Writer Unboxed

Keep the image of the Celtic Snake in mind when you read this episode of Snippets (hint: its head is eating its tail).

The WSJ reveals that despite the economic meltdown, publishers haven’t given up on mega-advances for “blockbuster” project. The reason: it’s not good business. Blockbuster quotage:

“What would happen if a publisher like Grand Central decided to stop making large bids like the one it placed on “Dewey” and systematically walked away from the most sought-after — and therefore expensive — new properties?

“First, agents would stop sending such a publisher their most promising book proposals. “If you are constantly backing out of big-ticket auctions, your list is going to hurt,” is how one publishing executive explains it. “You are going to get a stigma that you don’t play for the big ones, and you are going to get shunned out. Agents will no longer consider you for what they feel are their best projects.” Publishers can’t afford to cost-save themselves out of the market. Even if they could develop extraordinary competence in finding gold in the “slush pile” of hundreds of pieces of unsolicited material received each week, the dividends would be limited. After one success, the talent the publisher had nurtured would discover the value of an agent.

“In addition, the most talented editors and other creative talent would leave to work for a publisher that would let them pursue the projects they thought had the highest chances of success. Careers are built on blockbusters. Jamie Raab, Grand Central’s publisher, is known for discovering the bestselling novelist Nicholas Sparks. As a result, she continues to receive a steady stream of the best new love stories from literary agents.

“Not bidding for sought-after projects also makes it harder to get best efforts from sales and marketing representatives and other internal constituents. After winning the hotly contested rights to a book like “Dewey,” it is easier for the Grand Central executives to make the case that this book will beat its competitors. Firing up those that will be involved in the book’s development and marketing process is important, because most media titles have only a short window in which to make money; the lion’s share of marketing activity takes place before their launch — when it’s still largely unknown how audiences will respond.”

Good news for anyone who has a “blockbuster” sitting on their hard-drives. It was hard for me to fathom how anyone would think a story about a library cat would become a blockbuster, but as we hear constantly, publishing is more art than science.

I had to chuckle a few days later when I read this article in the NYT:

The economic downturn is forcing publishers to scrutinize some of the industry’s hoariest traditions. One ripe target: the international book fairs in London and Frankfurt at which publishers and agents gather, ostensibly to make deals. But in reality they spend much of their time making the rounds of parties and dinners.

How the mighty have fallen.

So, say you want to read the Dewey the Cat memoir, but you figure the $19.99 hardcover price is too steep and you know you can get it used on Amazon for $0.99 in about two months from now. You’re contributing to the demise of publishing:

Don’t blame this carnage on the recession or any of the usual suspects, including increased competition for the reader’s time or diminished attention spans. What’s undermining the book industry is not the absence of casual readers but the changing habits of devoted readers.

In other words, it’s all the fault of people like myself, who increasingly use the Internet both to buy books and later, after their value to us is gone, sell them. This is not about Amazon peddling new books at discounted prices, which has been a factor in the book business for a decade, but about the rise of a worldwide network of amateurs who sell books from their homes or, if they’re lazy like me, in partnership with an Internet dealer who does all the work for a chunk of the proceeds.

Will the underground economy kill publishing? I tell myself that thrift stores haven’t killed malls, but I’m a little worried.

Finally, I thought I’d include a link and a snippet of a much-discussed article making the rounds — the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has temporarily stopped buying:

Josef Blumenfeld, v-p of communications for HMH, confirmed that the publisher has “temporarily stopped acquiring manuscripts” across its trade and reference divisions. The directive was given verbally to a handful of executives and, according to Blumenfeld, is “not a permanent change.” Blumenfeld, who hedged on when the ban might be lifted, said that the right project could still go to the editorial review board. He also maintained that the the decision is less about taking drastic measures than conducting good business.

HMH might as well auction the office furnishings, because if a publishing house isn’t acquiring, it’s on life-support. What are they going to do two years from now when the economy has rebounded, they’ve cleaned out their inventory and they need new releases? Would Paramount stop movie development for six months on the premise it’s good business to stop, erm, doing their business?

Strange days, indeed.

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She has written two novels under the pseudonym Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter--both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President's teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins.

Kathleen Bolton

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