WSJ checks out the digital-age 'Vanity' Press

Increasing attention has been given to the unexpected success of several authors who have chosen to "self-publish" via digital text platforms such as Amazon's and are finding it much more rewarding than waiting for a large publisher to notice their work.

The Wall Street Journal's Geoffrey A. Fowler and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg report on the "technological disruption that's loosening traditional publishers' grip on the book market—and giving new power to technology companies like Amazon to shape which books and authors succeed."

  As in reports described in the earlier articles linked to above, they note the success of writers such as Karen McQuestion who decided to publish her own book online through Amazon's digital-publishing area and has sold, through Amazon's Kindle store, over 36,000 copies of "A Scattered Life," which has a film option with a Hollywood producer.  Amazon's imprint Amazon Encore will publish a paperback version along with a new Kindle edition in August.

  Publishers have been wary of the new power of technology companies to shape which authors and books succeed, circumventing the publishing establishment.

  This month Amazon is increasing the authors' take to 70% of revenue, and both Apple and Barnes & Noble have jumped on the digital self-publishing bandwagon.

  The WSJ story, which is quite thorough and very balanced includes a look at the field of competitors (photos included):  Smashwords (Mark Coker); Lulu (Bob Young); FastPencil (Steve Wilson); Scribd (Trip Adler), and Author Solutions (Kevin Weiss) as well as Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos of course.  It also includes a couple of videoclips, including Fowler "joining the Digits show to discuss how this is threatening the traditional book industry." and WSJ's Marshall Crook offering "a brief history of the book."  The article itself has its own introductory or overview video.

  After the latest look at the e-book pricing battles, the article focuses on Joe Konrath (AKA Jack Wilson) who, along with Karen McQuestion (and Boyd Morrison), often share the spotlight on their unanticipated but impressive success stories.

' Mr. Konrath says he's already earning more from self-published Kindle books that New York publishers rejected than from his print books. In the past 14 months, he has sold nearly 50,000 Kindle e-books, and at the current royalty rate, he makes $58,000 per year from his self-published works. When Amazon royalties double this summer, he expects to bring in $170,000 annually.

  ...the success of Ms. McQuestion's debut self-published novel, "A Scattered Life," illustrates perhaps the biggest long-term threat to traditional publishers: a replacement for their ability to curate and market books.

...CEO Jeff Bezos says Amazon wants to be a partner, not a threat, to publishers. "I think the real risk is that there are a multitude of publishers. Some of them are really forward leaning, and are really going after this new e-book area," he says. "If you are not one of those publishers, then I would be worried." '

They include a discussion of what would work best for authors and publishers in this new high-tension, competitive environment with large stakes for all.

A really interesting read.  More here...

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Murdoch wants more money for Kindle-WSJ

Well, Robert Murdoch wants more money for all his other news deliveries too, in general.
See the earlier article about Murdoch "rebuffing" the Amazon Kindle business model.  He said that Amazon wouldn't be getting his content, while others pointed out Amazon already had the Wall Street Journal content and books by Harper Collins.  If he didn't already know that (seems so), he may have gotten even more perturbed that this was a done deal in his case.  The sudden 50% increase in the Kindle pricing of the Wall Street Journal was made about 2.5 weeks later.  No other increases have been seen on the other Kindle newspaper offerings.

The Amazon Kindle Community forum response is something less than delight (with numerous reports of WSJ cancellations) over the WSJ price increase from $9.99/mo. to $14.99/mo. and one can wonder if Murdoch won't see a net loss on this.  He had bristled over the idea of the 30% or so said to be alloted to publishers while probably assuming that Amazon got the balance.
  As mentioned here in an entry posted on May 10

"According to a reliable source in the know, The New Yorker's Kindle split is divided 33% New Yorker, 33% Amazon, and 33% wireless carrier."

At Washington Post's paidcontent.org, Staci D. Kramer wrote, on May 6:

' Murdoch put it simply ...“We will not be ceding our content rights to the fine people who created the Kindle.  We will control the prices for our content and we will control our relationships with our customers.

' Any device maker or website which doesn't meet these basic criteria on content will not be doing business long-term with News Corporation.”

' Take this one of two ways: News Corp. will keep pushing other possibilities until Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) backs down on its controls (good luck with that) or News Corp. will opt for a device it either owns or at least controls and can use in a proprietary way. '

But then, WP's paidcontent.org added:

' (The perils of writing live about Murdoch.  In further comments, he brushed off the idea of News Corp. investing in a device, saying the company may invest in something experimentally: “We're not appliance makers.”  A spokesperson later explained that the decision about how News Corp will handle this literally hasn't been made yet.
' But in nearly the same breath, Murdoch bragged about 360,000 downloads of the free WSJ iPhone app over the past three weeks; that would be from the App Store operated by Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) with the same lack of control for News Corp.  It's as contradictory as offering the content-rich app for free and complaining about how the online business model has to change.

'   Then again, he promised that as soon as the technology is there, readers will be asked to pay “handsomely” for access. (It will be fascinating to see how many “free” readers pony up—and how much the WSJ charges.) '

  On May 11, Kramer wrote

' And, in today's reality, DJ [Dow Jones] is looking at any and every way to get more people to pay directly for access to the WSJ in a variety of forms, while encouraging current subscribers to pay even more by expanding offerings... '

For the WSJ-disenchanted who still want a good paper for financial news and analysis, try the Financial Times subscription, at $9.99, as they get an average of almost 5 stars from a good number of Amazon customer reviews.  The WSJ never did better than 3 stars in customer satisfaction.  The 14-day free trial applies to this also.