Publishers get a taste for the Espresso

Since the Espresso Machine was unveiled at Blackwells flagship store in Charing Cross Road on 17th April, books have been rolling off its presses. Until now it inventory has been confined to self published and out of copyright works, but according to The Bookseller today, the Hactette Book Group USA, Simon & Schuster and McGraw-Hill are among several publishers who have signed up to make their works available through this "ATM for books", making an extra 89,000 titles in copyright titles available as from next week.

Eight less well known publishers have also signed up, including general and academic publisher W W Norton, specialists Cosimo Inc, Clements Publishing, Kessinger Publishing, Information Age Publishing, California/Princeton Fulfillment Services, EReads.com and Bibliolife. Oxford University Press and Palgrave books are currently being converted, and will be available in a few weeks time.

Over one million books will be available via these machines by the summer, with a long term aim of making every book available in this way.

Exact sales figures are yet to be released, but Blackwells state that 35 percent of sales from the machine have been for self published works, with the remaining 65 percent for out of copyright works. The majority of purchases have been one offs, with an average retail price of £11.50.

Publishing in crisis

After a month long hiatus, during which time I have been preoccupied with other more pressing matters, it is high time I turned my thoughts once again to what has been happening in the publishing world. The answer to that is quite a lot!

Things may not be good on the High Street, with Waterstones closing stores and publishers making mass redundancies, but the self publishing sector continues to go from strength to strength. This week, Printweek.com reports that Newsstand claims to be the first UK company to have successfully installed the Espresso Book Machine. The article goes on to state that Newsstand are in talks with a number of book publishers to offer their books via an on-demand book printing service.

Newsstand, which describes itself as "a jack of all trades", works with newspaper and magazine publishers and offers online magazine subscription and poly wrapping services. They claim to have printed between 500 and 600 books since the Espresso Machine was installed last October. Using the Espresso Machine, Newsstand charge £10 for standard books, and £14 for enlarged print ones.

The article goes on to state that Newsstand are using the version 1.5 of the Espresso Machine, of which there are just nine in the world. Academic bookseller Blackwells, plan to trial the machine in their Charing Cross store in the autumn.

This news comes a few weeks after the announcement that Waterstones are to shed 200 jobs, following the opening of their centralised distribution hub at Burton-upon-Trent, which becomes fully operational next week. Store closures are also in the offing, with Queensgate in Peterborough, the latest casualty. The second branch in Peterborough is unaffected.

The news also comes in the wake of mass redundancies at Cambridge University Press, following the decision to move their printing operation abroad in an effort to cut costs. This is no different to banks and insurance companies opening overseas call centres, but as expected, the unions are up in arms. Chief executive Stephen Bourne said "We know that this is an incredibly difficult time for those staff that are affected, and we will be doing all we can to support them through these changes." Given my own recent experiences, I wish them well, and pray that he is right.

Unite, the UK's largest trade union (not one that I have ever heard of), expressed shock at the announcement, a few days ago. The scale of the redundancies is such that 8 out of 10 jobs at the company's printing division will go, a total of 133 jobs. A 90 day consultation period has now begun, during which time Unite will attempt to change the company's mind, thus preventing these job losses. A spokesperson for the union said "We urge management to rethink this decision. Unite will do everything in our power to fight the closure and prevent compulsory redundancies."

Cambridge University Press is not the only university press to be experiencing problems, since across the Atlantic, rival Oxford University Press are also making 60 redundancies at their two offices in New York and Cary, North Carolina, as a "cost cutting exercise" (since when has making redundancies been anything else).

Closer to home, Bertrams commercial director Graham Rand is also to lose his job at the end of January, following re-structuring.

The crisis in publishing is such that Nigel Evans, Conservative MP for the Ribble Valley in Lancashire is calling upon the Government to provide more support for small businesses, following the closure of his local independent bookseller, Kaydee Bookshop in Clitheroe. The bookseller has announced that it will be closing at the end of January after 60 years in business, with the loss of nine jobs. Figures show the number of independent bookshops in the UK has plummeted by 22 percent in the last 10 years, with 1390 remaining against 1774 in 1999. I am surprised given the pressures they face, that this many have managed to stay in business at all.

It is the same old story of rents going up, and book prices going down, as discounting continues to spiral out of control. Discounting has always been a hot topic on my blog, and perhaps my biggest bugbear, and it is the subject of the moment on The Bookseller too with those both for and against. Graham Neill and Philip Stone report that the level of discounting has been described as "crazy" by Simon Juden, Chief Executive of the Publishers Association. This comes after it was revealed that the value slashed off RRP of books during the past two years has hit almost one billion pounds.

