<![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Way to represent "1/5" with a picture that's 1/25 the original size.

SilverJacket

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> If I try and make a signature out of a cream suit, will Little, Brown buy my past-prime, drunken ramblings too?

EnviousJuno

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Totally agree that the "McBlockbuster" novel is a losing proposition on so many levels; unfortunately the spreadsheet/marketing types who run trade houses inevitably win the day, so that even the most visionary editors have to jump through ten thousand hoops to do something "risky" (like publish a chapter on Rick Moody going to a trans bar). Sadly (and here I climb upon my favorite soapbox), if 96 percent of an entire generation of literate and book-buying homos hadn't been offed in recent history, it might be a slightly different story today, since we are told that "suburban women" and their nauseating reading groups are the only book buyers left.

thegayrecluse

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> happy to see you blogging nick! but can you please use words like "whilst"?

ellagood

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @AndSheSaid: Someone should take that idea and write a blockbusterish book about it.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Brawndo: yeah, they have them, but then what? they can re-ship them (for a cost) and then if they don't sell a 2nd time around (likely), the publisher does have to eat the cost. so they've paid to produce books that don't earn back the money. Bookscan numbers are smaller because they don't account for libraries and indies.

@AndSheSaid: excellent point. i think long-term survival for the book publishing industry depends on adopting that model of thinking.

berryline

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> This whole argument is boring, however I would like to motion that all future info-graphics and charts use varying sizes of Tom Wolfe to illustrate... uh, everything.

flossy

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> I liked "I Am Charlotte Simmons" too.

LadyJ

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @MattGaymon:

I DO Know! But not all of the unsold copies make it back to the warehouse. So invariably, the numbers that the publishers have are always much larger than what Bookscan says.

Brawndo

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> As opposed to being an indicator of decline in publishing perhaps there is something positive to be said for an overblown, overrated writer not selling the books that his publisher expected him to sell.

It would be great if publishers would step back from the "blockbuster" model of book publishing. These books squeeze out countless other works that would have smaller runs but offer better quality and more diversity.

SheWalkedWithAZombie

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @judithbutler: re Was I the only one who like "I am Charlotte Simmons"?

Yes.

What is the matter with you?

SheWalkedWithAZombie

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @moff: Also: Thanks, you guys.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @soybomb: Oh, I know.

@FracturedAcetabulum: I should probably go to the hospital, or at least get some aloe.

@the supergoddess: Oh no. It's purely coincidental, but convenient, that I'm about to go take a cold shower.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Pope John Peeps II: the hair is thinning, but he is eminantly kissable. I saw him at a panel discussion with the N+1 dorks and that is when i fell in love with him.

berryline

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @berryline: awwww. is he kissable? does he have glasses and tousely hair? that's how I picture him.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Pope John Peeps II: he's a cutie pie, is who he is.

berryline

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @MattGaymon: and then the publishers eat the cost for warehousing and shipping those unsold books--and eventually, destroying them.

But! thank you gawker for ruining my fantasy of a publishing world run by bohemian artistes who sip cabernet and work for the love of literature, who care nothing for numbers or (shudder)profit. I had NO IDEA.

berryline

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Hmm. Well

here's a little link that recaps the story

here's an article written shortly after in 2003 about the state of Canadian publishing

here's a recent story about how we're actually dumber than Americans in literary terms. Which is surprising, but not that surprising. Noboby I know reads

and here's a link to an old New Yorker piece that says that in 2006, book sales were lower than ever. Who's Caleb Crain?

anyhow, I'm bored of googling things now.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Brawndo: No. Book retailers can return unsold books for full credit. I KNOW, right??

SchmatSchmaymon

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> I need that MBA/stats degree to properly explain this, but suffice to say that there are more literate people today (in this country and the world), who have more free time (perhaps to read?) and there are more books and magazines etc published now than at any time in history. The biz sucks because it is a monopoly owned by 2 germans. And what Brawndo said.

Newacademy

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @soybomb: Really? Wow. That would be unexpected, and contrary to the popular belief that nobody reads no more. I'll have to try and see what's actually going on in the Canadian publishing industry.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Am I the only one who knows that the discrepancy between the publisher's numbers and the actual sales lies in the fact that the publisher's own numbers always reflect how many books they sold to booksellers? Who gives a shit whether Bookscan says 100,000 or 10,000 of them were bought at Barnes and Noble. The small-number sold is the retailer's problem (that is until the author's next book arrives in stores and the order numbers come in low). If the publisher sold 1,000,000 copies to the retailers, then both they and the author have made their money.

Brawndo

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @moff: oh my darling, I'm totally humping your leg right now.

the supergoddess

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Pope John Peeps II: Ha!!! That was a thing of beauty.

DorothyMantooth

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @MattGaymon: Ask and you shall receive: Smallish, miniscule, 48.

TheBigDoggy

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @MattGaymon: I was wondering when someone would dare to go there.

contradicto

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @soybomb: Especially for a NY media blog that recently published a book of their own? A more interesting "revelation" would have been the announced run, actual run, and actual sales for THAT book.

SchmatSchmaymon

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @moff: Grandmoffbastard (that's what you'll always be to me). Dude. You are on fire today.

FracturedAcetabulum

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Publishers like to inflate print run numbers, but depress actual sales numbers (for obvious reasons). Authors, on the other hand, like to brag about their print run numbers, until someone gets a hold of their BookScan numbers, which they quickly (and rather futiley) point out is only 70 percent of the actual sales total. The bottom line is each book sells far less than its author claims but a bit more than the publisher will admit.

