Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Bullocks versus Bollocks--veinglory
It seems to me that it often takes a certain kind of person to run a small business, seize a potion in an influential association or otherwise become influential in publishing. It is by no means a universal thing, but a certain bullish approach can be useful in getting any enterprise off the ground. Anyone who is easily dissuaded would ... well, not start a small business in the first place. Given the chances of the average e-publisher to succeed you might even need to be a little unrealistic and maybe a bit over-confident too. But even with e-publishing starting to feel like a pot of pop-corn of a low fire I don't think that you need to be crazy to run an epublisher, or even that it helps.
Because at the end of the day the ones that are running all over the internet attacking authors, reviewers and bloggers are not the ones that are doing a terribly good job as publishers. A focused ambitious publisher need not be too unrealistic or over-confident because they will have qualifications, start up capital and a market plan. You don't succeed as an epublisher through pure chance anymore than a manuscript comes out of the slush pile on the basis of a lottery drawing. And if you have a dispute, as some of the principles at Samhain and Ellora's Cave apparently do--you have the dispute with each others and if necessary through legal channels.
And when the whole thing hits the blogs they don't comment, they don't attack bystanders, throw insults around the blogverse and generally act like wet cats on crack as certain others are inclined too. And that is why the recent litigation does not in fact make me worry about the future of either publisher. This issue has brought back those persistent rumors (see comments) that things are going a bit downhill at Ellora's Cave, sales-wise, but given how much further up hill they currently are I don't doubt they are still very much leading the field. ¶ posted at 6:03 PM by Emily Veinglory
It seems to me that it often takes a certain kind of person to run a small business, seize a potion in an influential association or otherwise become influential in publishing. It is by no means a universal thing, but a certain bullish approach can be useful in getting any enterprise off the ground. Anyone who is easily dissuaded would ... well, not start a small business in the first place. Given the chances of the average e-publisher to succeed you might even need to be a little unrealistic and maybe a bit over-confident too. But even with e-publishing starting to feel like a pot of pop-corn of a low fire I don't think that you need to be crazy to run an epublisher, or even that it helps.
Because at the end of the day the ones that are running all over the internet attacking authors, reviewers and bloggers are not the ones that are doing a terribly good job as publishers. A focused ambitious publisher need not be too unrealistic or over-confident because they will have qualifications, start up capital and a market plan. You don't succeed as an epublisher through pure chance anymore than a manuscript comes out of the slush pile on the basis of a lottery drawing. And if you have a dispute, as some of the principles at Samhain and Ellora's Cave apparently do--you have the dispute with each others and if necessary through legal channels.
And when the whole thing hits the blogs they don't comment, they don't attack bystanders, throw insults around the blogverse and generally act like wet cats on crack as certain others are inclined too. And that is why the recent litigation does not in fact make me worry about the future of either publisher. This issue has brought back those persistent rumors (see comments) that things are going a bit downhill at Ellora's Cave, sales-wise, but given how much further up hill they currently are I don't doubt they are still very much leading the field. ¶ posted at 6:03 PM by Emily Veinglory
Comments:
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Well, I am slightly amazed that this is news to anyone because I heard that these two ePublisher owners did not exactly care for each other a while ago.
Seems to me though that Samhain's sky rocketing growth speaks for itself.
As far as industry secrets go... Come on, I find it hard to compare them as being run the same way or even looking the same.
Maybe they are aware of how Ellora's Cave does their thing but they obviously made other choices.
You can even just look at Samhain's website and see they have better covers, better editing, better distribution channels and more focus on what the customer wants.
If you want compare them to another ePublisher then look at Loose Id but that's just my opinion.
Seems to me though that Samhain's sky rocketing growth speaks for itself.
As far as industry secrets go... Come on, I find it hard to compare them as being run the same way or even looking the same.
Maybe they are aware of how Ellora's Cave does their thing but they obviously made other choices.
You can even just look at Samhain's website and see they have better covers, better editing, better distribution channels and more focus on what the customer wants.
If you want compare them to another ePublisher then look at Loose Id but that's just my opinion.
I'd have to agree with Teddypig, Samhain is poised to go places. EC, I don't know. As a reader I don't buy much from them--what I have bought has been consistently decent, but most of the ones I really loved were from a ways back in their backlist. But my tastes aren't necessarily in the norm, so I could be talking out of my ass here.
I've generally been happiest with my Samhain books--compared to LI and LSB, too. EC deserves to be successful, but if their sales come down a bit it isn't going to bankrupt them, either.
It is nice that the parties involved haven't made a public mess of things. That said, I confess to a bit of morbid curiosity as to the actual insider facts in the case (even though it's none of my business)... But then, I love watching married couples fight in public, and picking at scabs is a favorite pastime of mine.
I've generally been happiest with my Samhain books--compared to LI and LSB, too. EC deserves to be successful, but if their sales come down a bit it isn't going to bankrupt them, either.
It is nice that the parties involved haven't made a public mess of things. That said, I confess to a bit of morbid curiosity as to the actual insider facts in the case (even though it's none of my business)... But then, I love watching married couples fight in public, and picking at scabs is a favorite pastime of mine.
I agree Emily...how it is being handled so far (whether we like the pubs involved or not) is so much more professional than what we've seen in the last few months.
They have my respect for that.
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They have my respect for that.
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