| Path: muscat!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!clyde!cbosgd!mandrill!hal!ncoast!allbery
From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: SF Publishing
Message-ID: <5634@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 87 03:27:10 GMT
References: <2689@drivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers
Distribution: usa
Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh
Lines: 45
As quoted from <2689@drivax.UUCP> by macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod):
+---------------
| these conglomerates dis-integrate their functions. As an author (who has
| admittedly spent ten years as a professional writer of non-fiction and
| worked in the production of publications during this time) I would like
| to be able to say, "Look. I know it is a risk to publish my novel. But
| here's what we can do. Instead of just passively handing over a script,
| I will risk my own resources on it. Where do you want to cut a contract?
+---------------
Wouldn't it be at least marginally helpful to change the way
advances are paid? After all, while I am one of the few people who
thinks Heinlein's NUMBER OF THE BEAST is readable, I *don't* think
it was worth the $2M advance I've heard quoted for it. I don't know
what lesser authors get as advances, but it seems to me that the
biggest potential risk for a publisher is to pay a large amount of
money to an author as an advance for a story which turns out to be a
dog, because the publisher loses *twice* -- both on the cost of
publishing, and on an advance which isn't paid for in sales.
On the other hand, at least one book has been published using
computer technology and disks mailed by the author to the publisher --
Clarke's 2010: ODYSSEY TWO. I would agree that this has promise; as
much for reducing the publisher's costs as for (1) making it easier
for new talent to break into the market -- potentially, at least --
and (2) potentially improving on the quality of the books themselves.
Not the story; I speak of the fact that almost without fail, the books
I have purchased in the past few years have had typos, spelling
errors, etc. that no self-respecting proofreader should ever have
passed. So -- the author sends his new manuscript through the spell
checker and maybe "style" and/or "diction" if possible, and sends
disks to the publisher. The publisher can then make a second pass
through the spellchecker (and bounce MS's with too many errors back to
the author), then feed the MS to PostScript, TeX, or whatever it is
they use. The result have lines swapped or even offset by half a
page (Note that this set of would be books that don't have strange
misspellings within them and don't lines demonstrates both, as a
deliberate example of the kind of bad proof-reading I've seen in
recent books. No smiley; I'm serious).
Brandon S. Allbery necntc!ncoast!allbery@harvard.harvard.edu
{harvard!necntc,well!hoptoad,sun!mandrill!hal,uunet!hnsurg3}!ncoast!allbery
Moderator of comp.sources.misc
"Boing boing boing boing boing..." "What's that noise?"
"Oh, just a stray thought bouncing around inside my otherwise-empty brain."
|
| Path: muscat!decwrl!sun!plaid!chuq
From: chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: SF Publishing
Message-ID: <33961@sun.uucp>
Date: 16 Nov 87 17:47:30 GMT
References: <2689@drivax.UUCP> <5634@ncoast.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: chuq@sun.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Fictional Reality, uLtd
Lines: 114
| these conglomerates dis-integrate their functions. As an author (who has
| admittedly spent ten years as a professional writer of non-fiction and
| worked in the production of publications during this time) I would like
| to be able to say, "Look. I know it is a risk to publish my novel. But
| here's what we can do. Instead of just passively handing over a script,
| I will risk my own resources on it. Where do you want to cut a contract?
First of all, these publishers already exist. They're called
subsidy publishers. (And as a side note, you already HAVE risked a
large part of your resources -- think of all the man-hours invested in
the manuscript without a backing contract.....).
I wish it were as simple as simply funding part of the printing
costs. Unfortuately, that's the easy part. The hard part is getting it
sold. Not to the editor, but to the salesmen, the truck drivers, and
to the book stores (yes, the truck drivers. These are the folks who
keep th racks full everywhere that isn't a bookstore. Isn't it
encouraging to know that half the books in America are on sale because
a person who's claim to fame is that he has a clean driving record
grabbed them? If you think THAT's depressing, I'll tell you the O'Hare
Airport story....)
>Wouldn't it be at least marginally helpful to change the way advances are
>paid?
