Interesting times

The whole e-books, e-readers and apps scenario makes fascinating observation. There are 3 interesting articles worth perusing. One at the Bookseller by Tom Williams, who is obviously a forward thinking agent from PDF. His piece throws up the various situations each of the protagonists in the changing e-world find themselves:

1. Traditional publishers who are fearful that e-upstarts are going to come along and produce e-only books and sell them at a lower price than the one that publishers wish to set it at. The premise is that the e-pubbers won't have the huge overheads of staff, pensions, book production costs that tradpubs have.
2. Literary agents who might not even be part of the e-loop if new authors are happy to see their books in e-format only. But would they be? How would they be able to show them off? And wouldn't they really only be content when they see it in book format?
3. Authors who want a bigger slice of the e-revenue. After all, there is no paper to buy, book to bind, storage to cost, etc. What they are blissfully unaware of is how important the marketing aspect of publishing a book is. Anyone can produce a book, but selling it is the difficult bit.
4. Creative thinking people who can see a book, see the app technology available, and then reinvent something in a completely new e-format that suits the platform it is created for and has a tangible benefit for the user (as in the case of Jamie Oliver). Is there no format he hasn't put his stamp on?

The second article is by Stephen Page of Faber, again at the Bookseller. I reckon he is one of the best guys in the publishing industry and what he says makes sense. However, as I look at it, every one wants a bigger slice of the e-cake. Authors should remember that very few of them probably make much money for the publisher. Many will not earn out their advance. Therefore they should cultivate a much more symbiotic attitude to their relationship. As the general rule of thumb is that only 20% of anything creates 80% of result, then 20% should be the top end of the royalty rate. I bet that 20% of all the books that a publisher puts out, creates 80% of its revenue.

And the last article I think is interesting appeared in Saturday's Guardian by Ian Black. If we don't watch out, it probably won't be the publisher or author who benefits from e-books, it will the 'shop' where they are sold. Look how Amazon get 30%. What for one asks? Or perhaps that's cynical old moi.