No one buys books 没人买书
Everything we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. DOJ.
我们从企鹅出版社与司法部的诉讼中学到了关于出版业的一切。
In 2022, Penguin Random House wanted to buy Simon & Schuster. The two publishing houses made up 37 percent and 11 percent of the market share, according to the filing, and combined they would have condensed the Big Five publishing houses into the Big Four.
2022年,企鹅兰登书屋想要收购西蒙与舒斯特。文件显示,这两家出版社分别占据了 37% 和 11% 的市场份额,如果将它们合并起来,五大出版社将合并为四大出版社。
But the government intervened and brought an antitrust case against Penguin to determine whether that would create a monopoly.
但政府介入并对企鹅公司提起反垄断诉讼,以确定这是否会造成垄断。
The judge ultimately ruled that the merger would create a monopoly and blocked the $2.2 billion purchase. But during the trial, the head of every major publishing house and literary agency got up on the stand to speak about the publishing industry and give numbers, giving us an eye-opening account of the industry from the inside.
法官最终裁定合并将形成垄断,并阻止了 22 亿美元的收购。但在庭审过程中,各大出版社和文学机构的负责人都站上证人席,谈论出版业并给出数字,从内部让我们大开眼界。
All of the transcripts from the trial were compiled into a book called
审判的所有笔录都被编入一本书,名为The Trial. It took me a year to read, but I’ve finally summarized my findings and pulled out all the compelling highlights.
试用。我花了一年的时间来阅读,但我终于总结了我的发现并列出了所有引人注目的亮点。
I think I can sum up what I’ve learned like this: The Big Five publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for big celebrities like Britney Spears and franchise authors like James Patterson and this is the bulk of their business.
我想我可以这样总结我所学到的东西:五巨头出版社将大部分资金花在布兰妮·斯皮尔斯(Britney Spears)等大名人和詹姆斯·帕特森(James Patterson)等特许作家的图书预付款上,这是他们的大部分业务。
They also sell a lot of Bibles, repeat best sellers like
他们还出售很多圣经,重复畅销书,例如Lord of the Rings, and children’s books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
《指环王》和《好饿的毛毛虫》等儿童读物。
These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund their vanity project: publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing (which make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies).
这两个市场类别(名人书籍和重读畅销书)构成了整个出版业,甚至为他们的虚荣项目提供资金:出版我们在考虑图书出版时想到的所有其他书籍(这不赚钱)根本没有,通常销量不到 1,000 份)。
But let’s dig into everything they said in detail.
但让我们详细研究一下他们所说的一切。
Bestsellers are rare 畅销书很少见
In my essay “Writing books isn’t a good idea” I wrote that, in 2020, only 268 titles sold more than 100,000 copies, and 96 percent of books sold less than 1,000 copies. That’s still the vibe.
我在《写书不是一个好主意》一文中写道,2020年,只有268种图书销量超过10万册,96%的图书销量不足1000册。依然是这样的氛围。
Q. Do you know approximately how many authors there are across the industry with 500,000 units or more during this four-year period?
问:您知道在这四年期间,整个行业大约有多少位拥有 50 万或更多单位的作者吗?A. My understanding is that it was about 50.
答:据我了解,大约有 50 个。Q. 50 authors across the publishing industry who during this four-year period sold more than 500,000 units in a single year?
问:出版业中有 50 位作者在这四年期间单年销量超过 500,000 册?A. Yes. 答:是的。
— Madeline Mcintosh, CEO, Penguin Random House US
— Madeline Mcintosh,美国企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官
The DOJ’s lawyer collected data on 58,000 titles published in a year and discovered that 90 percent of them sold fewer than 2,000 copies and 50 percent sold less than a dozen copies.
DOJ 的律师收集了一年内出版的 58,000 本书的数据,发现其中 90% 的销量不到 2,000 册,50% 的销量不到 12 册。
In my essay “No one will read your book,” I said that publishing houses work more like venture capitalists. They invest small sums in lots of books in hopes that one of them breaks out and becomes a unicorn, making enough money to fund all the rest.
在我的文章“没有人会读你的书”中,我说出版社的运作方式更像是风险投资家。他们在大量书籍上投入小额资金,希望其中一本能脱颖而出,成为独角兽,赚到足够的钱来资助其余的书籍。
Turns out, they agree!
事实证明,他们同意了!
Every year, in thousands of ideas and dreams, only a few make it to the top. So I call it the Silicon Valley of media. We are angel investors of our authors and their dreams, their stories.
每年,在成千上万的想法和梦想中,只有少数能够达到顶峰。所以我称其为媒体硅谷。我们是我们的作者及其梦想和故事的天使投资者。
That’s how I call my editors and publishers: angels… It’s rather this idea of Silicon Valley, you see 35 percent are profitable; 50 on a contribution basis. So every book has that same likelihood of succeeding.
我就是这么称呼我的编辑和出版商的:天使……这更像是硅谷的想法,你看 35% 是盈利的; 50 以捐款为基础。因此,每本书都有相同的成功可能性。— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Random House
— 马库斯·多勒,企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官
Those unicorns happen every five to 10 years or so.
这些独角兽每五到十年左右就会出现一次。
We’re very hit driven. When a book is successful, it can be wildly successful. There are books that sell millions and millions of copies, and those are financial gushes for the publishers of that book, sometimes for years to come… A gusher is once in a decade or something.
我们非常受打击。当一本书成功时,它可能会取得巨大的成功。有些书的销量高达数百万册,这对于该书的出版商来说是一笔巨额资金,有时甚至是未来几年的资金……井喷是十年一次之类的。
For instance, I don’t know if you know the
比如,不知道你是否知道Twilight series of books? Hachette published the Twilight series of books, and those made hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of time.
