Thank you, editors

Over at the Huffington Post, editor Carole Baron (an editor at my publisher, Alfred A. Knopf) has written a defense of the role of the editor. You can read it here.

She's absolutely right, and I'm glad she's spoken out on this. I've written in a previous post about the importance of publishers, so I needn't say too much more here. But let me just say that I understand why she is so irritated. The press and blogosphere have poured out billions of bits of nonsense about how digitization will remove "the filter," and eliminate any mediation between author and reader. What a lot of hooey.

I don't think any of these millennialists, who promise us an approaching publisher-free utopia, have ever published a book—or read a self-published book. Publishers arose in the first place because they provide valuable services—because a "filter" is actually very important. After all, you always could go straight to a printing company and publish a book yourself; people have done it for centuries. The reason no one buys them is that they so often stink.

Publishers pick winners, and help make them winners. Sure, they make mistakes. Publishing is full of tales of famous books that were turned down by multiple houses, or the self-published book that took off on its own. But these are legends because they are so rare; they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Book proposals and manuscripts get turned down for good reasons, the vast majority of the time. And, as Carole Baron helpfully reminds us, editors make books better, as do so many people whose efforts are coordinated by editors, and who work for publishers.

Again, I've got no beef with e-books. I'm just worried that people who don't write for a living, and know nothing about how books come into being, are going to set new rules in the digital world for those of us who do.

Pellegrino Agonistes—not, unfortunately, Agnostic

The New York Times broke a story recently about a nonfiction author, Charles Pellegrino, who appears to have been taken in by a dishonest source for his book on the atomic bombing of Japan, Last Train from Hiroshima. It leaves me with mixed feelings—though one of those feelings is sympathy for his plight. Allow me to try to disentangle this tale honestly and dispassionately, if possible.

As the Times relates, Pellegrino made some important revelations in his book that significantly alter the historical record. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Little Boy, was a "dud," he wrote, because it had been damaged in handling before it was dropped on Japan. He based this assertion on the recollections of Joseph Fuoco, who said he had been substituted as flight engineer on the bomber, the Enola Gay, at the last moment for the normal engineer, James R. Corliss.

There's only one problem: Fuoco (now deceased) was an impostor. Corliss did indeed fly on that mission, and Corliss's family has abundant documentation to prove it.

That kind of claim drives veterans nuts, and for good reason. Soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen go through hell in war, and when someone falsely takes credit for facing danger, it's a travesty—an insult to those who really did risk their lives.

But this is a blog about writing, not veterans, so let's focus on the impact of Fuoco's fakery: The claim that the Hiroshima bomb was a dud. This is a major rewriting of the historical record, and it deserved plenty of skepticism. It sure looks like it did not receive enough in the first place.

Allow me to stress that I am not jumping on Pellegrino as a miscreant. He deserves enormous credit for immediately accepting the evidence that he had been duped. He promptly announced that he would rewrite the relevant sections for future printings and the paperback. He notes—as he should—that only a few pages are concerned.

This is exactly the right thing to do, and he has won my respect. Let me note further that incorrect sources, or faulty interpretations of sources, afflict almost every nonfiction author who must conduct deep research. I've made a number of corrections (all fairly small, fortunately) to my books after they were first published; I also accept that a well-informed person can disagree with me about my conclusions. In general, I believe the author deserves plenty of leeway in interpreting evidence. When you spend years marinating yourself in the sources, your sense of what's sound becomes pretty sharp.

But I am still nagged by the feeling that Pellegrino should have done more digging on this "dud" question. For one thing, I don't believe anyone has ever made such a claim before. It's a real eyebrow raiser. For another thing, Little Boy was an incredibly destructive bomb, killing tens of thousands of people. If someone tells you that it was a dud, I think you've got to do some major digging to confirm it.

I contacted Richard Rhodes, author of the deservedly prize-winning history, The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Let me be absolutely clear: Rhodes had nothing to say about Pellegrino or his book. I am not citing him here to pit him against Pellegrino. My question was about the bomb itself—whether he had ever heard it described as a dud. Anyone who has read Making knows that Rhodes understands the physics of atomic weapons exceptionally well, and has contacts throughout the scientific community. The man knows his neutrons.

He explained that Little Boy was a very inefficient design. For maximum efficiency in an a-bomb (I hope I'm getting this right), the fissile material must be compressed, so all those spraying neutrons hit a lot more of the fissionable atoms. But the Little Boy bomb had two features that made it inefficient: First, it used uranium, a less reactive material than the plutonium used in the next atomic bomb. Second, it used a gun to fire one chunk of uranium at another. The impact led to an atomic explosion, but it released far less energy than if it had been designed like later bombs (with plutonium, triggered with explosive compression).

