Hugh Howey, Amazon, Kobo, BoD, LeanPub, PubSlush und das Self Publishing

Die Frankfurter Buchmesse wurde in diesem Jahr von der CONTEC eingeleitet – einer Konferenz, die die Branche auf die Veränderungen der kommenden Jahre vorbereiten soll. Auch Self Publishing wurde thematisiert: in einer Gesprächsrunde, die vom Branchenexperten Porter Anderson vorbereitet worden war.

Allein das ist ja schon ein Zeichen – hinzu kam jedoch, dass das böse Wort “Raubkopie” fast nie zu hören war. Schade nur, dass DRM noch immer als Lösung und nicht als Teil des Problems angesehen wird. Oder wie sonst ist es zu verstehen, dass ein EU-gefördertes Projekt die Schaffung eines anbieterübergreifenden DRM-Systems versucht? (als wäre Adobe DRM nicht “übergreifend”).

Aus der Self-Publishing-Runde stellvertretend ein paar Zitate. Bis auf den Buchagenten Jonny Geller vertraten alle Anwesenden recht einhellig die Seite der Self Publisher.

Hugh Howey (Autor): “The real story of self-publishing is the number of midlist authors who are making a living of it”

Hugh Howey (Autor): “There are a lot of Dollars to be made in books that no one ever reads. If you price it at 2.99, there is no consequence to not reading it, psychologically.”

Hugh Howey (Autor): “We don’t appreciate yet the long tail of self-publishing. Your books are available forever.”

Jonny Geller (Agent): “Publishers will succeed in the long run because it’s too much self-publishing if you’re a career writer.”

Amanda Barbara (PubSlush): “Because we have made it very easy for authors to self-publish, we have a lot of quantity but we’ve lost some of the quality.”

Michael Tamblyn (Kobo): “I see a culture of testing in the author community, like flipping the cover every three days to see what sells more”

Jon Fine (Amazon): “Authors should be able to see what readers are annotating on their Kindles”

Hugh Howey (Autor): “Authors should be able to see highlighted typos from readers and click ‘Accept’ to change the digital book”

Peter Armstrong (Leanpub): “People often forget that 50 Shades was published in progress and gained an early audience over time.”

Kristin Nelson (Agentin): “We don’t want traditional publishers to go away. We want a clear partnership.”

Jonny Geller (Agent): “Genre fiction is really taking off and succeeding with self publishing. But I don’t see any literary authors.”

Michael Tamblyn (Kobo): “This is the challenge for self publishing authors: there is no formula for success. It needs an accumulation of efforts, and the recipes are constantly changing.”

Jonny Geller (Agent): “Too much freedom is no freedom at all”

Jonny Geller (Agent): “I can’t believe I’m defending publishing!”

Hugh Howey (Autor): “Readers care more about the story than they do about the telling… If you are forced to choose, ‘story’ should take precedence over ‘telling.'”

Jon Fine (Amazon): “Self publishing is actually a misnomer, when authors pay for professional editing, marketing etc. The really smart guys get all the help they can”