Epitomising the sheer stupidity of the discounting culture, figures from Nielsen BookScan showed that despite falling book sales in 2008, the level of discounting increased. The value of sales in 2008 was £1.78 billion, a decline of 1.5 percent from 2007’s figure of £1.8 billion. To bring this into stark contrast, if all books sold during this time had been sold at the recommended retail price, publishers would have earned almost one billion more per year - £2.27 billion in 2008 and £2.3 billion in 2007.

Books were more heavily discounted in 2008 than ever before, with the average selling price down at £7.49 (half the cover price of my own work). This was down from £7.57 in 2007. At the same time, the level of discounting increased by 0.2 percent to £499,072,252.

Echoing my own thoughts, Juden said it was "crazy" that an industry’s most successful products were discounted the heaviest. He said: "What we sell the most of we charge the least amount for. Books are a valuable and cultural good and should be sold as such." Personally I don't see what difference it makes as to how successful a book is - it takes time and money to write these books, and much effort not to mention blood, sweat and tears, goes into that process. That time and effort needs to be valued, and at the moment that is just not happening. The wonder the industry is in such crisis.

Perhaps we should pay heed to our Bibles, as one of the regular readers from the newsletter that I edit, pointed out when he sent me a clipping from the Isle of Wight County Press.

The clipping states:

"Millions of words have been poured out about the financial crisis, with theories, recriminations, and remedies being flung a nauseum.

Had everyone paid attention to the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk, all this could have been avoided.

Writing in the seventh century BC, he put it in a nutshell: "Trouble is coming", he warned, getting straight to the point, "to the man who amasses goods that are not his and loads himself with pledges. Will not your creditors suddenly arise?"

Indeed they will [and have] and I am grateful to Mr Habukkak for making everything much clearer than any of Robert Peston's witterings."

Enough said.

A questionable practise

Going on from what I said yesterday re the Espresso Machine and how Blackwells are embracing this technology, I sent the information on this to Richard, who is of course the boss at Authors OnLine, and he sent an interesting response to the effect that in time this could cut out not only the middle men, such as wholesalers and the like, but also the POD providers themselves. After all, these machines hold the entire inventory for all books available through Lightning Source, the largest print on demand printer in the UK and North America (Booksurge take note), so it should be theoretically possible to bypass the POD providers and just print out books in store.

This may sound noble and full of appeal, but authors will always want and need to have paper copies to sell themselves, and also need the expertise and help that only an experienced publishing company can provide. Richard has many useful contacts who have helped me in various ways, whom I would not have had access to otherwise. It is true that I may have found other ways to form such contacts, but it would have taken considerable time and effort on my part, time which since I returned to work, is in short supply.

Print on demand is in the news this week in more ways that one, since Random House are embroiled in a dispute with some of their authors regarding new contracts for such books. This echoes the dispute in America last year with Simon and Schuster.

The controversy hinges on the definition of the term out of print in the new digital environment, since technically, as long as the publisher pays their annual fee to the POD printer to maintain their files, print on demand titles never are out of print. These new contracts state that rights will only revert back to the author if the publisher cannot supply a physical (paper) or electronic copy of the book within one month, or if there has been no royalty payment for one year.

In other words, the publisher may no longer be actively promoting the work, and may not have sold a copy in over a year, but as long as they can produce a book within a one month cycle, then the author is unable to terminate the contract. Print on demand may have its advantages, but a contract such as this will favour no one except the publisher, and certainly not the author.

A spokesperson for Random House said "When we acquire a new title, we commit to the author to do the very best job we can to publish and sell their book. Understandably, we believe we should have the right to continue to sell that book for as long as there is a viable market for it and responsibly take advantage of all new digital technologies. "We continue to work closely with the author and agent community to implement terms that are fair, but also reflect the fast-changing nature of the modern publishing industry."

What though is a viable market? I think that most would agree that a book has to sell more than one copy per year to be considered so. It does not take a genius to work this out. These proposed contracts then benefit no one except the publisher, who will do basically sod all, locking the author in to a contract which offers no benefit to them at all. They would from where I am sitting, be better off going to a POD provider like I did, and paying to have their work published, as they stand to earn a lot more money. Furthermore, most offer non exclusive contracts which state that if the author wishes to terminate the contract for whatever reason, they can do so with three months notice.

Random House have obviously learnt nothing from Simon and Schuster's example, and I think they will find that they too are forced to backtrack, as no sensible author or agent for that matter, would endorse these contracts.