The conclusion I take from this very skimpy investigation is that Little Boy was an inefficient design, but it was not a "dud." It performed as expected.

Actually, my point is not to argue the facts of the case (whether it was a dud or not) as to make a point about investigation. My thirty seconds of inquiring served to greatly enhance my existing skepticism about the dud claim. Already I know that I would want a lot of hard evidence from multiple sources before I would publish that claim. I would also want to understand the physics of atomic weapons more thoroughly before venturing out on the proverbial limb.

Again, I wish to be fair to Pellegrino. His extensively researched book is not a scientific exploration of the bomb itself; as he and his publisher noted, the stuff now in doubt is limited to a few pages. And, if I had been the one researching this book, I would have felt another sensation at the dud claim, competing with my skepticism: excitement at having a potential scoop on one of the most important events in world history.

But that's the bind we place ourselves in. The bigger the change to the historical record we propose to make, the better for us as writers. But greater scrutiny and skepticism inevitably come back on us. Pellegrino did an awful lot of work on his book; in the scheme of things, he only needed to do a little more in one limited area—yet that gap has made all the difference, unfortunately.

I find this episode to be an interesting barometer of what interests the public. This claim about Little Boy, even if it were proved, would not change the record of destruction that the bomb wrought; yet its correction made the A section of the Times. By contrast, when a recent biography had made insupportable assertions that Cornelius Vanderbilt—one of the most important figures in American history—went crazy from syphilis, only one online review raised any questions. My thorough debunking of that claim (which a reasonable observer could conclude was a deliberate hoax) did not receive front-page treatment; it was merely discussed in a Times blog posting, albeit a good one.

That's fine by me, to be honest. My book was not a work of debunking, but a positively constructed biography, which fortunately is the way reviewers have treated it. But the contrast with the scorn heaped on poor Mr. Pellegrino should teach a lesson to historians and biographers: If you're dealing with World War II veterans, make sure you've got every detail exactly right, or there'll be hell to pay.

What do authors want?

As digitization spreads throughout the culture, we authors must answer a basic question: What do we want? The answers are shaping the conflict over such issues as e-book pricing and the Google Books settlement.

The problem is that not all authors want the same thing. I think we can identify two basic desires: money and audience. Clearly, every author wants both to have both in large measure, and the two are often linked. After all, you can only get a lot of money by having a big audience. But the two are not the same. In fact, they sometimes conflict with each other. Since different authors value one over the other, the big issues facing the world of publishing remain in turmoil.

Authors break down into three categories: professionals (those who rely upon writing books for a substantial share of their income), academics (who write books as part of their career development), and amateurs (who write books because of their interests or passions, but not for income or professional advancement). Let's take it as a given that all three like money, and would like to get more of it from their writing. But money is secondary, at best, to the latter two categories.

Amateurs want as big an audience as possible, period. This may be because they are buffs or hobbyists, who wish to share their passion for a subject. It may be because they are hoping to rise to the professional category—say, as novelists—and want to attain recognition that will elevate them to the point where they can write for a living.

Given their tiny print runs and nonexistent advances, academics don't seem to care about money or audience, but that's not quite the case. Within the limited universe of a given discipline, an academic wishes to be read as widely as possible, in order to attain the recognition needed to attain a higher professional status. "Publish or perish," I believe, is the operative expression here.

Professionals usually care deeply about the quality of their work, about the knowledge they create, about subjects they take on, but they need to make money from their work. "Intellectual property" means a great deal to professionals, as it does not (quite) to amateurs and academics. To make money—to protect intellectual property—professionals are extremely concerned with the issue of control. Sure, no one wants to have his or her work pirated or plagiarized, but for professionals it is a matter of paying the mortgage and putting food in the fridge.

If you want the biggest audience possible, and don't care about money (i.e. control), then offering your work for little or nothing makes sense. Many amateurs and academics protest the Authors Guild's settlement with Google over its book-digitization project, because it maintains a degree of control over the dissemination of copyright-protected books through the Internet. They want as large an audience as possible.

For professional authors, some degree of control is absolutely necessary. If we do indeed make information free (as the famous slogan claims it wishes to be), then information production will collapse, because there will be no more money in it. The only new information, or literature, will be produced by academics, writing for a narrow, specialized audience, and amateurs with no professional standards.

Now, the Google Books settlement is a huge and complicated issue, and I don't mean to argue its details here by any means. But it is important for amateurs and academics to recognize that professional authors have different interests, and that our entire culture needs professional authors. Of course, professional authors need to recognize that amateurs and academics have different interests as well. But I must point out that it is a lot easier to make your work available for nothing, within a society that places controls on access to intellectual property, than it is to charge money for intellectual property in a society that removes all controls.

