Mary Rosenblum:  Welcome to our Tuesday Forum.  I wanted to talk about publishing today, because the publishing industry as a whole is in a state of flux.  And for awhile, in this transitional phase, things are going to be a bit bumpy. But I think the future of publishing is going to be more open than we've had for the last two decades or more. That rosy future just isn't 'now'.
The model that we're coming from is the brick and mortar bookstore. A lot of the small independents are gone, and that field is pretty thoroughly dominated by the big chains, who now are tied into the distributors.  And the profit margin for large print publishing is falling daily. Consequently, we're seeing a lot of cuts in lines, authors, editorial staff and the like.
And the big chains are closing stores.  At least around here
Mary Rosenblum:  Yes, they are, Pearl. Most people still buy their next book at a Barnes and Noble, a Borders, or Walmart.  But the shift to online stores, either the chains, the big independents like Powell’s, or amazon.com is steady. That's where the purchasers will end up, and especially if the ebook readers like kindle catch on. The prognosis there is more positive than many expected, so it may happen. Well, it will happen, but it may happen sooner than many expected.
I check out books at the chain, then buy online
Mary Rosenblum:  Many do, Ingrid, which is why a lot of chain stores are closing outlets. The future of publishing lies in the small publishers, not the big NY houses.
Is the shift to electronic, or the shift to only online stores?
Mary Rosenblum:  Both, Pearl. I doubt that we're ever going to see the demise of the paper printed book.  But I doubt that the big chains can stay alive as brick and mortar stores much longer, except, perhaps, for certain venues.  The print on demand technology favors the small press publisher and of course it's very cheap to produce ebooks. The internet does offer a marketing platform that reaches millions of people very cheaply.
So have we reached the nirvana of publishing?
No. Not yet.
Mary my don’t online markets pay less than the print?

Mary Rosenblum:  They actually don’t pay less.  Most online and small press publishers pay a slightly higher royalty than does the big NY publisher.  But of course, your sales are likely to be much smaller.  So right now, you’re going to earn less money, even if you get paid more per book. 
The problem is that the average person does not have the online equivalent of Barnes and Noble.  An awful lot of readers buy their next book because it's the genre they like and it's in one of the 'standers' at the end of the aisle or it's faced out at eye level on the shelf. Or the bookstore owner or the signs in the store, recommend it. As far as media goes, Oprah is the model of online book finding to come.  If Oprah recommends it, a million people go read it.  Right now, we don't have the online equivalent, not to that scale.  As more people look to their favorite book blogger for their next read, it will become easier for authors to make significant sales online.
Right now, numbers, to be blunt, suck for online-only sales.

