Publetariat

Royalty-Only Anthologies and Writer Exploitation

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I made a comment on Twitter that caused a flurry of reaction. I won’t call it a storm, I’m not Stephen Fry or Neil Gaiman, who can break a website with a single tweet, but the response to my comment was interesting nonetheless. I was basically lamenting the continued rise of anthology submission calls that are “paying” writers with royalties only. I have a problem with this, and I’ll explain why.

It’s well known that most of us don’t get paid anything like what we’re really worth as writers. Yet those of us who persevere should see a slow increase in how much we can make for our writing, as our skills improve and our reputation becomes estbalished. A lot of writers get their first publication credits in FTL publications. (That’s For The Love, not Faster Than Light. Althought Faster Than Light Publications is not bad name for an SF press, but I digress.) I got my own early publications in places that paid nothing but exposure. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Most of those places will say something like, “We’d love to pay our authors but we can’t afford to offer anything but exposure at this stage.” They’re honest and there is a place for that, especially with online zines. And authors know exactly what they’re getting.

Some writers are happy to put stuff out through those venues indefinitely, but the majority of people will slowly graduate to better, paid gigs. For this reason, those FTL markets almost always comprise up and coming writers and no recognised names, but that’s kinda their purpose.

The next level up from writing for nothing but “exposure” (and I use quotes, because, let’s be honest, not many people read those places) is getting paid a flat rate and/or contributor copies. Often a market, expecially online fiction markets, will pay a token rate. Even $3 or something like that through PayPal. It’s next to nothing, but it’s something and it’s honest. The author knows what they’re getting.

Along with, or instead of, a token amount is a contributor copy payment. Let’s assume the market is paying nothing but contrib copies. That’s fair enough if they’re clear about that. Something like, “We can’t afford to pay writers for their stories, but each contributor will receive a copy of the issue(or book) their story appears in.” The reason this is important, and it really is important, is because they know authors want copies of anything their work appears in. It’s understandable – when a writer gets published, they want to show off their success. They want hard evidence of their hard work.

Personally, I think all print markets should, at the very least, send a contributor copy to all the authors, even if they don’t pay anything. Far better than paying a token amount and not sending copies, as the author will probably end up down on the deal as they buy their own copy of the book or magazine, which likely costs more than any token payment.

Now the ideal situation is to be paid and get a contributor’s copy. Even if the payment is as low as just a few dollars, plus a contrib copy, the author is getting something for their hard work. Well below anything like a viable wage, but something. The best of all worlds is to be paid well and get at least one contributor copy.

Paid well means by the word. Even 1 cent/word is usually better than a flat rate and once you hit the heady heights [/sarcasm] of 5 cents/word and above, you’re doing damn well by today’s fiction standards (oh, how I dream of 5c/word!) I have a personal policy that my work is worth a certain amount. I won’t submit anywhere that doesn’t pay my base requirement. Of course, that’s my decision based on my experience, my previous publication history and what I think my work is worth. I expect to regularly revise that policy and I hope to always revise it upwards! But, as I said, I got my start in FTL markets like so many others and that’s good. And I’ll still contribute to lower paid markets if I like the concept, respect the publisher, get invited, and so on. No rules are hard and fast. But I always know what I’m getting.

So why are royalty-only markets exploiting writers? Because they promise something, but will almost certainly pay nothing. It’s all about respect for a writer. The primary reason for publishers paying royalties only is because it removes the outlay of buying stories up front, yet still reserves the hope of paying the contributors. That’s fundamentally a good idea, but it’s usually a problem – if that publisher has faith in their ability to edit together a good book and sell it, they should be prepared to pay for the work they include. If they can’t afford an outlay and want to pay by royalty, they should at least send out contributor copies. If the book is not very successful and doesn’t sell, at least the writers got a book out of it. But there’s a reason they don’t.

The exploitation of royalty-only is in publishers knowing that writers will want a copy of the book their story appears in. So will their family and friends, probably. So the publisher promises royalties, knowing the authors may never make a cent, but they, the pubisher, will at least make their money back because all the contributors will buy copies for themselves. Let’s look at the numbers.

“Payment” of royalty-only is usually something like 60% for ebook and 20% for print (if I’m generous), shared among contributors. The rest is kept by the publisher. To keep it simple, let’s look at the ebook and say it retails for $5.

For every ebook sold, the publisher gets $2 and the contributors get $3, shared among them.

Let’s say there are twenty stories in the book. That’s $3 shared among 20 people, or 15 cents for each author for each book sold. That’s a best case example, by the way!

If the book sells 100 copies, that’s still a poor payment for a story. If it sells 1,000 copies, it’s starting to get pretty good. But it won’t sell 1,000. No way. If the publisher could sell 1,000 copies of a book, they’d be paying for quality stories, because that’s how you sell a lot of books. See the issue?