Put a cop on the corner, and the fruit-stand vendor can still give away bananas for free; remove the cop, and the vendor has a hard time stopping shoplifters.

Again, there is always room for fair debate on the details of the Google Books settlement, and the issue of e-book pricing (which I've discussed at length). And obviously professional authors wish to expand their audience as much as possible, and one way to do that is by making books available through new media such as the Internet and electronic devices. I am not arguing details, nor am I a Luddite. But what the Authors Guild is trying to do, fundamentally, is to remind the public that we write books for a living. Protecting our ability to earn money from our work is not just a narrow special-interest agenda—it is the only way to keep alive the culture of the written word.

Who's Disappointed with Virginia Woolf?

I finally got around to reading Virginia Woolf's essay, "The Art of Biography." I'm disappointed.

It's one of her later works—published in 1939, two years before her death—yet it reads very much like it was written in the Edwardian era. The only biographers she deems worth considering are, of course, English. There's only a tiny handful of works she finds worth discussing. She has a narrow notion of who might be the proper subject for a biography (though she does acknowledge that biographies in the future might well be about figures other than royalty, generals, and prime ministers).

Still, this is not why I'm so disappointed.

For an essay by a great writer, it offers surprisingly little in the way of profound insights. I couldn't help comparing this essay with those of George Orwell, a contemporary. Orwell's essays, even after being read again and again, are stunningly fresh. They speak to the human condition with originality and power. Consider the opening of "Reflections on Gandhi":

"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in all cases. In Gandhi's case, the questions one feels inclined to ask are: to what extent was Gandhi moved by vanity—by the consciousness of himself as a naked, humbled old man, sitting on a praying mat and shaking empires by sheer spiritual power—and to what extent did he compromise his own principles by entering politics, which of their nature are inseparable from coercion and fraud?"

The courage of these questions, the raw clarity of insight into both the individual mind and the nature of politics, remain as acute today as they were when they were written, decades ago. By contrast, I found Woolf's reflections to be humdrum and obvious. She goes on at length about how the biographer must work in a realm of verifiable fact, and not invent "fact" as a fiction writer does. "The two kinds of fact will not mix; if they touch they destroy each other." As a wise man once said: Well, duh.

Still, this is not why I'm so disappointed.

The purpose of Woolf's essay is to ask if biography is art. Indeed, the title of the essay would more accurately have a question mark. She concludes, rather tediously in my opinion, that biography is not art because it does not last, not as the best fiction does. This is because, she writes, "The world created by that vision [of fiction] is rarer, intenser, and more wholly of a piece than the world that is largely made of authentic information supplied by other people." Bizarrely, to prove her point she claims that Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson will not last as long as Shakespeare. I say bizarrely because, first, Boswell has survived brilliantly, and, second, you can diminish anything by comparing it to Shakespeare.

Survivability is a lousy test for whether something is art. Let's just think for a moment about the countless works produced in the last year in categories we don't hesitate to call art: paintings, sculpture, novels, short stories. Few—conceivably none—will still be studied or viewed or read a century from now. Are they not art?

There are so many dimensions to biography that Woolf does not consider. Beauty of writing, the magic of the sentence, evocative power . . . an evocation of place, a delineation of character . . . pacing, plotting, suspense, reflection on the human condition. Woolf's idea of biography is, in essence, that famous description of history: "one damn thing after another." An artful biographer, on the other hand, shapes a narrative to give it power, paints a vivid and complete world based on creative research, and asks original questions about both the subject and the larger world.

That biography belongs to the world of scholarship is beyond question. But it also belongs to the world of literature. "Chained to the facts, doomed to obsolescence" is Woolf's conclusion, whereas biography is a product of creativity, originality, and insight, in which the pertinent facts, and their use, are not at all obvious.

She might have realized that, had she lived long enough to read "Reflections on Gandhi."

A Glimpse of Things To Come

I've been away from the blogosphere for a week, because I've got a full schedule of talks and travel. On Wednesday, I spoke at the California State Library about Cornelius Vanderbilt and California history. The appearance was arranged by Brian Sala, one of the two readers of this blog, who works for the nonpartisan California Research Bureau.

I enjoyed the event, and it gave me a great deal to think about in terms of the importance of libraries, and of nonpartisan research—not only for policymaking, but for history and biography as well. I have strong political opinions, but I try to keep them out of my professional writing. I'm constantly asking myself if I really know something to be true, or if it's just my natural assumption because I lean in a particular direction to begin with.

