Very big news this morning at Random House, where new-ish CEO Markus Dohle has announced a corporate restructuring.
Your imprint musical chairs is as follows. There are now three big umbrellas on the adult side. “Little” Random (retaining the title Random House Publishing Group), Knopf (now the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) and Crown (the Crown Publishing Group). Random is absorbing Bantam Dell and Doubleday’s Spiegel & Grau, Knopf is absorbing Doubleday, and Crown is absorbing Broadway and Doubleday’s business/religious imprints. Publishing veterans Irwyn Applebaum and Steve Rubin will be stepping down.
And of particular note (and the subject of much agently wondering): the groups will still be bidding independently in auctions, meaning a hypothetical three possible group bids. Although, of course, there are now fewer groups, meaning that there are fewer possible industry-wide bidders than there used to be. Editorial imprints within will still remain independent, but, of course, will not be bidding against each other within their group.
My heart goes out to anyone affected by the restructuring.
UPDATE: Layoffs have also been announced at Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Thomas Nelson. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
Yes, Roy, that’s exactly what I’m saying, thanks! 😀
I don’t believe I said: “Go out and self publish.” While that is “my” path and what I feel is right for “me,” I don’t feel it’s right for everybody, or even most people.
But there is no universe in which not having a platform of people who like your stuff is better than having a platform of people who like your stuff.
So start building it. That doesn’t equal “self publishing” with Lulu.
How depressing. So in happier news…
I have puppies! Two of them (the other two have already been adopted), just rescued from certain death from a Georgia shelter. My family’s fostering them for the time being. They’re a bunch of roly poly shoe-lace chewing little rugrats. We’re guessing some sort of boxer mixes.
Zoe Winters said —
” … Anonymous,
I’ll respect your views on self publishing when you can back it with your real name instead of hiding your opinions behind “anonymous.”
I could give you a long list of writers using indie methods who… (are)… determined to forge their own path for love of what they’re doing, instead of clawing and grasping to get into the coveted gates of “real publishing” where their book will be re-titled, given a cover they didn’t approve, and possibly dumbed down for the masses….”
I think I might be the Anon you are referring to. I put Anon because I don’t have a blog to promote like yourself. The opinion I stated is indeed my own, and also the opinion of EVERYONE involved in publishing. Go read Janet Reid’s blog on the subject. Or Kristen Nelson’s, or, I don’t know, Nathan’s, as well. Self publishing is not real publishing. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings. But it is the truth.
I’d rather have an editor’s expert opinion on my work, a cover done by a real book designer and a book that will appeal to many people through such atrocities as, gasp, editing, than to have no sales, and be seen as a joke while I solicit book store employees to carry my book.
Talk to any book store employee. They do not take self-publishing seriously, either. For writers who want to see their words in a book form, great, but for those who actually want a chance to sell to someone other than their immediate family members, self-publishing isn’t the way to go. You are free to disagree. Good luck to you.
Anon,
Fair enough. I guess I just assume the entire world has a blog and it’s a little goofy for me to assume that. I apologize for being so abrasive. Rereading my comment I sounded like an angry ninja on crack. It sounds civil in my head but later re-reading it, it just… doesn’t.
What you say doesn’t “hurt my feelings”
I have a 10 block set of ISBN numbers from R. R. Bowker that proves you wrong on the “not real publishing” thing. (And I fully intend to use every single one of those ISBN numbers on my own work, and then buy more.)
I started my own small publishing imprint. I have a federal tax ID number under my publishing company name from the IRS. I’m registered with my state. So yes, I am in fact doing, “real publishing.”
I am a small publisher, that happens to create my own product instead of outsourcing to other writers for it. I am not publishing on iuniverse, or authorhouse, or any other POD vanity press.
You might not like what I’m doing, but if the dividing line between being a ‘real publisher’ and a ‘fake publisher’ is where I get the work I publish, that doesn’t even make any sense.
If I was a small press publishing someone else’s work instead of my own work, doing all the exact same business things would I be real then?
Also, there is this fabulous new thing called the internet. I am not seeking brick and mortar bookstore sales. The returns policy is insane.
My work is polished, and my cover and interior layout are far from ugly. I chose to indie publish because I don’t want a NY publisher because it’s more pressure than I can handle at this time in my life (especially without a built-in platform that would guarantee a longer career.)
And a small publisher can’t do a thing I can’t do for myself. So why would I give them my profits, when I can make four times as much per book on the back-end?
Anyone is free to wave the stigma flag around me all they want, but I started a business because I believe in my writing and my own ability to package it and sell it. And I’m a control freak.
I’ve just released my free ebook novella a week ago. And every single person who has read it or bought the Kindle version off Amazon except for one person, has been a complete stranger before they were introduced to me online.
One other thing on bookstores. The major chain bookstores only have 32% of book buying market share and falling (according to a recent Zogby poll.) Meanwhile Amazon.com has 43% of book buying market share and rising.