暮光之城系列的书?阿歇特出版了《暮光之城》系列书籍,随着时间的推移,这些书籍赚了数亿美元。Right now the novels of Colleen Hoover are topping the bestseller lists in really, really huge numbers and the publishers of those books are making a lot of money. You probably remember The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo… Or the Fifty Shades of Grey series. So once every five years, ten years, those come along for the whole industry and become the industry driver that’s drawing people into bookstores because there is such a commotion about them.
目前,科琳·胡佛的小说数量非常非常多地位居畅销书排行榜榜首,这些书的出版商也赚了很多钱。你可能还记得《龙纹身的女孩》……或者《五十度灰》系列。因此,每五年、十年,整个行业就会出现一次,并成为吸引人们进入书店的行业驱动力,因为它们引起了如此大的骚动。— Michael Pietsch, CEO, Hachette
— Michael Pietsch,阿歇特首席执行官
Big advances go to celebrities
名人获得巨额进步
They spent a lot of the trial talking about books that made an advance of more than $250,000—they called these “anticipated top-sellers.” According to Nicholas Hill, a partner at Bates White Economic Consulting, 2 percent of all titles earn an advance over $250,000.
他们在审判中花了很多时间谈论预付款超过 25 万美元的书籍——他们称之为“预期的畅销书”。 Bates White Economic Consulting 合伙人 Nicholas Hill 表示,所有图书中有 2% 的预付款超过 25 万美元。
Publisher’s Marketplace says it’s even lower.
出版商市场称这个数字甚至更低。
Top-selling authors were defined as those receiving advances (i.e., guaranteed money) in excess of $250,000. Far fewer than 1 percent of authors receive advances over that mark; Publishers Marketplace, which tracks these things, recorded 233 such deals in all of 2022.
畅销书作者被定义为预付款(即保证金)超过 25 万美元的作者。远低于 1% 的作者收到超过该分数的预付款;追踪这些事情的出版商市场 (Publishers Marketplace) 在 2022 年全年记录了 233 笔此类交易。— ken whyte, Publisher at Sutherland House
— ken Whyte,Sutherland House 出版商
Hill says titles that earn advances over $250,000 account for 70 percent of advance spending by publishing houses. At Penguin Random House, it’s even more. The bulk of their advance spending goes to deals worth $1 million or more, and there are about 200 of those deals a year.
希尔表示,预付款超过 25 万美元的图书占出版社预付款的 70%。在企鹅兰登书屋,情况甚至更多。他们的预付款大部分用于价值 100 万美元或以上的交易,每年大约有 200 笔此类交易。
Of the roughly $370 million they say PRH accounts for, $200 million of that goes to advance deals worth $1 million or more.
他们表示,在公屋的大约 3.7 亿美元中,其中 2 亿美元用于推进价值 100 万美元或以上的交易。
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbe5fb286-2193-431d-9a1b-1c473eb8ca9a_1288x748.png)
该图表显示,随着预付款的增加,更多预付款来自财力最雄厚的企鹅兰登书屋。
Most of those are deals with celebrities. And Penguin gets most of them.
其中大部分是与名人的交易。企鹅得到了其中的大部分。
Books by the Obamas sold so many copies they had to be removed from the charts as statistical anomalies.
奥巴马夫妇的书籍销量如此之多,以至于不得不作为统计异常从排行榜上删除。
There are giant celebrities Michelle Obama where you know it’s going to be a top seller.
有巨星米歇尔·奥巴马 (Michelle Obama),你就知道它会成为畅销书。— Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Literary Agent
— 詹妮弗·鲁道夫·沃尔什,文学经纪人
Because they are so lucrative, Gallery Books Group focuses its efforts on trying to get celebrities to write books.
由于名人写书利润丰厚,画廊图书集团致力于吸引名人写书。
75 percent [of our] acquisitions come from approaching celebrities, politicians, athletes, the “celebrity adjacent,” etc. That way, we can control the content…. We are approaching authors and celebrities and politicians and athletes for ideas.
[我们] 75% 的收购来自于接近名人、政客、运动员、“名人邻近”等。这样,我们就可以控制内容……。我们正在向作家、名人、政治家和运动员寻求想法。
So it’s really we are on the look out. We are scouts in a lot of ways…
所以我们确实在密切关注。我们在很多方面都是球探……— Jennifer Bergstrom, SVP, Gallery Books Group
— Jennifer Bergstrom,Gallery Books Group 高级副总裁
Bergstrom said her biggest celebrity sale was Amy Schumer who received millions of dollars for her advance.
伯格斯特罗姆说,她最大的名人销售是艾米·舒默,她的预付款获得了数百万美元。
We’ve had a lot of success publishing musicians, I mentioned Bruce Springsteen. We’ve also published Bob Dylan and Linda Ronstadt, a lot of entertainers through the years… There was a political writer, Ben Shapiro, who has a very popular podcast and a large following. We also competed with HarperCollins for that.