News from the publishing world this week

There are several interesting stories circulating around the publishing world at the moment, not least of all that concerning the Amazon versus Hachette Livre dispute. The Times reports that the dispute is showing no signs of diminishing, and looks likely to drag on til at least Christmas, if not longer.

None of this is really news at all, since we all saw this happening a long time ago. It started with the abolition of the net book price agreement in 1995, and has got steadily worse since. Those within the industry warned at the time that this would bring nothing but disaster, so I am told (this was long before I began to write), but as per usual, no one listened.

The Times reports that back in the 1980's, a man with a background in the grocery business told a group of publishers: “In the trade I come from, if the retailer says, ‘Jump’, the supplier asks, ‘How high?’,” and the audience looked at him as if he were talking rubbish. Twenty years later, they know exactly what he meant.

Publishers admit that they should never have allowed discounts to get so high, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. The fact is that when an order from a retailer makes the difference between hitting and not hitting targets, and the consequences of rejecting that order is to see the business go elsewhere, then it is very hard to so no, even on such unfavourable terms.

This situation is not confined to publishing, as we see it throughout the retail trade - especially with the supermarkets and the shameful way in which they treat their suppliers - some of whom are forced to sell at a loss. Still, it is heartening to see such support from authors, across the board, it is in our interests really though, as the lower discounts become, the more money there is to pay us with.

It is as usual all about market forces - and what consumers are prepared to pay. It is the same old story, that the public want good quality goods and good service, but are not prepared to pay for it. I see this in my own job on an almost daily basis; it is why my company were forced to equalise shop and Internet prices earlier this month. The result of this has been that there is now so little profit on certain items, that it is hardly worth selling them at all without at least 2 add ons.

It is we are told business, and nothing personal. Tell that though to the members of staff at branches such as mine, who are being forced to close because they are no longer viable. Tell that to the children and dependents of those who work there. The Times states that any negotiator wants to screw out of the market as much as the market can take, but the fact that this happens does not mean that it is morally or ethically right, as everyone has the right to earn a living and maintain a certain lifestyle, where at least their basic needs are met (and beer and cigarettes are not basic needs). Book selling, in fact, publishing in general, makes very little money - Waterstones made a profit, so The Times says, last year, of 2.9 percent, while Hachette’s profit margin was 11.2 per cent. Are they then in a position to negotiate and dictate terms? Maybe not. I do know though that if we do not stop this slide, in retail in general, and not just publishing, then we will be hearing more about Amazon in the months to come, and it will not be long until they drive us all out of business.

Against this backdrop, it is somewhat depressing to read that Amazon has almost doubled its net profits over the last three months (ending June 2008) to $158 million. Sales of books, CDs and DVDs rose 31 percent, while electronics and general merchandise sales were up by 58 percent. City analysts report that the company are benefitting from high fuel prices, since consumers have less money for shopping trips and prefer instead to shop from home. Those consumers should try living here in good old blighty, where our petrol costs almost twice what theirs does!

On a happier note, it seems that the Espresso printing machines, which I mentioned on here some time ago, are finally set to arrive in the British Isles, being rolled out to larger Blackwells stores in the autumn. The machines - nicknamed the ATM for books, are capable of printing and binding books, while customers wait, in a matter of minutes, with a choice of over 1 million titles, many of which are rare or otherwise out of print.

The Espresso Book Machine’s backers claim that it combines the virtually unlimited choice of the Internet with the packaging of a conventional book, which has the potential to make the most obscure of titles easy to buy.

Many readers, especially students, and remember that Blackwells is the leading academic chain, complain that book stores are top heavy with piles of heavily hyped best sellers and celebrity dross from the big publishers, while the independent and small presses,including self publishers do not get a look in. This then will help to equalise things as never before, and can only be a good thing, for both authors and book buyers alike.

The machines, which are 9 feet long and 5 feet high (as I am also- high that is!), allow customers to type in any title that they want, and after seven minutes out pops the book, neatly trimmed and bound, for the same price as the equivalent book off the shelves.

The finished product is like any conventional paperback, although critics say that the illustrations are poor quality, and the books have a rubbery feel. As time goes on, I am sure these problems will be ironed out, and I am also sure that customers will be more than happy with the speed and convenience that these machines afford.

Other chains are less circumspect, stating that they will wait to see how the technology develops and improves, and how popular it proves to be with Blackwells customers.

Good news indeed, and one to watch. I for one will eagerly anticipate the arrival of the first machines, and if I find one near me, will willingly pay for a copy of my own work just to see how it does work, and what these books are like. I will report back on what I find.