It’s the sad truth that the majority of these anthologies – and there are thousands of them – don’t sell at all. After all, there are thousands of them. Not one book beyond the contributors buying their own copies. So the contribs might make enough at 15c a time to cover their outlay for a copy of the print edition, though probably not. Meanwhile, the publisher makes $2 for every book sold. The net result is effectively the writers paying the publisher to have copies of a book featuring their work, that no one else will ever buy or read. Harsh? Maybe, but it’s true.

It’s exploitation because writers are misled into thinking they might score some income. After all, if the book only sells a couple of hundred copies, they’ll at least make something right? Wrong. For one, it almost certainly won’t sell more than a couple of dozen copies and there’s one more part to consider. A lot of these publishers stipulate in the contract that royalties are paid after expenses are recouped. Let’s say they put a production cost as low as $100 on getting the book out there. The chances of making back that $100 are pretty slim. Those publishers will probably pay more like $50 to get the book out there, rack up their $2 every time a contributor buys a copy, and sit back with a small profit of somewhere between nothing and $50.

Why do they do it? Well, I’m sure they’re hoping to land a success and start shifting lots of books. They’ll make a heap of cash and they can pay their authors well-deserved royalties. It’s all very noble. But it’s not going to happen. Still, at least the publisher should break even, right? Or possibly make a few quid without ever having to pay the authors a cent.

Now, a good publisher, who actively promotes their work and pushes their catalogue and sells books and has every intention of making themselves and their authors money might have more success and shift a lot more books. But by a lot we’re talking a couple of hundred. Maybe. The money coming back to the authors is still pocket change. At least if the publisher sent out contributor copies, the authors would have pocket change and a book, but that would be too much expense for the publisher, and destroy their own primary income stream. These are publishers who refuse to carry any risk.

I’ve sold stories where there’s a basic payment of X cents a word, plus a contributor copy, plus royalties after X costs recovered. That means I got paid for my work, I got a book and, if the book is really successful, I make even more. After all, my work is, presumably, one of the reasons it’s doing so well. That’s how a royalty system should work.

I’m sure a lot of these folks using the royalty-only system are full of good intentions. They really want to sell books and pay authors, but they’re not going to take any risk in doing so. It’s almost certainly not going to work and they’re giving new writers a false sense of hope. These publishers should at least have the faith in their own work to pay by contributor copy and royalty, thereby removing the perception that they’re out to make money from the authors they’re publishing. Those same writers could send their work to online FTL markets, after all, where they’ll still get nothing, but might at least get read by someone.

For The Love markets are one thing. Token payment markets are fair enough. Exposure only plus a contributor copy is fair enough. All these things are clear in what they’re offering and the author knows what they’re getting and how they may end up out of pocket if they buy a copy of the book. A lot of these places will offer authors copies of the book at a 40% discount, which is wholesale rather than retail. You’ll find a lot of these royalty-only markets don’t even offer that. Because they want authors to buy copies of the book they made, at full retail, as that’s how the publisher plans to recoup their costs and maybe make some money for themselves. If they can break even from contributors, there’s no incentive to promote the book to recover their costs. They just move on to the next one and the next one, racking up a catalogue of books no one will ever buy except the people who wrote them.

It’s easy to be a publisher these days. It’s great that there are so many small presses cropping up doing all kinds of interesting stuff. It’s trememdous that there are so many opportunites now for writers to get their work out there. But publishers should at the very least be honest about what writers can expect, even if that’s nothing, and not make back their costs back from the writers sweating blood for them.

I know this is a personal bugbear of mine and plenty of writers are happy to give royalty-only markets a stab. I know a lot of publishers genuinely want to succeed. But I think a contributor copy should be the bare minimum of payment for a print market. What about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

FAQs on Style

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This article, by Philip B. Corbett, originally appeared on the After Deadline blog on the NYTimes.com site on 4/18/10.

Notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style.

Many topics come up repeatedly in reader comments and e-mail messages to After Deadline. Unfortunately I’m not able to offer a direct response to each comment (truth be told, After Deadline is a sideline for me). But one thoughtful reader suggested that I compile answers for some of the most common questions.

Here’s a start in that effort. I’ll add other topics as they come up, and I’ll link to this item from each week’s column so readers can find it easily.

[UPDATED on Dec. 28, 2010; newest item on top.]

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‘None’: Singular or Plural?

Should “none” be used with a singular or a plural verb?

Some readers of The Times and After Deadline insist that “none” must always take a singular verb. They argue that “none” means “not one,” and so is inherently singular.

But as I’ve pointed out before, most authorities, including The Times’s stylebook, disagree. Here’s our entry:
 

none. Despite a widespread assumption that it stands for not one, the word has been construed as a plural (not any) in most contexts for centuries. H. W. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) endorsed the plural use. Make none plural except when emphasizing the idea of not one or no one — and then consider using those phrases instead.

‘Like’ or ‘Such As’?

After a discussion about the use of “like” as a conjunction, several commenters took issue with a different use of “like,” including instances from The Times’s stylebook.