我们在出版音乐家方面取得了很多成功,我提到了布鲁斯·斯普林斯汀。我们还出版了鲍勃·迪伦和琳达·朗斯塔特,这些年来有很多艺人……还有一位政治作家本·夏皮罗,他有一个非常受欢迎的播客和大量的追随者。我们还为此与哈珀柯林斯公司竞争。— Jonathan Karp, CEO, Simon & Schuster
— 乔纳森·卡普 (Jonathan Karp),西蒙与舒斯特公司首席执行官
Penguin Random House US has guidelines for who gets what advance:
美国企鹅兰登书屋针对谁获得预付款制定了指导方针:
Category 1: Lead titles with a sales goal of 75,000 units and up
第 1 类:销售目标为 75,000 套及以上的主导游戏Advance: $500,000 and up 预付款:500,000 美元及以上
Category 2: Titles with a sales goal of 25,000-75,000 units
第 2 类:销售目标为 25,000-75,000 份的游戏Advance: $150,000-$500,000
预付款:$150,000-$500,000
Category 3: Titles with a sales goal of 10,000-25,000 units
第 3 类:销售目标为 10,000-25,000 份的游戏Advance: $50,000- $150,000
预付款:$50,000-$150,000
Category 4: Titles with a sales goal of 5,000 to 10,000 units
第 4 类:销售目标为 5,000 至 10,000 份的游戏Advance: $50,000 or less 预付款:50,000 美元或以下
Is anyone else alarmed that the top tier is book sales of 75,000 units and up? One post on Substack could get more views than that…..
是否还有人对图书销量达到 75,000 册及以上而感到震惊? Substack 上的一篇文章可能会获得比这更多的浏览量……
Franchise authors are the other big category
特许经营作家是另一大类
Franchise authors are the other big category. Walsch says James Patterson and John Grisham get advances in the “many millions.” Putnam makes most of its money from repeat authors like John Sandford, Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Lisa Scottoline, and others.
特许经营作家是另一大类。沃尔什说詹姆斯·帕特森和约翰·格里沙姆获得了“数百万美元”的预付款。普特南的大部分收入来自约翰·桑福德、克莱夫·库斯勒、汤姆·克兰西、丽莎·斯科托林等重复作家。
Q. Putnam typically publihses about 60 books a year. Correct?
问:普特南通常每年出版约 60 本书。正确的?A. 60, 65, sort of on naverage… I will say of those 65, though, a good portion of those are repeat authors… franchise authors that we regularly publish every year, sometimes twice a year.
答:60、65,大概是平均水平……不过,我要说的是,这 65 本书中,很大一部分是重复作者……我们每年定期出版的特许作者,有时每年出版两次。— Sally Kim, SVP and Publisher, Putnam
— Sally Kim,Putnam 高级副总裁兼发行人
Publishing houses want a built-in audience
出版社想要固定的读者
The advantage of publishing celebrity books is that they have a built-in audience.
出版名人书籍的好处是拥有固定的读者群。
In some of the cases, the reason they are paying big money is because the person has a big platform. And if that platform is there for the advertising, then the spend might be lower.
在某些情况下,他们支付大笔费用的原因是这个人拥有一个大平台。如果该平台用于广告,那么支出可能会更低。— Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, former Agent
——詹妮弗·鲁道夫·沃尔什,前特工
Macmillan agrees. 麦克米伦对此表示同意。
Q. Would you agree that those type of authors, meaning the ones with the built-in audience, are also authors who would command a high advance if they went to a traditional publisher like Macmillan or PRH?
问:您是否同意这类作者,即那些拥有固定读者的作者,如果他们去麦克米伦或 PRH 等传统出版商,也是可以获得高额预付款的作者?A. That’s a broad brush. But, yes…
答:这是一个广泛的概念。但是,是的…Q. And you’re willing to pay more if they have a significant following?
问:如果他们拥有大量追随者,您愿意支付更多费用吗?A. Yes. 答:是的。
— Donald Weisberg, CEO, Macmillan Publishers
— 唐纳德·韦斯伯格,麦克米伦出版公司首席执行官
They give some examples: 他们举了一些例子:
The Butcher and the Wren… this particular author has a big following, and with a single post on Instagram, she presold over 40,000 books.
《屠夫与鹪鹩》……这位作家拥有大量追随者,仅在 Instagram 上发布一条帖子,就预售了超过 40,000 本书。
So, I mean, that’s just staggering from a per copy perspective, and it pretty much guarantees a number one spot on the New York [Times] best seller list when it’s published in September.
所以,我的意思是,从每份副本的角度来看,这简直是令人震惊,而且它几乎可以保证在 9 月份出版时在《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜上占据第一名。— Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, former Agent
——詹妮弗·鲁道夫·沃尔什,前特工
A big audience means publishing houses don’t have to spend money on marketing
大量的受众意味着出版社不必在营销上花钱
These big advances, the authors have quite a bit of their own infrastructure with them. They have their own publicists. They have their own social media people. They have their own newsletters.
这些巨大的进步,作者拥有相当多自己的基础设施。他们有自己的公关人员。他们有自己的社交媒体人员。他们有自己的时事通讯。
So they actually are able—we are able to offload a good amount of the work, not all the time, but that is actually a factor in why we sometimes pay these big advances, because the authors are actually capable of helping us a lot.
所以他们实际上是有能力的——我们能够卸载大量的工作,但并非总是如此,但这实际上是我们有时支付这些大笔预付款的一个因素,因为作者实际上有能力帮助我们很多。— Jonathan Karp, CEO, Simon & Schuster
— 乔纳森·卡普 (Jonathan Karp),西蒙与舒斯特公司首席执行官
For example: 例如:
Q. Who is the best selling Simon & Schuster author currently?
问:目前西蒙与舒斯特最畅销的作家是谁?
A. Right now it’s Colleen Hoover.
答:现在是科琳·胡佛。
Q. Does she have the highest marketing budget that Simon & Schuster pays?
问:她的营销预算是西蒙与舒斯特支付的最高吗?
A. No. 答:没有。
Q. Why is that?
问:这是为什么?
