjoy had now seen a dramatic reduction in consumption. I ended the piece with the question “So if I am not purchasing as many new books and I don’t buy as much new music and I don’t really watch TV and I only watch movies when I want to in my own home, what the hell am I doing with all the time I must have on my hands?" I will now try to answer that question. I was interviewed the other day Adam Penenberg,...

Discounts Must Align to Risks

Evan — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:41:18 +0000

To be perfectly clear, this blog is not sanctioned by, endorsed by, or even remotely associated with Oxford University Press, my fantastic employer. What I say here is my opinion and my opinion alone. In my inaugural post, Why Ebooks Must Fail, I promised to follow up by exploring a variety of business models I believe could work in the long run for publishers of all sizes and shapes. This is the first part of a 3-part series in which I propose changes and new initiatives for ebooks that, I believe, will help ensure that ebooks don’t fail. I theorized that the book industry relies too greatly on advance sales and billing and that the predominant model of ebooks,...

Book Advances

Evan — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:47:51 +0000

MICHAEL MEYER has a piece in the Sunday NY Times book review section entitled "About That Book Advance ...". While it logically has the perspective of an author, it does point out some of the issues associated with the predominant model in current trade publishing. One part that I think doesn't quite compute is the following: "In 1971, for example, Viking sold paperback rights to “The Day of the Jackal” to Bantam for 36 times the $10,000 hardcover advance it had paid its author, Frederick Forsyth. “Agents realized that they should be the ones holding auctions for their authors and get advances more in line with the anticipated total value of their books,” Georges Borchardt, who brokered...

Why Ebooks Must Fail

Evan — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:33:14 +0000

NB - I have noticed from the amazing amount of commentary this post generated over the last two weeks that there seems to be a misunderstanding of my intentions here. Granted, I chose a very inflammatory title, but this article, especially when taken in context with the follow up piece Discounts Must Align to Risks, is about supporting growth in the ebook market, not predicting its demise. Ebooks are the future and getting there as an industry will require some hard evaluation of how things work and a better understanding of publishing economics. Evan This piece is about consumer or “trade” publishing as we call it in the industry. To begin, let's review how a book becomes a book. A...