Further, independent book stores will stock independently published books if those books meet quality standards. In fact, Barnes and Noble will do it too if your book passes their review board. And that board is based on the quality of the book, not whether or not the author started their own small press.
It’s not “who” produces a book that matters, it’s the quality of that book that matters. In a world where indie filmmakers and indie musicians are respected, I refuse to believe that indie authors are unable to achieve the same.
Give it 10 years. I believe indie authors are going to rise to the challenge and wipe the “self publishing” stigma off their shoes.
Further to my comments about publishing and friend Liz … today we find she's in Amazon's top 10 … *grin* se https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000237263 . and this quite oppsosed to the paperback and the rest of the series being on hold with Macmillans.
Like Authonomy – must go see that later, sounds very good – is this the way to go in the furutre? I feel it is. People making up their own minds … ??? It feels good. Shall go and enjoy Authonomy and send it round to friends.
Zoe Winters — (this is Anon again)
“…I started my own small publishing imprint. I have a federal tax ID number under my publishing company name from the IRS. I’m registered with my state. So yes, I am in fact doing, “real publishing.” …
… I am not seeking brick and mortar bookstore sales… I chose to indie publish because I don’t want a NY publisher because it’s more pressure than I can handle at this time in my life (especially without a built-in platform that would guarantee a longer career.)…
**
See, though, Zoe, that’s the difference between you and most self-published people. They DO want to end up in bookstores, and many do think editors will somehow read their self-published book and snatch them up, re-releasing it under a NY publisher’s umbrella.
But that doesn’t sound like you, and even if it is, it probably isn’t my business, anyway. I do mean what I said, by the way, good luck to you.
I supppose I was trying (unsuccessfully) to look out for you/other writers. I’ve been in line behind someone at a bookstore info desk once — the woman was trying to convince the salesperson to stock her self published book, to no avail. Company policy. After the woman departed the counter (fifteen minutes later, crushed and pissed off) the salesperson rolled her eyes at me, and said something to the effect of, “We get five of those a week. We don’t even have shelf space for books that are pubbed with big houses. Other books get a three month shot, they don’t sell and they’re gone, and people want us to open a section of the store for something that’s amatuer hour?”
Ouch.
” . . . We don’t even have shelf space for books that are pubbed with big houses. Other books get a three month shot, they don’t sell and they’re gone . . . “
Ah, but in your entire conversation with Zoe, this was the most important point of all, and it perfectly buttresses Zoe’s argument.
If the odds are *that bad* with traditionally published books AFTER you get the agent, get the contract, then why is everyone on this merry-go-round? (And that was BEFORE this meltdown started.)
Is it better to be never read, spending years “perfecting the query,” “honing the craft,” listening to the cheerleaders who say, “If you work hard enough and wait long enough, IT WILL HAPPEN” and thus, be persuaded to wait for The Call, than to be read and enjoyed by *someone*? Why? Because nobody respects self-publishing?
Nobody respects work they’ll never get to read, either.
Agent Richard Curtis today posted an article he wrote in 1992, that could have been written today. Things may have been a little rocky way back in the day, but as of Monday, it’s downright dangerous. The odds of finding an agent and contract were bad before, but now– Wow.
I find it telling that in this entire thread ON A POPULAR LITERARY AGENT’S BLOG, there is only ONE person who has truly argued against self-publishing.
Last week, it would’ve been five or six.
Hey Anon,
No, you make a very good point. And thank you for acknowledging that what “the self published stereotype” is doing and what I’m doing, are two different things.
I think the problem is, there are very few writers who have any business acumen. There seems to be far more naivete in writing, then in any other profession, including most other creative professions.
The only solution I can think to that, is to keep plugging along, and hope that people take more time to consider their goals and to research what they’re getting into before they get into it.
No one opens a flower shop without researching all they can about both business in general and the particular business they are getting into. When it comes to publishing though, most people who publish their own work don’t do the necessary research.
It’s a mentality I really don’t understand. It’s not that hard to learn that the bookstore market isn’t really the best starting ground for an indie author. Yet so many people publish their own work thinking it’s “easy” to get on a bookstore shelf. It’s clear they haven’t looked into even the most basic aspects of publishing or book selling and it makes the rest of us look bad.
And I also agree with what MoJo is saying. To me it’s about the end reader. It’s not about jumping through hoops to please the gatekeepers. They just aren’t on my radar right now.
If I please enough end readers then maybe someday if I actually deserve to play in the big kid’s pool, I’ll get to play there. But if not, I believe I can be happy creating and controlling my own work, and finding and interacting directly with my audience, however small that is, or however big I can grow it.
It’s about nothing but the writing and readers for me. If I do well, someday I’ll hit pay dirt. If I can’t do even moderately well for myself, then I’m not a good enough writer or savvy enough marketer to play in the big kid’s pool to the level I would want to play this game.
Low midlist with a NY house, doesn’t get my motor revving. I’m not interested in that.