A. She’s the queen of TikTok, and so she has a huge following on TikTok.
答:她是TikTok女王,所以她在TikTok上拥有大量粉丝。— Jonathan Karp, CEO, Simon & Schuster
— 乔纳森·卡普 (Jonathan Karp),西蒙与舒斯特公司首席执行官
Related: 有关的:
[One author wrote] paranormal, so it’s sexy vampires. This book was probably her 21st book. So she’s what I would call a franchise author. She’s very established.
[一位作者写道]超自然现象,所以它是性感的吸血鬼。这本书可能是她的第 21 本书。所以她就是我所说的特许作家。她非常成熟。
Though we spent $1.2 million on the book, we spent about $62,000 on the marketing and publicity because she had such an established fan base…
虽然我们在这本书上花了 120 万美元,但我们在营销和宣传上花费了大约 62,000 美元,因为她拥有如此稳定的粉丝基础……[Another author is] a celebrity-adjacent author, but also her platform was on social media. So we paid $450,000 for her book, and we spent $36,000 on the marketing and publicity.
[另一位作者]是一位与名人相邻的作家,但她的平台也是在社交媒体上。所以我们为她的书支付了 450,000 美元,并在营销和宣传上花费了 36,000 美元。
We didn’t need to spend more than that because she already booked at that point on Good Morning America, The Today Show. So publicity drove that, and that didn’t cost us.
我们不需要花更多的钱,因为她当时已经预订了《早安美国》、《今日秀》。所以宣传推动了这一点,而这并没有让我们付出代价。— Jennifer Bergstrom, SVP, Gallery Books Group
— Jennifer Bergstrom,Gallery Books Group 高级副总裁
Just goes to show that the main thing an author gets from a publishing house is an advance!
只是表明作者从出版社获得的主要东西是预付款!
Publishing houses pay for Amazon placement
出版社支付亚马逊展示位置费用
Every second book in America, ballpark, is being sold via e-commerce…Amazon.com has 50 million books available.
在美国,大约有两本书是通过电子商务销售的……亚马逊网站上有 5000 万本书。
A bookstore, a good independent bookstore, has around 50,000 different books available… an algorithm decides what is being presented and made visible and discoverable for an end consumer online. It makes a huge difference.
一家书店,一家优秀的独立书店,提供大约 50,000 种不同的书籍……算法决定所展示的内容以及最终消费者在线可见和发现的内容。它制造了巨大的差异。— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Random House
— 马库斯·多勒,企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官
Publishing houses try to game the algorithm and even pay to get ahead of it.
出版社试图对算法进行博弈,甚至付费以领先于算法。
Q. Penguin Random House has hired data scientists to try and figure out these algorithms so that its books get better presented on Amazon than its competitors’ books?
问:企鹅兰登书屋已聘请数据科学家来尝试找出这些算法,以便其图书在亚马逊上比竞争对手的图书得到更好的展示?A. One of the many efforts that we pursue, correct.
答:我们所追求的众多努力之一是正确的。Q. And Penguin Random House pays Amazon to improve its search results?
问:企鹅兰登书屋向亚马逊付费以改善其搜索结果?A. There is something that is available to our publishers, it’s called Amazon Marketing Services, AMS, and all publishers can spend money and give it to Amazon to have hopefully better search results.
答:有一种东西可供我们的发布商使用,它称为亚马逊营销服务,AMS,所有发布商都可以花钱并将其交给亚马逊,以期获得更好的搜索结果。— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Random House
— 马库斯·多勒,企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官
But even celebrity books don’t sell…
但即使是名人的书也卖不出去……
Ayesha Pande, president of Ayesha Pande Literary, says that 20 percent of her authors earn out their advance—if she’s being generous.
阿伊莎·潘德文学社 (Ayesha Pande Literary) 总裁阿耶莎·潘德 (Ayesha Pande Literary) 表示,如果她慷慨的话,她的 20% 的作者都会获得预付款。
The single most important contract term is the advance…Because in a large number of cases, it may be the only compensation that the author will receive for their work.
最重要的合同条款是预付款……因为在很多情况下,这可能是作者因其工作而获得的唯一报酬。— Ayesha Pande, President, Ayesha Pande Literary
——阿耶莎·潘德,阿耶莎·潘德文学社主席
Even celebrity books flop.
即使是名人书籍也会失败。
There are plenty of books that we spend $1 million on the advance and published them last year and they did not even make the top 1,000 on BookScan… Less than 45 percent of those books [that we spend a million dollars on] end up on that thousand best seller list.
有很多书是我们去年花费 100 万美元预付并出版的,但它们甚至没有进入 BookScan 的前 1,000 名……这些书籍(我们花费 100 万美元购买)最终只有不到 45%千本畅销书排行榜。— Madeline Mcintosh, CEO, Penguin Random House US
— Madeline Mcintosh,美国企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官
Just because the publisher pays $250,000 or $500,000 or $1 million for a book does not guarantee that a single person is going to buy it. A lot of what we do is unknowable and based on inspiration and optimism.”
仅仅因为出版商为一本书支付了 25 万美元、50 万美元或 100 万美元,并不能保证有人会购买它。我们所做的很多事情都是不可知的,都是基于灵感和乐观。”— Michael Pietsch, CEO, Hachette
— Michael Pietsch,阿歇特首席执行官
Even celebrities, though sometimes you think it’s going to be a big best seller, it flops. It happens… I mean, Andrew Cuomo’s book was sold at the height of his being America’s governor during the COVID crisis. I mean, that book was sold for $5 million, I believe.
