Misleading phrases like this are why I dislike Doctorow.
Just before that he tries to sell us on the idea that there are no alternatives when actually there are. For example, you don’t have to publish a book through the Big Five. There are many large and small independent publishers, and some authors have had good luck with self-publishing.
I do think copyright law needs reform, but don’t trust Doctorow to explain it properly.
And what alternatives existed for Wolf in the 80s? What value were publishers providing?
Like many industries, book publishers integrated: editing, production, marketing, and distribution. They may have also helped with licensing.
Would _Who Censored Roger Rabbit_ have been the success it was with a different publisher? These counterfactuals are hard to prove! (Look at the discussions this year around k pop demon hunters - how much credit does Netflix get for growing an objectively good film's audience? Reasonable people debate this!)
The big publishers do provide utility, but there's also an incredible asymmetry (they have trivially made many more book deals than any of their authors)
You don't need to tie yourself to distributor control if you catch fire and maintain your rights. It's never been easier to build your audience and personal brand.
VivziePop with Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss was able to do this on YouTube and then ink deals with Amazon and merch retailers (where the real money is). Her shows alone rake in over $100m and the merch significantly more.
Glitch with Murder Drones and Amazing Digital Circus did the same. And they've stolen a lot of high profile folks from Disney for Knights of Guinevere and upcoming shows.
Psychic Pebbles did it and how has an Adult Swim show. Joel Haver, lots of others...
This is basically what George Lucas was able to engineer with his 20th Century Fox deal to maintain merch rights. But it's even better for creators today.
> The big publishers do provide utility, but there's also an incredible asymmetry (they have trivially made many more book deals than any of their authors)
Literally doesn't matter in today's meta for people making music, video, or games. A substack or podcast following will do the same for authors.
It's not that this isn't hard. I'd argue it's harder to get noticed today now that everyone can make content. It's just that the power asymmetry is disappearing because you can hold onto more of your rights.
Today it's about building a brand following. If you can do that, the publishers will chase you.
It wasn't available for Wolf because nobody realized this strategy yet. A lack of Internet made it more difficult, but not impossible. George Lucas kind of got it.
This is incredibly incorrect! The examples you've pointed to illustrate the smiling curve [1].
Publishers still have an enormous amount of leverage and power, and that is extremely important for other businesses operating in that space. Not everybody is an individual creator, and some creators prefer to work on small teams. You're describing this incredible transformation of the value chain (who provides value, who captures value) while missing the point!!
> It's just that the power asymmetry is disappearing
This is so fundamentally untrue. Do individuals have more power? Yes! Their BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) is now "fine I can self publish and survive." That doesn't mean there's not a huge power asymmetry still. Without the blessing of Microsoft, Sony, Apple, valve it is hard to get my game featured. Can I still go viral? Of course! But listen to Zach Gage talk about the funding difference for making a game for Apple Arcade. It prefunds development and allows him to hire a team.
As for rights negotiations, even Taylor Swift had some difficulty reclaiming ownership of her masters. The power asymmetry is alive and well.
> Would you rather I delete my comment
No, I want you to read more carefully and engage with the things people are actually saying and not what you think they are saying from briefly skimming what they write.
> You're describing this incredible transformation of the value chain (who provides value, who captures value) while missing the point!!
Yikes. I really do not appreciate your unkind tone in these last few messages.
There's a really big trend you're missing by focusing on old anecdotes.
The creator economy is on pace to exceed the size of Hollywood and the music industry combined.
There are kids on Roblox making six figures while still in school. The next generation knows what's up - they want to be YouTubers and not movie stars, because they know how fundamentally the world has changed. How a world that once relied on nepotism is opening up more opportunity. (It's still hard, but you don't need the "right parents" anymore.)
$100M brands and franchises are launching on YouTube.
Publishers and distributors will take what they can get. They make money on volume now, and if they screw over publishers, new players enter to fill the gap.
You could even go raise capital on that narrative of servicing the creator economy. The VCs I've talked to are excited about it.
> But listen to Zach Gage talk about the funding difference for making a game for Apple Arcade.
It's becoming easier than ever to raise funding for video game development. There are now dozens of funds specially for this. Including funds that give you six figures without a demo if you've already worked in the industry.
