Publishers need to fear authors.
Getting back to e-books there was a great write up by urban fantasy writer H.P. Mallory talking about her independent publishing
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/01/guest-post-by-hp-mallory.html
After being rejected many times H.P. Mallory took the new path and self published her books and have been very, very successful. In blog she writes:
Publishers have had a hard few years. The recession was tough. Fewer bookstores mean fewer sales. Amazon and the rise of ereaders is eating into their print sales. But I don’t think bookstores closing, or customers switching to ebooks, are what publishers need to fear most.
Publishers need to fear authors.
Now, if you talk to any group of newbie authors who have been rejected by the industry, you’ll feel their bitterness toward the difficult, often humiliating, and seemingly arbitrary nature of the query-go-round.
And if you talk to any group of professional authors, you’ll feel their bitterness toward publishers who have made a lot of mistakes in regard to their books and careers.
Add the fact that publishers take 52.5% royalties on ebooks, leaving the authors only 17.5%, and that even if an author landed a contract today there would still be an 18 month wait for the book to come out, and I have to wonder what publishers are going to do in order to keep authors submitting to them.
I have to agree with her. Let’s face facts when an author can keep 70% of the cover price why would authors sign up with a publisher and only keep 17.5% of the cover price. It does sort of seem like a no braine
H.P. Mallory website:
http://www.urbanfantasynovels.com/