I will blog on those subjects in the days ahead. And there's another topic that's on my mind these days, because I will be taking part in two upcoming events for professional biographers. I'll be on a panel at the first Biographers International Organization conference in Boston in May, and on March 9 I'll be speaking to the Biography Seminar at NYU. "Speaking" isn't quite right—"conversing" is more accurate, since it's a conclave of professionals, many of whom are quite distinguished.

These looming professional events have me thinking about the balance that biography strikes between art and scholarship—between literature and history in particular. Biography belongs to both categories, and yet is not entirely of either one. Historians can be downright suspicious of biography, especially since the rise of the New Social History in the 1960s, which overthrew the Great Man approach to historical scholarship. And such literary writers as Victoria Woolf have raised their critical eyebrows at biography. All this, despite the fact that historians, Woolf, and other writers and scholars have produced thousands of biographies themselves. With the exception of Woolf, they still do.

Lots to mull over. Stay tuned.

Will e-books change the way books are written?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: My comments on digital publishing should never be taken as a rant against e-books. What I object to are exaggerated claims about how e-books will change absolutely everything, from shortening books to destroying traditional publishers.

Many of the more outlandish assumptions have their origin in the idea that e-books will simply sweep away the codex (the traditional bound book). As I've said before, I firmly believe that e-books will simply be one more format, just as trade and mass-market paperbacks currently exist alongside hardcovers. It's kind of ironic that digital enthusiasts don't see that: The whole point of digital media, I thought, was to break down the one-size-fits-all philosophy.

Let's look at the claim that e-books will change the way authors write. Perhaps surprisingly, I have some sympathy with this idea. For example, e-books can have links to websites outside the text, so that readers can go instantly to check on sources, or to find imagery, or to read further on a subject. A cookbook can be linked to articles about ingredients, or websites where they can be purchased. The opportunities for multi-media presentation will be particularly wonderful for certain categories, such as children's books. The day is not far distant when a children's e-book will fade the line between film and text—or make use of the 3-D technology that has made Avatar a cinema smash.

And yet, and yet. . . . As I said, one size does not fit all. Let's take the most extreme example: Does anything think that books of poetry will have links outside the text? If Robert Frost were alive today, and wrote "These woods are lovely, dark and deep," he would not link the word "woods" to a website about New England forestry. Poetry is an art form, pure and simple. Same with fiction. We read to be transported, not to be distracted by dozens of glaring EXIT signs.

Sure, an editor today might publish Robert Frost's collected works in an e-book, and include links outside the text to sources about Frost's life or the history of poetry, but the real value of a book comes from the fact that it is an act of creation. That's why new editions of classic, public-domain works so often include introductions and annotation—because these supplementary items are new and thus valuable. Without providing original content (i.e. without paying for original content), publishers of e-books will simply throw free stuff at the reader with all those links—and everyone knows you get what you pay for.

Even nonfiction is often a narrative form that takes the reader by the hand and conducts him into a room he has never seen before, away from the usual and ordinary hubbub. As with a novel, a work of nonfiction is often a self-contained book that tells an intricate story, driven by an unfolding plot, with characters that continue to develop—not a mere compilation of passageways to bits and pieces of information about various things.

In other words, I believe writing will remain pretty much the same game, whether the reader reads with the aid of an electrical current or not.

Yes, e-books will allow for some pretty cool and often very helpful things. I can imagine how travel guides or cookbooks or children's books will be transformed in a porous digital existence. But the narrative form will remain the narrative form. And that's a good thing.

Are books too long? Will e-books be shorter?

My friend and former roommate Brian Sala, an exceptionally well-informed former political science professor (as he will tell you himself) has brought to my attention a discussion on various blogs about the length of books—which stems from a related discussion on the erosion of time for reading, thanks to digital media. You can read it here, here, here, and here.

The basic thrust of all this blogging is that trade nonfiction books are generally much too long. Henry Farrell suggests a reason why: "The length of the average book reflects the economics of the print trade and educated guesses as to what book-buyers will actually pay for, much more than it does the actual intellectual content of the book itself."

To this I can only ask, Has Henry Farrell ever written a trade nonfiction book? (A quick check of Amazon suggests the answer is no.) If Mr. Farrell had done so, he never would have offered up this rather ridiculous explanation.

Let me be clear: Strange as it is for me to say (as author of a very long biography), I actually agree that many nonfiction books are much too long. I have no idea what the percentage of the total is, but let's just say I've seen plenty of candidates for deep cutting.

