Seasoned Publisher Says E-Publishing Will Replace Traditional Books - Page 3
LV: Publishers Marketplace is reporting that the Andrew Wylie company is starting a literary agency called Odyssey that will deal solely with e-publishers. Now other literary agencies say they will do the same. Does this mean that they will try to set up the old system that was in place for so long—where, for good or bad, literary agents often had more power than publishers? They used to sort out the obvious garbage that came over the transom, but now they are so frightened of failure that they are rejecting almost everything. Could they bring this same dysfunctional behavior to e-publishing?
Simmons: It makes sense for a literary agency to vertically integrate their business when the cost of e-book production is so low. The traditional method of print publishing carried enormous cost built into the system, now with e-books that cost has gone away. It is inexpensive to produce a quality e-book compared to print so the economics of the business will allow more and more companies to jump in. As for the dysfunctional behavior, I believe that digital publishing will actually provide more opportunities for writers than the old print method.
LV: Finally, anyone who has every published independently knows that marketing is quite difficult. Give writers some tips on how to market e-books, because now there are no book signings anymore, and everything has to be done online. How do you personalize an e-book and ramp up interest? How are YOU ramping up interest?
Simmons: Authors need to stop concentrating on the idea of marketing their book and consider their message or themselves as the focus of their marketing. Publicity sells books and media is interested in a good story, not the fact someone has written and published a book. If an author does not know where their writing is positioned in the market and especially among all the other titles in their genre, they will find it difficult to market. My tips would be 1) decide what to market—their book, message or themselves, and 2) figure out where their title belongs on a bookshelf, between which two competing books?
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