Having “broken bread” with the University of Calgary Press staff this week, I’m looking at some of the complexities of the new changes in publishing with their eyes. Last night I watched “Miss Potter,” the very embodiment of the still-standing mythology of what the relationship between author and publisher is (rather like the phenomenon of falling in love with one’s obstetrician) and what life-changing effects being a published author creates (Beatrix Potter bought thousands of acres of English Lake Country farm land with her fortune and gave it to the people of England!) so that even her MOTHER was finally impressed. These days that’s as much a fairy tale as a talking rabbit.
There are categories and distinctions (implying possibilities) that are lost to public consciousness. First of all, we must separate PRINT from PUBLISH, which have been carelessly used as synonyms in the past. Now there are TWO kinds of print: electronic and, as they say, “hard copy.” (Never mind that an electronic screen, being glass, is hard and paper is generally on the soft side.) If one writes a blog like this one, the print is PRINTED but only published in the sense that anyone can get access and read it. No one does all the accessory things necessary for a book.
Most people have little notion of what those accessory things are, so I’ll list them:
1. Soliciting excellent material. (Janice Dickson was contracted to do this for the "Legacies Series" that included "Bronze Inside and Out.")
2. Developing a collection of such material so that the publishing “house” has a mission, a personality, or purpose. The missions of a comic book publisher, a regional academic press, a young adult publisher, a reference publisher, a novel publisher, a history “press”, and so on are quite different. The big Manhattan publishers serve an audience that is quite invisible to most Montana readers. Likewise, few in Manhattan grasp that there is a world apart from them.
3. Both publisher and author are aided by “agents,” who are essentially match-makers and now, increasingly, filter writing in the way that publishers’ editors used to do, imposing their tastes and beliefs on both sides. Many of them ARE former editors who have lost their jobs with the shrinking number and scale of publishing houses. Some might be disappointed writers themselves. So very many people are writing now that this interstitial layer of free-lancers or businesses that just act as agents seems necessary, but so far they tend to be a mono-culture.
4. Once accepted, whether through an agent or some other way, the publishing house will make suggestions about structure, actively edit, compile the index, preface, foreword, bibliography, footnotes and so on that accompany a book that is not fiction. Also, the manuscript will be proofed -- not on paper now but in the computer which will go to the actual printing press. There are enough people who make their living “indexing” books for them to have an association and written standards of performance. A layout must be designed, placing photos or graphics and creating the style, chapter headings, divisions among chapters, and so on.
5. When the actual writing -- now normally a computer document -- is sent to the printer, it must be checked and checked again for errors. Because it is a computer document, rather than metal plates as used to be the case, the number of copies made can be ANY number. With metal plates, the setup was so arduous and expensive that the only way to get the costs down was to make a lot of copies. Then they required storage (as did the plates) so a publisher needed to own or rent warehouses until all the books were sold. In the United States these copies are considered financial assets and are taxed as property.
6. Getting the copies out to the bookstores (who order them but basically have them on consignment until they are sold) is a matter of creating catalogues and publicity stories as well as working with regional salesmen who actually drive around with the books to show them to the bookstores. (In Montana few are willing to take on such a task.) Once people have bought the book, and if they like it, then word of mouth begins to build and this is the true key to book success. Interviews, newspaper follow-up, and possibly new possibilities in other media (movies, television appearances) begin to accrue. A chief means of publicity used to be magazine ads and ads in the big book review sections that major newspapers publish. Now both magazines and newspapers have been badly injured by the switch of public attention to iPods and blogs and also the high cost of paper and ink. They are entirely closing down many book review sections.
7. When supplies of the book get down to a small number, the publisher must normally decide whether to make another printing, what size it ought to be, and so on. If the copies are selling quite slowly, they might be sent to a remainder house where they are sold for a low price. Some of the big used bookstores also accept remainders.
8. If the bookstore sells on the Internet, this is a great way for anyone anywhere to pick up books (often wonderful and precious specialty books) at a low cost. In fact, one can buy from foreign countries and expect quick delivery because of the huge infrastructure of delivery systems and money management credit systems. Books hardly die anymore -- they just enter this realm of “free trade” that -- so far -- no one has been able to sort out very well. A giant Gorilla like Amazon is no less confused than the rest of us, esp. since it is separated into different Internet realms: Amazon.ca (Canada) as well as a division for Australia, Great Britain, and so on.
All of these elements above, like pop-it beads, can be separated into contracted separate businesses. Some do nothing but layout or proofing, some package for delivery, some pretend they are whatever company is involved -- like a faux Starbucks in Barnes & Noble. This is made practical because of the huge volume involved. But it can run aground, as when Amazon declared this week that my book was no longer available! It just hadn’t gotten through the layers of distributors in a second wave after the first wave was all sold.
Alongside the mass work are little free-lance operators selling their own libraries at home, mailing out a few books at a time from their garage or basement. Then someone like Alibris or Abebooks contracts with them to maintain a database of what is where, how much, who’s selling, whether you ought to trust them (based on customer feedback) and so on. Also, there are home publishers who only put out a very few new books yearly. Some of these folks are pretty naive and unschooled, and others are VERY sophisticated indeed. We still need more discriminating advisors who can tell one from the other and the public needs more ways of getting access to this advice. A major help is online eNewsletters. Buckingham, a used bookstore, sends me lists and lists of what they have via email. Their lists include "ephemera," meaning old posters or theatre programs and exhibit brochures: any thing "printed."
How is a small, quiet university press like the one at the University of Calgary meant to compete in a world like this? Focus. Specializing. High quality. Networking. Internet savvy. Flexible staff. Administration resourceful enough to contract out when necessary.
And an eye for the opening: their territory is continuous with Montana but Montana has no university press. Michigan State University is the U of Calgary Press stateside distributor, but they have no presence (mailing list, representative or depot) or interest in Montana. (Those interested should make a proposal NOW!) The University of Nebraska Press, which used to dominate the regional history market, has largely withdrawn from that area, declaring they are now a “world press.” The University of Oklahoma Press has also devolved. The entity that seems to be picking up the regional market is the University of New Mexico, which ignores the northern Plains. The Western art movement that so dominates the SW US is only beginning to unfold up north. “Bronze Inside and Out” is only one of several art books that the U of Calgary Press offers and they could easily expand in that direction. So far the University of Washington has dominated the art book scene, but they are more interested in the Asian-influenced work. The door is standing open, though it takes courage to walk through into an unknown country.
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