I say this even though I also have read plenty of books that were deservedly long. I'm currently reading Shelby Foote's three-volume classic, The Civil War. It's gargantuan, and it's fantastic. My criticisms of it do not relate to its length, but rather the way it studiously avoids making African Americans a part of the story. In terms of narrative, the huge size is marvelous, because it allows Foote to paint a truly rich landscape that never neglects the larger picture for its many small details. And I would like to think that my own biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt justifies its great length, as Vanderbilt has a staggeringly long and active life that touched virtually every aspect of American history.

Still, excessive verbiage is a very common problem. But is it the result of "the economics of the print trade"? I'm sorry, but that's hilarious. As a writer and a former publishing employee, I have never, ever, heard of a publisher that demanded padding, except in the rare case of a tiny manuscript that wasn't meant to be a book in the first place. Of those editors I've known who still actually edit (see below), they are usually engaged, at any given moment, in a desperate struggle to convince an author to cut a manuscript. It's authors' vanity, not demands for more pages from greedy publishers, that lengthen books. Let's face it: Anyone who has ever been edited has resented it at some point.

Why do authors go on so long? Because they can. I was in college precisely when the PC revolution hit. When I was a freshman, I typed out papers on a typewriter, bottle of White-Out in hand. When I was a senior, I was using Microsoft Word. The ease of typing and correcting immediately led to a doubling or even tripling of college papers. I watched as professors stopped complaining about triple-spaced papers with huge margins, and began complaining about unedited behemoths. Minimum page counts for papers were replaced by maximum page counts.

OK, so the physical process of producing a manuscript is easier, and authors have no personal incentive to be concise. Why do publishers put up with it? After all, they know that a better book is a better book—that readers usually don't buy based on size and weight. The answer is the decline of actual editing. Hard-pressed publishers are turning editors into investment managers only. Acquisitions editors make decisions on how to place the company's money, through the act of signing books and paying advances. Fewer and fewer editors have the time, or the skill, to actually edit a manuscript.

I'm one of the lucky few. My editor edits at multiple stages, from talking me through my ideas, to offering general impressions of an early draft, to actual line editing. At almost every stage, he emphasizes the need to avoid excessive length. The general suggestions often consist of, "Take out a huge chunk of material in these chapters." The line editing is heavy with excisions. Even though I am fully aware of the natural tendency I have, as an author, to go on too long, I still tend to do it. If you think my most recent book is huge, you didn't see the unedited manuscript.

It's the rise of word-processing and the decline of editing that have given us overlong books. The first simply allows us to indulge our worst tendencies as authors; the second is a sign of the stress the current book market places on traditional publishers.

I don't see how the rise of e-books will have any effect on this process, except perhaps to cut publisher margins even more deeply, and result in still less editing. Authors have to learn to edit themselves more effectively, because literary editing isn't going to come roaring back anytime soon.

Must we de-codex?

Don't worry: I promise more ranting about the business side of book publishing (including some sniping at publishers), as well as a return to my blogging about the craft of writing. But first, a kind word about the codex—the traditional bound book.

As I've mentioned before, my acceptance remarks for the National Book Award were misinterpreted by Motoko Rich of the New York Times as "a swipe at e-books," when they obviously were no such thing. (National Public Radio, also working on a tight deadline, managed to grasp the point of my remarks in its story the next morning.) The impression that the Times left can be measured by a cryptic "review" of my book left on Amazon's website the day after my remarks, by a customer who said my narrow view of my work convinced him not to buy my book for his Kindle. (Uh, I think he means that if I'm against e-books, he won't buy my writing. But I'm not entirely sure.)

This leaves me in an awkward position. On one hand, I'm not anti-e-book. I think digitizing a book, in and of itself, is fine. It's a format that can be more convenient, especially when traveling. The great writer Richard Rhodes says he likes to read e-books in particular when the printed version is heavy. To be against e-books is kind of like being anti-paperback. It's just another format for the written word.

On the other hand, there are problems with e-books. They are far more ephemeral than physical books. If you buy books you want to keep for years and years, why would you want them in digital form? The electronic reader can get old or break, and it certainly will become obsolete in time. There's no guarantee that new hardware in the future will be able to run the old e-book files you buy today. And where would you store your books for future reference? I tend to see e-books as most useful for reading you know you will not want to keep forever—newspapers, magazines, current events books, light fiction.

There are other problems with e-books as well. Since they will probably be sold almost entirely online, they will (as is the case with all online bookselling) funnel customers to the most famous and bestselling titles. It will get tougher, as independent bookstores die out, for new writers to get discovered and break out. Ironically (since Amazon hates publishers), online bookselling will make authors more dependent on publishers for publicity than ever.

