So I'm waaay behind on my blog-reading - spending two months without internet on tap tends to par down your use to the bare essentials, especially when, at times, it had to come through my kindle. (Which was a champ, by the way - if you're planning to travel, a 3G kindle is an absolute godsend for emergency internet.) Most of my folders in google readers have at least 1000 unread items (it stops counting after 1000. I don't know if that's kind or frustrating) but I've been slowly trawling through them here and there, and come up with a few things:

1. Apparently Amanda Hocking is big news for the internet, though nobody quite knows who started the fascination with her - a 26 year old who's self-publishing paranormal fiction around $.99 or $2.99, and made it big - millionaire big. She has some great things to say about it all over on this post, and you can read her blog further back where she tracks everything she was doing. Seems like a very grounded, sensible author.

2. The First Edition book sales club. From their site, it seems to be an 'Avon-calling'-cum-tuppaware-party way of selling indie books. They hire booksellers who'll sell to their neighbours, church group, knitting circle, guys at the gym or random strangers in their local park with the selling point of "we sell you stuff the big guys can't". Prospective authors (and publishers who're too small to get much of a lookin at chain bookstores) send in their novels, and F.E. orders them on consignment, a half-dozen or so at a time, at a 30% discount from the RRP.

From what I can see, it seems pretty above-board, at least from the author's end of things. The payment structure is simple and transparent - you either get the books back, or you get paid, and there's no scaling of payment or shonkily worded sections ringing bells for hidden fees. There's no secret nicking of rights or IP, nor exclusivity clauses (though they reserve the right to not take your book if you're in major chains, of course). It looks like the booksellers take in 5% of the RRP, so it's clearly aimed at the sellers working for pleasure rather than vast riches, and 25% goes to F.E for organising and administrating the whole affair.

I think it has great potential, but is also walking a bit of a tightrope. The only real selling point (for readers, I mean) is that you're being offered books that you can't get elsewhere (unless you order online, I guess. After all, what sensible author is going to arrange print runs that small and not have some other avenue of sales up his or her sleeve?).

'Books you can only get from us', as a selling point, only works if the rejoinder is: and those books are good. Which is a bit of a tricky point - if they were so good, the reader thinks, why weren't they picked up by a major publisher? And while it's true that we're seeing some excellent fiction self-published, stuff that probably could have done moderately well in the traditional ring, a vast majority of it is still dross. There are people who are choosing self-publishing as a business model that seems appropriate to them, but there are still people who are self-publishing because either no one would take their work, or all they really wanted was to see their name on a book. (Or insert all the other reasons behind vanity publishing here). And the stigma still stands - if you're so good, why not do it "properly"*.

F.E. has a very careful line to walk here, between not having enough books to sell to get readers' (and authors') attention (it's not much of a bookstore if it only sells five titles) and taking books whose quality - in one way or another - undercut their principle selling point. 

There's also the issue of whether people actually want to buy books that way - and it might be a costly exercise for authors having to either pay a premium for short print runs, or storage fees for large ones, when they're ordering 6-12 books at a time.

But I'm glad to see someone trying an alternate business model for print books, and will be keeping an eye on them to see how they turn out.

*Note: I'm not advocating such a point of view, nor dismissing self-publishing as not 'real' publishing. Merely pointing out that we're not yet at the stage where self and traditional are seen as equal by the public.