TheBigDoggy

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @moff: this really is a pretty clueless "story" for a ny media blog. i hate to say it, but maybe they should stick to j.a.?

debord at work

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Pope John Peeps II: Which one? News to me...

PimpMyCouch

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @picardia: @FormerEA: Shhhh. Go easy on the new guy.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Pope John Peeps II: just every launch/marketing meeting i've ever been to. I guess i could do some actual research, but i just get depressed. everyone please support your local indies, because B&N is to blame for this.

debord at work

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Publishers have always been inflating print run numbers -- this isn't some new event in response to lagging sales. But reported print runs aren't audited figures and ad sales aren't factoring into it, so they don't NEED to be. I think half the reported print run is a pretty decent estimate a lot of the time.

This is really doesn't qualify as a "hugely compromising bit of data" or even really ... news. Nice try.

FormerEA

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @judithbutler: I always thought that "I am Charlotte Simmons" and McInerney's "Story of My Life" were reminiscent of the kind of straight guys who always seem to find an excuse to dress up as women. Like Guiliani.

dado

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @soybomb: any links to support this theory?

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Pope John Peeps II: coming up. Shaken or stirred?

PattyCake

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @soybomb: I hear ms. smalls is getting into the publishing biz. You might want to tell her some of your ish.

FracturedAcetabulum

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @judithbutler: I, like thebigdoggy, ambitiously bought it and strained my back carrying it around, but just couldn't finish.

FracturedAcetabulum

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Aha! So Mr. Peanut has a real face after all.

Screen Name

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> also, my understanding is that it's not that publishers are selling less books than they used to, it's that they're saying they're selling more than they actually are. more people are buying books today than yesterday; more people are writing books too. ridiculously, in trying to convince the major chains to buy into percieved big books, publishers create these print-run halls of mirrors that can make even a healthy net-sale of 293,000 seem laughable (thus setting themselves up for future failure with the chains and more bland, lowest-common-denominator-but-salable authors). which is why i need to get out of book publishing.

debord at work

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @judithbutler: Nope. I know this girl on 73rd and Park who liked it.

gefilte_fish_blues

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Was I the only one who like "I am Charlotte Simmons"? I thought Man in Full was pretty good, too.

JudithButler

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @CodePink: Except for Gatsby & Hamlet, yep. Throw out the Oscar Diaz book you bought to impress the girl from Corona.

gefilte_fish_blues

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Those unsold books must have made one hell of a Bonfire of the Vain.

dweeb

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Does the mini travel-size Tom Wolfe come with a European adapter?

Hez

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Does this mean I should throw out all my books?

CodePink

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @soybomb: Well, it's true in my country at least. One of our two major publishers collapsed about five years ago. It was a pretty big shock to everyone who cared about literature, and assumed that other people did too.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> In other news, Gawker's looking like a ghost ship. Hey, Rip van Winkle! Hire someone who knows at least SOMETHING about traditional media, eh?

Bahloolia

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @Pope John Peeps II: a pretty conniving theory?

debord at work

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @picardia: Well, it's been obvious that books are dying out for a while now. A thousand pieces of circumstantial evidence add up to a pretty conving theory. So if every single book published sells quantitatively less than it used to (relative to population size increase), then presto: you gots yourself a conclusion.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Tom Wolfe's next novel will undergo a revision, in which the dozens of Miami characters will be merged into one sensible Miami housewife who has to learn how to hide vegetables in her kids' food.

Then Jerry Seinfeld will say something mean about Tom Wolfe, and everyone will realize Jerry Seinfeld's kind of a dick now.

The Tom Wolfe's next novel will be about a once-famous and beloved comedian who married an ambitious Jewy housewife and became a boring, vindictive person known for his voiceover work in movies about animated Llamas.

Then Tom Wolfe's novel after that will be about a once-great author who gets caught up in the vain, mudslinging world of international revenge-novel-writing. To escape from that unhealthy world, he has to learn how to hide vegetables in food from (plot twist) HIMSELF!!!!??!?!

God I'm good. Make me an agent.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> One book flopped! Books are dead!

Seriously, isn't this the kind of conclusion that the Times makes, and Gawker mocks?

picardia

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Actually, an advertisement for the start of the L word season is represented graphically to the left. Oh boy! Shane is hot!!!!! I can't believe she left Carmen after all Carmen did for her!!!!

gefilte_fish_blues

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Tommy just needs to commercialize his work a little bit. Don't be afraid to give the masses what they want.

For instance, my publisher has ordered an advance print run of 58 million copies of my latest book. Its working title is This Young Wizard Kid Discovers He's Magical at a Theme Park Filled with Reanimated Dinosaurs, and Also, That Snotty Little British Chick Actually Gets Naked in My Version of This Story.

Furious George

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> @TheBigDoggy: That's a stab wound from someone who did finish it.

Conbon

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> the only people who believe that book publishing remains a cultural haven are thems that don't work in it. paranormal romances come from somewhere, people. and they have exaggerated print runs too!

debord at work

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> Fascinating. But who do you think Jamie Lynn's baby daddy really is?

dado

]]> <![CDATA[The publishing industry's disappearing act]]> There should be a fourth box: Number of copies read from start to finish (I couldn't get through that rubbish, though not for lack of trying). I'd estimate the number of fully read copies at 10,000 (generously). And so THAT picture would be roughly the size of Wolfe's red carnation in the big picture.

TheBigDoggy

]]>