I don’t know for a fact. But by the time it came out, the nursing home scandal had happened, the Me Too issues, and the book didn’t do any business.Sometimes it’s just a timing issue, like Marie Kondo. She did a book about Joy at Work, about making your office sparked with joy because it’s not cluttered. It published in March of 2020.
有时这只是一个时间问题,就像近藤麻理惠那样。她写了一本关于《工作中的快乐》的书,讲述的是让你的办公室充满快乐,因为它不杂乱。它于 2020 年 3 月出版。— Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Literary Agent
— 詹妮弗·鲁道夫·沃尔什,文学经纪人
Having a lot of social media followers or fame doesn’t guarantee it will sell. The singer Billie Eilish, despite her 97 million Instagram followers and 6 million Twitter followers, sold only 64,000 copies within eight months of publishing her book. The singer Justin Timberlake sold only 100,000 copies in the three years after he published his book. Snoop Dog’s cookbook saw a boost during the pandemic, but he still only sold 205,000 copies in 2020.
拥有大量社交媒体粉丝或名气并不能保证它会畅销。歌手 Billie Eilish 尽管拥有 9700 万 Instagram 粉丝和 600 万 Twitter 粉丝,但在她的书出版后 8 个月内仅售出 64,000 册。歌手贾斯汀·汀布莱克 (Justin Timberlake) 出版书后三年内仅售出 10 万册。史努比狗的烹饪书在疫情期间销量大增,但 2020 年仍仅售出 20.5 万册。
Here’s a few more: 还有一些:
Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, is no global pop star, but she has a significant social-media presence, with 3 million Twitter followers and another 1.3 million on Instagram. Yet her book, This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman, which was published in May 2020, has sold just 26,000 copies across print, audio and e-book formats, according to her publisher.
来自明尼苏达州的民主党众议员伊尔汗·奥马尔 (Ilhan Omar) 并不是全球流行歌星,但她在社交媒体上占有重要地位,在 Twitter 上拥有 300 万粉丝,在 Instagram 上拥有 130 万粉丝。然而,据她的出版商称,她于 2020 年 5 月出版的书《这就是美国的样子:我从难民到国会女议员的旅程》的印刷版、音频版和电子书格式仅售出了 26,000 册。Tamika D. Mallory, a social activist with over a million Instagram followers, was paid over $1 million for a two-book deal. But her first book, State of Emergency, has sold just 26,000 print copies since it was published in May, according to BookScan.
塔米卡·D·马洛里 (Tamika D. Mallory) 是一名社会活动家,在 Instagram 上拥有超过 100 万粉丝,她通过两本书的交易获得了超过 100 万美元的报酬。但据 BookScan 称,她的第一本书《紧急状态》自 5 月出版以来仅售出了 26,000 册印刷本。The journalist and media personality Piers Morgan had a weaker showing in the United States. Despite his followers on Twitter (8 million) and Instagram (1.8 million), Wake Up: Why the World Has Gone Nuts has sold just 5,650 U.S. print copies since it was published a year ago, according to BookScan.
记者兼媒体人物皮尔斯·摩根在美国的表现较弱。据 BookScan 称,尽管他在 Twitter(800 万)和 Instagram(180 万)上有粉丝,《醒来:为什么世界已经疯了》自一年前出版以来,在美国仅售出了 5,650 份印刷版。—The New York Times
- 纽约时报
It’s pretty common. 这很常见。
The worst day of a life of an agent and an author is when they’ve gotten a large advance and you go on BookScan and you see their first few months’ of sales and it says 4,000 copies or something like that. It happens. It happens more than any of us would like.
对于经纪人和作家来说,一生中最糟糕的一天就是当他们获得大笔预付款时,你在 BookScan 上看到他们前几个月的销量,上面写着 4,000 册或类似的数字。它发生了。这种情况发生的次数超出了我们任何人的意愿。— Gail Ross, Literary Agent
——盖尔·罗斯,文学经纪人
Books don’t make money 书不赚钱
If I look at the top 10 percent of books… that 10 percent level gets you to about 300,000 copies sold in that year. And if you told me I’m definitely going to sell 300,000 copies in a year, I would spend many millions of dollars to get that book.
如果我看一下前 10% 的书籍……这 10% 的水平可以让你在当年售出约 300,000 册。如果你告诉我我肯定会在一年内卖出 30 万册,我会花费数百万美元来买那本书。— Madeline Mcintosh, CEO, Penguin Random House US
— Madeline Mcintosh,美国企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官
Publishing houses pay millions of dollars for a book that sells only 300,000 copies??? Well, because books don’t sell a lot of copies, they don’t make a lot of money.
出版社为一本只售出30万册的书支付数百万美元???嗯,因为书籍销量不多,所以赚不了多少钱。
Very, very frequently, the winning bid in our calculation is a money loser.
很多时候,在我们的计算中,中标者却是赔钱者。— Michael Pietsch, CEO, Hachette
— Michael Pietsch,阿歇特首席执行官
Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Random House, says the top 4 percent of titles drive 60 percent of the profitability. That goes for the rest of them too:
企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官马库斯·杜勒 (Markus Dohle) 表示,排名前 4% 的图书推动了 60% 的盈利。这也适用于其他人:
It would be just a couple of books in every hundred are driving that degree of profit… twoish books account for the lion’s share of profitability.
每一百本书中只有几本能带来这种程度的利润……两本书占据了盈利的最大份额。— Madeline Mcintosh, CEO, Penguin Random House US
— Madeline Mcintosh,美国企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官
Around half the books we publish make a profit of some kind.
我们出版的书籍中大约有一半是赚取某种利润的。— Michael Pietsch, CEO, Hachette
— Michael Pietsch,阿歇特首席执行官
About half of the books we publish make money, and a much lower percentage of them earn back the advance we pay.
