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Five reasons why best-selling authors (composers?) are going direct

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I applaud every move in the book publishing industry as authors go direct to their customers and I long for the day music publishing abandons the paper-postage business model.  (You’ll find recent posts of mine on the topic here, here, here, and here.
 
In an article published on Gizmodo, Micheal Ashley charts the benefits authors have by going it direct:
 
1.  Speed:  Online books are published immediately
2.  Epublishing is more cost effective
3.  Ownership:  why give up ownership of your creative work to a publisher?
4.  Access to a bigger and more diverse audience
5.  Flexibility for the future
 
Here’s to online publishing!
 

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Comments

  1. Guys…
     
    Let me add one more important thought.
    Both I and my wife are proud owners of Sony Readers, which are awesome little machines.  In the Sony Reader’s case, the screen is simply too small to deal properly with sheet music.  Also, most e-readers have a refresh rate (especially for PDFs) that’s just much too slow for music reading.  I can, however, see it as a great option in the future for us conductors – *if* the screens are big enough.
     
    But to my point – have you ever had a singer drop their score or folder in rehearsal or in concert?  What happens when an e-reader drops to the floor and something breaks? The singer will stand there for the rest of the concert without a single piece of music.  Not good.  Good old paper creases and folds and even gets dirty and wet if you drop it in a puddle on the way to the concert – but you will almost always be able to salvage the situation.  No such luck with modern computer equipment.  For that reason alone I think we should stay clear of e-readers for our choirs.

  2. Dan, it wasn’t a cheap shot and I’m not bright enough to make a rhetorical flourish.  I have a lot of respect for you in a number of ways (kindness, creativity, professional).  I was making an observation, really, that you make lengthy rebuttals to every story I put up that promotes change in the music publishing industry.  Perhaps it is a mistake to say that you don’t like what the future holds, but it was an easy one to make based on your resistance to my numerous blogs on the subject.
     
    In your second rebuttal, you seemed to agree with the five points (or parallels) that I saw between electronic book publishing and the music publishing industry.  We primarily disagree on the impact.
     
         1. Making the process more “immediate” actually offers very little real benefit to choral conductors.
     
    We disagree here.  I believe that immediacy and availability drive everything these days.
     
    Also, one benefit of immediacy is that when I find a new brilliant composer that I would be able to see/purchase composer’s work instantly.  
     
         2. I’ll grant that the middleman might be eliminated.
     
    You agree with me, you just dispute the benefit.
     
         3. Copyright will, indeed, stay with the creator of the work . . . “Beyond the composer, who cares?”
     
    First, you agree with me on this obvious truth.  And . . I care.  I want the composer to be compensated with my monies, not the publisher, paper-producer, art-work person, post-office, person who makes all those CD’s, CD’s, etc. etc. etc.  For a composer to get 5-10 bucks every time I pay 50-100 for a piece of music is shameful. 
     
         4. The audience will continue to be the directors of choirs who can use such music and, given the languages spoken by most choirs, that audience is not going to grow by any significant amount simply because the pieces are now available anywhere that an internet connection exists…and people have a credit card…and a photocopy machine. So, we can chalk this one up as containing some truth but being of absolutely no no significance to the average choral conductor.
     
    You make numerous assumptions in this statement, but I note that you still agree with me somewhat.  Here is where I think you are short-sighted:
    • Language:  choirs sing in every language, composers write in every language, technology (diction help) helps us to sing in every language.  
    • You are wrong about the audience, I think.  I envision a world marketplace.  I think that the market will change dramatically exactly because an internet connection, credit card, and photocopy machine can produce the change.
    • The average choral conductor – in my mind, American conductors spend far too much time singing music that is only available through the major publishers.  Perhaps it is a faulty hope of mine, but I want everyone to branch out and be compellingly creative in their choral music programming – and not just purchase J.W. Pepper’s “highly recommended” piece.  
         5. Yes the online system is certainly more flexible. Once again, this translates into almost zero real benefit to the performing musicians who are the target audience and market for the changes you propose. So, once again, who cares?
     
    First, you agree with me in my claim of flexibility.  Second, I believe that an online model will radically alter the entire landscape of choral music.

  3.  
    Philip,
     
    “I know you don’t like what the future holds…”
     
    Philip, you know nothing of the sort.
     