Amazon from a spiritual perspective

When I visited the Books and Tales forum today that I often post on, I found an interesting reply on one of the threads regarding a partnership between Lightning Source and On Demand Books (the owners of the Espresso Printing machines that I mentioned on here some time ago). The poster of this article links to an original article posted in February on Publishers Weekly, which seems to be the American version of Publishing News.

The article, written by Judith Rosen states that the two are entering into a partnership whereby On Demand Books will have access to to all data held by Lightning Source, enabling them to print not just American books, but any book at all listed in Lightning Sources' vast and rapidly expanding catalogue. These books will be printed not in 2 hours as is currently the case with Lightning Source's own machines, but in fifteen minutes, and for a fraction of the cost of conventionally published books. Will that change things or what? !

Granted the machines are expensive, and for the moment at least there are only a handful in commercial use, in the following locations: University of Alberta Bookstore in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; the Internet Archive Office in San Francisco, California; the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont; the Bibliotheca Alexandrina at Alexandria, Egypt.

Lin Robinson, who posted this on Books and Tales, goes on to say that there will very soon be several more - at the New Orleans Public Library in New Orleans, Louisiana, The University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan and at DA Information Services in Mitcham, Australia.

This news is remarkable by itself, but even more so in the light of recent events regarding Amazon and their acquisition of print on demand company Booksurge, which was rapidly followed by their insistence that all those who wished their print on demand books to be listed directly on amazon.com must have their books printed by Booksurge.

It would appear Amazon, in its blatant attempt at creating a monopoly and controlling the authors right to choose, is flying in the face of a revolution in publishing that will eventually leave them floundering. The Espresso and Lightning Sources' partnership will change the face of publishing forever so that books no longer have to be printed in large print runs at all, and print on demand becomes the norm. It will revolutionise the way in which we do business and turn things around, so that print on demand authors and all authors in fact have much more control over every aspect of their work, and are no longer at the mercy of these faceless corporations who think we have no rights and that they have the right to walk all over us.

Thousands of books and periodicals will be there on these machines as searchable items which the consumer can print in minutes. Maybe then Amazon's move was an effort to get as big a slice of the pie as the possible before the wall comes tumbling down, like it did in Berlin all those years ago. How exciting would that be ...

I feel that there is definitely more to this than meets the eye. There are other issues at work here than just trying to monopolise the market. One has to understand why Amazon feel driven to do this. There is a lot of fear around in the US right now with the recession, and money is tight - things are far, far worse than we in the UK have been led to believe. Amazon are trying to strengthen their position as the number one discount retailer in the only way that they know how - by flexing their muscle. Maybe it will work, maybe it will fail, who knows - that is up to the public and not me. I do feel though that perhaps the only way to really stop this is to bring it off the Internet and into the printed press - on to the pages of the New York Times and newspapers across the length and breadth of America - but also in the UK. I am heartened then to see that this is now beginning to happen. This story though needs to reach the readers and those who buy books, as they are the ones who have the real power to change things by voting with their mice.

In the UK of course things, have taken an even more sinister turn, as Amazon are now threatening that if publishers offer books at discounted prices on their own websites, then Amazon will take the discounted price as the RRP (recommended retail price) and offer them 50 percent of that rather than 50 percent of the actual RRP. This is what I mean when I say that this is fear driven, and they are trying to ensure that they maintain their position. This though is not the way to do it, and it will fail, as we have laws in place in our country to stop this kind of thing - quite apart from the fact that it is breach of contract.

I can't help feeling that there is also a higher dimension to this - and this is about bringing these things into the open and levelling the playing field. It is not of course all about money, but this is an issue - the fact that book stores etc take so much of it. The shop that I work in doesn't have a 40 percent margin on the products we sell - on some products it is a lot more than this, but it averages at around 25 percent. It should then be the same in the book world. Why should they take all the money when we wrote the books? No other business either (with the possible exception of the music industry) has the right to return stock that they haven't sold up to a year after they bought it, so why should they be able to, and more to the point, why should authors and publishers be the ones who have to subsidise and pay for their mistakes? Why as well should we settle for low advances and shoddy treatment when celebrity ghost written titles get nominated for book prizes as recently happened with Katie Price?

