JK Rowling, Stephen King – these names usually bring up images of bestselling authors who seem to have the publishing world wrapped around their fingers. Yet many, also consider the two the "crack" of the literary world, or at the very least, comparable to a gateway drug.

While many criticize Potter and King because they appear to be able to sell an unnatural amount of books, there is no doubt that because of the two, countless people have taken up reading and never looked back.

Melissa Fryer, who is the art editor for the Nanaimo News Bulletin, became hooked on reading after picking up a Stephen King book:

I became a serious reader of more adult-oriented books at about Grade 6, giving up Jessica, Elizabeth and their world at Sweet Valley High. I love the feel of new books; the smooth cover and tightly packed pages, so when I saw Four Past Midnight in the supermarket, I bought it.

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On July 21, a little over a month away, the new and final Harry Potter book will make it’s debut on bookshelves everywhere. For Harry Potter fans, the day cannot come soon enough. But not everyone is looking forward to July 21. No, I’m not talking about the anti-Harry Potter crowd (yes, they’re out there). Surprisingly, I’m talking about the bookstores that will be stocking the new book on their shelves.

That’s right. Given that the new/final book in the series will surely be a best-seller, bookstores probably won’t make very much money off of it, if any. An article from Yahoo! explains the problem:

"Everywhere you go there is huge, ridiculous discounting by the chains," said Graham Marks, children’s editor at the British-based trade magazine Publishing News.

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Oprah Winfrey’s infamous book club has made lots of headlines, both good and bad. Good because the books she recommends usually shoot to the bestseller list (although those lists aren’t a good judge of bestselling books. Read why that is here: Dirty little secrets). Bad because she has been heavily criticized for her promotion of James Frey’s memoir, that turned out to be mostly fiction. And who can forget the falling out she had with Jonathan Franzen, who snubbed her when she recommended his bestselling book The Corrections (aff link).

Good and bad press aside, Oprah is a polarizing figure. People either love her or they hate her. Whatever side of the line you fall on, it’s hard to doubt she has an enormous influence on pop culture.

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Publishing powerhouse Simon and Schuster has changed their author contracts so that the rights to a book may never revert back to the author. Agents and writer’s groups alike immediatley denounced the move by the publisher, as saying the change in the contract deviates from what has long been a standard industry practice. According to an article on Publisher’s Weekly’s website, the Author’s Guild was quick to respond:

Yesterday, the Authors Guild publicly raised the issue by sending an alert warning members about the change  and urging them to consider not doing business with S&S.

Simon and Schuster contends that that part of the contract is up for negotiation, however, many are quick to point out that if the publisher took the time to change the contract, then they must be pretty serious about keeping it the same. Thus only well-known, bestselling authors would be the only ones to have any chance of getting the contract changed to have more standard wording.

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In Part 1 I focused mainly on the unreliability of those bestseller lists that grace our nation’s newspapers at least once in a week.

In Part 2, I’m going to focus more on the publishing industry itself, the shrowd of secrecy surrounding book sales, and real world implications of this secrecy. As I said before, the "traditional" publishing industry is very secretive about book sales figures. But the big question here is: why? What advantage does it serve them to keep such numbers under wraps?

First, it might help to understand the reality of the publishing business: over half the books published won’t make money! That’s pretty disturbing. But it gets worse. In an article published by the LA Times in February 2007, there’s a quote by Albert Greco, an economist who studies the publishing industry:

"We estimate that out of every 10 hardcover adult books, seven lose money, two break even and one is a hit," he said. "So, of course, this business is secretive about sales. Would you want to tell the world that 70% of your output is losing money?"

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The publishing industry has a dirty little secret that it doesn’t want very many people to know about. No, it’s not a vast conspiracy against unpublished authors (although it can seem that way at times). No, it’s not even anything as exciting as collusion or price fixing. The secret: book sales figures!

What?

That’s right. Most publishers consider book sales figures to be proprietary information and only a select few within the industry know the real numbers. What’s even more interesting is that the weekly bestseller lists that everyone sees in their Sunday papers probably in no way reflect what book is a true "bestseller" and what book is not.

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A lot of the music I listen to is called "jam band" music (ie. Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers Band, etc) and a large part of the jam band scene is letting regular concert-goers record their concerts – free of charge (they still buy a ticket, however). In fact, the Grateful Dead, probably one of the most well known jam bands, even set up an area just for "tapers" as their called, to make recording more easy and accessible.

This type of free recording and exchanging of music helped bands like the Grateful Dead achieve cult status with an enormous following.

What in the heck does this have to do with writing or literature? Good question!

In my most recent issue of "Poets and Writers" Magazine (aff link), there’s an article entitled "Creative Copyrighting". The article details how Jonathan Lethem, a best-selling novelist, is approaching the copyrights of his books and how the exclusive movie adaptation rights to one of his books will be awarded. It won’t be to whatever Hollywood blowhard offers him the most money.

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There’s a new twist to the bookseller scam that I wrote about a few posts ago. According to a April 3 article on the Publisher’s Weekly website, Ingram has offered a refund to booksellers who got duped by the scam.

Just to recap: someone used a fake name, phone number and credit card number to place special orders with booksellers for the short story collection The Shortcut: 20 Stories To Get You From Here To There. The bookseller would then order the copies, but when it came time to charge the customer, they’d find out it’s a fraud. The result was booksellers across the country were stuck with unwanted copies of this book.

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A recent article by Publisher’s Weekly has uncovered a strange scam involving a self-published book, a man using a fake name, and unsuspecting booksellers around the country. The man, using the name Michael Evers, would call up booksellers to order the book The Shortcut: 20 Stories to Get You from Here to There, givinga fake phone and credit card number. The bookseller would then order the book from Ingram, but when it came time to charge Mr. Evers’ credit card, they discovered the card was a fake – after they already received copies of the title. This left the bookseller with unwanted copies of a book that is non-returnable.

If this scam isn’t bad enough, read this excerpt from the Publisher’s Weekly article:

The book is a short story collection edited by Danna Curran. It features 20 short stories—most of them public domain tales from classic authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Charlotte Bronte, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens and Bram Stoker. Sprinkled in this mix is a few current novice authors hoping to attract attention by being in such good company.

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