我们出版的书籍中大约有一半是赚钱的,而其中很少一部分可以收回我们支付的预付款。— Jonathan Karp, CEO, Simon & Schuster
— 乔纳森·卡普 (Jonathan Karp),西蒙与舒斯特公司首席执行官
According to Hill, 85 percent of the books with advances of $250,000 and up never earn out their advance. (Meaning the royalties earned never covered the cost of the advance.) Many publishers have realized that maybe those big advances aren’t worth it.
据 Hill 称,预付款在 25 万美元及以上的图书中,85% 从未兑现预付款。 (这意味着所赚取的版税永远无法覆盖预付款的成本。)许多出版商已经意识到,也许这些巨额预付款并不值得。
We have a report that we colloquially call ‘The Ones That Got Away.’ And it’s a report on the books where we bid $500,000 or more as an advance and did not succeed in acquiring the book… this report stands as a kind of caution against the high risk of big advances because the lesson we take away again and again is: Thank goodness we stopped bidding when we did because even at the advance we offered, we would have lost money… Very frequently, the winning bid in our calculation is a money loser.
我们有一份报告,我们俗称“那些被带走的人”。这是一份关于书籍的报告,我们出价 50 万美元或更多作为预付款,但没有成功获得这本书……这份报告是一种警告。大额预付款的风险很高,因为我们一次又一次吸取的教训是:谢天谢地,我们在投标时停止了投标,因为即使按照我们提供的预付款,我们也会赔钱……很多时候,我们计算中的中标投标是输钱的人。— Michael Pietsch, CEO, Hachette
— Michael Pietsch,阿歇特首席执行官
It’s all about the backlist
一切都与后备名单有关
If new books typically don’t sell well, well that’s why publishing houses make their revenue from their backlist.
如果新书通常卖得不好,这就是出版社从旧书册中获得收入的原因。
I would actually expect a book that is selling 300,000 units in a year is probably going to sell at least 400,000 or 500,000 over its life once you get backlist in there too.
事实上,我预计一本一年销量为 300,000 册的书,一旦你也重新列入其中,在其生命周期内可能会卖出至少 400,000 或 500,000 册。Our backlist brings in about a third of our annual revenues, so $300 million a year roughly, a little less.
我们的后备名单带来了大约三分之一的年收入,所以每年大约 3 亿美元,略少一些。— Michael Pietsch, CEO, Hachette
— Michael Pietsch,阿歇特首席执行官
The backlist includes all of the books that have ever come out. Brian Murray, CEO of HarperCollins, points out that their backlist includes bibles (an $80 million business), coloring books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, magic trick books, calendars, puzzles, and SAT study guides.
回溯清单包括所有已出版的书籍。哈珀柯林斯公司首席执行官布赖恩·默里 (Brian Murray) 指出,他们的旧书包括圣经(价值 8000 万美元的业务)、涂色书、词典、百科全书、魔术书、日历、谜题和 SAT 学习指南。
It also includes perennial bestsellers like
它还包括常年畅销书,例如Don Quijote, Steven King’s Carrie, and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings—these books continue to sell year after year.
《堂吉诃德》、史蒂文·金的《嘉莉》和托尔金的《指环王》——这些书年复一年地畅销。
Popular children’s books are cash cows selling huge amounts of copies year after year and generation after generation.
受欢迎的儿童读物是年复一年、一代又一代销量巨大的摇钱树。
Sometimes children’s books will be three generations, people have been buying them over and over again, and so that backlist catalog is really, really important to pay for the overhead of your publishing teams and then also to take the risks on the new books.
有时,儿童读物会传三代,人们会一遍又一遍地购买它们,因此,回溯目录对于支付出版团队的管理费用以及承担新书的风险来说非常非常重要。
So without a backlist I think it’s very hard to compete with these big books.
因此,如果没有重读清单,我认为很难与这些大书竞争。— Brian Murray, CEO, HarperCollins
——布赖恩·默里,哈珀柯林斯公司首席执行官
For instance, Penguin Random House owns Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar intellectual property. The book has been on Publisher Weekly’s bestseller list every week for 19 years.
例如,企鹅兰登书屋拥有埃里克·卡尔的《好饿的毛毛虫》知识产权。该书连续 19 年每周登上《出版商周刊》的畅销书排行榜。
Children’s books comprised 27 percent of PRH’s sales in 2021. That’s about $725 million—so roughly double the size of Scholastic’s trade division, and more or less equal on its own to all of Macmillan or HBG. Christian books accounted for 2 percent.
2021 年,儿童读物占 PRH 销售额的 27%。这大约为 7.25 亿美元,大约是 Scholastic 贸易部门规模的两倍,其本身大致相当于 Macmillan 或 HBG 的全部销售额。基督教书籍占2%。—The Trial -试用
Backlist titles like The Bible and Very Hungry Caterpillar and Lord of the Rings make up a disproportionately large percentage of the publishing industry.
《圣经》、《好饿的毛毛虫》和《指环王》等重录书籍在出版业中所占的比例非常大。
Amazon is the biggest threat to the industry
亚马逊是该行业最大的威胁
Q. Are you concerned that Amazon will favor Penguin Random House Simon & Schuster in terms of promotion and distribution and discoverability?
问:您是否担心亚马逊会在推广、发行和可发现性方面偏向企鹅兰登书屋西蒙与舒斯特?A. Yes. 答:是的。
— Donald Weisberg, CEO, Macmillan Publishers
— 唐纳德·韦斯伯格,麦克米伦出版公司首席执行官
With Amazon’s data, they could immediately beat out all the publishing houses if they wanted to.
