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Bestselling author's move to overthrow conventions of the book trade
Dave Eggers, author of the bestselling A Heartbreaking Work of
Staggering Genius , has a new novel published in America this weekend -
but there will no point in fans rushing to a major bookstore to buy a copy.
In what has been described as either courageous entrepreneurship or
vainglorious folly, Eggers has eschewed the normal publishing route taken
by writers of his stature - and the seven-figure advance that comes with it -
and issued the novel himself.
You Shall Know Our Velocity, which tells of two young Americans who travel
the world trying to give away money, is only available at independent bookshops
across the US and from McSweeney's, the New York-based magazine and website
founded by the writer. The book industry's retail giants, Barnes & Noble, Borders
and Amazon.com, have been cut out of the action. Just 10,000 copies of the book,
printed in Iceland and then shipped to a warehouse in Boston, are available at $20,
around $10 less than the price charged by mainstream publishers for books by
authors of Eggers's stature.
The book has already generated enormous interest, with an excerpt in the
New Yorker magazine and numerous articles congratulating the author on achieving
a great marketing coup. 'Eggers has accomplished a daring trifecta; it merges
the long tradition of self-publishing (think Walt Whitman, Thomas Paine) with
modern technology (sales over the internet), while sharing the spoils only with
friends (the independent bookstores who were the earliest and most enthusiastic
supporters of McSweeney's),' the Wall Street Journal declared.
Eggers remains downbeat. 'It might work on this scale; it might not - we
really have no idea,' he said in a recent interview. 'I think that if you
care about writing, then you care about how it makes its way into the world,
and self-publishing is one good way to make sure it comes out the way you'd
envisioned. But we'll see. It could all go horribly, horribly wrong.' That is
the outcome desired by some members of the mainstream publishing industry who
have long considered Eggers to be a troublesome maverick and who see his latest
venture as a quixotic attempt to undermine their dominance of the book world.
Others see the author's move as another signal that the publishing industry
is undergoing a revolution. They include Jason Epstein, co-founder of the
New York Review of Books. He says: 'He is not the first author to take the
self-publishing route but he is probably the most well-known, and all power
to him. Whether it will work, I don't know, but at least he is showing some
life and passion and ingenuity. If it fails, he will always have the built-in
hedge of going the more traditional way. Publishers would be eager to have his book.'
A former Random House editor and innovative figure in the New York publishing
world, Epstein is the author of Book Business, which foresaw the demise of the
publishing industry in its current form. Inflated advances for big-name authors,
ever decreasing profit margins and the emergence of new technologies will mean
an end to retail giants such as Borders and big publishing houses. Taking their
place will be smaller enterprises with fewer overheads and more immediate access
to the reading public, like McSweeney's and the growing self-publishing industry,
Epstein argues. In the past 18 months, almost 40 self-published novels by authors
who couldn't generate interest in their manuscripts first time round have
subsequently been bought up by major publishing companies after selling
significant numbers through mail order and over the internet. 'The self-
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publishing stigma has been replaced with high-figure advances and
full-page ads in the New York Times Book Review,' says M.J. Rose, a
columnist with Wired magazine and a self-published author.
Another threat to publishing's behemoths comes from Epstein himself,
who is a partner in a company developing what is effectively an
'ATM [cash machine] for books'. The machine, invented by a St Louis-based
car engineer, Jeff March, is around the size of an office photocopier.
It can take a digital file, print it and bind it into a paperback book
within minutes. 'This means a reader anywhere in the world can go to the
machine, type in the name of the book he wants, and have it in his hands.
We already have a working prototype which produces 100 pages in three
minutes at a cost of one cent per page,' Epstein says.
Three Billion Books, the company formed by Epstein and colleagues,
is already in negotiation with the World Bank to introduce the
Print-on-Demand machine into the developing world, where it would
help the dissemination of badly-needed text books. The bank has an
extensive catalogue of books on agriculture and public health which
it currently ships to the Third World at enormous cost. One of the
great advantages of this technology is that you could publish books
in countless languages. There would be no problems with shipping or
with having too much inventory. All you need to do is the translation
and then make a digital file,' says Epstein.Such machines could be up
and running in the developing world within a year.
Retailers and publishing firms in the West will do as much as
they can to stall the development of this technology in North America
and Europe, Epstein predicts. 'But eventually the publishing world
will see that it works and will have no choice but to accept it. The
horse and buggy trade did whatever it could to discourage the automobile,
but eventually the automobile proved its point.'
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
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