Let's talk about the Castle. You know, the one that used to exist and house the publishing elite? It now lies in ruins. Indies don't even have to seige it anymore. You know why? The Royals are destroying it from the inside. It's so nice when an enemy takes care of destroying themselves. It lets all the indie writers just smile as we press forward with our WIPs.
Two pieces of news inspired this post. More recently - just this week - e-book sales figures for January, 2011 were announced. Sales for January, 2011 more than doubled over numbers for January, 2010. In January of this year, sales were 115% better than they were just a year earlier. E-books outsold hardcovers and mass market paperbacks in January.
While news of e-books outselling traditional books just made it to the public's eyes, industry insiders would've had these figures for quite a while now. If they didn't have the hard numbers, the Royals had enough data by late February to see that this whole e-book thing that they'd ignored and underrated, well, maybe it deserved more of their attention. So they gave it - in the wrong way, of course.
In late February HarperCollins proved that the stupidity of a publishing house can not be overstated. HC announced on 2/25/11 that new titles of ebooks licensed by public libraries could only be checked out 26 times before the license would expire. The company's move shows the snobbery of the literary elite and its utter lack of concern for the plight of millions of Americans. HC couldn't have made it any clearer if they'd rented a billboard in Times Square and displayed the message in flashing neon: The type of people who use public libraries aren't the type of customers we want anyway.
Yes, Virginia, HarperCollins' magnificent blunder showed us what the company really believes. It's proof positive of how terrorized the Royals are these days. Likely, it's an attitude long held at the posh New York addresses where the Royals' movers and shakers resided - secure behind Castle Walls. The Walls and the Literary Agent Gatekeepers protected the Royals from having to deal with either the Commoners whose work was the Royals' stock in trade or the Commoners who bought the work, spending the money that built the Castle.
Well surely, thought the HC Royals, even in this hideous new reality where we might have to deal with common writers and customers, we have no need to pander to people who haven't even bought the books. To the Royals, the kind of people who'd check out an ebook from a public library are the kind of people who don't deserve courtesy, respect or consideration. And the librarians who voluntarily deal with such riff raff every day, well they're hardly better than the freeloaders they serve. Why should HarperCollins care about librarians or public library customers, anyway?
You know what? I'm one reason they should care. I grew up poor so I was a regular customer of my local public library. I discovered romance novels there and checked them out by the armfuls. And I started dreaming that one day, I'd write some of those books and I knew that I'd grow up to buy a whole bunch of 'em. Because I might have been poor but I was smart. So I grew up and went to college and then to law school. I got a job and have practiced law for a whole bunch of years. DURING ALL OF 'EM, I'VE BEEN BUYING BOOKS. See, I learned to love books because of those early days, when a trip to the public library was a big treat.
And HarperCollins still isn't likely to worry about little ole' me, but it damn sure should worry about an America full of people exactly like me. In bad times the budget may not stretch to buy a bunch of books, but America isn't a country where the bad times will last forever. Americans are achievers who believe that they can build and do and grow. We've done it before and we'll do it again. But we've got long memories.
I don't think a lot of Americans will soon forgive a company that's unwilling to invest in the American dream or in the American dreamers.
A lot of people are very upset at HC and that ire has rubbed off on Overdrive, the digital lending servicing company that places most books in libraries - including HarperCollins. The Overdrive president took steps to try to distance his company from HC, announcing that now librarians will have 2 catalogs to order from - the regular catalog and a separate one with only HC books listed. That makes it easier for librarians to avoid HC books like the proverbial plague.
HC tried to defend its idiotic move and issued a letter to librarians in which it claimed that if the current ebook lending system were left in place, the "emerging e-book eco-system" would be "undermined". HC's letter states that the company is "...looking to balance the mission and needs of libraries and their patrons with those of authors and booksellers, so that the library channel can thrive alongside the growing e-book retail channel."
In other words, HC doesn't want to hurt sales so it's choosing to hurt a generation of future e-book buyers. Hanh?? Speaking as one of those authors who has royalties at stake, I'd be honored to have public libraries carry my books. I've offered them to Chapin Library in Myrtle Beach. See, unlike HC, I believe that you can not build a future for e-books or their authors at the expense of today's library patrons who will be tomorrow's e-book buyers.
I started this post by saying the Royals are now tearing down the Castle from the inside. They're grabbing for today's dollars at the expense of a generation of young readers whose hunger for knowledge has to take a back seat to their hunger for food, to their need to pay to keep a roof over their heads and gas in their car. That's sad. It's tragic. But it's not how they're destroying the Castle from the inside. They're doing that because they've forgotten that writers don't just write for the money. Writers want to tell their stories and they want people to read their stories.
Back in the day when I was a regular public library patron, publishers didn't just publish for the money either. And that's why a little girl with stars in her eyes would climb on a stool to reach for that book on the top shelf. She'd take it down carefully and think about all the amazing people who'd written the book and printed the book so that it was here, right here, free for her to read. It would feed her dreams and people who could make dreams grow, well they must be magic - like fairy tale princes and princesses who lived in a Castle.
Those days, those dreams aren't gone for the writers, but apparently, publishing today is only about the money.