The Great Resignation Hits the Publishing Industry

Traditional publishing ("tradpub") is cannibalizing itself. As more and more writers are bypassing tradpub and publishing their own books, the book audience is finally fractioning into niches much like the TV, movie, and music industries did.

Bigger publishing companies are losing income. The reasons for this are among the following:

1) Not only are the mass market writers leaving tradpub, the bigger writers are starting to leave, wooed away from their old publisher by another one of the Big Five (or Four depending on how the DOJ antitrust lawsuit goes with the Randy Penguin-Simon & Schuster merger). So the tradpubs are having to cough up more money to keep their cash cows happy.

2) New writers are doing a better job investigating opportunities. If they do take a tradpub offer, they are seeing lower advances from the tradpubs who want more rights. Furthermore, the tradpubs are doing a smaller print runs for unproven authors. So, it's a catch-22. The tradpub are putting out enough books to break even, but aren't putting the money into promoting a new writer with a small print run so then they get bitchy when the new writer doesn't catch fire instantly.

3) Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in new independent bookstores crashed. We're back to bookstores going under because couldn't browse in-person for the last two years.

4) The big chain bookstore like Barnes & Noble are suffering from the same lack of foot traffic as the independent stores. However, they have the added problem of the decline of shoppers in their home malls.

Like nearly every other company in the U.S., tradpubs are increasing the workload of their staff without any commiserate increase in salary or  benefits. The corresponding burn-out leads to employees abruptly quitting.

One of the issues is the lack of stability across all industries. Why would any employee fear losing their job when they know they could lose it on a random whim anyway? At a certain point, it's a matter of survival for any employee, including those in tradpub, to quit the abusive environment and take their chances somewhere else.

I say this because I've been there. Burnout and it's corresponding effects on my health is part of the reason I stopped practicing law and started writing and running my own publishing company.

All I have to do is look at my Fitbit and see the decrease in my blood pressure and heart rate while I write to know I made the best decision for me. I hope those people leaving the tradpubs find something equally relaxing and gratifying.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 124 - The Loss of the Bookstores

We're four months into a global pandemic. I could talk about Americans not taking adequate precautions. I could talk about how our general practioner's attitude has changed as more friends and acquaintances die around us. I live in a red state, and even our governor has taken this very seriously from the beginning.

Nope, I'm going to talk about brick and mortar (AKA b&m) bookstores. You know, those stand alone buildings that back in the day sold nothing but books?

They were already in trouble before big, bad Amazon came along. I know. I worked at a Waldenbooks (they were own by Borders Group, Inc.) for a couple of Christmases near the turn of the century. Our inventory and ordering computers were barely a step above the Apple IIE's I learned on in high school.

Amazon's Kindle came out in 2010. Borders collapsed in 2011. And it looked as if Barnes & Noble would follow suit after their attempts to promote a competing device, the Nook, failed abysmally.

Over the last few years, B&N juggled executives, thinking that would help. In the meantime, independent bookstores made a comeback as specialty shops. In both case, the b&m stores sold more than just books and most went online to sell around the world. Heck, I was excited to see my paperback sales take off!

Then the coronavirus exploded.

Pretty much everything that was non-essential shut down around the world for a time. Including bookstores. Even Amazon put a priority on health and safety goods and food deliveries over physical entertainment items and toys.

Indie publishing saw a drop in sales for a few weeks as college kids fled the universities, parents attempted to juggle their kids' education with working from home, and our elderly had to be treated like prisoners for their own protection.

Then e-book sales started up again because there's only so many times you can watch Tiger King on Netflix.

I should say most genres saw the uptick. A large chunk of the post-apoc subgenre stayed in a slump because, well, we were fucking living it.

Even audio books saw an uptick. People listened to them as they planted gardens and worked on the house repairs they'd put off because now they had the time.

But paperbacks took a dive while the bookstores remained closed.

With reopening plans, bookstore owners struggled to figuring out the best practices to keep employees and shoppers safe. You can wash a tomato someone else may have sneezed on, but you can't wash a paperback.

Well, technically, you can, but it ruins the book.

And now that stores are reopened, most folks with any sense don't go out unless they absolutely have to. Especially, those of us in the high risk category, which ironically are the groups most likely to have the time and disposable income to buy and read paperbacks.

So what's going to happen to bookstores in the long run? No one knows, and anyone who says they do is lying their asses off.

We are still in the first wave of this blasted disease. Cases are spiking across the U.S. As of this writing, 137,000+ are dead, and that number will grow through the rest of July. Businesses are failing left and right. By the time it's over, we are going to have a very different world.

Books will be a part of the new world, but the method in which we purchase and consume them may be very, very different.

Stop Saying "I Can't Get into Bookstores"

WOW! I just realized that this is my 1000th post. I'd realized that milestone I would have done something special. I'll see what I can do next week. Meanwhile,on to my latest rant!

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A couple of issues have been going around the indie-verse along with some myths that are, well, frankly, pissing me off. I went on a rant about author negativity and this is a variation on the original, but over two specific items.

1) Indies Can't Get Bookstores to Carry Their Books

This one's partly true, partly false. It is very,very hard to get into a chain bookstores. A chain's corporate parents freak at the thought of any of their minions not marching in lockstep. I know because I had several lovely young employees pressure their manager into stocking my books as a local author. Unfortunately, this was Barnes & Noble, which meant management has a very bad case of ADS (that's "Amazon Derangement Syndrome" for those unfamiliar with the acronym).

Getting into an independent bookstore can be easier or harder depending on (a) the owner and staff, (b) the indie writer's behavior, and (c) the genre.

(a) Some owners and staff feel it's their duty to save Western civilization. Therefore, any writer not properly vetted by someone with an MFA, instead of the unwashed masses, cannot sully their store. Ignore these people. There's lots of owners and staff who will support any writer. Well, almost any writer.

(b) Do your homework. Find out what they carry. Which distributor they order from. This is much easier if you actually frequent their establishment. Build a rapport with the staff. Most of all, don't walk in with a giant chip on your shoulder, insisting that they bow before you. (And yes, I've seen this happen.) Go in with a plan BASED ON WHAT THEY DO. Not what you want them to do. Know whether your distributor accepts returns on your book. And if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, get thee to Kristine Katherine Rusch's blog pronto! And always, ALWAYS be polite and professional, even if the other person isn't.

(c) There are two independent bookstores in Houston I know of that are very willing to work with writers. Unfortunately, one focuses on romance. While I have romantic elements in most of my books, the ones that are true romance are erotic romance under Alter Ego's name. This, being a child friendly place, does not carry erotica. Which bring me back to the last sentence in (b)--do NOT criticize the owner's policies. He or she knows his/her customers better than you ever will.

On the other hand, there's a mystery/thriller specialty bookshop called Murder by the Book. None of my current series would fit with their stock, but a new series idea I'm doodling with (think a sword and sorcery version of CSI) would be accepted. (Before any readers start yelling at me, I will get Blood Sacrifice out before I start on this project!)

Friday, I'll talk about getting into libraries.