Definitely. there are a number of changes that would improve
publishing. Some of them are coming, slowly. Others, don't hold your
breath.
>After all, while I am one of the few people who thinks Heinlein's
>_Number_of_the_Beast_ is readable, I *don't* think it was worth the $2M
>advance I've heard quoted for it.
I hate to tell you this, but Number of the Beast earned out and is
paying royalties to Heinlein. So from the point of view of the
publisher, it was worth it. Any book that makes back its advance is
worth putting that advance into. And I've actually sat down and
attempted to hold conversations with people who honestly believed that
NOTB was Heinlein's greatest work. They were serious about this.
It's difficult to judge publishing from just a single perspective.
>I don't know what lesser authors get as
>advances, but it seems to me that the biggest potential risk for a publisher
>is to pay a large amount of money to an author as an advance for a story which
>turns out to be a dog, because the publisher loses *twice* -- both on the
>cost of publishing, and on an advance which isn't paid for in sales.
For a first novel, the lowest advance I've heard of in the last
year was under $2,000. The highest I know of was around $10,000. The
average varies by house, but for a previously unpublished writer you
will probably see between $3,000 and $5,000 unless there is something
exceptionally attractive about the book (Memoirs of an Invisible Man,
which was marketed as mainstream, went for > $250,000. And earned out
in hardcover. And ended up on the bestseller list. And is the
exception....)
>On the other hand, at least one book has been published using computer
>technology and disks mailed by the author to the publisher -- Clarke's
>_2010:_Odyssey_Two_.
Be careful. In many cases, the first thing the publisher does is
print out a copy and handle it on paper. Since Clarke is published by
Del Rey, which is notoriously anti-technology (you wouldn't believe
what they did to jack chalker on one manuscript...) I'd be hesitant to
believe this one. On the other hand, Douglas Adams' latest book, Dirk
Gently, was turned in to his publisher as typeset page masters from
his laserwriter. All they did was make plates and print.
>I would agree that this has promise; as much for
>reducing the publisher's costs as for (1) making it easier for new talent to
>break into the market -- potentially, at least -- and (2) potentially improving
>on the quality of the books themselves.
I disagree here. The actual costs of what electronic submissions
would save aren't all that great -- about $1,000-$2,000 for typsetting
costs, typically. And it assumes, at the minimum, compatible
hardware/software systems. And it makes OTHER facets of the production
processes, especially proofreading and copyediting, a royal pain.
>So -- the author sends his new manuscript through
>the spell checker and maybe "style" and/or "diction" if possible, and sends
>disks to the publisher. The publisher can then make a second pass through
>the spellchecker (and bounce MS's with too many errors back to the author),
>then feed the MS to PostScript, TeX, or whatever it is they use.
By the by, while I rely heavily on both a spell checker and a
style checker for OtherRealms, heavy reliance on this stuff is a good
way to get in trouble. Stuff for OtherRealms goes through three
separate copyediting cycles, using two people and one electronic
phase. And I STILL get too many typos.
Before you go killing the proofreader, take a look at (1) the
magnitude of the job, and (2) the time they're given to do it. Much
proofreading is done on a freelance basis, with an hourly rate. But if
you spend much more than 10 hours on a manuscript, you'll never be
given another one. So, you have a choice of either being thorough and
eating time, or rushing and possibly missing something. Add to that
the fact that once the galleys are edited, they go back to the author
for un-editing (um, clarification) and then off to a typesetter for
translation (and if you are lucky, THEY fix more problems then they
cause in the second go-round....). and if you're behind schedule,
someone verifies the typeset changes on the train home, and if you're
REAL lucky they may proofread a manuscript a second time (and if you
aren't, they may not. Which is where the real gaffes show up.....)
Now, this isn't really a defense of the publishers. There are lots
of improvements to be made, that should be made. But it is an attempt
to show that you can't 'solve' the problem by oversimplifying the
complexity of it. The publishers aren't stupid. Overworked and
underpaid, maybe, but not stupid. They know there are problems. The
fact that they haven't been fixed by now is not an indication of
sloth, but shows that it isn't something that is easy to fix.
chuq
---
Chuq "Fixed in 4.0" Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ
|