The Agency model

I’ve been sorting through all that’s happening with digital books and a term keeps popping up:  The Agency model.  Do you know what it means?

In essence, we’re changing the face of bookselling.

A brick and mortar bookstore is a consignment store.  Publishers pitch books to the bookbuyers for these stores.  They order a certain amount.  Note the key word is order, not buy.  They rack books, prioritizing space according to discounts from the publisher.

When a book sells, then the bookstore pays the publisher.  If the book doesn’t sell, the hardcover is returned (doubling shipping costs, which is on the publisher) and the paperback is recycled.  Not an efficient way to run a business but if you study the history of how this evolved, it was the best that could be developed.  In the 19^th Century.

Also:  while the publisher lists a suggested retail price, the store gets to determine the actual price.  Thus Costco, bringing in pallet loads of books, cuts the price down to a very low profit margin, preferring volume to make up for lower profit.  However, they all pay the publisher the same amount for the book (minus promotional discounts)

The agency model for digital books is very different.  Here, the publisher sets the final cost of the book.  The platform through which the book is sold—Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, whatever—will take a percentage of the price.

Think about the implications of this.

I’ve heard it said this is similar to the way the military turned cavalry into armor units in the first half of the 20^th Century and as someone with a background in the military. I think it’s an apt metaphor.  The mission is the same:  sells books.  The medium is different.  Faster, more difficult to maintain, and requiring a different type of expertise.

There’s something to remember about armor though: it is never supposed to go into combat alone.  In the same way, I think the fact you have a good book and understanding of the new face of publishing, you need a combined arms team.  You need your tech people, your promoters, your editors, your sales force, etc.  In essence, everything a traditional publisher has always done.  But it’s all happening a LOT faster.

I saw JA Konrath signed a deal direct with Amazon.  Several things to note about that:

1.  He got rejected by every traditional publisher he sent the mss to.  So no matter how much he champions ‘doing it yourself’, he tried traditional first.  PW reports his sales were tanking on his last couple of paperbacks– that’s common when a publisher doesn’t support a series.

2.  His gleeful response is what I consider in poor taste.  First, he was at best, a midlist author in traditional publishing.  I didn’t see him hit any bestseller lists.  Maybe the bottom line is he couldn’t cut it?  So he’s trying something different.  More power to him.  But to denigrate traditional publishing which did give him his start, is burning some bridges.  I almost wonder if part of the rejections from NY was a recognition of his stand that traditional publishing is dead.  If it’s dead, why try it?

3.  We’ve also been wondering how many copies of his own books he bought on Kindle in order to generate his sales rankings that got him started.  This is a dirty little secret in publishing, but there are authors who buy their own books in bulk in order to generate standing on bestseller lists and in order to get linked and promoed.  So full disclosure is an issue.

I still think traditional publishing is the way to go even as we hit 20 titles at Who Dares Wins Publishing.

However, we are in the initial phases of putting together an anthology for Romantic Military fiction for Who Dares Wins publishing.  Shorts, less than 5,000 words.  The key is good writing and the author’s willingness to promote it.  And, big and, all profits will benefit the Special Operations Warrior Foundation which sends the children of Special Operators who die to college.  I’ll be querying some ‘big name’ writers reference this soon, but we’re also open to those have a good short in the genre and can promote on social media.

Also at WDWPUB, we changed the covers on Bodyguard of Lies and Lost Girls to see if they would generate more sales.  Should be interesting.  All of this is so new, you have to try different things.

I’m just about done with my first draft of The Long Gray Line: Duty.  Once that’s in place, I’m focusing on some more original works for WDWPUB.  Exciting times.