You could get angry and frustrated at all this, and for a long time I did, but that does not help. Complaining does nothing except make you even more angry and frustrated, leaving you with no energy to do the other things that you need to do. What we need is to look at this from a detached perspective without getting overly emotionally involved; just state the facts quietly and calmly in as many places as we can, and let the book buying and reading public, as well as the publishing industry as a whole, understand where we are coming from and that things have to change. This is the only way that things will change. It took me a long time to understand this and to realise how unhealthy it was for me continually getting angry and fighting, but when I did finally realise this it was tremendously freeing, as the emotions no longer control me. I am now in control instead.

It is interesting to see how this is not just about POD authors, as it also effects the larger publishers - since many of them also now use POD for certain celebrity titles and to maintain back lists. POD is no longer a niche thing, but is becoming mainstream - it is big business now in the UK - heck, even literary agency PFD were talking on The Bookseller the other week about how they are starting an initiative with Lightning Source to bring their authors out of print titles back into circulation, prove that there is still a market for them and then try and use these sales to get the books published again. The number of books in print has never been higher and this is largely attributed to the rise in self publishing - in particular POD - I wrote about this on here just the other week.

The consensus seems to have been, for writing bloggers both in America and the UK for a long time now, that the old ways of doing business in publishing are no longer working and that something needs to change. This is way of forcing that change.

the hidden cost of a Christmas best seller part two

Following on from my post a few days ago, entitled the hidden cost of a Christmas best seller, I started a thread along the same theme on my favourite writers discussion forum, My Writers Circle. I guess it is okay to post the article from the Times Online on here, as long as I provide a link, so here goes. It does somewhat set the scene.

"Every day thousands of shoppers decide to buy a new book because Waterstones prominently displays or recommends it. The reader may imagine that merit alone has inspired the country’s largest book chain to champion the volume now resting in their hands. The truth is a little less romantic. In a confidential letter to publishers seen by The Times, Waterstones has set out what it expects them to pay if they want their books to be well promoted in its network of more than 300 stores this Christmas. The most expensive package, available for only six books and designed to “maximise the potential of the biggest titles for Christmas”, costs £45,000 per title.

The next category down offers prominent display spots at the front of each branch to about 45 new books for £25,000. Inclusion on the Paperbacks of the Year list costs up to £7,000 for each book, while an entry in Waterstones Gift Guide, with a book review, is a relative snip at £500. To the despair of publishers, similar charges have become standard across the industry. The leading chains excuse them as a “contribution” towards marketing costs and recognition of a booksellers’ power to create bestsellers by heavily promoting select books. At Borders, bookshop staff vote to decide the book of the month, while schools are polled to find the children’s book of the month. But the publishers still have to pay an undisclosed fee for the chosen book to be awarded the accolade. A spokeswoman for W H Smith said: “Our premium promotion spaces are oversubscribed, which suggests that publishers feel they are getting value for money.”

Anthony Cheetham, the chairman of Quercus books, a small independent publisher, said: “It’s not a system you can opt out of. If Smith’s offer you one of these slots and you say no, their order doesn’t go down from 1,000 copies to 500 copies. It goes down to 20 copies.” One of Quercus’s biggest successes is The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. It won the Costa Book of the Year award for 2006 but will not make the booksellers’ Christmas selections unless Quercus pays the going rate, Mr Cheetham said. “The big chains will choose, say, 100 books of the year for Christmas but they will only put into their final selection the ones that are paid for.

“We are currently trying to decide whether we feel strong enough to say no and see what happens with that book if we don’t pay. It’s difficult, the only publisher who is in a strong position [to negotiate with booksellers on this] is Bloomsbury, the proud owners of H. Potter Esq.” The imbalance is becoming more marked, with one supermarket proposing to start charging publishers just to pitch books at them. “There is a genuine level of exasperation and anxiety in the publishing industry that the booksellers have gone too far down this road,” Mr Cheetham said. “It’s the reader who loses because it’s throttling the distribution of a wider range of high-quality books and [perpetuating] the system whereby you plaster the entire country with copies of the same few books.”

Neil Jewsbury, the commercial director of Waterstones, defended the charges and said that the quality of books chosen for books-of-the-year lists and other promotions was not compromised by money changing hands. “Our expert booksellers, with years of experience, decide on what the best books of the last year are,” he said. “It’s only after that that we enter into a confidential commercial agreement with the publishers to decide how best to feature and promote these titles.” But most customers are not aware of the practice. One leading figure in the publishing world said: “What the book stores are doing is what other trades do, whether it’s frocks or sun-cream. The problem and the difference here is that the customers don’t realise it. They think what they are seeing is a recommendation and have no idea that the retailer has taken good money from the publisher for it.”

