On August 13, 2004, Wired News ran a story about Adam Engst, the Internet publishing pioneer. He founded in 1990 the second-longest-running magazine on the Internet–TidBits, a terrific Web site geared toward Macintosh users.
After thirteen years trying to make money on the Internet, Engst has finally hit on a solution, and it lies in “extreme publishing,” a term he’s carefully defined.
In discussing the “XP” business model, I’ll rely heavily on the Wired article. Consider this just a warm-up for an actual interview I hope I’ll have soon with him. But I can add my perspective as a former Godine editor and an ex-print publisher.
Take Control
Adam Engst’s Take Control Series is a series of ten or so books about setting up your Macintosh system operating system to setting up a wireless net work in your house. Each book is written by an independent contractor–paid a remarkable fifty percent royalty on each book the author publishes. This just does not happen in traditional print publishing these days, no matter who you are or how important; at least I’ve never heard of it. Of course it helps that his can sell his wares directly rather than being as heavily dependent on middlemen as most print publishers are.
Readers can download the books as PDF files for a nominal fee of ten or so dollars, and for that they will receive the equivalent of a book that they can also print off their computers such as Inkjets to use as tutorial guides that are right there in front of them. He does not use DRM and in fact says it “offends the sensibilities.”
Even better, the books come with an automatic update policy, which means when a book is updated, the new version is sent to the consumer. Yet another lesson for large publishers, besides his DRM policy?
Faster than p-books
As Wired notes–and as a former print publisher I can attest to this–the e-books are most timely because the turnaround time is quick. Print publishing, even at its best, takes generally at least one or even three or more years for books to go from “across the transom” to print.
Why it should take so much longer is a good question and one that perhaps merits an entirely different article, or podcast, since the production issues are not different. The only arguable problem that I can think of is that the printing takes longer and paper publishers generally have backlists.
Besides, many small, independent, paper-based literary presses do not even wish to see their books in e-book format out of love of typography that they feel just does not translate in the ether, nor does the texture and smell of paper. Some publishers will simply never go e-book, and these are the ones with printing presses in their barns and the like.
These are people to whom leading is lead, and so on; they know where the expression “Mind your Ps and Qs” comes from.
Broken
But back to Engst. He told Wired: “Publishing is broken. Sales are low, there’s no money, and deadlines and delays are a headache. You have three months to sell a book and then it’s obsolete.”
He may well be right.
Moderator’s Note: Check out Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti‘s biography. She is our new e-book reviewer. For possible review, Sadi welcomes books that fall within her personal interests listed there. Reach her at srpNOSPAMteleread.com. Her goal is to help readers discover good books, and, as the Bryson review shows, they may not necessarily be the most recent. On occasions, in fact, Sadi will discuss old classics in contemporary terms.