So e-books are not bad, though they have serious limitations. But let us strike a positive note, and praise the traditional codex. The bound book is one of the most successful technologies ever invented. It compacts an enormous amount of information in an easily accessible format. (Just imagine how hard it was to skim a scroll to find something buried deep in a book.) Its operating system never crashes; its power source never fails; its software never goes obsolete. Yes, it can be physically damaged, but it generally survives the elements more successfully than an e-reader. It is the ultimate back-up, a storage unit that usually will outlive its owner.

For my kind of book, the nonfiction narrative with lots of supplementary material, it's particularly useful. The printed book allows a nonlinear approach to content in a highly personal and manageable way. I was reminded of that just yesterday, when I picked up a work of history I've been reading, and scanned the open book to find my place. The process of flitting my gaze across two open pages oriented me again to the narrative. When I need to consult maps or photographs, I can easily go back and forth, relative to where I am in the text. I can consult endnotes—not just one at a time, as in an electronic link, but in the context of the notes before and after it. And a well-produced codex is simply a beautiful thing. There's nothing I like better than a well-stocked bookshelf.

It is true that digitization allows for many useful features, such as searchable text and links outside of the book itself. But more features and newer technology do not always mean better. The printed book has survived because it works, and works extraordinarily well.

A certain chief of a certain monopolistic online bookseller has publicly announced that he now hates reading traditional books—that it is his company's "mission" to make us all into e-book readers, and essentially wipe out the codex. He's stupid (on this point at least), and he'll fail. Again, this is not because e-books are bad. It's because one size does not fit all—because new technologies do not eliminate the usefulness of old ones. If Amazon abandons this talk of a "mission" and these expressions of downright disgust at traditional books, it will get a much friendlier reception from authors, publishers, and readers.

Hey Hollywood: Work for free!

Well, Amazon hasn't pulled the "buy" buttons on the pages for my books yet. Maybe, if I'm lucky, they don't care much about my criticisms of their "business model," here on this blog that no one reads. Let's hope.

An analogy occurred to me, as I reflected on the brave new world that Amazon declares is its "mission" to bring about. As I've explained, Amazon claims that its plan offers authors a chance to eliminate publishers—and thus eliminate advances—in return for the possibility of maybe a bump in royalties (though even that's not the case, when calculated with my most recent book as an example). And, as I've explained, this is a lousy deal for authors, not to mention readers. But Amazon insists, against all evidence, that somehow the change in format from printed book to digital makes such a transformation necessary.

Here's the analogy, to show how crazy this idea is: Digitization allows Netflix to stream movies to consumers over the Internet. What a great new format! What if Netflix insisted that this format made the old model of how movies are made obsolete? What if Netflix had the market power to demand that all the people who make movies do it for free, and just wait for an eventual share of the sales revenue? The actors, director, producers, lighting people, set designers, truck drivers, sound people, editors, promotion department, camera people—and so on—will have to work for years without pay, spending tens of millions of their own dollars, in return for a slice of the revenue years down the road.

Won't happen, right? After all, how can we expect so many people, using so much expensive equipment, to labor for years without any money at all? It's crazy. But that, ultimately, is what Amazon is trying to push onto writers, albeit on a smaller scale.

Sure, some books can be written in one's spare time, without much more of an investment than time at the keyboard. But my kind of books aren't like that. I need to travel, to get access to major libraries and archives, to spend years intensively researching before I ever get to the writing stage. Each of my books requires more years of full-time effort than any one person in Hollywood ever puts into making a movie. So why should any business model that eliminates the up-front investment—the advance—seem reasonable to me? It shouldn't. It doesn't make sense.

Hollywood, don't worry. You're safe. Authors, on the other hand . . .

Amazon Speaks!(Nonsense, Unfortunately)

I have shocking news, and not-very-surprising news:

First, Amazon has replied to my blog posts. Or I think it has. Someone with the friendly name of "Brian" has replied to my posts by repeating all of Amazon's talking points. If you're not Amazon, Brian, then I sincerely apologize. However, you present Amazon's case so exactly that I'm going to call you Amazon anyway. Lest I misrepresent Amazon's case, you can read the reply here.

That's the shocking news. The less surprising news is that Amazon reveals a rather complete ignorance of book publishing, from either the writer's or the publisher's perspective. I call it ignorance, because if it's deliberate misrepresentation, then Amazon's being downright evil. And I don't want to cast Amazon as evil.

In fact, let me speak directly to Amazon, and stress that I am not your enemy. I like the fact that readers find my books through your site, and that it has sold rather well for the Kindle. Terrific. But I have to be honest with you, Amazon: I'm stressing this because I'm afraid of you. Your little stunt of refusing to sell Macmillan books shows that you're ruthless with those who disagree with you. My books are only two of the tens of thousands that you sell; you can afford to cut me off, to pressure me into agreeing with you, whereas I cannot afford any such thing.