At Waterstones flagship Piccadilly branch in Central London yesterday shoppers said they were appalled by the practice. Helen Brooks, 36, a television sales director and budding author, said: “It’s disgraceful, I certainly would not trust them or their lists. It doesn’t do a lot for home-grown talent, small publishers or writing independently.”

Peter Wheeler, 68, a pensioner, said: “It’s a con.”

What it costs:

£45,000 For one book to appear in window and front-of-store displays, and in Waterstones national press and TV advertisement campaign

£25,000 To feature in a bay at front of store as a ‘gift book’ in its genre and be displayed at the till

£17,000 To be one of two titles promoted as the ‘offer of the week’ for one week in the run-up to Christmas

£7,000 To be displayed at front of store as a ‘paperback of the year’ and be mentioned in newspaper adverts.

£500 Price of an entry in Waterstones Christmas gift guide, complete with a bookseller review"

I won't post all the comments on here, since there are issues of security to consider, and to be honest, it would take too long anyway, so as this is my blog, I will concentrate more on my response to the comments.

The system is flawed, and every writer knows this, but it is the only system for the moment that we have, and we have to do our best to work with it by selling to different markets and not just the book stores. It is good that a paper of the calibre of The Times was discussing this and opening peoples eyes to these practises, as that is ultimately the only way that things will change. When the supermarkets somewhat similar practises were revealed to the public they faced a huge backlash with people turning to local stores and farmers markets etc instead, and from the comments posted on The Times website, at least some people are doing the same with the chain stores because of this, and buying either direct or online instead. Understand that it makes no difference to me as an author; I make the same regardless of whether my book is bought from Amazon or Waterstones - they both after all use the same wholesaler and get them for the same 40 percent discount. That is the thing that gets up my nose even more to be honest - the fact that these stores make £6 a copy from selling my book while as I as the author get £1.39 for 5 years work. I don't know many people who would work for 27.8 pence a year!

One member though did state that she has gone through the rounds of writers conferences, talking to agents, publishers as we all do, and the attitude from many still seems to be the going down the self publishing, or heaven forbid print on demand route is seen as the 'kiss of death'. She queried why this is, and my response, which can be read on the site is as follows:

I think that to a large extent both publishers and book sellers do feel threatened by print on demand, because like so many other things, they do not want to admit that it is their mis treatment of authors and the failings of the publishing industry in general that has led to so many of us choosing to embrace this route in the first place. People self publish for a variety of reasons - sometimes because they have a niche market that enables them to sell direct to the public cutting out the middle men, sometimes because they have been unable to secure a commercial publishing contract and remain convinced, despite the rejections, that there is a market for their work, but increasingly people are also choosing this route because they are tired of being treated by the industry as a disposable commodity and they wish to take back control of their work, and their own power. I chose to self publish for all of the above reasons and then some, as regular or even occasional readers of this blog will know.

The industry is led by greedy retailers, and that is the bottom line. It is the book sellers that demand the high discounts and not the publishers and wholesalers, and it is also the book seller that takes the biggest share of the books profits. In my case from a cover price of £14.99, print costs swallow up £4.06, the wholesaler earns £2.64 and the book seller £6, leaving £2.29 split between myself and the publisher, 60/40 in my favour. It is not a lot, but more than I would have got from a commercial publisher, since the book price would have been lower. How though can this be fair, when I spent 5 years and £5000 writing and paying for this book to be published, not to mention the cost of phone calls to get the shops to stock it, emails, stamps, printer ink, paper, etc, etc, etc? It just doesn't seem right, but very, very one sided. I sometimes think that I must have been mad to have even contemplated doing this, but I keep soldiering on regardless because it my vocation, my life times work, and also because it who I am; as a writer I can no more stop doing this than I can stop breathing, it would be like cutting off my right arm without anaesthetic.

It is though ultimately the book buying public who have the power to change things. This will only happen if we the authors educate our readers as to what is going on. The publishing industry is notoriously resistant to change and everything happens so slowly, and that is also part of the problem, for in the digital world including print on demand, everything moves very fast. Although there are moves towards firm sale instead of sale or return which should in theory help authors, book sellers are demanding even higher discounts to compensate for this loss.

I mentioned an article on The Bookseller just recently that quoted one of the buyers from Foyles (another chain I have been trying to get into with some success). The buyer actually stated that independent authors need them more then they need us, and sadly a lot of the time he/she (the buyer was not identified by name, but I don't think it was the one I have been dealing with) is correct.

