A New Message to Macmillan Authors and Illustrators

[lagilman]

(I feel like I'm spamming y'all, but enough of you have indicated that you're interested/concerned, and I know not everyone has access to the industry rags...)



A New Message to Macmillan Authors and Illustrators
This message ran as a paid advertisement in the February 4 edition of Publishers Lunch.

To: Macmillan Authors and Illustrators
cc: Literary Agents
From: John Sargent

I am sorry I have been silent since Saturday. We have been in constant discussions with Amazon since then. Things have moved far enough that hopefully this is the last time I will be writing to you on this subject.

Over the last few years we have been deeply concerned about the pricing of electronic books. That pricing, combined with the traditional business model we were using, was creating a market that we believe was fundamentally unbalanced. In the last three weeks, from a standing start we have moved to a new business model. We will make less money on the sale of e books, but we will have a stable and rational market. To repeat myself from last Sunday's letter, we will now have a business model that will ensure our intellectual property will be available digitally through many channels, at a price that is both fair to the consumer and that allows those who create and publish it to be fairly compensated.

We have also started discussions with all our other partners in the digital book world. While there is still lots of work to be done, they have all agreed to move to the agency model.

And now on to royalties. Three or four weeks ago, we began discussions with the Author's Guild on their concerns about our new royalty terms. We indicated then that we would be flexible and that we were prepared to move to a higher rate for digital books. In ongoing discussions with our major agents at the beginning of this week, we began informing them of our new terms. The change to an agency model will bring about yet another round of discussion on royalties, and we look forward to solving this next step in the puzzle with you.

A word about Amazon. This has been a very difficult time. Many of you are wondering what has taken so long for Amazon and Macmillan to reach a conclusion. I want to assure you that Amazon has been working very, very hard and always in good faith to find a way forward with us. Though we do not always agree, I remain full of admiration and respect for them. Both of us look forward to being back in business as usual.

And a salute to the bricks and mortar retailers who sell your books in their stores and on their related websites. Their support for you, and us, has been remarkable over the last week. From large chains to small independents, they committed to working harder than ever to help your books find your readers.

Lastly, my deepest thanks to you, our authors and illustrators. Macmillan and Amazon as corporations had our differences that needed to be resolved. You are the ones whose books lost their buy buttons. And yet you have continued to be terrifically supportive of us and of what we are trying to accomplish. It is a great joy to be your publisher.

I cannot tell you when we will resume business as usual with Amazon, and needless to say I can promise nothing on the buy buttons. You can tell by the tone of this letter though that I feel the time is getting near to hand.


All best,
John
Posted on February 4, 2010 at 1:56 PM


LAG here. Okay, that? Is how you communicate. Give clear info, don't apologize, thank those who supported you, no matter their reasons, and say only nice things about your opponent, rather than whinging or sulking. And say it up front, where those affected and interested can find it. Well played, Macmillan. Classy, even.

Comments

[chibiaingeal.livejournal.com]

He's so much better at taking the high road than a certain online retailer... I'm definitely going to try as much as my really tight finances allow to buy more titles from this publisher. (:

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

>Though we do not always agree, I remain full of admiration and respect for them.

You could steam noodles in the subtext rising from this statement.

[lagilman]

The last line made me giggle meanly, I admit. Translated: "keep sending your annoyed e-mails to Amazon, they're the ones who are dragging their heels, not us"

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

If he was southern, he could have tacked a "bless their hearts" onto it.

[blitheringpooks.livejournal.com]

YES. THAT.

Whenever I had to write difficult communications to my editor (back in the day when such sometimes happened through mail) I always ran it be a friend from New Orleans. Her honey-sweet rapier way with words was so effective, when I ran screaming from a publisher and editor who had been nothing but hell the entire time we worked together, that editor started sending me personal Christmas cards. Somehow, the subtext slid right past her.

And every time I got one, I smirked.

[ruford42.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just the nerd in me, but I kept half hoping and half dreading that publishers might take this as an opportunity to address the issue of DRM, specifically retailer specific DRM.

My complaint against the retailer DRM is that as a reader, I
would rather be able to invest in the content rather than a
given store's platform and ecosystem. Not only is it unclear
in the Amazon DRM situation on how many times you can load a
given ebook on a given registered device, but the only non-Kindle
devices you can currently use to read a Kindle book are a PC
running Windows or an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Maybe some at the publishers will see it as a win if you have
to buy the same book multiple times to read it on multiple devices, but on the flip side -- it seems to me as an end user
that the more I'm financially invested in a given retailer's ecosystem and product line -- the more weight their opinion is going to matter to me when a dispute arises between said retailer and publisher.

So I'd half like to see some standardization to the DRM and format, or have some pressure to allow downloads of a given document via multiple formats in much the same way as SF Signal, though granted I'm not too familiar with what, if any, copy protection is used over there..

Of course, this all feeds back to the earlier comment about half-hoping and half-dreading -- as we've seen how well things work when a publishing industry tries to dictate the distribution terms with RIAA and the MPAA -- I can be hopeful that things will go smoother with lessons learned, but human nature is human nature so I won't be holding my breath...

