When Amazon launched the kindle, they offered a great new publishing opportunity to independent authors and publishers. Individual authors and small presses alike could publish their books to kindle and reach the growing audience of ebook readers.

Previously, only the biggest publishers with a high financial turnover were able to market their books to more than a handful of the book-buying public. It is no secret that they controlled the market by buying display space in shops and reviews in the national press, pushing a small selection of books under the noses of readers and tempting them with cheap deals. Small presses, by contrast, could only afford more costly short print runs, only to have their books consigned to the shadowy back shelves of bookshops – if they were stocked at all.

So the opportunity offered by Amazon levelled the playing field for small and individual publishers, allowing them to compete at a price equal to or lower than most mainstream books, along with online forums where authors or their representatives could, within reason, tell readers about their books. This was made available, first in US, then extended to authors and publishers in other countries, and, as each market developed, Amazon tempted small publishers with a larger share of the revenue.

By Easter of this year, many authors and small publishers – especially of the more mass market books - were enjoying a generous and regular income from ebooks. Almost all made their books available in a variety of formats, distributed by different retailers, but, due to the success of the kindle, combined with the opportunity to interact with readers on the Amazon forum, most found that this provided by far the biggest portion of their income. Many authors were giving up their day jobs to write full time, in order to satisfy the demand from their fans for more books. And new small presses – essential for nurturing new talent and launching new authors into the mainstream – were beginning to flourish.

Then, suddenly, without warning, Amazon called time. Forum posters were forbidden to post links to their books or to promote them on amazon.com’s site apart from in a newly-created jumbled author area. Where previously they had been on virtual shelves in a bookshop, sorted according to subject and genre, they were all thrown in a heap into one bargain bin out the back.

And now the same thing seems to be happening in the UK store, although Amazon have not actually announced it.

Due to these changes, during the past 2 – 3 months, the revenue of many independent authors and small presses has dropped by 90%. Of course, Amazon is a business, not a charity, and if new publishers go bankrupt because of their actions, it is neither their concern, nor their responsibility. But for all the revenue lost by publishers and authors, Amazon is losing it too. And this makes their action difficult to understand.

As an independent author and publisher, I might be taking a blinkered view. So I’ve asked the opinion of Amazon customers who have nothing to lose financially by the developments. And their answer is always the same: a look of disbelief followed by a protestation that a business taking action which loses them money, simply doesn’t make sense.

So I’m trying to understand what Amazon are playing at. Did they set out as a vanity press, making false promises to would-be authors, playing on their delusions that they could write? Did they use new authors and small presses, encouraging them to publish so that kindle could acquire and boast a large number of cheap books and so take the trade that may have gone to other manufacturers of ereaders? Did they do this to persuade a large number of authors, small publishers and their friends to buy kindles? Did they do all this knowing they would ruin businesses and lives?

Well maybe they did. But that doesn’t explain why they stopped doing it at a point in time when those authors and publishers were earning them a lot of money.

Maybe forum members complained that they didn’t like all the advertising.

Certainly some did, but judging by the sales and the favourable reviews on independently published books, they are far outnumbered by customers who like not only the availability of those books but the opportunity to interact with the authors. In any case, an astute business wouldn’t pay heed to complaints from a minority of customers whose business doesn’t add up to much revenue when far more money will be lost by responding to it.

Two more points which suggest customer pressure is not the reason for Amazon’s action. Customers in the UK store contacted Amazon and asked them to provide one author/publisher promotion thread in each genre area. An excellent suggestion, which would have kept everyone happy and would be cheap and easy to implement. But Amazon weren’t prepared to listen. Secondly, the sales which arise from an author’s forum promotion are not the bulk but the catalyst for many more sales via Amazon’s automated recommendations. Most customers do not read or post on the forums but the books they buy often come from forum generated sales. So the financial consequences of Amazon’s action reach much further than a few sales from a forum.

So what other explanation could there be?

Very simply, that if Amazon are losing a considerable amount of revenue, they must be being compensated with significantly more. Where might this be coming from and why does it require their dispensing with the smaller publishers?

Here’s one possibility. As mentioned earlier, by purchasing display space in shops, the big publishers are able to control the print book side of the publishing industry. They are able to ensure that, irrespective of quality, the books they produce sell in larger quantities than those from smaller presses.  Amazon’s ban on author advertising in US coincided with the kindle release of many cheap backlists from large publishers. Could it be that they don’t want the competition and they are prepared to pay to have it removed? Or might it be that Amazon is preparing to sell advertising space, for a price, to the big publishers, and that free promotion must therefore go? Or simply that Amazon don’t want competition with their own publishing imprint?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I do know that most US independents have not been hit as hard as those in UK – perhaps because they’ve had longer to get established. But this makes me even more concerned. Here we are in Britain. We have no British retailer of ebooks or manufacturer of ereaders (certainly none that will make any difference), the books available to us are being increasingly chosen by a US company and our hope for nurturing new talent, both for authors and publishers is seriously under threat.

What is going on and what are we going to do about it?

As usual, sensible responses are welcome. As per my blog policy - no sales figures please.

I’ve read a number of indie/self-published books now. All of them in print, because I don’t have an ereader, and almost all of them ones of my choosing – that is to say, they were ones I particularly like the look of from the description and sample chapters and was lucky to get the opportunity to read.

 

And now I’m asking myself the big question: would they be better if they were mainstream published? This is the question to which many (especially the indie authors amongst us) hope the answer will be no but fear it will be yes.