> As for rights negotiations, even Taylor Swift had some difficulty reclaiming ownership of her masters.
Taylor Swift is a billionaire and she negotiated her early contracts two decades ago. Before steaming, ie. ancient times, ie. when dinosaurs roamed the earth. And she's found ways to wiggle out of them.
> There's a really big trend you're missing by focusing on old anecdotes.
We're talking about the same trend: the transformation of the publishing industry across all different types of media.
I'm not missing it. I'm paying attention to the context of this transformation and what it implies for all of the participants, not just individuals.
The point I was making in my original post is that an author in the 80s did not have the same options as a creator today. You have repeatedly responded by talking about how creators today have so much power.
Please, go read a piece about the smiling curve from Ben Thompson, because it's important. This trend implies that margins accrue to the two ends of the spectrum. Yes, individuals with low costs win, but also there is another side to the smiling curve. While life can be good as a YouTuber, TikTok, Meta, and Google are not taking risks on content like the publishers of old but they still reap the profits from media production. It is the creators who now bear the risks.
This also means that the traditional mechanisms of funding your book through an advance are fundamentally different (they exist, yes, but they're different)
And because the smiling curve implies a hollowing out of the middle, it is harder to survive as small publisher (see the transformation and aggregation of magazines, newspapers, tv stations)
Am I excited about this future? Yes! But it's not an unmitigated good. And one can't understand it if they don't know any of the historical context or see what's happening to other players in the industry
His book "Why None Of My Books Are Available On Audible: And why Amazon owes me $3,218.55" captures the soul, heart, nuance (and grammar) that he repeatedly brings to these issues.
He once sat in his basement for an entire month "playing the DRM off" his record collection. Resulting in twice compressed 128k MP3s and innumerable blog posts.
He set up two computers and manually played low-res DRM-protected MP3 files out of one and into the other for weeks, documenting the process on BoingBoing. He touted this not only as freedom but "preservation."
> He set up two computers and manually played low-res DRM-protected MP3 files out of one and into the other for weeks, documenting the process on BoingBoing. He touted this not only as freedom but "preservation."
I see. When I hear "record collection" I think of vinyl records, so I was quite confused how DRM was relevant there.
Sounds like the analog hole. You play DRM material out the audio port and at the same time capture the input of that and re-encode in a non-DRM format.
It's true that the alternatives may not be good, but if so it suggests that maybe publishing is a business that requires certain behavior.
I think the best thing that Doctorow could do is set up his own publishing business and show the big companies the right way to do it. If he's right, he'll get the best new talent and quickly succeed.
But I'm guessing he'll discover what the major companies know: the consumer is fickle, developing a new book/movie/song is expensive, and only a few hits pay for the rest.
There are plenty of fine, even higher quality and credibility, publishers out there.
In fact even a mediocre university press likely has higher standards, in just about every conceivable quality aspect, than even the best imprints of the big 5.
> some authors have had good luck with self-publishing
Indeed. What are the relative statistics on authors who have managed to bootstrap themselves vs. authors who make a comfortable living through the Big Five?
"The median income of full-time self-published authors in 2022 was $12,800 from books and $15,000 total from all author-related activities. Full-time self-published authors who had been publishing since at least 2018 reported a median income of $24,000 compared to $13,700 in 2018, a 76 percent increase."
Traditionally published commercial authors made about $10,000 more.
It’s not common, but it does happen. Andy Weir, author of “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary”, originally gave his work away for free online on his website. He only self-published to Kindle (for the lowest possible price setting, 99 cents) because some of his fans didn’t know how or didn’t want to manually install his home-rolled ePubs on their devices, and begged him for the Amazon/Kindle distribution.
He describes what he sees as a monopsony. That is not misleading. You can have lots of options and still be stuck in this monopsonistic (sp?) world that controls your rights and your financial future.
Just before that he tries to sell us on the idea that there are no alternatives when actually there are. For example, you don’t have to publish a book through the Big Five. There are many large and small independent publishers, and some authors have had good luck with self-publishing.
I do think copyright law needs reform, but don’t trust Doctorow to explain it properly.