Self-publishing and digital books
Apr. 8th, 2011 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevenswellsThere's still a beautiful weather outside, and I'm still stuck inside my room working!
Here's a link all you authors and artists on my fpage will find very useful, I think:
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/ebooks-and-self-publishing-dialog.html
It's a dialogue between two writers who have switched to self-publishing and are happy about it.
The way I see it, the book industry is facing an unprecedented crisis, and publishing houses are part of the problem, as it's very well explained in the interview. And in my trade, which is comic books, it's even worse, because it's such a ghetto culturally speaking, with such a lack of proper recognition in France that things go even slower and are even more fucked-up (I won't even talk about the royalty rates which are, for a regular comics author, completely ridiculous). Needless to say I'm extremely unhappy with the way things are in my business, and that I'm thinking more and more about the self-publishing solution. The only problem is that it's a bit different with comics than with literature, but it seems these days the switch to self-publishing and, more importantly, to digital media, is becoming an important debate amongst the authors I know, all of which are pissed and tired of their publisher's bullshit, and we're all working on a viable solution together. The only thing I know for sure is that I want to be part of the change, and I hope we'll see the light at the end of the tunnel.
"For hundreds of years, writers couldn't reach readers without publishers. We needed them.
Now, suddenly, we don't. But publishers don't seem to be taking this Very Important Fact into account."
(Joe Konrath)
Here's a link all you authors and artists on my fpage will find very useful, I think:
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/ebooks-and-self-publishing-dialog.html
It's a dialogue between two writers who have switched to self-publishing and are happy about it.
The way I see it, the book industry is facing an unprecedented crisis, and publishing houses are part of the problem, as it's very well explained in the interview. And in my trade, which is comic books, it's even worse, because it's such a ghetto culturally speaking, with such a lack of proper recognition in France that things go even slower and are even more fucked-up (I won't even talk about the royalty rates which are, for a regular comics author, completely ridiculous). Needless to say I'm extremely unhappy with the way things are in my business, and that I'm thinking more and more about the self-publishing solution. The only problem is that it's a bit different with comics than with literature, but it seems these days the switch to self-publishing and, more importantly, to digital media, is becoming an important debate amongst the authors I know, all of which are pissed and tired of their publisher's bullshit, and we're all working on a viable solution together. The only thing I know for sure is that I want to be part of the change, and I hope we'll see the light at the end of the tunnel.
"For hundreds of years, writers couldn't reach readers without publishers. We needed them.
Now, suddenly, we don't. But publishers don't seem to be taking this Very Important Fact into account."
(Joe Konrath)
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-09 09:01 pm (UTC)-But then some other problems appear, especially when we're talking about digital media for comic books. How can you sell your stuff? What kind of public are we talking about? What will they read your comics with? Publishers in France have been treating their authors as enemies, not allies on this matter, and as they say in the interview, they've been trying to slow down the process and are keeping everything locked with a key. Now it is possible to bypass this lockdown and get your stuff out there on your own, but then it's not sure that copyright would be respected. So basically, on the subject of digital media for comic books, French authors are stuck between a giant wall, and the jungle. No middle ground. That's why I said some of the authors are working on a viable solution these days, and I want to be among them. It's a delicate and complicated matter, but there might be hope.
-Finally, the other problem about self-publishing comic books is that if we're talking about quality work, the production of pages costs a lot of time and money. So you have to be able to invest a certain sum of money at the beginning of the production (which is usually the role of the publisher), but we can't all do that. There are solutions to that problem too nowadays, but I can't go over them, this reply is too long as it is already and I really don't want to bother you.
Sorry; I forced a whole exposé about the French comic books business upon you even though you haven't asked for it. I feel a bit stupid now, but I just wanted to explain the reasons of my outrage, so it wouldn't look like it just came from nowhere and I'm being ungrateful and unsatisfied for the heck of it.
So far in my business I've only met one editor who deserves that title and whom I respect a lot; I'm (well, me and the drawing artist I'm collaborating with) working with him on a project that I love and everything up until now has been great. The sad thing is, that guy really is one of a kind in this business. The rest of them, I'll do everything that is in my power to be able to never work with them again and tell them all to fuck off.
Arrrrh, too long, too long! >_____<;;