Apparently, it's my fault...

...that Brian has written an insightful piece on Black Crime Fiction writers. (Don't you love it when you get an email with the subject line It's all your fault! Being me, the first thing that goes through my mind is, What did I do this time and how did you find out?)

I was actually writing up something else for today. I’ve seen a number of reports and commentaries on the decision to give away Prince’s new album in a newspaper in the UK, and how it’s angered retailers, who are already suffering from declining album sales.

And I’ve been thinking about it a fair bit, because the debate rages over whether or not to give away books for free online and if this is hurting sales or boosting profile. There are a number of authors – and publishers – exploring the benefits of free downloads in an effort to attract readers to new authors, and even established authors are benefiting.

But Prince’s move to offer his album for free in a newspaper prompted his UK record label to drop his album. Prince is receiving a fee plus a royalty payment of nearly £500,000 from the newspaper for the rights to give away his new album. The publisher picks up the £750,000 costs of printing and promoting the CD. So Prince is certainly getting paid - and arguably more handsomely than he would have done based on the lacklustre performance of his last release, 3121, which sold just 80,000 copies in the UK.

I think the main reason that retailers are upset is not because Prince gave his album away: It’s because they were completely cut out of the loop and are unable to benefit from this.

The argument with books is that offering them for free online is actually increasing sales of books. Consumers check out a chapter, like it, and then buy the book.

In reality, I also think the reason that the book industry hasn’t been hit with the same backlash is that online sales are a drop in the bucket. Consider these numbers. DorothyL: approximately 3200 receive the digest. 4MA: approximately 1000. Members on Crimespace: 760 (approximately). The DaVinci Code sold more than 40 million copies (60.5 in print according to Wikipedia) and I assure you, I didn’t buy a copy, and neither did my husband.

Clearly, not every book-buyer is reading mystery digests. In fact, I’m aware of debut authors with targets of 25,000 copies sold in hardcover, based on their book deal. 25,000 copies. That’s a long way from 3200.

In reality, online book sales are estimated to count for less than 10% of all book sales, and I think 10% is considered generous. A lady at Kevin’s work heard his wife had a book published and asked for the information, started writing it down and then asked which stores had it locally. (My publisher doesn’t permit me to deal with books on consignment, so…) Kevin said it was available online. She put her pen down and said, “I don’t buy books online.” End of discussion.

My theory is that bookstores haven’t been as affected by freebies online because of the limited reach of the internet. I’m not discounting the importance of a web presence (I don’t even consider interviewing authors who don’t have websites. I simply can’t get the background information about them that I need and it drives me mad if I’m moderating a panel and there’s no information about the panelists. I’d like to introduce Joe Schmoe. He’s an author. Yeah, there’s a newsflash.) but I am putting it in perspective. Right now, the internet alone isn’t enough to build a career as an author, and therefore it isn’t impacting stores in the way that Prince's move clearly impacted music stores.

However, I think that authors and publishers should take note of this example and consider it carefully. We have two dogs. One of them is adorable in every sense, except one. When we built a pen for the dogs outside we built a big doghouse, big enough for the two of them. It's huge. Put shingles on the roof and with an earth floor it stays nice and cool in the summer, and always dry inside. But the dogs never lie in it. Why? Nootka prefers to poo in the doghouse. And what Prince did reminds me of Nootka's annoying habit. He could have struck a deal to give the CD away in stores as part of a promotion. Instead, he bypassed the businesses that have helped him earn a living from his music in the past. Perhaps he thinks that, being desperate for sales as they are, they’ll forgive and forget by the time his next album comes out. However, the laws of economics apply to businesses. Few people work for love alone. Given that Prince’s own record label dumped the album, he may not be a quick scoop by a UK label next time around. He may find himself cut out of the industry there. And if others follow in the freebie offering trend in the UK newspapers may not jump for another opportunity to spend a few million on him and his album. Has he put short-term gain ahead of his career? Time will tell.

The Rap Sheet recently reported on the proliferation of serialized novels and as this trend continues the industry would do well to remember bookstores. Rankin’s serial novel began a few months ago in the NY Times. I missed the release (which feels pretty pathetic, but there just isn’t a newsletter/forum/list network in place that circulates the latest in a timely fashion – “Inspector Rebus” depends on fans to volunteer info they hear about, and contrary to popular opinion I’m not on top of what everyone is doing). Kevin caught it and printed off the first section (because he knows I actually don’t like reading online) but he didn’t realize it was a weekly thing and missed the following installment…

Anyway, enough said. If I’d known when it was coming out I would have bought hard copies, but since I didn’t and live a considerable distance from anywhere that sells US newspapers I shrugged it off with an “oh well” and will wait for the printed copy next year.

However, if I had known in time to order print copies I would have gone with the original and possibly skipped the book.

I don’t think the serialized novels have hurt publishers or booksellers to this point, but there is a risk in giving things away for free that compete directly with what retailers are selling. People could consider that hypocritical, coming from an ezine editor, but this is something I’ve considered. Do ezines reduce magazine sales? I can only say I hope not. If I felt that it was hurting the industry more than helping, I’d evaluate what to do. But since most ezines publish only short stories and there isn’t a big market for anthologies and most magazines publish considerably more than short stories I don’t think we’re in competition at this point in time.

I do think, though, that there will come a point in time where publishers and authors should look at utilizing the value of free offerings as promotion in conjunction with supporting bookstores. I have the niggling beginnings of ideas in my brain, but those will be saved for some future date.

Meanwhile, my 2 cents is to pay attention. Make sure you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. As more people jump on the trend to serialize novels in newspapers and offer free ebooks we need to make sure we aren’t cutting booksellers off at the knees.

And be sure to go check out Brian's article. I'll have to finish devouring it when I get home from the library later. I'm a bit scattered today, as I have some major stuff going on, but nothing I can talk about. At least, not yet. : )