Now, let's turn to your argument, as presented in the comment by "Brian." Your case is that the shift to online bookselling and e-book editions makes the current publishing business model obsolete. You claim, further, that the large publishers themselves are dinosaurs that soon will be extinct. They are "wasteful publishing giants," whose bloat is preventing "much better deals" for "authors and readers." Your idea is to get rid of publishers, in essence, and publish authors directly, or perhaps through very small publishers, granting as much as 50 to 60% royalties. In conclusion, Amazon, you say you have the "realistic e-book pricing" plan, and "to charge that kind of money for an e-book cannot be sustained."

Unfortunately, Amazon, you do not explain why online bookselling and e-books should make the current model obsolete. Sure, I can see why the model seems "broken" to you. It's getting in the way of your monopolizing the e-book market. But for everyone else in the world of books, the economics of the current model still makes sense. You claim that authors would do better under your plan, whereas, in fact, your approach would drive me out of business.

Allow me to explain. We have to begin with the question of what the "wasteful publishing giants" actually do, and inquire into the nature of their relationship to authors.

First, let's dispose of your spin-word "wasteful." Unless you've gone through the financials of the large publishing houses, and can point out how they waste money, it's just an attempt to tar your opponents in this debate. It's meaningless.

Second, and most important, large publishers provide authors with advances. This is essential for authors such as myself, who write research-intensive projects that require years of work. A publisher must be large enough to make this kind of investment; small houses, let alone independent writers on their own, just don't have the capital.

But your business model would eliminate advances. To that I say, who cares if royalties are 50% instead of 25%, if the author never gets enough money up front to produce the book in the first place? Under Amazon's no-publisher, no-advance "business model," research-intensive nonfiction books would only be written by hobbyists and academics. In other words, they will cease to be works of literature. I took seven years to finish my book; sure, I didn't live off the advance for that entire time, but it would have taken at least two or three times longer if I had received no advance. I wouldn't have written it!

Now, Amazon, I understand that you can live without my kind of book. You sell everything, so why should you care if I can't make a living? You'll have plenty of other kinds of books to sell, not to mention toasters, TVs, and tea cozies. But, with all due modesty, I think that eliminating professional authors will seriously impoverish our culture. I simply cannot afford to write a major biography on spec, and hope someday down the road to get those 50% e-book royalties you promise. (Which, calculated against a list price of $9.99, would still be less than what I get for hardcover sales.)

You see, you just don't understand how authors live and work. Without advances, we can't do it. Without publishers large and healthy enough to invest in us and our work, we'll be gone.

Yes, I have beefs with publishers. Since the Great Recession started, they've been cutting back on advances, and demanding pay-out schedules that are panic-inducing. But you don't solve these problems by eliminating advances altogether.

So, publishers provide advances, which allow authors to write for a living. What else do they do? To listen to Amazon, they do nothing else. In fact, they add much of the value of a book.

Even if all book publishing became digital overnight, we'd still need large publishers, with big pools of in-house talent. First, there's the editing. I have a top-notch editor, so I'm spoiled, but editors are necessary for every book. Authors need editors: it's that simple. If you don't see that, you've never written a book (not a good one, anyway). They also need copy editors (a different thing), proofreaders, and graphic designers. If you think a Kindle page of The First Tycoon is just taken from my manuscript Word file off my computer, guess again. Then comes indexing, designing the photo spreads, designing the cover, legal review, and deals for international and subsidiary rights. Let's not forget promotion. If you think the catalog and jacket flap copy or publicity don't matter for a book, you don't know anything about publishing. And book tours! If you're lucky enough to be sent on one, you know how valuable they are in building an audience for a book. You think you release a Kindle edition, and the book sells itself? Guess again.

All these people (and more) are needed for any book, digital or physical. They are not waste; instead, they add value. Have you, Amazon, ever seen a self-published book? Or even a book published by a publisher gone off the rails? I have. They are terrible: Unedited, full of typos, poorly designed, and just plain awful all around. The self-published bestsellers are so rare, among the legions of self-published books, as to be almost urban myths.

Speaking of self-publishing, that's one more thing "wasteful giant publishers" do: They shape the marketplace. Because their bottom line rides on success, they weed out all the garbage that's proposed to them. And let's be clear: Probably the vast majority of book proposals are worthless. Publishers screen out the junk. There's enough junk that gets published as it is; imagine what it would be like if everything got published, and there was no way to tell, except by reading them all yourself, which books were any good. Publishers back winners, and that helps us readers find what's worth reading. Whenever NPR or the Daily Show or a book reviewer highlights a book, it's because a publisher is presenting it to those venues, shaping the marketplace in an absolutely necessary way.