These readers object to the use of “like” as a preposition to mean “including” or “as for example”: Anyone else with an earned doctorate, like a Ph.D. degree, may request the title …

The objectors contend that “like” in this construction should mean “similar to” — so that this example, strictly speaking, would be referring to doctorates similar to a Ph.D. but not including a Ph.D. They would change this phrase to “such as a Ph.D. degree.”

Editors have long been divided on this point. But “like” is widely used, and recognized in all dictionaries, in the sense of “as for example.” Many writers find it more natural and less stilted than “such as,” at least in some contexts.

Both versions seem acceptable to me; The Times’s stylebook tends to favor “like.”

Are Split Infinitives Acceptable?

 

 

Read the rest of the article on NYTimes.com.

Economical, High-Impact Fiction: Follow The Leaders

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Today I came across an article on Slate about scientists seeking video clips to elicit specific emotional responses from test subjects, "Saddest Movie Scenes of All Time". From the article:

Smithsonian.com’s Richard Chin reports that, in the late 1980s, psychology professor Robert Levenson and then-graduate student James Gross began looking for film clips that would reliably elicit emotions from test subjects…Levenson and Gross spent years researching, combing through 250 films and testing their final contenders with nearly 500 undergraduates. The key was finding clips that could stand on their own, without any context, and would evoke a single, strong emotion.

It’s that last part, "clips that could stand on their own, without any context, and would evoke a single, strong emotion," that got me thinking about what a useful tool such a catalog of clips could be to writers of fiction. I’ll concede that the visual and audio aspects of film can definitely heighten the emotional impact of a scene, and of course the performances are critical as well, but I still think writers can learn quite a bit from these masterful miniatures. A single scene that can pull the viewer in quickly and strongly enough to evoke a strong emotional response, regardless of the viewer having zero context or background on the characters or story, is a very well-written scene.

I’d encourage writers to take a look at the clips provided and listed in the article (which also includes clips for amusement, disgust, anger, fear and more) and think about them analytically. Why is the scene so powerful? What specific words or bit(s) of action moved you? In other words, what was important about the scene, in terms of inspiring the desired response in the viewer? Now imagine what those same scenes would be like with more dialogue, more action…more anything. Finally, go back to your own work and see if you might be gilding the lily to your work’s detriment in any of your scenes that are intended to have a strong impact.

Think of impact like a bullet: to be effective, it needs to be fired at high speed and on target. If it has to travel through layers of stuff en route, its power will be lessened and it’s less likely to make it to the target at all.

 

First Month Sales Report – How'd I Do?

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This post, by traditionally- as well as self-published author Tracey Edwards, originally appeared on her Tracey Writes site on 8/1/11.

Well the month has just finished and while 5 Simple Rules has only been up since the 8th July I thought I’d report on my progress so far.

As of today I have sold 10 copies.

10 copies that I’m actually pretty thrilled with given it’s my first month (indie authors usually notoriously have low numbers in the first few months) and that it’s a book on the stock market (not exactly a hot topic right now).

So for 10 copies at $2.99 my royalties are: $18.34 (8 @ 70% + 2 @ 35%).

$18.34

(Less the stupid 30% tax that they’ll take out before they send me a cheque because I’m not a US citizen and haven’t bothered to fill out all the IRS tax forms yet – but which I can still claim back through the Australian tax system under foreign credits so am wondering if I really will bother about the forms anyway).

Anywaaaay.

What does this mean? Does it mean that you can make money being a nonfiction indie author or not?

Ahh do not give up grasshoppers because like I said this is my first month. Plus it’s the only book I have up on Kindle so far (actually that’s not entirely true – I just uploaded a romance erotica short story under a pen name – just to see – too early to tell about this genre yet though).

The real key to making money with the Kindle is to have lots more books up.
 

Read the rest of the post on Tracey Writes.

Publisher, Sell To Thyself!

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I’m always astounded by the hard-sell and oversell antics of some indie authors. While I often advise indie authors that they must be able to take off their Author hat and put on a Publisher hat, the thing is, no matter which of those two hats they’re wearing they should always have a Reader beanie on underneath.

 
While I wouldn’t ever advise a writer to engineer his or her fiction to suit a given demographic, this is definitely required when it comes to nonfiction. You must identify your target audience and ensure your book contains the information or reference material that audience will want. But having said that, I’ll go on to say that even fiction authors—even literary fiction authors—would do well to give a thought to the reader as they lovingly craft their prose. You want to see your vision brought to vivid life on the page, certainly, but you don’t want to confuse or bore your readers in the process.
 
It’s even more critical to keep your Reader beanie on nice and snug when you go to don your Publisher hat. This is necessary because among other things, you still must identify your target audience, regardless of whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, in order to develop an efficient and effective marketing plan. You need to figure out who’s most likely to be interested in your book, and where and how to reach those people. But this doesn’t mean that once you’ve done so, you should go all full-bore, Mad Men, Marketing Exec From Hell on them.
 