有了亚马逊的数据,如果他们愿意,他们可以立即击败所有出版社。
I think Amazon as a publisher of books is underestimated.
我认为亚马逊作为图书出版商被低估了。
They have about 50 editors… Obviously, given the number of people searching on Amazon for products, that gives them a huge advantage because when people go onto Amazon, they—if the book isn’t there for what they are searching for, they could create that book.
他们有大约 50 名编辑……显然,考虑到在亚马逊上搜索产品的人数,这给了他们巨大的优势,因为当人们进入亚马逊时,他们 - 如果这本书没有他们正在搜索的内容,他们可以创建那本书。
That’s one theory I have. But even if that doesn’t happen, they know what people are buying and they have access to that data. Their bestseller list, in my view, is more important than
这是我的一个理论。但即使这种情况没有发生,他们也知道人们在购买什么,并且可以访问这些数据。在我看来,他们的畅销书清单比The New York Times best seller list because it’s in realtime. It’s hourly. And I look at that Amazon best seller list regularly, every day.
《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜因为它是实时的。每小时一次。我每天都会定期查看亚马逊畅销书排行榜。— Jonathan Karp, CEO, Simon & Schuster
— 乔纳森·卡普 (Jonathan Karp),西蒙与舒斯特公司首席执行官
A “Netflix of Books” would put publishing houses out of business
“图书界的Netflix”将使出版社破产
Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want? Just like you get all the movies you want from Netflix? Or all the music you want from Spotify?
如果您每月支付 9.99 美元并可以阅读所有您想要的书籍,那不是很棒吗?就像您从 Netflix 上获得所有您想要的电影一样?或者您想从 Spotify 获得所有音乐?
Technically, it does exist. Kindle Unlimited is the largest, followed by Scribd. Audible isn’t quite all-access, but then Spotify got into audiobooks and made them so. But none of these players have quite taken off the way Netflix or Spotify has.
从技术上来说,它确实存在。 Kindle Unlimited 是最大的,其次是 Scribd。 Audible 并不是完全无障碍,但后来 Spotify 进入了有声读物领域,并让它们变得如此。但这些公司都没有像 Netflix 或 Spotify 那样取得如此大的成功。
That’s for one reason: The Big Five publishing houses refuse to let their authors participate.
原因之一是:五巨头出版社拒绝让他们的作者参与。
Q. No books are found on Kindle Unlimited? Because you think that’ll be had for the industry?”
问:Kindle Unlimited 上找不到任何书籍?因为你认为这个行业会有这样的情况吗?”A. We think it’s going to destroy the publishing industry.
答:我们认为这会摧毁出版业。— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Publishing House
— Markus Dohle,企鹅出版社首席执行官
He’s right. No one would purchase a book again.
他是对的。没有人会再购买一本书。
We all know about Netflix, we all know about Spotify and other media categories, and we also know what it has done to some industries… The music industry has lost, in the digital transformation, approximately 50 percent of its overall revenue pool.
我们都知道 Netflix,我们都知道 Spotify 和其他媒体类别,我们也知道它对某些行业做了什么……音乐行业在数字化转型中损失了其总收入的大约 50%。— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Publishing House
— Markus Dohle,企鹅出版社首席执行官
There’s one reason. 有一个原因。
Around 20 to 25 percent of the readers, the heavy readers, account for 80 percent of the revenue pool of the industry of what consumers spend on books. It’s the really dedicated readers. If they got all-access, the revenue pool of the industry is going to be very small.
大约 20% 到 25% 的读者,即重度读者,占消费者在图书上的支出的行业收入的 80%。这是真正专注的读者。如果他们获得全部访问权,该行业的收入池将非常小。
Physical retail will be gone—see music—within two to three years. And we will be dependent on a few Silicon Valley or Swedish internet companies that will actually provide all-access.
实体零售将在两到三年内消失(例如音乐)。我们将依赖一些硅谷或瑞典的互联网公司,它们实际上会提供全面的访问。— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Publishing House
— Markus Dohle,企鹅出版社首席执行官
The publishing industry would die, that’s for sure. But I’d be willing to bet writers would get their books read way more.
出版业将会消亡,这是肯定的。但我敢打赌,作家们的书会被更多人阅读。
And I think it’s on its way. Spotify has already started publishing audiobooks, and my money is on Substack for eventually publishing written books!
我认为它正在路上。 Spotify 已经开始出版有声读物,我的钱也花在了 Substack 上,用于最终出版书面书籍!
Authors are getting more independent
作者变得更加独立
If publishing houses make minimal investment in marketing their authors and focus largely on celebrity books and their backlist, authors who can’t snag a large advance might have better luck building their own audience and publishing elsewhere.
如果出版社在营销作者方面投入最少的资金,而主要关注名人书籍及其旧书,那么无法获得大笔预付款的作者可能会更幸运地建立自己的读者群并在其他地方出版。
I think really from the advent of online—really, once the internet became popular, you know, we heard the phrase disintermediation.
我认为确实是从网络的出现开始的——真的,一旦互联网变得流行,我们就听到了“去中介化”这个词。
And I don’t understand why that wouldn’t be a possible prospect for any best selling author, to just disintermediate, to go straight to the internet and sell directly if you have a following… Colleen Hoover has published with both Amazon and Simon & Schuster.
我不明白为什么对于任何畅销书作家来说,如果你有追随者,那么去中介化,直接进入互联网并直接销售……科琳·胡佛(Colleen Hoover)与亚马逊和西蒙&舒斯特尔。
And her Amazon book was on the independent book sellers’ best seller list. So what that says to me is that a Rubicon has been crossed.
