Publishers hate Google. So much so, in fact, that the CEO of Macmillan Publishers stole two of Google’s laptop. He did it to make a point. He is upset that Google is making digital copies of books in hopes of making information more accessible to you and me.
No, they are not giving those copies away. Once a person finds something of interest in a book, they are shown where they can purchase or check out said book. But the publisher is mad because Google is a threat to his business. Publishers are the candle makers, and Google just brought out the light bulb.
It’s clear to see why Google strikes fear into the collective hearts
of publishers everywhere. Look at what they’ve done to advertising.
Advertisers spend billions of dollars on getting their message to
their potential customers. In the old days (10 years ago), who got
that money? Let me give you a clue, it wasn’t you or me. If you
happened to own a television station you got some of the money. Newspapers, magazines, radio stations… if you happened to own any of
these, then you got the money. It’s important to note that the money
went in large part to a very small group of people. Lots of money, not
many people.
Then Google came along. Things are beginning to change. Now if you
have a blog with a few hundred readers, you get part of that money. Oh
sure, you’re not making millions (well, most of you aren’t), but a
whole lot of people are making thousands, and even more are making
hundreds. Google has done something that keeps a lot of CEOs up at
night; they’ve spread the wealth. Bad for them, good for us.
Book publishers see the writing on the wall. Book publishers run a
whole lot of mini-monopolies. Don’t like paying $30 for the latest
Harry Potter? Too bad, Scholastic runs the show. You can’t buy the
book anywhere else. Ever wonder why you can pick up a Jack London
book for $3, but a Steven King novel goes for $15? It’s not because
they print the Steven King book on better paper. It’s because there
are other publishers publishing Jack London. There is competition. Steven King can demand a larger royalty, and the publishers know their
fans will pay X amount, so they charge it. The readers can’t go
anywhere else, they either pay up or shut up.
So book publishers have a monopoly, and you can bet that they like
the status quo. ANY move that threatens that status quo will be met
with lawsuits (as we’ve seen already).
Never mind that being able to search the printed text of a
university library could be a great benefit to thousands of students,
and millions of people who can’t physically get to the library. If it
is going to affect the bottom line of the few, then it can’t be a good
thing, right?
Which is why I personally was pleased to see this announcement
in the Chronicle of Higher Education. More universities see the value
of digital copies, and I hope that publishers will eventually see the
light as well.
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Look at it a moment from the flip side … the author’s point of view. At no point in history have the vast majority of authors NOT had to struggle to earn a living. The Stephen Kings and J.K. Rowlings of the world aside, most fiction writers earn what by most professionals is considered an entry-level salary … if they’re lucky.
Most writers work a second job of some type to survive, or have a working spouse willing to contribute.
Forget $30 for a Harry Potter book (by the way, it’s being discounted up to 50%, which means the profit margins for most bookstores are vanishingly small).
Talk about $7.99 for the latest paperback fantasy novel of less-stellar pedigree (which is really what we’re discussing). Where does THAT money go? Less than 10% of that is ever going to the writer, and that’s after the writer pays back their initial advance the publishers gave them to write the book (if possible — it’s based on the number of books sold).
When you start eroding the amount being charged for the book, who suffers? Not the printers, who have hard costs for paper, machines, and employees. And publishing staffs are small as it is. There’s little enough to cut there — and when you start cutting, you affect the ultimate quality of the book, which has to go through editorial and typesetting.
Unless you’re slapping a generic cover on it, you also pay for artwork (and believe me, no cover artists are driving Ferraris on that salary, either).
So … back to the writer. Who is, incidentally, still getting not much more money than he or she was in 1970. That’s where costs can be reduced, because after all, isn’t it a privilege just to get your work in print? So we shave off a thousand dollars here are there … or better yet, turn around authors even faster, so that if one book fails to hit with the audience, the author is out the door so that another eager beaver can try. That’s the world you’re attempting to build.
The reason publishers can get away with $3 for a Jack London book is that they don’t have to pay but a nominal fee to his estate — he made his initial publishing fee long ago. In fact, when Jack London was writing full time, he was making about three times as much as he would have as a mail carrier (his earlier profession). In 1900, Mr. London earned $2,534.13. That was a pretty fair living in those days.
Guess what? An awful lot of writers are *still* pulling down that amount. Those full-time writers I mentioned, most of them are NOT earning as much as a full-time mail carrier, much less two or three times as much.
Apples to oranges, Marion. I refer you to this article:
http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2005/02/07/how-much-does-a-science-fiction-or-fantasy-writer-make/
Please remind me … who’s the “little guy” again?
– Rachel
P.S. – I also think it’s significant and sad that the two advertisements listed above on the page are both for self-publishing services.
Rachel — that seems to be a very well thought-out comment; thanks.
I’ve spent a bit of time trying to understand this, though, and consistently failed. Could you explain it to me? How does Google’s proposed search service hurt publishers *or* authors?
From my understanding, Google will answer a query with a small segment of a book, perhaps a paragraph or two. They will provide links around these fragments that direct you to places where you can purchase the book. There’s no facility for free browsing of a copyrighted book, and there’s no facility for viewing the entirety of the book at a time. You’re restricted to the fragment that comes out of the search results.
It seems to me that this could only be good news: for authors, more readers find your work and are interested. For publishers… well, the same thing should benefit them, too, right?
Leaving aside moral and legal issues, how is this a bad idea for the publishers and authors? I’m not trying to be snarky; I really don’t get it.
Thanks!
Rachel, some great points, thanks for joining the discussion.
As an author of 2 books, I am on the other side of the fence. The problem lies in the fact that one publisher owns all the rights to my books. They have sold out the first printing, and gone onto a second, but they are no longer pushing my book. They are pushing newer projects.
Pushing a book is incredibly important. There are two major book chains in my area. One pushed my book (because they are sister companies with my publisher), and the second one did not. The first chain sold almost 10 times more than the second book. It was all a matter of ‘getting the word out’.
Google has shown that they are incredibly adept at hooking up people who are looking for things with people who have those things. If I could somehow find all the people who would enjoy my book, I would sell a lot more than the chain that pushed my book for 2 months.
I think google can help both authors, publishers, and readers, by helping people find what they want. Peronally, however, I’d like to see the model taken even a step further. I personally would like a way for me to license my book under a creative commons license, so that mutiple sources could copy and distribute my book. More books means more sales, and more people enjoying the book.
However that particular nut has yet to be cracked, so in the mean time, any way for an author to get their book into the hands of people who might be interested, is a good thing.
While I’m an advocate of a looser copyright system, one can understand the author and publisher’s perspective. Google is making unauthorized digital copies of copyrighted material without consent. While Google would argue fair use covers their activities, it’s certainly no slam dunk case. If you weigh all the factors, it ends up being a pretty tough call. Google is copying them in full (though only making small portions available for free), they are also doing it for a commercial purpose. No doubt they will continue to find ways to extract advertising revenue out of this project and people’s online searches. If Amazon and other online outlets have to pay small licensing fees just to let you listen to “samples” of songs you are thinking of buying, why shouldn’t Google have to pay licensing fees to show you “samples” of books?
Marion, if the publisher owns all the rights to your book, you need to get a better agent.
It’s generally standard practice for a publisher to buy only the first North American printing rights. If your publisher claims to own all your rights, I would check with a lawyer ASAP.