Distribution And Discoverability
Poets & Writers Magazine|November - December 2019
Independence comes at a price. While supply-chain optimization, technological innovation, and shifts in reading and buying habits have lowered operating costs for many in the book business, publishers included, the price of independence is still mostly paid in the form of costs related to diffusion, such as fees paid to third-party sales and distribution companies, without whom it would be logistically impossible for indie presses—at least those like Europa Editions—to deliver books to our retail partners and, through them, to readers.
Michael Reynolds
Distribution And Discoverability

Despite dramatic changes in the industry, absorbing the costs of diffusion is a vexing problem for publishers today, much as it always has been.

It remains to be seen whether blockchain technology and distributed ledger systems will ultimately have the kind of impact on how written content is monetized and delivered that its acolytes predict. I don’t expect the impact to be great, at least not as far as quality trade-book publishing is concerned. No, for now and the foreseeable future, the costs associated with diffusion aren’t going anywhere, and they constitute the top line item on the list of expenses an independent publisher must meet in order to remain independent.

While distribution costs may be the principal expense associated with independence for publishers, discoverability in an overcrowded book market in which the Old Good Thing is routinely swatted away by the Next Big Thing, and overmarketed, focus tested titles suck up a disproportionate share of review and shelf space, is the great conundrum.

How does an independent publisher make potential readers aware of its authors’ titles to the degree that both author and publisher deserve? The once calm sea of content has become a roiling ocean. Add self-published titles to the mix and somewhere around a million ISBNs are issued every year. Readers can find no purchase. Publishers, despite their best efforts, risk failing in their efforts to make their authors’ work visible.

The challenges of securing cost-effective diffusion and of guaranteeing adequate visibility are both very old problems. Yet consolidation in the industry, hyper concentration of book retail, a crisis in the culture of reading and criticism, and behavioral changes in portions of the population that have traditionally constituted the most assiduous readers make these challenges more serious today than ever before.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November - December 2019 من Poets & Writers Magazine.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November - December 2019 من Poets & Writers Magazine.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من POETS & WRITERS MAGAZINE مشاهدة الكل
Literary MagNet
Poets & Writers Magazine

Literary MagNet

When Greg Marshall began writing the essays that would become his memoir, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It (Abrams Press, June 2023), he wanted to explore growing up in Utah and what he calls \"the oddball occurrences in my oddball family.\" He says, \"I wanted to call the book Long-Term Side Effects of Accutane and pitch it as Six Feet Under meets The Wonder Years.\" But in 2014 he discovered his diagnosis of cerebral palsy, information his family had withheld from him for nearly thirty years, telling him he had \"tight tendons\" in his leg. This revelation shifted the focus of the project, which became an \"investigation into selfhood, uncovering the untold story of my body,\" says Marshall. Irreverent and playful, Leg reckons with disability, illness, queerness, and the process of understanding our families and ourselves.

time-read
3 mins  |
July - August 2023
THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY
Poets & Writers Magazine

THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY

READING The Museum of Human History felt like listening to a great harmonic hum. After I finished it I found the hum lingering in my ears. Its echo continued for days.

time-read
4 mins  |
July - August 2023
The Sea Elephants
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Sea Elephants

SHASTRI Akella's poised, elegant debut, The Sea Elephants, is a bildungsroman of a young man who joins a street theater group in India after fleeing his father's violent disapproval, the death of his twin sisters, and his mother's unfathomable grief.

time-read
4 mins  |
July - August 2023
The History of a Difficult Child
Poets & Writers Magazine

The History of a Difficult Child

MIHRET Sibhat's debut novel begins with God dumping rain on a small Ethiopian town as though. He were mad at somebody.

time-read
5 mins  |
July - August 2023
The Sorrows of Others
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Sorrows of Others

AS I read each story in Ada Zhang’s brilliant collection, The Sorrows of Others, within the first few paragraphs— sometimes the first few sentences— I felt I understood the characters intimately and profoundly, such that every choice they made, no matter how radical, ill-advised, or baffling to those around them, seemed inevitable and true to me.

time-read
6 mins  |
July - August 2023
We Are a Haunting
Poets & Writers Magazine

We Are a Haunting

TYRIEK White’s debut novel, We Are a Haunting, strikes me as both a love letter to New York City and a kind of elegy.

time-read
4 mins  |
July - August 2023
RADICAL ATTENTION
Poets & Writers Magazine

RADICAL ATTENTION

IN HER LATEST BOOK, THE LIGHT ROOM: ON ART AND CARE, PUBLISHED BY RIVERHEAD BOOKS IN JULY, KATE ZAMBRENO CELEBRATES THE ETHICAL WORK OF CAREGIVING, THE SMALL JOYS OF ORDINARY LIFE, AND AN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE NATURAL WORLD WITHIN HUMAN SPACES.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July - August 2023
The Fine Print
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Fine Print

HOW TO READ YOUR BOOK CONTRACT

time-read
10 mins  |
May - June 2023
First
Poets & Writers Magazine

First

GINA CHUNG'S SEA CHANGE

time-read
10+ mins  |
May - June 2023
Blooming how she must
Poets & Writers Magazine

Blooming how she must

WITH ROOTS IN NATURE WRITING, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, POETRY, AND PHOTOGRAPHY, CAMILLE T. DUNGY'S NEW BOOK, SOIL: THE STORY OF A BLACK MOTHER'S GARDEN, DELVES INTO THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL ACT OF CULTIVATING AND DIVERSIFYING A GARDEN OF HERBS, VEGETABLES, FLOWERS, AND OTHER PLANTS IN THE PREDOMINANTLY WHITE COMMUNITY OF FORT COLLINS, COLORADO.

time-read
10+ mins  |
May - June 2023