Maybe it’s not cool or wise to be excited about one’s competition, but from the moment I first heard about Quartet Press, I was revved. Finally, someone with reputation, clout and know-how to make something happen, and maybe even impose some positive change in digital publishing!
Then they hired Angela James — who is the absolute best at what she does — and I thought, “Watch out, world. Here they come!”
And then, in the blink of an eye…there they went. Seeing as how I’m working on pneumonia atm, I thought for a minute I was hallucinating when I heard the news. But then I hit the blogosphere and learned it was true. There went a whole lot of hope and faith, straight into the toilet.
So now the post-mortem will begin with speculation — some wild, some vicious, some valid — and I’m thinking it might be time for an industry-wide reality check. Because from the start, while I was very excited to see what QP could do for the industry, as someone who’s spent the last 18 months buried deep in the digital publishing trenches, my first reaction was, “That’s awesome, but how the heck are they gonna pay everybody?”
What a lot of authors and indeed some industry professionals don’t understand is that while everyone was filled with “this is the future of publishing” joy and angst, the market was busy reinventing itself into the same old, same old. Digital publishing was supposed to have a much leaner “business model”. The middle man was gonna be cut out, there’d be no or few reserves against returns or returns, and everything was gonna be hunky dory and quick, fast money would be made by all.
[pause for the jaded laughter to subside]
Everything old has become new again for digital publishers. Online vendors — where a vast majority of sales take place due to consumer preference — now take anywhere from 35 to 60% right off the top. Add to that promotional deductions like rewards and other frequent-buyer perks, and the publisher is often looking at 25 – 30% of their list price actually coming back to them in revenue.
These expenses have completely and thoroughly replaced the cost of doing business once mocked as traditional publishing’s convoluted, bloated and inefficient business model. The market allowed itself to return to the status quo, and QP has now become the first very public casualty.
[pause for hats off to EC, for not allowing themselves to be held hostage by middlemen. You, too, have been doin it right for a good long while.]
If I were a venture capitalist or financial backer looking at the digital publishing business right now, I’d run away. The industry is not only at the mercy of the vendors, it’s also under the thumb of device developers who have their own ideas on how to make their investments pay out, including proprietary file types and bizarre DRM practices that pile expenses upon the digital publishers. Say what you will about how “easy” or “cheap” it is to produce quality digital product. I’m here to tell you that sure, if you want to pump out crappy files, it’s both cheap and easy. Hell, it’s free. But if you’re serious about making your product perfectly readable on countless dedicated and multi-purpose devices, digital publishers will have no choice but to put an enormous amount of 1) capital, 2) manhours and/or 3) both into quality assurance.
See, here’s the irony. Most ebook platforms are based on xhtml and, in part, CSS, both of which were never intended to mimic print convention. Never intended to do a LOT of things they’re now applied to, in fact. To make ebooks readable takes skill, time, and money, and digital publishers are shackled not only by coding languages that don’t lend themselves well to the practice, but by the fact that end-user specifications and device limitations can pretty well negate all progress made.
And epub? Digital publishing’s golden child? God love ‘em. Their heart’s in the right place and the device developers are starting to listen, but I still have a great number of reservations regarding the functionality and practicality of this file type. CSS, which ought to offer lifeblood to print convention concerns, just isn’t supported by devices claiming compatability, and…we’ve just got such a long way to go. Such a very, very long way to go in offering consumers something as easy and worry-free as sitting down and opening a book cover. They’re entitled to print convention expectations and ease of use.
Very, very, very long way to go.
At any rate, QP’s the one that got away. I don’t doubt that between non-negotiable vendor revenue-sinks, high-quality production, and an enormous amount of start-up funding needed (not to mention the amount of time it would take to earn that out and show profit), anyone interested in profit — and why would you be in business if you weren’t — would have to hit the brakes. It’s a good, solid business decision anyone in their right mind would have to agree with.
Of course, I’m not happy about it. I had hopes. And they had Angie James and authors, who did not deserve to be thrown under the bus. I’m very sorry for all involved. I’m more sorry for the readers who will be cheated out of what might have been.
