Some interesting comments in the Wall Street Journal about the impact of ebooks on returns for literary fiction writers. The journalist, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, says that the smaller return from ebooks for publishers (albeit compared to the US hardcover price) is making it much harder for agent’s to sell literary fiction to the big publishers, and when they do, the advances paid are much smaller.
It is possible we are starting to see a structural shift in book publishing, and it is starting in the US where ebook sales are much more advanced than in Australia. However, the article states that ebook sales are still only 8% of total book revenue. It’s projected this might rise to 20% – 25% by 2013 (and eventually over take print books).
If ebook sales are only 8%, it’s hard to see why this should be having such a drastic effect on publishers willing to publish debut fiction, or on advances generally. I was staggered to read that big New York publishers typically paid a debut fiction advance of $US50,000 to $100,000 (let’s all move to NY) but now the dreaded ebook monster has reduced that to $US1,000 to $5,000 (welcome to Ozland!).
There’s something about the WSJ article that doesn’t stack up. There are a lot of other pressures on publishers besides ebooks plus there’s no acknowledgement that ebook sales don’t necessarily mean pbook sales forgone.
One thing that was pointed out in the artice that not much has been made of so far in the whole ebook debate, is the promotion/selection of books on the ebook platforms, especially Amazon. Essentially a potential book buyer has to know what they are looking for and this overwhelmingly favours established writers. There is almost zero chance of just stumbling across a title the way we all do in our local bookstores.
Read the WSJ article here.