Are there unpublished or underpromoted gems? Of course. But they'll be even harder to find if we eliminate this screening and promotion process, now carried out by big publishers.

In other words, what publishers do is of immense service to authors and readers alike, and actually adds value to the books themselves. Snarky attacks on "wasteful giant publishers" doesn't change that. And this brings us back to my now-familiar argument about pricing.

Publishers have a fixed cost for producing a book, no matter how many are sold. That cost is the author's advance, plus all the work I've outlined above (and shown to be necessary). The publisher must recoup those costs, plus allow for a profit, plus allow room for a retailer to make a profit (including room for the retailer to discount the list price, if it so desires). The publisher, drawing on its experience in the book business, makes a calculation of how many units will sell, then sets the price to distribute the fixed costs across the estimated number, while allowing for the profit margin. When a book is in physical form, the list price also incorporates the variable cost or printing and distribution.

The fixed costs for producing a book can vary wildly. If the author had a big advance, or the estimated number to be sold is minor, then the list price must go up accordingly. If it required intensive design work (lots of photos or maps or other elements), if it required extra editing or copyediting, then the cost goes up. None of these things has to do with the printing and distribution, which usually represents only 12-15% of the cost. That's why two books of identical physical size are priced so differently. A Harry Potter book would sell so well, the fixed costs could be distributed among a huge number of units, lowering the list price, while a mid-sized biography of James Crowley McGuillicutty, inventor of the potato peeler, won't sell very many, requiring steeply higher list price. (No, there is no James Crowley McGuillicutty.)

So why should e-books all be priced at $9.99? Nothing has happened to make book prices less variable than they always have been, since digitization has little effect on the cost of producing books. Why aren't e-books priced at just 12-15% lower than the hardcover list price, to take out the cost of printing and distribution? I've yet to hear a real answer to these questions. The absolute only way in which you can reduce the list price of a book by half, a third, or nearly two-thirds (in the case of my most recent book) is if you vastly increase the number of units sold.

Does anyone seriously believe that putting a book on an electronic screen suddenly creates hundreds of thousands of new readers for that book? If they do think that, the statistics don't back them up. Yes, e-books are becoming more popular. But the statistics show that they are cannibalizing physical book sales. So the total universe of book sales—the total number of units sold—remains about the same. The economics of pricing remains essentially the same for e-books. Otherwise, someone loses.

Ah, but Amazon seems to want someone to lose: "wasteful big publishers." Of course: It's a retailer, the online monopoly, in fact, and it wants to make its suppliers knuckle under, just as Walmart does with its suppliers. But you know what? We authors can't write without those publishers. We can't afford to work without advances, or without all the work that publishers put into books. Readers may not know it, but they can't live without publishers either.

Authors: The New Spotted Owl—minus conservation

I've been blogging about the e-book pricing wars, and I'm as tired of it as you are. But it's a matter of survival.

As I mentioned in my National Book Award acceptance remarks, the author lives in a complex ecosystem, depending on a host of other species for survival. One of the most important species is the bookseller. I strongly support independent bookstores, because they offer something the big chains or Amazon don't: personal, in-depth knowledge about books, and encouragement to readers to discover new authors who haven't made news.

All the same, Amazon is an important outlet for books, so I'm dependent upon it as well. It offers something the independents sadly can't: deep discounts (not to mention direct delivery to your home). I don't want to complain about any bookseller, even the one with a near-monopoly of online sales. I'd rather work with Amazon to help its customers discover my books.

Unfortunately, Amazon is not simply discounting when it comes to e-books. It is taking a loss in an attempt to change the way e-books are priced. That's called predatory pricing. Tragically, if Amazon has its way, the market math just won't add up for authors. Even if Amazon doesn't get exactly what it wants, but does significantly shift the way e-books are priced—say, along the lines of Macmillan's plans—then authors will suffer a drop in income. Only the tiny handful of super-bestseller authors can afford a drop in income. The rest of us will be faced with serious trouble, because we're barely hanging on as it is.

The problem is that both Amazon and hard-pressed publishers are forgetting my NBA message: That book publishing is an ecosystem, that no species can survive without the others. And the one species that is absolutely central to the lives of all others is the author. But in seeking to squeeze out a small advantage in their mutual conflict, Amazon and many publishers are slowly killing off authors.

Want all your books written by part-timers—amateurs and academics? Then you'll be very happy in this brave new world. But I'm not sure it will have room for professional authors who do not produce one blockbuster after another—that is, for virtually all professional writers.

I'm an endangered species, and I don't like it. But the threat endangers the entire world of books, and not just my particular kind.