Do we really want/need someone telling us what to read?
Mary Rosenblum:  Well, Pearl, if 100,000 books got published in the last six months, and say you read mysteries...and 10,000 of them are mysteries....how do you know what's good and what's some raw newcomer’s attempt to write a novel when he can't even handle grammar?  Do you buy it from the cover blurb and throw it away when you realize you could do better?  How do you know where to start?  There's the problem. For every good book published by a small press or self published, you have a few hundred that are very poor. It's simple to publish...look how many authors publish through vanity presses like Publish America.
gottcha.
Why doesn't everyone just go to amazon.com read the reviews and the 5 star 4 star and go from there?
Mary Rosenblum:  But David, why can't I write those reviews about my own book? I can use the email access of all my friends.  Believe me authors do just that!
So you are saying the reviews are skewed. hmm good point.
Mary Rosenblum:  They can be very skewed David.
I never thought of it that way.
Mary Rosenblum:  Where is a good place to find new, first time published authors? I like picking up a book from an author I've never read before, and I love giving some money to a first time author, but how do we find the good ones - especially when the publishing houses don't put much marketing behind them?
So, for similar reason, self publishing is not a good idea since anyone could do that.
Mary, In the beginning, no one dared call PA a vanity press. Will there be more like them, do you think, getting more market share?
Mary Rosenblum:  In the beginning, Jane, everybody in the literary world called Publish America a vanity press! Only PA called itself a real publisher. :-) And they get a huge market share....of the people who really want to publish their books, don't know how to do it for real, and feel that PA is a 'real' publisher. Especially in the self publishing world, a couple of bad experiences can make the burned reader decide to avoid all self published books in the figure. Too bad for you if your book is really excellent.
Is  there an up side to all this?
Mary Rosenblum:  There IS an up side to this, Pearl.  Right now, making a large amount of money by self publishing or publishing with a small startup company that mostly sells ebooks or only sells online, is tough! That does not mean you can't get your book legitimately published by this publisher, get nice reviews in places where readers take note, and build yourself a reputation. If you're popular, the internet is a perfect place for viral marketing...this person mentions the book on those blogs, those readers mention it on their blogs, and so on. You proliferate like crazy. The difference is that when you sold a book to, say, Penguin, it ended up on those standers at the end of the aisle in thousands of bookstores and in the line of view of most readers.
There doesn't seem to be all this rigmarole with publishing magazine articles. why are books so much more complicated to get published?
Mary Rosenblum:  They cost so much more to publish, David.  And the same thing is happening to the magazine market, I hate to say.  Many magazines are moving online. The issue there, is how do you make money publishing online.  They're all working on that.
So  getting into print is only going to get harder as time goes by?
Mary Rosenblum:   Oh no! It's going to be MUCH easier! And the really cool thing is that books that the conservative marketing department for the big publishers would have turned down as 'too risky' can get exposure and can become popular if people spread the word. In the end this is going to be a huge benefit for not only us readers but us writers, as well.
I think Mary is saying that it's easier to get published, but harder to get sales.
Mary Rosenblum:  That's it, Jerry. For awhile, sales are going to be dismal in the online publishing world. But as we turn to specific sites to read reviews of books, those sales will pick up. It is bleak news in the near future if you think you can make your living writing fiction, that' s for sure. (Unless you're lucky enough to become the next Rowling), but in the long term... and I mean within ten years, I'm guessing...it will be more possible once again.  Don't quit the day job for how!
So if I read you correctly here Mary.. we first need to get our articles and books out there.. so folks can review them and then things happen?
Mary Rosenblum:   Yeah, and you need to be a consumer where publishers are concerned. You  must do your homework. Does this publisher promote the authors? Do authors from that publisher get reviews in good places, do they get awards? And most importantly, how many titles does that publisher release every year? If that publisher is releasing hundreds of books every year, it suggests that they're making money form the authors and not on the book sales. That is, you have a vanity press who publishes everyone, masquerading as a 'real' publisher.
Do we have any good sites to read reviews yet, at least in general? I've been using Goodreads.com to post the books I've read and I always make sure to leave a review - I like being able to say 'thanks' to an author, even if it's in a small way. I tend to use this site when I'm looking at purchasing a book online.
Mary Rosenblum:   Sonya, to find the best review site for your book, you’re going to have to do some surfing around, see who is getting mentioned in other blogs. This is part of the problem. We don't have a lot of 'well known' review sites.
So what about giving your book away chapter by chapter online to get your name out?
Mary Rosenblum:   As to giving your book away, Ingrid, that's one way to arouse interest in new readers. But then you HAVE given the book away. So it's a calculated expenditure.
Mary, does a writer eventually have to publish (100+ page) books to be successful? or is that just the natural prograssion after magazine articles?
Mary Rosenblum:    Novel writing is very different than short story writing, David. And it's a different readership. As to book length NF, yes, it does help if your name gets known through magazine articles, but that’s generally the path for personal narrative rather than informative NF.  Many bread and butter NF articles are written with no by-line. They just get published as filler pieces rather than a feature.
It's not just vanity presses that mass publish mediocre work, tho. The publishers of one-romance-a-week and derivative fantasy and politically-correct YA fiction are going to have to really trim the fat.
Mary Rosenblum:    You're so right, Jane. And some of them are.  But the flip side of this, is that what is popular is popular. And Harlequin has not been losing money on those once a week romances, believe me!
Mary, getting back to an earlier point -- I see the power of word of mouth on reader interest daily at my library job -- how do we generate that online, aside from valued book reviews and cross-linking? Perhaps something like Goodreads.com that LtSonya mentioned or a fiction lovers version of Shelfari, say "Compellingreads"? A place where readers can share new books they love? Perhaps a group of smaller presses and/or online publishers could run such a site, cross-linking from other websites?

Mary Rosenblum:    Dale, that's just what we need....blogs that are only review sites, that give good reviews so that readers come there to look for their next book. If I had another 24 hours in the day right now, I'd start one!