Author and Publisher you may be, but you’re also still a human being and a consumer. You still shake your head in annoyance at the pile of junk mail, junk email, junk fax and even junk Facebook and Twitter flowing into your life on a daily basis, don’t you? So why on Earth would you ever risk being counted among the purveyors of that junk?
 
How is it possible that the Author who chuckles to herself at over-the-top marketing hype in advertisements for weight loss aids will nevertheless splatter "MY BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!" in gigantic, flashing red letters two inches tall on her author website? 
 
How can the Author who complains about all the pointless piano-playing cat videos his Facebook friends post to his wall go on to blast all his Twitter followers with twice-daily reminders of his book’s current availability and sales rank on Amazon?
 
Why does the Author who’s sick of all the spam comments left on her blog turn around and post a so-called review of someone else’s book in which she devotes as much time to plugging her own book as talking about the book she’s supposedly reviewing? 
 
Yes, you must get the word out about your book. But you most do so with some consideration for the people on the receiving end. When in doubt about a given tactic you’re about to employ, put yourself in the shoes of a non-writing, non-publishing, ordinary consumer and imagine how your tactic will be received under those circumstances. Don’t overthink it, just go back to the Golden Rule: advertise how you’d want to be advertised to.


This is a reprint from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Value Pricing – One for Self-Pubbers

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This post, by Aimee Salter, originally appeared on her Seeking The Write Life site on 6/28/11.

I took a bunch of flack for my previous posts on self-publishing in which I criticized the business model.  I think most self publishing authors thought I was hiding a derision for the industry behind a business-minded opinion piece.
They were wrong.

Self publishing has been on my radar for years and I think it can be done, when it’s done well.  But I also think it’s (currently) difficult and costly to do well.  Also, rife with potential hiccups that could have far-reaching consequences for an author’s career.

But just to prove that I have actually seriously considered the issue, and to maybe help out anyone with the gonads to give it a shot , I’ll tell you one of the things I would do, if I were going to do it.

Assuming you can overcome the obstacles I see in the process to self-publication, there’s a very, very big business decision to be made:

$$  Price  $$

I see a lot of hubbub out there right now about the $1 e-book.  I can see why authors would do it, and I can see why readers would buy it.  It’s really a no-risk purchase for a reader – which in turn equates to more sales for the writer. 

Win-win?

Hmmm… I’m thinking that depends on what you want out of your writing career.

Quick Marketing Lesson

I’m not going to get into the intricacies here, but I want to put a concept in front of you:

When a reader pays a price for a product, their perception is that the product is worth that much.  That means:

1.  If they want something and it costs too much, their perception is that they’re being screwed over and they will look for other ways to find the product cheaper or a cheaper alternative. 

2. If they need something and it’s cheaper than expected, their perception is that they got a bargain.

Agreed?

But here’s the problem:

 

Read the rest of the post on Aimee Salter‘s Seeking The Write Life.

Pay With A Tweet

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I find a lot of interesting marketing ploys during my research times. Most of them are schemes or ideas that make a highly sensitive person such as myself shudder. However, there are a few I find intriguing. One such idea is called Pay with a Tweet.

What is Pay with a Tweet?

Simply put, this site allows you to create a button you can put on your web site that allows people to download whatever you choose (music, ebooks, movie trailers, etc.) and pay for it by tweeting or posting to their Facebook wall.

Essentially it’s a way to get followers and FB friends to use their social contacts to advertise your product and in turn receive a freebie from you.

Is it worth it?

According to the Pay with a Tweet web site it is, but I’m not one to accept a sales pitch without checking out what others have to say about it.  There have only been a few reviews, but considering PWT was released in June 2010 a few is still better than leaping into the dark without a flashlight.

Paul Marsden’s review, Pay with a Tweet, Pay with a Like: New Social Payments Platforms, was more or less a reiteration of the Pay with a Tweet web site, minus the short video about PWT and including The Teenagers PWT promotional video. What makes this review worth mentioning is the comments, especially deb’s who took issue with the phrase “tweet like hell” in the PWT instructions given to potential buyers.

I may not be one to cringe at the use of this particular phrase, but I know many who would be. I’m also not convinced using language of that kind is particularly professional, especially for someone like me who writes Christian books. It gives me second thoughts about using Pay with a Tweet.

Aaron Poeze’s review, Pay With a Tweet, points out two possible negatives:

  1. The “seller” isn’t making any money, so there’s a higher need to take advantage of the exposure PWT gives.
  2. If the product is terrible, then PWT becomes socially expensive. (think Jacqueline Howett)

Laura Fitton of oneforty thought the idea was great and had no problems as a customer paying with a tweet, which speaks well of the site’s ability to create what it advertises.

The verdict is…

I’m still on the fence with this one only because everything I’ve read thus far has been from the customer end. I think it’s great that people are willing to use social payment to get a free download. Going viral could be a real blessing, but it could also be a nightmare.

True, just being in business is risky. As independent authors we deal with that risk all the time. The issue as I see it with Pay with a Tweet, though, is that you absolutely have to have a great download that makes people want more or it just won’t work. In fact, it could backfire big time.