 

Now, remember I’ve been very discerning in my choice. I haven’t bought anything on a whim because it’s cheap; and I’ve only read in print. I suspect that, making a book available in print, with all the hassle and expense it entails, makes the author/publisher check the details that bit more meticulously. Also, I know a bit about the production background of each book – some were almost entirely DIY by the author, with edit suggestions from friends; some went through expensive self-publishing services; some employed editors of varying degrees of professionalism – similarly for cover design; and some were lucky to get editorial suggestions from top mainstream publishers even though they didn’t eventually take the books.

 

In all cases, the books were beautifully presented. There were no garish covers or low quality print or typesetting. In that respect I don’t think they’d be produced better by mainstream, traditional publishers. They’d be done differently – by the publishers’ regular designers and to their own house styles, for reasons of marketing. But not better. You trade in a bit of individuality in order to make the book look more like others on the same list and therefore sell more copies.

 

Regarding structure (in which I include plot and subplots and organisation of material), this is a difficult one. All were expertly paced. But could they have been improved with the addition or removal of characters and scenes? Or with a different ending? I thought one of the books was a bit weak on plot. But it wasn’t my preferred genre and not a book I’d have chosen, had it not found its way into my collection. That said, I still enjoyed it as a calm undemanding read. If it were mainstream published (which I don’t think it would be because the plot isn’t strong enough) then, almost certainly, it would be spiced up, which would be an improvement. The others, I enjoyed as they were.

 

So, if signed to a big publisher, would these books be changed? I suspect the answer would be yes. And experiences of other authors vary greatly, ranging from hardly any editorial input to insistence that you change your book so it is effectively the editor’s book with the author ghost writing. It would seem to depend very much on the common vision and partnership of the author and the editor to whom they are assigned. The editor might work with the author or against them, either to make the book appeal to a wider audience, or to allow the editor to impose their vision of how they see the book. I know one or two traditionally published authors who felt the changes they were required to make spoiled their books. And, more worryingly, many of their readers felt the same way. A friend who works in the production end of the music business tells me it’s very similar and that, once signed to big labels, musicians are required to make changes deemed unnecessary by many of those concerned.

But, after all this, would the books be improved? Probably not. They’d just appeal to different people.

Now, down to the level of line edits. There are many people who will state categorically that you can’t self-edit your own book. From what I’ve read, I would have to disagree with this – both at a general and more detailed level. It requires a different set of skills, and most writers will get a lot of feedback from readers at different stages, but it can be done. There is no evidence, from what I’ve read, that employing a professional editor produces a more perfected finished product – if anything, I’m seeing the opposite, with the most precise prose coming from the DIY authors. Would the books I’ve read be improved in this respect by mainstream publication? For those who’ve really learned the craft of editing: no. I’ve noticed that only the top literary mainstream authors seem to have perfectly proof read books. If every mainstream book were given that attention to eliminate every typo or overused word then I might say yes. As it is, the only thing standing between the top indie books and perfection is the cash to upload a corrected version.

As a summary, I’m going to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Because I’ve considered how books might be improved, but not what they would lose. To illustrate this I’m going to refer to Birmingham Girls, a memoir by Carol Arnall. It’s a book that has immense charm. Much of its appeal is in the way it wanders off at tangents, the way your thoughts do if you’re browsing through a box of old photos. Also appealing is the language – which is very much a spoken language, with a hint of regional dialect. Now, in the hands of a mainstream editor, I’m quite sure these idiosyncrasies would be seen as faults to be corrected. Yet, if they went, you’d lose the essence of the voice. There are parallels in music and art too. It is not human to be absolutely perfect. And artists often prefer to forgo computerised perfection in favour of the human factor.

Would the indie books I’ve been privileged to read be improved by mainstream publishing? No. There is always a trade in. Some would gain as much as they would lose. But for others, I’d rather read them complete with their ‘flaws’ because sometimes, safe predictable and sanitised use of language doesn’t make up for losing that individual human factor.      

Or, to put it another way, if you're an indie author, how tempted would you be to take a regular contract, if it were offered?

OK, so I know there lots of factors in this, with lots of different answers. So let's narrow it down a bit.
I recently read a blog that was talking about literary agents who were interested in taking on self-published authors. Sounds great so far. Then it seems they have a criteria of your having sold at least 5K books in the previous year. Hmm, a bit more difficult. I'm guessing if you're selling e books at 99c they're going to want to see considerably higher sales than that before they take an interest in you.

So, assuming I can sell that many books (sounds optimistic but with the e book market growing you never know) would it be worth my while going down that route?

Let's think about this from different points of view.

Let's assume they mean 5K sales at a price that gives you a royalty of at least £1 per book, ie an annual income of £5K. That allows for a slightly higher return at the magic price of $2.99 on 70% royalty but nets down allowing for expenses. That's still a higher royalty per sale than you'd get with most publishers. Let's assume your book is currently selling well. So, if you meet their sales criteria, to make it financially worthwhile, given that you'd probably have the book off the market for at least a year, and thinking about projected increase in e market and therefore your expected self-published income over the next 3 years etc etc, you'd realistically be wanting an advance of at least £20K.

This is without factoring in all the extra work you might be required to do on rewrites etc when you could be writing your next book which will earn you another £5k per year. Plus, you might not like how you are required to rework it. Not such a big deal when it was an embryonic ms maybe but more like invasive surgery further down the line.

So, what's in it for the agent/publisher?

Money. You've found a way to make it, you've already done all the hard work, so now they want some of it.
The book? Probably irrelevant, though if you've got more on the way you can give them more money.

Remind me again what's in it for the author.

Fame, fortune, national press reviews, book displayed in bookshops, reaching a bigger audience, being 'properly' published.

So, assuming you meet the criteria that a mainstream agent/publisher would be interested in signing you, tell me what your criteria would be to consider signing with them.