And finally, I'll confess to being torn about content as alas I have no DVR and my body wasn't co-operating with me last night so I ended up missing most of my Loverage...and looks like TNT's web site waits a week to post the episode...

[anghara.livejournal.com]

This is just TEXTBOOK - open your eyes, people, and see. THIS is communication when you have writers and editors on call. Anybody doubting the value of an editor and a writer who knows what they're doing, as opposed to "we'll do it all ourselves" Amazon and their own less than stellar public response to the matter, look and learn.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of surprised that it hasn't hit any of the major U.S. news agencies yet. I see it's made The Guardian, Wired and Businessweek, but none of either the major networks or CNN and Fox.

I guess the Apple marketing machine still has most of the news networks blinded.

[lagilman]

Errr, it was only posted to Publishers Lunch at 1:56 this afternoon. And in a world with so much going on, even the business newsfeeds will take a while to pick it up.

Sheesh, we're all so trained to except IMMEDIATE NOW! news. :-P

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I meant the entire brouhaha. It's been a week now.

[lagilman]

Also, to most of the world? This is so much puffery and smoke, and they don't care. Truly.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I figured that the Kindle was the new sexy product that got a lot of press around the Holidays -until the iPad, that is- and a big stink about eReaders just as it was taking off would catch a few people's eye. The whole thing began a week ago, so I figured that by now it would have hit something.

[lagilman]

tech-toys are sexy. Content -- and financial fights over content -- less so.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

(Dang nabbit. This reply should have gone here, not under a separate header. I must be blinded by your cynicism.)

::sigh::

Considering the entire point of this particular sexy toy is content, I'm very disappointed in the news media. Even NPR.

[eldestmuse.livejournal.com]

While it wasn't picked up by the newspapers in the sense that there aren't any articles I'm aware of, Tor did take out an ad in the New York Times:

Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon -- http://bit.ly/aJ7N6j

[debg.livejournal.com]

As a Macmillan author (twenty plus years and nine novels) who is getting royally screwed by the entire situation, I think Sargent did a nice job communicating. However, at the end of the day, both parties will still have screwed me, and withheld royalties on the lube they expect me to pay for, on the basis of fewer sales based on their cupidity - about which I was not consulted by either side.

Am not impressed with any of them at this point.

[blitheringpooks.livejournal.com]

I don't think there are any good guys and bad guys here. Just corporate giants trampling on the little people while they measure to see who is longer.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yep.

[rovanda.livejournal.com]

D'oh! I wasn't logged in. That question about breakdown between sales on release and later on is from me.

[lagilman]

Too long to reply by phone. More when I'm home....

[lagilman]

sorry -- took longer to get back to this than planned.

Here are the notes I jotted down, in response to your question.

Breakdown on sales are like comparing bacon and eggs -- they go together but they're not the same thing.

Hardcover: for readers who want it NOW, and/or want it in a long-term format for their shelves, or library editions that will have to stand up to repeated readings. Favorite authors, Hot names, some bestsellers (a large proportion of can't-wait sales).

Trade paperback: used to be for literary novels, and some lit-spec fiction. Now it's a less expensive option to Hc, while being more durable than mass market paperbacks. It's also a backlist option for the long run, after a title ahs established it has 'legs.'

Mass market: originating during the Great Depression, as a way to keep people reading w/o hardcover prices (as those were out of reach for most). At the time, people said it would kill publishing/ruin the ahrdcover market. They're elss espensive, and also less durable. The majority of books are released in mass market of some form or another, rather than Hc/trade, originally, and many hardcover titles get a 'second life' in mass market, first as a "new edition" and then as backlist, to keep the title available.

A sliding scale catches all the available markets, with a higher price premium for immediate availability -- popular/hot items cost more, and if you are willing to wait, you can get a price break. This is rpetty basic, and is familiar to tech-head, certainly!

Digital doesn't really replace hardcovers, because those consumers are people who are buying an object that is beautiful and durable and has a certain tangible pleasure to it. A digital edition is closer to a trade paperback -- durable, but not forever -- and a mass market edition -- less expensive to produce.

(But NOT NO COST! Please get that out of your heads right now. Even if you're unwilling to accept thee financial fact that costs are spread out over all formats, here are no Magic Production Fairies that work for free, and there is no "one button transforms all")

I see one of two things happening:

1. digital shares the release date with mass market editions, as they're comparable, and leave the hardcover edition to stand alone (for those books that have a hc edition -- which is not even close to all books, remember!) People wills cream, but they will get thier cheap e-books.

2. Digital books will be released concurrent with whatever edition (Hc/trade/mass) and start with a comparable price (maybe $15 to a Hc's $24) and then slide down as each less expensive hardcopy edition is released, until you're at the backlist stage or $5 or thereabouts. If there's no Hc, the pricing starts with the lower pricing


Digital media, as a market, is still young. As it matures, the market will drive the results (assuming no Amazon-like lock on pricing)