Maybe it’s just me, but I want to see some results before I leap into this. When social media works, it’s great, but when things go bad…

I’d love to hear from anyone who has used Pay with a Tweet, with good or bad results, from the seller’s point of view. What did you think of the experience? Would you recommend it?

 

This is a reprint from Virigina Ripple‘s The Road to Writing.

Musings On POD Publishers And The Music Business

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I’m heading off on holidays for a week and I will be checking in here on and off. I’ll be some posting some articles I’ve posted over the past year that drew considerable interest and comment. This one – "Musings on POD Publishers & Music Business" was first published as a two-part piece, but here it is in full.
 
About fifteen or more years ago, I set up a music band management and promotions business with a work colleague. It just struck me recently about the similarities between publishing now and what we did then. With the advent of digital Print-on-demand publishing, it seems to be that in the past 8 years, so many more authors are following the trend followed by many musical artists years ago.

 
Let us be clear, POD and subsidy/vanity publishing, whatever you wish to call it, and there is considerable debate about what actually differentiates the terms, effectively means, the author, (read musical artist), contributes in a financial capacity, as well as a marketing capacity, to the production and promotion of their book (read artistic work). While the traditional and Independent publishing world argue the toss over the credibility and acceptability of the artistic output (read product) in the consumer world, time and technology march effortlessly on.
 
So where exactly are we? Why is it acceptable that a recording artist can go into a studio, without a recording contract, invest in a producer/sound engineer, produce a digital format of an album of songs and go to a professional press-production label, without the promise of a "contract" and, yet, be accepted as a legitimate musical artist. While the argument might be that the band/artist is effectively "self-publishing" by printing their own musical performance posters, submitting themselves to radio stations/tv stations, without formal representation, they are still taken seriously by the high street retailer.
 
I have worked in the music promotions business, and I can only speak of Ireland and the uk, where a band/artist can present a finished studio product to a distributor (read book wholesaler) and they will gladly fulfill the product to stores without little question. I can vouch for both retailers and logistical distribution, as I have also worked for many years as a manager in both environments and that this is a natural and practical understanding of the product flow of musical artistic endeavours.
 
My company took bands from a launching point and did everything from booking studio time, looking after the production and presentation of a demo for radio/tv stations, or record labels, gig bookings, as well as general consultation for artists. Our brief and task was to take a band or artist to a stage where they were presented professionally.
 
When I compare the publishing world and the music world, it seems there is at least a 10 to 15 year development gap between the two. In POD publishing, its the small unknown writer who is challenging and doing things differently, looking for independence, and prepared to financially invest at risk of failure. This is the way it was musically 15 years ago. So if we can look at music and see a direct thread as to where the future is going, it looks pretty interesting.
 
Forget about the small guy in music, Radiohead, and other so-called stadium rock bands are now releasing download only albums. The biggest selling single last year 2006-7 was Gnarls Barkley, Crazy, originally released as a download only single. More and more musical artist are being only signed up by big record labels, sometimes long after they have come to widespread prominence by their own promotional endeavours. The reality is that most musical artists have a huge personal prominence long before the ever sign to a major musical label. There’s little work for the label to do other than expand across continents and make the letters bigger on the billboards.
 
 
 
So what does the future hold for the writer in the changing publishing world?
 
Let’s first look at the person at the end of this line, from the writer’s first thoughts of putting pen to paper, through the publishing process, whether it be traditional or the POD/Subsidy channel, all the way to the buying reader browsing a bookshop or the Internet on-line sites. It seems, perhaps, it is the reader who is often lost or forgotten in the food chain of the book world. There may be many who would consider the reader at the bottom of the chain, by virtue of consumption, and sheer numbers of people who say they are avid readers. I think this is the nub of the change for the reader and how they are viewed in the vast literary chain. Print-on-Demand, hmm…Demand, the word takes on much more meaning when you look closely at the buying and reading consumer. There was a time when radio, books, but predominantly newspapers, were the forums the general public used. A time, when without the advent of modern technology, literacy was considered an added bonus, not a necessity to actually survive, as it is now. The advent of TV and the Internet has very much changed how people receive the information and stimulation they want. Effectively, the process and format of how people receive information has greatly changed.
 
Demand, let’s look at that word again. It says something about what we as people want in the time we live in. The writer demands the recognition they think their work deserves, and you might also argue, that they deserve. The printers have long dispensed with the age old typesetter, stooped over a printing press with a "y" and a "w" held tightly between thumb and index finger. The modern digital printer demands that the technology they have can turn out at least 20-30000 books per day. (See the link for Calvin Reid’s article on Lightning Source on this site). The logistics manager of your average book wholesalers demands that his product flow and supply chain is efficient and immediate so he can optimise warehouse pallet space. The retailers demand that they have access and availability to every possible book the reading public might want, and of course, at the cheapest prices. I hear you say, "What about the publisher? What do they demand?" Let’s leave them stew for a while and go back to our humble customer and reader, the person who actually keeps this whole damn thing going. Who are they?
 