Across the water The Writers Guild strike is proving that it is screen writers who have the real power and not studios and television networks, but they are in a different league to the more humble book writer. Nevertheless though it is time the retailers realised that without us to write the books there would be no Waterstones, Borders or WH Smiths. The way forward then is to educate the book buying public as to what really goes on in whatever way that we can. Write about it on our blog sites, let people know on your mailing list why you ask them to buy direct from you and list the figures involved as to who gets what, write to the newspapers, take part in discussions like the one they had on The Times Online, add your comments to the blogs that The Bookseller links to (I do this a lot as well), do whatever you need to do in order to get the point across without antagonising.

It is a dangerous path in some ways to tread, since there is always the fear at the back of ones mind that if the wrong person reads it the retailers will boycott your work. I have to then be very careful with what I say, as at the moment although I hate to admit it, until I can get some decent media coverage from the national press, I do need the book shops more than they need me. It is an uncomfortable fact. I have tried online selling, social networking, book fairs, you name it I have done it - the bottom line is though that 90 percent of books are still sold through shops. So for all my good words above, for the moment I shall continue to do my best to tread softly and work with the flawed system that we have in the best and only way that I can.

Occasionally I do get to speak to a more enlightened manager or book seller who understands the problems that we as authors have to face, and that does make it more worthwhile. There are a few who work for Waterstones and some who work for Borders as well! Same Day Books are the most enlightened ones that I have come across - even they are struggling, as 2 of their 5 branches have closed this year, and and there are redundancies in the offing - they are concentrating more on online selling now, since there are less overheads, but that is a whole other discussion ....

Continuing on though with the same theme, the industry has for some time now it seems been debating the issues surrounding digital publishing. This covers of course not just the rise in print on demand, but also the threat as they see it from e-publishing. It has come much more to the forefront in recent weeks with the launch in America of the Amazon Kindle reading device. The technology is not as yet available here, but it is only a matter of time.

Adam Powell talks about this on his blog, which is linked to The Bookseller, where he also talks about the Espresso machine, which is of course a giant print on demand machine recently installed in various public libraries and book stores across the pond. Dane Keller, CEO of OnDemand Books, the creators of the Espresso machine, are keen to try and also get it into stores over here. The only problem is that there is only one company through which material can be accessed, and even then some of the out of copyright material they have access to is still in copyright here, since the laws are different. What this basically means then is that there is very little that can actually be printed.

Adam makes the point that by utilising digital technology in the form of both print on demand and e-books, it will help to cut out the middle men, thus you would think, maximising profits for both book sellers and publishers. However, although the big presses may complain about the high costs of distribution and heavy discounting (they should try being a small press or self published author, then they would have something to really get upset about), he also points out that nearly all of them - including Penguin, HarperCollins and MacMillan either own or have a large share in their own distribution companies - why then would they be willing to put part of their own profits at risk? It would be cutting off their noses to spite their own face.

Personally I can't see e-readers catching on, not even in the United States. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever replace paper books, people love the feel of them and being able to leaf through at their own leisure on the train or in the local coffee house before or after work. Both Amazon and myself as an author would love to be proven wrong, since the idea of cutting out all these middle men has much appeal - my own book is in fact already available as an e-book as part of the Authors OnLine publishing package. I have only ever though sold one, to some unknown person overseas who I suppose preferred to read it in this way. When I do sell in this form I earn considerably more - about three times more in fact, since the only overheads are the credit card processing fee, and then 60 percent of what is left (about £5) is mine. This cannot compete or compare with the £1.39 I get from paper copy sales. I have said enough about that though already to fill 10 textbooks, and I am not talking mobile phones here either.

As a worst case scenario, in 10 0r maybe 20 years time, 10 percent of books may be sold as e-books. Traditional publishers and book sellers will somehow have to find a way of making up for those lost sales. The most obvious way is for them to sell the e-readers in their shops or direct from their own websites. Why though should a consumer go to a publishers website instead of Amazon where they can everything they need at low cost in the same place, not just from one publisher, but from all of them. Amazon in this scenario can be seen as a giant online book supermarket against which the high street stores cannot realistically compete other than on service, and the ability to browse, but even this is being diminished with the search inside option and Google Books.

The British Retail Consortium predict that 15 percent of all Christmas related purchases will be made online this year, compared to 13 percent in 2006. This then must be seen as the real threat, which may be much greater than anyone could imagine.

