Penguin Pinching Pennies

My avid reader (the one) has sent an article and a quick review which I will post for him.

The article is found on Boing Boing and is titled Penguin's insane policy on electronic galleys for authors. It goes on to describe Penguin Publishing rather antiquated paradigm for distributing galleys to agents and authors.

To deal with this, Penguin (and a few other places), have set it up that you can buy a PDF file for $250-300 to send the book to foreign publishers. That cost is often borne by the author or the agency. Ridiculous. To get around it, agents have tried to approach at negotiation. But, when making a deal in the six figure mark, even at auction, agents still can't get that one little guarantee. We're talking BIG books and BIG agencies, but nope. Won't go into contracts (even though I'm sure there are exceptions, the point stands). What's more, Penguin will laugh off the idea of getting around it by making an author's advance, say, $20,300. Or $250,300.

It's a fun article to read if you think its entertaining to see how publishing houses are pushing back against the changes in the publishing world, a topic we explore here religiously.

Our reader, my indispensable brother who sends ideas and articles often (for a smattering see here), wrote regarding the article:

Thought this was interesting.  I don't buy their argument, but it is worth noting that the one book that leaked, still went on to be a #1 best seller.  Much like the movie and music business, the big businesses, always say that piracy and "digital" has caused them to loose money, but in reality, you see data like this. People will buy good things, and eschew the crappy, whether it's been pirated or not.

I think he should be the writer with prosaic phrases like: People will buy good things, and eschew the crappy, whether it's been pirated or not. I couldn't say it any better.

I've recently been involved in buying and selling houses. I've been impressed to find that since the last time I bought a house, three or four years ago, our real estate agent has embraced technology. Gone are the endless, highlighted forms that must be signed and dated. Now there is a dotloop document that gets e-signed quickly and passed back and forth even quicker. Sadly the financing folks  haven't yet followed suit. It's only a matter of time I predict, just as I imagine it will only be a matter of time for Penguin too.