If we are to believe the saying – there’s a book hiding away in everyone – then the real truth is that the book buying consumer is both the reader and writer rolled in to one. No writer is born a writer, we all go through our personal form of reading apprenticeship. We know what we like and we read what we like, some choose to ultimately replicate, and if they have a gift, to finally originate their craft. This is the magic of the written word. We writers demand that our voice be heard. The journey of the reader is no different than any human instinct, to survive, to identify, and most enjoyably, to explore and share the experience.
 
Now, let’s go back to the publishers who seem to be stewing along nicely. What do they demand? The writer would say that they demand a mass popular book with a global market for every submission to them. The reality is different. With the massive surge and flooding of the information market, publishers demand trends so they can fulfill them with books. Publishers demand fads and whims because they are now owned by the daily news media groups, and like baying seals at the aquatic waterworld at feeding time, they just want their food thrown to them. They demand that the "Traditional Publishing Empire" be held in the elite esteem that it was a hundred years ago. A time, when most ordinary gentle folk couldn’t even write their own names. While the elite perception might remain the same in tradition publishing, the reality has vastly changed. Some 15 years ago, with the rise of the newsprint media groups founded by the Murdocks and Maxwells of this world, the publishing playing field has been reduced to 5 or 6 key players, following the consumption of many medium sized publishers. Thought the publishing world has an even louder and more controlling voice, its message has greatly weakened by these changes.
 
The arrival of digital print-on-demand technology has shifted things quite a bit. The rise of POD/Subsidy presses has given more writers a voice and a new, more accessible avenue of publication. Traditional publishers have had to reluctantly embrace this technology, for out-of-print back catalogue titles which they are not prepared to do large off-set print runs of. But this is only happening because the quality and cost of the two print methods are coming closer and closer together. It’s also interesting that some POD publishers who have a very successful title on their list are actually starting to use off-set print for their bigger titles. This demonstrates that the future lies with a combination of both print methods. We have already seen the lines of description blurred between POD/Self-Publishing/Vanity publishing. I’ve been through all the arguments, the definitions, the blogs, the forums, the bias, but the reality is that we are in an publishing industry were no-one quite knows where the lines of definition begin and end. I think the lines are so blurred now that it is no longer about who pays for what, where the money flows, what terms are in what contract, or who is producing the best quality and best choice for the buying reader. The bottom line is another book is born and the reader, as always, should be the person who decides what is bought and read.
 
I will finish by touching on technology again. Espresso! No, it’s not a cappachino or coffee. It’s a 5 foot by 5 foot machine which is a mobile POD machine. There are five operating in the US at the moment in book chains. The customer goes in to the store, orders from a database, and in a few minutes, the book is printed and bound there in front of them. Think about it, any book, anywhere, any publisher, once it’s downloaded to the database. The stores, like the suddenly defunct book wholesalers, would need no shelf space, only a digital inventory. I suppose they would operate like a kind of Internet cafe. Hey, maybe I was wrong about the cappachino! By the way, Espresso (EBM – Espresso Book Machine) – the company are currently negotiating to have a machine installed in a store in the uk this year. Be afraid…be very afraid, the only jobs left might be for the author to download directly to the database linked to the machine, and the humble buyer to read it! Sounds pretty efficient to me!

 

This is a reprint from Mick Rooney‘s The Independent Publishing Magazine.

Why the Decision to Kill off a Character can be Murder on an Author

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This post, by Andrew E. Kaufman, originally appeared on The Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Somewhere during the course of my novels, someone has to die—actually, several people do. That’s just the nature of the beast. My stories revolve around evil-doers, and most will stop at nothing to get what they want. Even murder. And really, what’s a mystery without a body or three?

That’s not to say writing them is easy—it isn’t. For an author, killing off characters is a big responsibility and in some cases, risky business. After all, plotting a novel is one thing—plotting a murder is completely another. It has to make sense, has to fit in with the story, and most importantly, has to move things forward in a logical manner. Kill the wrong character and you could wind up with a real mess on your hands (so to speak). The effects can be catastrophic, throwing everything completely off-balance. I know this because on occasion it’s happened to me, and when it has I’ve had to chuck the entire story and start all over again. Trust me, folks, it’s no fun: we’re talking pull-your-hair-out-of your-head, gnash-your-teeth-to-powder sort of moments.

Then there’s the emotional side. Like readers, we get attached to our characters, too, probably even more so. For me, they’re like my children. I created them, and sometimes I hate to see them go. So when the story dictates that one of them must die, it can be troublesome, to say the least. I often don’t want to do it. I struggle. That’s when I have to step away from my feelings and remember that it’s all about the story. The good news is that hopefully, if I’m feeling the pain, the reader might, too. Maybe it’s a sign I’m getting it right. Or maybe it’s just a sign that I’ve lost my mind. Not sure which.

And there are other risks, implications which can occur off the page. Killing the wrong character can make readers really angry.

