Teeter a bit longer

Well, after a few weeks of intense assignments and the stress of getting results back (all students are currently nodding their heads at the screen), I have come to understand and seriously appreciate the sheer volume of work and understanding that goes into printing a book or even getting a company to agree to it. I know I have stated this before, but it is very different between knowing something and understanding it.

Yes, even this comes under copyright.

I give you, for example, one of my latest assignments which involved examining international and domestic copyright legislation. Knowing that copyright exists and is sort of there by no means prepared me for the sheer volume of legislation that has existed since the eighteenth century. Yes, there might be one or two big laws that exist, but the number of Acts or Bills that have been passed to amend (or change) the law because of new developments is staggering.

For example, the Berne Convention is possibly the most widely acceptable piece of international copyright legislation. But not everyone agreed with it at the start and created the Universal Copyright Convention in response. This was amended but ending up more or less being abandoned after the Berne Convention was amended and became linked to the World Trade Organisation. This made it more appealing and therefore more countries became involved. In response, domestic copyright had to be altered in compliance with what this larger law had to say.

Pretty staggering to think of the things that can indirectly affect your life. These laws are the things that allow you to pick up a book and read it in any format, listen and share your music and even watch a film. Yes, not everyone follows these copyright rules but when you take into consideration that you originally had to go and APPLY for copyright rather than it automatically being given to you? That's pretty impressive.

In addition I've been re-teaching myself how to use spreadsheets and 'cost' a fictional book. Once again, I'm amazed by the sheer number of decisions that went into creating it, even with a title I made up! Paper type, jacket design, number of pages, illustrations and whether or not to use colour. The mind boggles.

It does lead me to wonder how people make these decisions every day of their lives.

And even after all that, I still have a marketing report to do. My understanding seems to never stop growing.

Run and hide?

So it seems that Amazon have decided to more or less extend their reach into the publishing and lending industries.

I would be lying if I said the move to publishing didn't concern me, especially considering where I am and what I'm doing. And I'm not the only one. Once the article was shared among my classmates, the majority of us had more or less become decidedly nervous. After all, Amazon can sell a number of books for incredibly low prices and if they can help authors publish books, does that mean that the publishing industry is finished?

Well...no. Not exactly. The misconception that is present in this article is that all you need to do with a manuscript is stick on a cover, slap on a price and tell people it exists. I'm not saying that Amazon won't attempt to sell their titles as best as they can but allow me to clear up one small fact.

That phrase 'It takes a village to raise a child'? It takes SO many more people than you realise to create the books that you read...in any format.

Here beginneth the lesson.

The text needs edited and checked for mistakes. Mistakes happen and authors change their minds about bits and pieces. Sometimes the amazing plot twist doesn't work with one character and has to be transferred to another. Or a fact needs to be double checked before it can be stated.

A cover needs to be designed. We DO judge books by their covers (try to deny it. I dare you.) and a well designed cover takes time to be thought of, created and chosen. Yes. Chosen. There's always a couple of options created and tweaked before the final one goes to print.

The manuscript needs to be designed. What goes on the page? Any pictures? What about the typeface or font? Should it be spread out or a bit more squished?

Some hype has to be created. Even a self-published author will tell you how important marketing is. There's no point in making a book that nobody wants. Booksellers need to know it exists. This marketing technique applies throughout the process.The amount of marketing each title gets depends a great deal on who is writing it. People need to want the book and many will buy something because they recognise the author's name.

Printing needs to be sorted and booked months in advance. This is important. Printers are not sitting around waiting for the manuscript and twiddling their thumbs in between. They have jobs to do and schedules to keep. If the printing deadline is missed, it will be a while until you can get another one.

In addition, the production decisions need to be made. Type of paper, binding etc. It is the printer who helps to put the book together and it takes a long time to make these decisions, especially if you are on a budget.

And for all you tech-savvy people, there is also someone who has to translate this digitally. It does take a bit of effort to make a manuscript into an e-book that is compatible with various e-readers. And it may not even be a publisher creating it, but they will still work with the print publisher's schedule so that everything is released at around the same time.

A lot of work, and every individual in the publishing process is probably working with another five or six books at various stages of completion.

Amazon will have to deal with these same issues and are competing against some very old and prestigious publishing houses. Like it or not, reputation is everything and having a particular publisher interested in your book can be a lot more appealing than you might imagine. I won't deny that this move won't affect the industry in some way but to imply that it is finished now that Amazon has joined the show is a bit premature.

We shall just have to see how it plays out.