    I choose to overlook the potentially offensive tone of the remark as I don’t believe you intended that. I rather think, however, that you did intend to use this hoary old rhetorical flourish to try to undermine my credibility in this discussion, and that, my friend, is a cheap shot. Besides, you’re quite wrong about my view of the future. Although you’ve evidently decided not to believe it, I am every bit as eager as you are to see music publishing move to a digital model. Where we differ is the WHEN and HOW of the transition. You seem to think it’s simply a matter of the luddites in the business pulling their collective heads out of the sand, snapping their fingers in an inspired moment of realization and issuing an edict to “make it so.” I have tried, on the other hand, to help you understand that real life differs a bit from the view you’re seeing from the towers of academe, and that this change will come about if and when (and not until) some very practical details have been worked out. No amount of wishful thinking on our part nor even increased demand (if it were to eventuate) would speed this process in the slightest: the issues which prevent immediate implementation of a digital model are real, and they are based in hardware, not attitudes.
     
    The main parts of this article have very little relevance to music publishing as I amply demonstrated in my first reply.
         1. Making the process more “immediate” actually offers very little real benefit to choral conductors; a piece is “new” when they first encounter it, whether it was composed last week or last year. By and large, they couldn’t care less and they are correct to hold that view. Add to this that, having lost the “filtering” role that the editors of commercial publishers have played since Gutenburg, these directors are going to be swamped in a vast tide of mediocrity which will greatly increase the demands on their time to do the filtering themselves. Net result: a loss for choral conductors as “immediate” offers no real benefit and will cost dearly.
         2. I’ll grant that the middleman might be eliminated, but only at the cost of having to visit all of the potentially productive websites yourself, and I’ll bet that 99.44% of conductors would happily pay a middleman to perform this service. Postage is eliminated, but the paper cost is going to go UP, not down, because you’re going to have to do all the printing yourself. Even if your time is worth nothing, which I’m doubting you’ll concede, someone will have to make the copies from which your choir will rehearse and perform and it will no longer be the publisher. Simply claiming this obvious disadvantage as an advantage does not make it one.
         3. Copyright will, indeed, stay with the creator of the work, although this change in the process will be absolutely invisible to the typical choir director and will benefit him not at all. So, while allowing that this one may be true, it begs the question, “Beyond the composer, who cares?”
         4. The audience will continue to be the directors of choirs who can use such music and, given the languages spoken by most choirs, that audience is not going to grow by any significant amount simply because the pieces are now available anywhere that an internet connection exists…and people have a credit card…and a photocopy machine. So, we can chalk this one up as containing some truth but being of absolutely no no significance to the average choral conductor.
         5. Yes the online system is certainly more flexible. Once again, this translates into almost zero real benefit to the performing musicians who are the target audience and market for the changes you propose. So, once again, who cares?
     
    Again, and for the record, I am in favor of the system changing and I’m absolutely convinced that, in some form, it will do so. The unpleasant realities, however, have not gone away and that means that these changes are yet a ways off, certainly on the order of some years at least. Plenty of good folks have tried already to move the process along, but the market remains strongly in favor of print, both with books and music. Digital delivery continues to be a niche market. It’s one that will mature and grow, but it’s not going to be here tomorrow, next month or next year. I’d suggest you look for it in the 5-10 year range.
     
    Dan Gawthrop
    Composer & Publisher

  4. Dan,
     
    I know you don’t like what the future holds, but the main points of this article are also true for music publishing:
     
    1.  Music publishing online would be an immediate process.
    2.  It is more cost effective.  I wouldn’t have to pay the (a) middleman markup (b) postage/handling (c) paper cost (d) promotional cost
    3.  Copyright would stay with the creator of the work
    4.  Audience would be the world, not the region
    5.  The online system is more flexible

  5.  
    Hmmm…
     
    Let’s take a little closer look at this article, shall we?
     
    Let’s begin at the end, where the author of this piece is described. There we learn that, “Mash is Founder & Chief Technology Officer at FastPencil, Inc. which helps authors connect, write, publish and distribute books with just a few clicks.”  Not exactly an unbiased reporter, this guy profits directly from the eBook phenomenon and has a huge vested interest in making it seem like the coming thing. If he can make its success seem huge, he’s bound to profit.
     
    But what about his Five “Reasons”? How do they stack up, in real life, and how closely do they relate to the world of print music, particularly choral music?
     
    “Readers are chomping at the bits for ebooks. Just recently the Association of American Publishers reported that ebook sales have increased by 176 percent in 2009, while print-book sales continues to decrease.”
     