Espresso Machine gives POD authors a break

Print on demand (POD) certainly seems to be making waves and inroads at the moment throughout the industry with talk of Espresso machines and even Random House embracing the technology. A quick look at their website first thing this morning revealed that they have 'introduced' a 'new' technology called print on demand, which enables them to promote what they refer to as 'lost classics' without the need to keep physical copies in stock. Their website goes on to say that 'Digital printing technology now means that we are able to print and deliver books within a week of a customer placing an order. Until now, if you were interested in these out of print titles, you would need to hunt them down in secondhand bookshops. But now you can have a brand new paperback printed when you want it'. Titles available include the works of Barbara Thiering and Robert Gurman, so I suppose it can't all be bad.

Large companies like this nevertheless do seem to have a somewhat selective memory, as when it comes to POD authors such as myself and others that I know submitting their work for consideration we are told that this is not a valid form of publishing, yet it seems okay for them to do it. Don't do as I do, do as I say. Oh well, such is life.

Maybe the tide though is finally turning and we will begin to see a change of heart with regard to this technology. It certainly seems to be being talked about all over the publishing press at the moment. Michael Hyatt, president and chief executive officer of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing company in the world and the sixth largest trade book publishing company in the US was talking about it just recently on his blog site, which is linked to The Bookseller. I made a few comments of my own, which you will see if you click the link.

It seems that Lightning Source, the major POD printer, who are of course based in Nashville with UK operations in Milton Keynes, have been rolling out what are referred to as Espresso machines, the first of which is sited in New York's Grand Central Library, with others across the US in various Barnes and Nobles stores. This is nothing to do with coffee, as they are actually giant printing machines. Allow me to explain.

At the moment, when you go into a book store or library and the book you find is not on the shelves, you have two options - you can either order a copy or go elsewhere. Now though, with these gigantic and no doubt noisy machines, you will be able to go into the library or book store and have one printed for you in an hour or so while you sit and have a coffee (or tea if you are English of course). What a revelation then this will be, and the even better news is that it it set to come over here !

Michael Legat talks about it as well in the October edition of Writing Magazine, where he also mentions the Simon and Schuster debacle. They tried to insert a clause into their new contracts stating that they retained rights to all books published with them indefinitely, since with the advent of POD technology, books are never out of print. Of course, the Writers Guild of America kicked up a stink and quite rightly so, after all, who wants to be saddled to a publisher who does sod all to help promote your work and takes all the money. By taking the work to a bonafide POD provider, such as Authors OnLine here in the UK (they also distribute in the US!) the author can earn considerably more without that much more effort. After all, Simon and Schuster are hardly likely to put money into promoting a backlist book that sells only a couple of hundred copies a year - they concentrate most of their efforts on the new titles and high sellers, and who can blame them, it is after all a business.

Eventually Michael says, they had to admit defeat and scrap these clauses and quite rightly so. Still, I don't expect they will be the only ones to try this, and it is another indicator of how much more acceptable this technology is becoming, if the large publishers are now embracing it. I think they have finally realised, as I did, that if you can't beat 'em you have to join 'em, and whether they like or or not, POD is here to stay.

Personally I feel that it is where the future of publishing lies, fairly and squarely, and Random House and the Espresso machine just prove to confirm that. Eventually Lightning Source plan to put one in every book store in the US and I can only imagine the impact that will have. Book stores will only have to stock best sellers and it will make it much easier to authors to get into print, because it will automatically lessen the risk. I said to Gaynor Johnson some time ago, who deals with book orders for Authors OnLine Ltd, that I envisioned a time maybe 10, 15 years from now when book stores would have just a few shelves for maybe top 50 paperbacks etc, and the rest would be taken up by these huge machines, with computer terminals where customers used sites such as google books in order to carry out searches for books that they fancied. It seems that I may not have been far wrong.

In the short term though is it such a good thing ? It will take time for the industry to adapt, as everything works as a snails pace and they are notoriously resistant to change. That has been one of my biggest bug bears in fact, the fact that everything in publishing works so much more slowly than POD. That will be a thing of the past though, they will have to learn to respond a lot quicker. POD authors will then for the first time be competing on a even keel and the stigma will be well and truly removed. I just hope that in the process, the POD pioneers do not end up being driven out of business, as it is inevitable that the big boys will try and take over and claim this technology as their own. It is usually what happens. In fairness though, the POD arms of Random House and Barnes and Noble - Xlibris and i-universe, have been in business for a while - thank goodness only in the States, but eventually I am sure, over here as well.

One thing's for certain - sale or return will be a thing of the past, as this technology will not be able to accommodate it on such a high scale. Besides which, if the customer is printing books in store then what would be the point. What a shame then - the author will be paid more than the book shop - I will cry in a minute !