That’s what happened to Karin Slaughter (SPOILER ALERT) a few years back when she ended the life of one of her most beloved characters. It created a huge backlash. Readers were furious, many accusing her of doing it for the shock value and vowing to never pick up another one of her books again. It got so bad in fact that Slaughter ended up having to post a letter on her website explaining her decision. Not sure whether it made a difference, but as an author I can understand what she went through.

So what about you? Readers: ever been really upset over the death of a character? And authors: What have your experiences been while offing one of your peeps?

Let’s chat.

 

 

The Hybrid Writer: Balancing Traditional and Self-publishing

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This post, by Bob Mayer, originally appeared on Publishing Perspectives on 7/25/11.

From Edward Nowatka: Bob Mayer published over 40 books with traditional publishers before he decided to go DIY and convert his backlist into e-books. It has reinvigorated his career, but it’s not for everyone.

In January of 2011, just six months ago, I sold a total of 347 of my books for the Kindle. Last month I was able to sell 2,100 e-books in a single day and sales are increasing.

What changed?

My focus.

Two years ago I hit a milestone in my career as an author. After twenty years and over forty books, I’d written myself out of my last contract. It was a good news, bad news situation. The good news was for the first time in two decades I could really sit down and think about what I wanted to write. The bad news is, that in traditional publishing, an author without a contract is unemployed.

It was more than deciding what I wanted to write. Because publishing was changing, I had to consider how I wanted to publish. Hard to believe, but in January of 2010, e-books were only 3% of the market. Most people were predicting it might hit 5% by the end of the year.

However, I had a treasure chest of backlist to which I owned the rights — over 40 titles. Some of these titles had never been released in e-book format. Many had hit the print bestseller lists. I knew there was a market for them so with the help of Jen Talty I launched Who Dares Wins Publishing and we started loading my books, starting with my bestselling Atlantis series on various platforms, like Kindle. My primary focus, though, was still on NY and traditional publishing. I was working on a new thriller and a new historical fiction. My plan was to go to my agent and go through the traditional publishing process, just as I had for the past 20 years.

Through 2010, I kept the same focus, but as the year came to a close, I was accepting that publishing as I had known it was going through drastic changes.


Read the rest of the post on Publishing Perspectives.

6 Dialogue Traps To Avoid

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Dialogue is an area where many writers struggle. This is pretty ironic when you consider that words are writers’ stock in trade, and unless a given writer is mute, he or she has been plying that trade since about the age of eleven months. Yet while most of us communicate normally and without much difficulty in our everyday lives, for some reason many of us have a tendency to go all flowery, choppy, melodramatic or wooden when it comes time to put words in our characters’ mouths. Avoiding the following dialogue traps will go a long way toward making your dialogue more natural and believable.
 

1. No two people talk exactly the same. In believable stories, as in life, each person will have his or her own rhythms of speech, pet phrases and regional or family expressions. This doesn’t mean each character should broadcast his geographic or cultural background with every sentence, however. It just means that if, by about a quarter of the way through the book, a reader can’t tell your characters apart merely based on their dialogue, you haven’t made each character’s "voice" distinctive. The important thing here is to be subtle when drawing those distinctions. If you’re not sure what this means or how to go about it, here’s an exercise to try: the next time you’re in a crowded, public place, pay attention to the bits and pieces of conversation floating all around you. Notice how different people express the same thoughts differently.

For example, where one person might say, "I called Sally," another might say, "I phoned Sally," or, "I rang Sally." Where Joe (in his forties) says, "That whole night was a waste of time," Jake (a twentysomething) might say, "Two words: epic fail," and Steve (an ex-military man) might say, "FUBAR, all the way, man." Thinking about your characters’ backgrounds, histories, and even biases and motivations when constructing their dialogue will help in making their voices distinct from one another.

2. Life is not a movie. While heated exchanges, adamant diatribes and weepy heart-to-hearts all have their bit to contribute in various stories, they should be used sparingly if you don’t want your novel to read like a soap opera script. If you’re prone to succumb to melodrama in your dialogue, try reading it aloud. If the words feel or sound unnatural coming out of your own mouth, they shouldn’t be coming out of your characters’ mouths, either. Of course there’s some wiggle room here if you’re writing something historical, a fantasy, sci-fi, or anything else with purposely unusual language.

 
3. Men and women communicate differently. This really boils down to a single, simple concept. Speaking in gross generalizations, the masculine communication style is based on utility, whereas the feminine communication style is about socialization. 
 
In the masculine, words are used to accomplish some goal. The goal is usually imparting necessary—and that word, "necessary", is key here—information, but it can also be to quickly size up a person or situation, or to establish or reinforce the pecking order (e.g., teasing). Generally speaking, believable masculine characters talk less than feminine characters, and get to the point pretty quickly. With feminine characters, a given conversation need not have an intrinsic point: the point of the conversation may simply be for the feminine characters to hear and be heard, and feel validated by one another as a result. But having said that, I’d caution against too much mutual navel-gazing on the part of your feminine characters, lest you bore your readers.
 
