Seasoned Publisher Says E-Publishing Will Replace Traditional Books
The New York publishing business model is dead, so says 32-year-publishing veteran Jerry D. Simmons.
After spending 25 years as a VP of Field Sales with both Random House and the former Time-Warner Book Group, Simmons left traditional publishing for good. In his independently published book What Writers Need to Know About Publishing (available on his Web site), he lets the positive information mix with the negative. Best-selling author Sandra Brown, credits the book as telling "the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of book publishing, told in a straight-from-the-hip manner. New writers take note!"
Technorati posed a question-and-answer session with Simmons about the emergence of e-publishing and what it means to the book business:
LV: Now that Amazon.com has reported selling more Kindle titles than hard-cover books, and mass-market paperback sales in a swoon, it's looking increasingly like best way for an author to sell his or her manuscript is to publish it electronically. However, up until now there had been a stigma against e-books with many reviewers and others refusing to take them seriously. Is this beginning to change?
Simmons: Mainstream media will begin to review and take eBooks more seriously, especially when the first original e-book title arrives on the scene and makes a big sales impact. At that point expect the major newspapers to adopt the digital publication in the same manner they do hardcover and original trade paper. As more of the major New York publishers release content in original e-book format the market will have reached the tipping point.
LV: Amazon.com recently made an offer to publish authors' manuscripts via its Kindle platform, and even sent out instructions for authors to format their copy to fit the Kindle. They would make a 70% share of the profit, according to the Amazon.com press release. This is an enormous deal compared to the tiny royalties that authors earn today. What could the downside possibly be in this scenario? How hard is it for average authors to format copy for this program?
Simmons: The only downside to the Amazon scenario is if the author is required to give up any rights to the content published by Amazon. Anyone can follow their directions and convert to Kindle as long as they have patience and understand the basics of programming. For the independent author this is a program they should consider, but only if it fits in their overall publishing strategy. For writers deciding to go it on their own the biggest problem is they have no plan for how to publish or market. Without a clear direction even for one book, it makes it very difficult to sell product.
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