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First Amazon, now Kobo

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Leonard

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Nov 3, 2011, 2:34:47 AM11/3/11
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Hello,

As any publisher will agree, lack of proper distribution renders the
best titles redundant. As we ourselves can testify, we have some good
titles that haven't got the distribution support they probably deserve
and are therefore languishing (on the hard drive). So when someone
comes around, one who has a tremendous ability to sell books, usually
at its own terms, and decides to be a publisher purely based on that
ability, what does that mean for the publishing business as a whole?

Amazon, and now Kobo (another e-reader manufacturer) have both gone
down that road. Kobo seems to have followed Amazon down that path and
whether Amazon will adhere to the fundamentals of publishing or has
done this simply to cut publishers off the loop is anyone's guess. So
what happens next? And what are the repercussions in India? We have
seen many distributors here in India turn publishers, IBH being an
example. There are a few device manufacturers in India. Will they
emulate the likes of Kobo?

Wondering aloud,

Leonard

Leonard

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Nov 10, 2011, 4:32:41 AM11/10/11
to publishingnext
I am hoping that there will be more discussions around this topic
because I feel the implications are tremendous for publishing.

Many times, we at CinnamonTeal, are called vanity publishers. We are
at pains to explain to them that that is not the case because we
respect the basic premise of books - that they should be written and
presented well. So we pay a lot of attention to the finer points: we
insist on at least one round of editing, ensure that the book is
properly typeset and issue an ISBN and a barcode, among other things.

Often we have authors who resist such instructions. They do not value
editing and wonder why so much attention is paid to widows and orphans
or why the imprint page is needed. Some have deserted us for those
that do not insist on these aspects.

All this background because one wonders what happens now that Amazon
has allowed authors to self-publish and directly sell through them.
Now that they have a marketing channel easily available to them, will
authors care too much about the finer aspects of publishing a book? Or
will we see a deluge of badly written, badly edited and badly typeset
books?

Thoughts?

= Leonard

Pratibha Rao

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Oct 15, 2013, 7:37:39 AM10/15/13
to publish...@googlegroups.com
I shudder to think what will happen when even the basic semblance of editing will be done away. We have enough books and magazines with total disregard to editing and proofreading, now we will have a slew of writers who will sidestep the necessary processes altogether.

Good editors are an endangered species. They might soon be extinct if one can get published without getting their works edited.

Pratibha Umashankar 

Chitralekha Manohar

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Oct 17, 2013, 6:01:52 AM10/17/13
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This conversation reminds me of this article by Manasi Subramanium where she talks about how in a market that is getting swamped with books everyday, good editors are needed to perform the role of curators to find, and shape, good content. As readers become increasingly pressed for time, they will not mind paying more for cherry picked content worthy of their attention, instead of having to wade through waves and waves of new content themselves.

Will there be tons and tons of new books? Well yes. Will many of them not have editors? Well, yes. But will this mean editors and publishers will go extinct? Well, no. Perhaps the question we should be looking at is what publishers can do to make readers come to them, looking for good content? Or, how do publishers reach readers who want to read the content they offer?

Perhaps, the trick then, is for publishing houses to learn how to advertise themselves as a specific brand (instead of just individual books) and develop a loyal readership of their own. I'm thinking of the Popular Penguin series here, with its classic orange and white bands. (Whether one would want to sink the uniqueness of every book into one 'brand' is another issue, I'm thinking aloud here, bear with me.) Several niche publishers obviously have their own identities and strong relationships with their readers. How do we build those relationships and turn them into sales?        

Just bouncing around ideas.

Best,
Chitra

prat...@gmail.com

unread,
Oct 17, 2013, 7:46:28 AM10/17/13
to publish...@googlegroups.com
Thanks for all those interesting thoughts.
Pratibha
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From: Chitralekha Manohar <chitralek...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 03:01:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [publishingnext] Re: First Amazon, now Kobo
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