Une interview de Mike Resnick

[jerome]

Voici une interview en anglais de Mike Resnick. Il parle surtout édition, ebook, syndicat des auteurs américains etc.

Extrait :
Carl: Can an ebook become a hit without editors and marketing agents behind it?
Mike: Yes, Hocking proved it – but I would say that a conservative estimate would make the odds about three million to one against it being a bestseller, and a couple of hundred thousand to one against a beginner making enough that way to live on. With an established audience, the odds go way down.

Carl: Advocates of ebooks use this reasoning: An ebook can stay online indefinitely, therefore an author can eventually make as much money as a print run, even if it takes several years. Whereas with a print run, the book is off the shelf in a few months and therefore not even available as income. Is this strategy viable?
Mike: No. It doesn’t take into account the marketing arm of a publisher who himself is just a cog in a multi-billion-dollar international conglomerate. It doesn’t take into account the fact that, at present, a lot of countries where you can sell your foreign rights for substantial money have so few e-readers that there’s virtually no market for e-books. It doesn’t take into account the fact that almost every book published – paper or electronic — is pirated and available for free on the internet, if you know where to look, within months (and usually weeks) of publication. And of course it doesn’t take into account that a self-published author, whether in paper or phosphors, does not receive an advance, which is what most authors live on.

Carl: Some ebooks advocates are also predicting publishers will become extinct. Is that an exaggeration?
Mike: Yes. Some will go under, some won’t. And the smaller presses, who have targeted their audiences, will do just fine. Difficult to sell an autographed, numbered, leatherbound book in electronic form.