    Wow. Impressive statistics, aren’t they? And, as far as I can tell, the numbers are accurate. The problem is, these numbers don’t tell the whole story. The plain fact is that printed books still make up almost all of the market and eBooks are just a tiny portion. The fact that eBook sales have increased by some whopping percentage sounds a lot less impressive when you consider that 176% of a very small number is, itself, also a very small number. What’s more, readers “chomping at the bits” for eBooks does not demonstrate anything useful for the print music business, where no significant portion of the market is chomping much of anything. Outside of a few visionaries like Philip, there is no credible or substantial demand among conductors for online publishing of musical scores.
     
    “The list of benefits for ebook writers is endless, but one major upside is that the authors are taking home more of the book sale profits.”
     
    Unfortunately, the list of benefits for composers is not endless. Indeed, while there are some real advantages, they are frequently outweighed by drawbacks. Do composers make a better percentage on scores sold digitally? Sure. The problem is, just like in the previous paragraph, that percentages don’t tell the whole story. A ten percent royalty, paid faithfully by a commercial publishing firm, on even a modest number of copies sold, can easily exceed fifty percent of a far small number of downloads. Bottom line? I don’t know of any serious composers who are making a living from online publications. For most, it’s lunch money and it comes with some substantial hassles.
     
    “In traditional publishing the process can take years. Just waiting for a publishing company to even give your manuscript a look takes up a big chunk of time. As for epublishing companies the process is a lot faster.”
     
    There are certainly some similarities here between book publishing and music publishing. Exactly as with book publishers, submitting a music manuscript to a reputable and substantial music publishing firm is often an exercise in patient self-control, but that’s inherent in the size of the organization. Smaller companies are often faster in reviewing submissions and making decisions. That’s true, of course, regardless of whether the publisher uses paper or downloads–the advantages of being small are the same either way. And so are the disadvantages: smaller budgets for advertising and promotion, smaller staff to handle editing and design, and so forth. If an online publisher is faster, the reason is typically because the “company” consists of a single person operating from the spare bedroom, not because the product is digital instead of printed. (And don’t assume I’m denigrating the guy in the bedroom–that’s exactly how my own publishing firm started–the difference is I’ve never accepted submissions from other composers; I only subjected my own works to the uncertainties and risks inherent in the process.)
     
    “Every penny counts, and creating books through epublishers drastically curbs the expenses related to printing.”
     
    For a book reader this may represent some small savings, though not nearly as much as one might expect (for current popular fiction, eBook prices often are as much as, and sometimes more than, a paperback edition). For the choral conductor, no such luck: That oh-so-cheap downloaded file will still have to be printed, only now you bear the cost instead of the publisher, and I can promise you that he will get a much better price for his paper and printing than your photocopying machine’s cost-per-impression will permit you to get. Further, instead of a nicely folded booklet, your machine is most likely going to leave you with loose sheets which will have to be laboriously stapled or dealt with in rehearsal in highly inconvenient and annoying ways. You have to admire the desire to turn a bug into a feature, but for choral music this one remains a strong argument against online publishing.
     
    “From start to finish, authors who take the epublishing highway have the final say in all decisions related to their books.”
     
    Publishing is a highly involved and financially risky business which is not where most authors (or composers!) want to spend their time or invest their pitiful incomes. The fact that you get to “make all the decisions” really means that you have to do so, and that virtually guarantees that many of those decisions will be wrong and that the costs will ultimately be fatal to the enterprise. There’s a reason why most composers are still sending their new works to real commercial publishers–for the most part, those companies know what they’re doing!
     
    “Ebook authors find themselves exposed to a whole new category of readers – readers in love with technology.”
     
    This seems a bit of a stretch for book publishing, but even if it were true, and even if that “whole new category” was large in number, there is nothing about the situation that translates to the music publishing business. Choir conductors certainly include some gadget freaks among their numbers but NO technology is going to make an anthem-buying choral conductor out of an unmusical geek. Not even one.
     
    “Before online publishers took the world by storm, it was difficult for writers to make edits to their manuscripts…” 
     
    Well, it may seem like a storm to a guy who’s desperately trying to make a living there, but for most observers not invested in the industry, we’re seeing a few scattered showers.
     
    “What’s impressive is that edits will automatically be updated on any eReader, such as Kindle, Nook or iPad, and epublishers can make the guarantee that a book can fit with whatever new reading device comes out in the future.”
     
    But choirs aren’t equipped with eReaders of any kind, so these flexibility advantages simply don’t apply
     
    And maybe that’s the critical point of this entire discussion: there is as yet no parallel between digital book publishing and digital music publishing because singers don’t use eReaders. Perhaps when every one of your singers comes to every rehearsal and every performance carrying some sort of similar device, we’ll be ready to consider online publishing of scores. Until then, however, it’s not happening.
     
    Dan Gawthrop
    Composer & Publisher

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