seem to make this impossible without either (a)
self-publishing or (b) protracted negotiations
with a legal department that are not dissimilar
to kicking a dead sperm whale up a beach. In
high summer.)
That does raise the question, tho - why aren't you self-publishing[1]?
You already have a dedicated fan base (I'm one of them - I think you're basically the only currently-living sci-fi author I still read), getting the word out and selling the books online is surely possible?
Even tho you'd presumably get fewer sales from not being in stores, wouldn't avoiding giving 90% of your revenue to a middle-man possibly make up for it?
IIRC some rock band (I think it was REM or U2) recently successfully did just that by selling their album only in digital format online.
[1] I have no clue about the publishing industry, just curious as to why this isn't done more often.
Radiohead did it pretty successfully. They are probably the largest credible band in the English speaking world.
Mr. Stross has indicated that he's not ready to 'do a Radiohead' yet. I can understand why.
I spent ten years working for a (very) independent UK record label (Warp) and am now managing an artist.
Self publication on any scale is still not as easy as it looks. You need a group of skilled people around you to make it work. Oddly enough, that group of people starts looks a lot like a record label, or a publishing house.
If you have found a really good (or perhaps even tolerably good) record label or publisher, one that you trust, that pay you good advances and royalties, that have good people on board that you enjoy working with - then self publishing doesn't look like that attractive an option. It's certainly not an easy one.
Having said that, I think Charlie should give it a shot sooner rather than later, because his fanbase will be disproportionately well connected, which reduces the effort of marketing greatly.
I asked Charlie about that once on his blog and got grimaced at, textually - I think he gets that question a lot. Later on he published a set of magazine-length articles on his blog on the work that goes into the publication of a book. Start here:
I was convinced before reading that set of entries that self-publishing was a simple, obvious answer. I'm now convinced that like all other simple, obvious answers, it's wrong :-)
I still think that authors could form together and create a mutual publishing association of some sort and succeed that way. However, I can totally understand that anyone who writes a book does it because they like writing and not publishing - to an extent that they'd rather not make the money than as good as switch careers completely.
You already have a dedicated fan base (I'm one of them - I think you're basically the only currently-living sci-fi author I still read), getting the word out and selling the books online is surely possible?
Even tho you'd presumably get fewer sales from not being in stores, wouldn't avoiding giving 90% of your revenue to a middle-man possibly make up for it?
IIRC some rock band (I think it was REM or U2) recently successfully did just that by selling their album only in digital format online.
[1] I have no clue about the publishing industry, just curious as to why this isn't done more often.