viernes, 25 de julio de 2014

Responsiveness

Probably, the biggest difference between "Big Five" publishing (and its copycats) and small presses or individuals is something I believe Kris cals push / pull. I'm not sure, I can't find the article.

Thing is, Big Five are still trying to push their ways: their pricing, their layered releases, their tempo, their fashions... Oh, sure, if something like Shades of Grey comes out, Big Five will dump as many similar titles as they can. Which misses most of the point, sure. Or they will try to gobble successful indies... and smother them. That last is probably not their intention, but they're the scorpion on the turtle's back: it's in their blood. And, specially, it's not in indie writer's (or most succesful self-employed people, truly).

Small presses? They'll find something that works for them, something people want to read, and publish it. Individual writers will find something they want to write and see it if works, an adapt. Their nimbleness allows for that, but it's also a different paradigm. Big Five's R&D shows the tale. Compare with this.

It goes further. In the last month, since I wrote a small piece that did some traveling on Google+, I've been able to contact several writers who were pretty helpful providing paid copies of their work through different channels than their usual. Depending on how you do your accounting, in one case it cost me almost 20x the bargain price. As I see it, it cost me exactly the usual ammount, but I didn't get lots of things I didn't want. And it was, in fact, voluntary, almost a donation.

Compare that with over 10 USD for a single DRM'd book, and try to tell those publishers: "Guys, I'm having trouble buying from the Evil Amazon. Would you mind if I bought it directly from you?" I wouldn't probably even rate a response.

And that's another reason I'm going indie without even realizing it much.

Take care.

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