In reading through the open letter on piracy I linked in my last post, I came across yet another reference to Richard Nash and Cursor, in which he’s cited as having all these wonderful new models for publishing. He’s referred to over and over again as being The Man for “innovating pricing and packaging models,” and as shaking up the publishing industry.
Now, no disrespect to Mr Nash and his ideas – I am in awe of what he did with Soft Skull, and I’d like Candlemark & Gleam to grow up to be like Soft Skull or NightShade someday – but…wow, how irritating.
I realise that, for the most part, it’s the media crowing over all of this, and the media tends to wear blinkers. They see what they want to see, and they repeat what they’re told. I know, I am the media, and have been for going on a decade now. But really, people, due diligence. Nash is not the first to come up with this stuff. And he’s not the only one implementing it.
What’s “this stuff?” What’s all this new model kerfluffle that he’s supposedly responsible for?
Bundling
Tiered pricing
Prices based on text length
Short-term contracts
No or low advances
Yeah. Look that list over. Think about it for a sec. Anything look familiar?
It should. Harper Studio was moving some of that into play (although their definition of “low advance” and mine are very different, apparently). But more importantly, most of those supposedly cutting-edge techniques have been used, to great success, by erotica publishers for years now.
I asked Nash himself about this in passing, with particular respect to the short-term contracts, and was told that he’s been in indie publishing for years and never heard of anyone doing three-year contracts. It’s new ground! How exciting! How wonderful to take a model from the music industry and put it over!
Uh…standard in the erotica industry, sir. It makes it easier for everyone – automatic renewals keep the paperwork and thought to a minimum for the publisher with no real downside, while an author who suddenly breaks out with a hit can either renegotiate for better royalties or can take their backlist elsewhere when they make it big. Win-win.
(Incidentally, Candlemark & Gleam offers a three-year auto-renew contract for just that reason – if you sign with us and then wind up breaking out and becoming the next Big Thing in speculative fiction, you’ve got an easier time of renegotiating for the bigtime, and more power to you!)
Nash had never heard of this.
Just like I’m tired of the Genre Ghetto, I’m tired of seeing an Erotica Ignorance. Erotica isn’t for everyone – we don’t publish it for a reason. But the erotica/porn industry is always on the forefront of technological and media change, simply because it’s such a high-turnover industry and keeps churning content through so fast, with such a dedicated audience. They experiment more than the rest of us do (hur-hur) and they have the flexibility to figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and what consumers are willing to do to get their content fix.
Things like, I dunno, pricing their work based on length (99c short story; $1.99 novella; $4.99 novel; $6.99 supernovel); offering short-term contracts; offering bundles for multiple formats.
I shouldn’t be bitter about this; after all, I’m not an erotica publisher, and what do I care if the media wants to give Richard Nash the credit for all these publishing innovations and disruptive ideas? It’s not like I’m ever going to be famous. It’s not like I want to be famous – I just want my little company to produce the best gosh-darn speculative fiction it can, and to play my little part in seeing how the publishing revolution shakes out.
But damnit, acknowledge that others have been there before you, and are there at the same time, eh? It’s only courteous. And really, the pornographers are the best businessmen. Just ask Larry Flint. We could learn a lot from them.
Just to clear up any confusion, since it seems I inadvertently created some! When I said it was not at all the case in indie publishing, I was (and I thought I made this explicit at the time but perhaps I failed, sorry) referring to supply chain print publishing. There is no independent publisher whose core business is selling print books into traditional wholesalers and retailers on a consignment or sale-or-return basis who is doing three-year contracts. And that is what we are proposing to do. I don’t believe—and hope I’ve never claimed—that any of my ideas are original; any novelty would inhere in their application to a sector of the industry in which they are heretofore unknown. I frequently say quite publicly that none of my ideas are original, I’m just purloining, arranging and deploying them in a particular fashion within a specific sector of the publishing business… (And, hey, given the honorable tradition in erotica of borrowing and reframing, I know that even that approach has long antecedents!)
Thanks, also, for the nice words about my years at Soft Skull! It was hard to leave…
Ahhh, that clears things up greatly! Thank you! The reporting on this has been unclear, at best – from Publisher’s Lunch et al, it’s never been made entirely clear how you’re tackling supply chain etc (which is, I believe, probably due to the fact that you haven’t launched officially yet, and makes sense from that point of view). From the incomplete information that’s been floating about, it’s seemed as though your model is getting all the attention, and the digital-first publishers (particularly Noble Romance, Loose Id, Ellora’s Cave and company) have been conveniently ignored.
If we’re talking direct supply chain, though, you’re certainly the first I’ve heard of to adopt the three-year/limited contract model, and hurrah for doing so!
It’s the media surrounding the publishing industry that’s making the claims of novelty – I hoped I hit upon that, but perhaps I didn’t do so hard enough. Really, they’re sinking their teeth into anything juicy, and making whatever claims they think are justified, whether the people implementing these ideas made the claims themselves or not. Sells the story, donchaknow.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how your purloining and reframing works out, honestly, because Soft Skull was one of my inspirations for starting Candlemark & Gleam – proof that you can take a passion for an overlooked genre and a lot of elbow grease and do something amazing with it, and maybe even show the “big guys” a few tricks. With any luck, Cursor on the “well-staffed, well-coordinated, and highly experienced” side and Candlemark & Gleam and all the rest of us on the “scrappy and underfunded, but energetic” side will do the same with the digital transition…
Hey Kate, thanks much for hearing me out, really much appreciated. I know I’m a total whore in terms of hustling coverage for Cursor and I hope soon enough we’ll be operational and instead of talking about stuff we can be doing it and being a good citizen in the ecosystem 🙂 So let’s keep the conversation going!
You’ve gotta be a coverage whore in this day and age! It’s the only way!
Looking forward to seeing you guys operational, and seeing where you go!