她的亚马逊书名列独立书商畅销书排行榜。所以这对我来说意味着卢比孔河已经被跨越了。— Jonathan Karp, CEO, Simon & Schuster
— 乔纳森·卡普 (Jonathan Karp),西蒙与舒斯特公司首席执行官
The romance category has already gone independent.
爱情类已经独立出来。
Many of those heavy readers of romance novels at that time switched to self-published stories. A very different price point.
当时许多言情小说的重度读者转向了自行出版的小说。一个非常不同的价格点。
99 cents, $1.99, away from what we call mass-market trade paperbacks… The mass-market trade paperback is the sort of small-format mass-market book, like it is a trade paperback, but a smaller format. It has been declining for the last 25 years.
99 美分,1.99 美元,远离我们所说的大众市场贸易平装书……大众市场贸易平装书是一种小规格大众市场书籍,就像它是贸易平装书一样,但格式较小。过去25年来一直在下降。
But we had a step change around ’14, ‘15, with this trend that so many consumers went away from mass-market books into electronic ebooks in particular and self-published books.”
但我们在 14、15 年左右发生了一步变化,随着这种趋势,许多消费者从大众市场书籍转向电子书,特别是自助出版的书籍。”— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Random House
— 马库斯·多勒,企鹅兰登书屋首席执行官
Gallery author Anna Todd moved to self-publishing (though Todd began her career writing on Wattpad, and recently returned to set up an imprint at Wattpad Books).
画廊作者安娜·托德 (Anna Todd) 转向自行出版(尽管托德在 Wattpad 上开始了她的职业生涯,最近又在 Wattpad Books 上建立了自己的出版社)。— Jennifer Bergstrom, SVP, Gallery Books Group
— Jennifer Bergstrom,Gallery Books Group 高级副总裁
And of course, we have to talk about Kickstarter MVP Brandon Sanderson.
当然,我们还得谈谈 Kickstarter MVP 布兰登·桑德森。
There is a New York Times best selling author in the science fiction and fantasy category. His name is Brandon Sanderson. I believe he’s published by both Macmillan and Penguin Random House.
有一位《纽约时报》科幻奇幻类畅销书作家。他的名字叫布兰登·桑德森。我相信麦克米伦和企鹅兰登书屋都出版了他的作品。
He went onto Kickstarter and announced that he would be offering four of his novels to anybody who wanted them if they wanted to donate to Kickstarter. And he raised over $42 million…
他在 Kickstarter 上宣布,如果有人愿意向 Kickstarter 捐款,他将向任何想要的人提供他的四本小说。他筹集了超过 4200 万美元……I have subsequently become aware of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, which is a series of books. It’s now actually become a whole company. And these are stories to give young girls confidence. And it’s been very successful, and it’s actually resulted in an entire company.
后来我知道了《叛逆女孩的晚安故事》系列丛书。现在它实际上已经成为一家完整的公司。这些故事可以给年轻女孩带来信心。它非常成功,实际上催生了整个公司。— Jonathan Karp, CEO, Simon & Schuster
— 乔纳森·卡普 (Jonathan Karp),西蒙与舒斯特公司首席执行官
Another publishing house bites the dust
又一家出版社倒闭
After the Judge denied the merger, Penguin went through a massive round of layoffs and Simon & Schuster was sold to a private equity company instead.
在法官驳回合并案后,企鹅公司经历了一轮大规模裁员,而西蒙与舒斯特公司则被卖给了一家私募股权公司。
Private equity tends to have one game plan: buy a company, load it with debt, wring out costs to improve its financials, sell at a profit.
私募股权往往有一个游戏计划:收购一家公司,为其承担债务,挤出成本以改善其财务状况,然后以利润出售。
Dealing Simon & Schuster to private equity, The New Republic warned at the time with some slight hyperbole of its own, would mean “absolute devastation and wholesale job loss.”
《新共和》当时稍微夸张地警告说,将西蒙与舒斯特公司与私募股权公司进行交易将意味着“绝对的破坏和大规模的失业”。— ken whyte — 肯·怀特
The publishing houses may live to see another day, but I don’t think their model is long for this world. Unless you are a celebrity or franchise author, the publishing model won’t provide a whole lot more than a tiny advance and a dozen readers. If you are a celebrity, you’ll still have a much bigger reach on Instagram than you will with your book!
出版社或许还能活到有一天,但我认为他们的模式不会长久。除非你是名人或特许作家,否则出版模式只能提供一点点预付款和十几个读者。如果您是名人,您在 Instagram 上的影响力仍然比您在书上的影响力大得多!
Personally, I could not be more grateful to skip the publishing houses altogether and write directly for my readers here, being supported by those who read this newsletter rather than by a publishing advance that won’t ultimately translate to people reading my work.
就我个人而言,我非常感激能够完全跳过出版社,直接在这里为我的读者写作,得到阅读这篇时事通讯的人的支持,而不是得到最终不会转化为阅读我作品的人的出版预付款。
But I’d love to know your thoughts 👇🏻
但我很想知道你的想法👇🏻
Thank you for reading and being here,
感谢您的阅读和来到这里,
P.S. If you enjoyed this post please consider sharing it. That’s how I meet new people and earn a living as a writer! ✨
Lol! My monthly budget for Abebooks is about $200. I buy plenty of books, new and old. Just not your kind of books.
This is the very first post that I found and read on Substack, and I loved it! I have been thinking the same (about nobody reading books anymore) for years, but couldn’t really explain why. You did excellent research here.