Mary, do you think a publishing house will pick you up if you get your name out by giving away your first book in a series?
Mary Rosenblum:    Ingrid, not unless a hundred thousand people or more all download it and start talking about it in all the blogs, no.
Mary, how are book trim sizes perceived in publishing? i.e. the typical 5 x8 vs 6 x 9 trade paperback. does that have any bearing on readership? Is one more accepted than the other?
Mary Rosenblum:    It does, Queen. Part of the reason that most print on demand publishers use the 'trade paperback' format, the larger size, is that readers are willing to pay more for that size than a mass market (smaller) paperback.
You could cross promote such a site on websites where the "target reader" might frequent." :-)
Mary Rosenblum:    Exactly, Dale. We need exactly that sort of review site. Want to start one?
LOL--it is tempting. Someone certainly needs to :)
What would it take to start one? Who would you let know that it's up and running...where would you get your first reviews?
Mary Rosenblum:    I’d say that you'd need a pool of good reviewers to read the work coming out from the small press houses and the like. That's a lot of reading. Then you need someone to compile the reviews, and you have to promote the site all over the place..visit blogs, get people to put the link on writers websites, and so on.
But a group of well read individuals armed with a set of standards could create some meaningful reviews.

Mary Rosenblum:    That's it exactly, lady...you need good readers, who generate good reviews, and then you make the site visible to the public.
The problem I see with any ratings sites is the same as with Amazon, how do you know the posters are legitimate and not just shills. That's a problem with the Internet in general. (No on knows you're a dog on the Internet.)
Mary Rosenblum:    That’s where the viral nature of the internet comes in, Gary. If someone whose opinion I respect tells me that this review site is really good, I'll go look.  If I go to a site and see stunning reviews of stuff that I hate or know is lousy, I’m not going back.
So excerpts online are helpful to readership?
Mary Rosenblum:    Queen, excerpts on line have proved to be very helpful to sales.  As far as I know all the publishers encourage it.
So the book has to be hugely popular or I the writer will starve?
Mary Rosenblum:    Exactly, David.  But that has always been the case, for the most part.  Dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ to pay his bills! Once upon a time, a few authors whose books were critically acclaimed but who had lousy sales, were maintained by the publisher, who wanted the critical praise and awards. They were 'carried' by popular books -- like those once a week romances -- that the critics disdained but that were very popular.  That has really ended now.
Well, you can't do this for the money...it's got to be something you can't do with out.
Mary Rosenblum:    Yeah, David, making a full time income with no outside job in writing requires very high popularity. So many writers write under several names and do stuff like those romances to pay the bills.  True crime was a hot rent-payer for a long time. Erotica. Porn. Writing as day job is something to do only if you can't stand doing anything else. :-) Ultimately publishing is going to be easier to get into. But the question of 'do other people want to read your books' is always going to be a factor. You learn to write well, so you can create compelling stories.
Mary, the idea of having "a thousand true fans" to buy all your work has been making the rounds on various blogs--Will Wheaton mentioned it for his non-fiction. Jeremiah Tolbert, Escape Pod editor, mentioned it, with the caveat that a fiction author will need more but that the basic idea is sound--guess this goes back to connecting with readers via the internet (once you've written a very compelling novel of course ;)
Mary Rosenblum:    Exactly, Dale.

Why shouldn’t you just skip the middleman and publish your book yourself.  Or is this a stupid question?
Mary Rosenblum:    It’s  not a stupid question at all, Verbose. There is only one reason not to do that right now...and that is the current reputation of self published books.  Most of them are truly gawdawful, written by people who I swear don't even read!  And because of that, a lot of people won't even look at them, almost no valid awards are open to them.
Even if you give samples right there?

Mary Rosenblum:    Unfortunately, Verbose, a lot of reviewers and award juries are swamped with ‘legitimate’ submissions and they won’t take the time to find out if your self published book is the exception that proves the rule.  This is where review sites will help. If your self published book gets reviews on a hot site, then you're fine.
It sure feels like we're giving the promise of the internet more than it's due.
Mary Rosenblum:    We'll I don't think we're giving the promise of the market more than its due at all.  What you must realize is that this is tomorrow and we are living in today.  We are awash in a sea of small press and self published books and we need some kind of sorting system.
Well, I read fast. I guess I'll have to become a critic.;)
Mary Rosenblum:    Good idea, Gary!  Go for it!
Remember...the publishing world online has a lot of future promise, but right now, everything is rather in transition. And we need good review sites! Starting one is a very good idea!