Stacia, let me remind you the comment I had issue with:
Top three epubs in the industry. Not top three erotic fiction electronic publishers, top three electronic publishers.
Actually, it's perfectly clear to me, and I think to many others, that Fae meant the epublishing industry specifically, as in, houses which publish ebooks first/primarily ebooks. Since, you know, she was replying to a post which said (bolding mine):
I apologize in advance, because I know this is off the topic.
I am so curious about this, I'd like to get a short list of the 'big dog' epubs and write to them so I can ask about their practices, both now and in the first year or two of their operations. I think it would make an interesting article for RWR or some other magazine.
Naturally, Carina is not going to be the same, since it's backed by the giant Harlequin, but I'm genuinely curious about some of the others. And I think that the business about the copy edits is just a misunderstanding.
Who are the 'big dogs' of epublishing? I'll see if I can get any information out of them and get back to you.
/end derail
Karen's question asked very specifically who were the "big dog"
epublishers. Not publishers in general.
Epublishers--again, houses which either do not publish print books or publish print editions after the ebook has been on sale for some time. Fae responded with her opinion regarding the "big dogs" in the epublishing industry. Why in the world would Fae need to say "the top three epublishers" in reply to a question which asked, "Who are the biggest epublishers?" It was clear what the question was. She quoted it before replying. (Karen also clearly sees a difference between epublishers and print publishers, which is why I bolded the statement about Carina.)
I appreciate the reminder of which comment you "had issue" with, but it wasn't necessary. I remembered why Fae said what she said, and understood Karen's question and Fae's reply; it seems you were confused by it, but I was not.
I never said you don’t separate by genre. I said when you’re calling these three publishers “THE BEST” producers of digital books YOU.ARE.WRONG. If you wanted to call them the best producers of erotic fiction, well, I’d say you’d have a better argument.
No, it is not wrong. The fact that you don't seem to understand what is actually being discussed, or what the differences are, doesn't change that. (And it wasn't "who produces the 'best' ebooks," it was "who are the biggest epublishers?")
And producers of mysteries compete against other producers of mysteries, producers of si/fi compete against other producers of si/fi, producers of erotica compete against other producers of erotica.
Sure, if all mysteries were exactly the same, and all sci-fi novels were exactly the same, and all erotica was exactly the same, and the authors of those books all want exactly the same thing from their publishers. But they're not, and they don't.
EC is not "in competition" with Berkley (actually, "competes" isn't really the right word to use in publishing, necessarily, because books are individual products). If you want a book of the sort EC publishes, you look at EC. Perhaps at some other erotic romance epublishers. You do not look at Berkley, because their books are not completely interchangeable with EC's. If you read in the genre--in any genre--the differences are clear and obvious.
And frankly, some readers read books from epublishers almost exclusively, and some readers do not own ereaders or read ebooks. Why? Because that's what they do. Because that's what they like. Because they've found House X's books suit their tastes whereas House Y's do not. Authors looking to epublish look at the biggest ehouses because they have the largest built-in audiences, who head to their website every Wednesday or whatever to check out that week's new releases. Every publisher is not the same.
How do you think agents choose which editors to submit a particular book to? They know which publishers produce which types of books, and which editors like which particular types of stories/voices/etc. Why would they do that if all publishers were exactly alike and produced exactly the same types of books?
And again, we are talking about
different business models here.
I'm honestly having a hard time seeing what is so difficult about this, or why you're so insistent that everyone here is "wrong" to separate epublishers from print houses. There are big print houses. There are big epublishers. If you want print publishing you go for the biggest print houses. If you want epublishing you go for the biggest epublishers. It's not rocket science.
That is just common sense.
No, actually, it's incorrect. See above: not all books are the same, and publishers really aren't "competing" with each other in the sense you seem to mean.
Of course if you're building a submission list for who to send your erotic romance novel to, you don't add Bloomsbury.
And if your interest is in being published in ebook first, because epublishers are the ones who produce the types of books you write, and/or because you want a monthly payment schedule, and/or a certain royalty percent, and/or a certain type of experience, and/or are aiming at a particular audience, and/or write shorts or novellas which the large print houses aren't interested in, you look at epublishers first, and want to know who the biggest ones are. My point about genre was simply to illustrate that not all houses are the same, not all books are the same, and that if one acknowledges the differences there one must also see that there are other differences.
Bottom line, authors are allowed to classify and/or judge publishers however they like, and it's really not your place to say they're "wrong" for doing so (we have a specific forum here for epublishing; are we "wrong?"). You are free to lump all publishers together or to think the only difference is format or whatever else and make your decisions accordingly; no one is stopping you. But the rest of us will classify them according to what we know about them and how they work and the industry as a whole, and we're not "wrong" for doing so. It is in fact rather disrespectful of you to insist everyone is "wrong" for judging epublishers separately from print publishers, just because NY produces ebooks, too.
But since you are so determined to bang this particular drum, I'd love to know why you feel there is no difference between NY and epublishers. Do you think the business models are the same? Do you think the types of books they publish are the same? Do you see no difference between books published by NY and books published by ehouses as far as length, content, level of explicitness? Do you think their authors have the exact same experiences? Do you think their distribution models are the same? Their marketing and promotion?
On what, exactly, are you basing your insistence that they should all be lumped together as "publishers" with no differentiation made at all? What experiences have you had, either as a reader or a writer, that convinced you they're exactly the same?