4. In general, the words should not draw attention to themselves. Dialogue should never take your reader out of the story, for any reason. If your reader must reach for a dictionary or fire up some device that has access to Wikipedia in order to understand what the heck that character is talking about, that reader is being pulled out of the story world.
 
While particularly intellectual characters may employ five-dollar words at times, try to err on the side of conservatism in that area. If you can substitute a word or phrase that’s better-known, though still only rarely used in everyday conversation, make the change. Similarly, if a given character wants everyone to think she’s worldly and well-traveled she may pepper her speech with foreign words, and that’s appropriate. Just make sure the foreign words are familiar to most readers, or that their meaning is adequately conveyed through context.  
 
5. Dialogue that’s used for exposition will sound stilted 99.99% of the time—so don’t do it! As a general guideline, characters should NEVER say things to one another only for the purpose of conveying necessary information or background to the reader. If a given character might just as well open his bit of talking with, "Well, since the reader probably doesn’t know anything about particle physics, let me give you a thumbnail sketch of string theory," then you’re doing something wrong. Find a way to get the expository into your story in other ways: through actions, settings, and so on. Consider the following example.
 
Michael was physically and mentally abused for years at the hands of his mother and as a result, he has a great deal of trouble extending trust to any females. This history informs the character and actions of Michael, but is not a central focus of the story at hand. When Michael visits a new girlfriend’s home for the first time, one writer might include a confrontation between the two characters in which the girlfriend voices concerns about Michael’s unwillingness to open up to her and Michael responds by spilling his guts about his mother. A better writer will have Michael flinch when the girlfriend removes her belt while changing out of her work clothes, when she playfully quotes an overbearing female movie or TV character, or when she reaches for the knife block while preparing dinner, and then have the girlfriend notice this.
 
6. When in doubt, read it out…loud. This goes back to trap #2, but it bears repeating.


This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Resources For Young Writers

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I have had a number of teenagers email me in the last year and have been so encouraged by their eagerness to write and become authors.

I am also helping my 9 year old niece write her first book at the moment. Even if it’s just for the grandparents, she is learning the process of writing, editing, illustration and book production. It’s amazing to be able to help people at such a young age.

I had that spark at 13 but I lost it over the years and only rediscovered it in my 30s. I don’t want the same thing to happen to these young people, so here are some tips and resources for young people wanting to write and be published.

  • Don’t listen to anyone who says that one type of writing is better than another. This is what killed my young dreams of being a writer! There is a snobbery in the book world that says literary fiction is the best kind, that winning prizes is more important than sales and that genre fiction is somehow less than other types of books. You need to decide a) what you like to read and b) what you like to write. If you like vampire romance, then go ahead, write some yourself. Stephanie Meyer did that with Twilight. If you like war books, or space ships, or explosions, or love stories – or of course, if you like literary fiction books – then write what you enjoy. If you want to earn money from your books, check out what the most highly paid authors have in common here.
  • Not everyone will like your book. Don’t worry about it. But learn about editing. There is a lot of criticism in being a writer, but don’t let it get you down. Not everyone will like your writing. Do you like every book you read? Probably not and that’s ok isn’t it? You don’t need to. So it goes for your book. You will want everyone to love your writing but they won’t. Family can be the most critical and that will hurt a lot. Sometimes it’s best to keep it a secret. There is also a difference between criticism that doesn’t help and constructive criticism which could also be called editing. This is very important for all writers. We all need editors to help us improve. It’s like having a coach at school and we learn that way. An editor will help you to improve what you have. Basically, someone saying your writing is terrible doesn’t help. Someone who says that you need to add some dialogue and improve this character in this specific way is helpful.
  • Try online networking. I personally love twitter for finding like-minded people who are into the same things as me, but I know young people are into different networks. Spend some time on your favourite network finding a group that might suit you. It may be that the best encouragement you can get is from another young person on the other side of the world. I had pen-pals when I was younger (in the days of hand writing letters!). Now you can email someone in another country. Look for someone who you can talk to about being a young writer. Encourage each other and you can always read each others work – but be kind and supportive.
  • Learn about editing, publishing and book marketing as well as more about writing. It’s not just about the initial writing. There is a process in becoming an author and you need to be aware of it all or you will find it much harder when you want to get into publishing. Click on the following links for more information: Writing and Editing, Publishing options and Book marketing. The exciting thing is that as the market changes, there are many more opportunities for all writers either with small independent presses or by publishing yourself onto ebooks or in print. It’s the best time to be a writer right now!

Here are some other resources:

If you are a young writer, do you have tips for other people? If you are a parent/teacher/author, please also leave your tips for young writers in the comments. I would love for this to be a good resource page.

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Handling Writer’s Block the Piers Anthony Way

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How fortuitous it was that a copy of Piers Anthony’s second autobiography, How Precious Was That While, came to me shortly after I had blogged about Writers Block. It was published by Tor in 2002 in mass market paperback with an ISBN 9780812575439. If you’re a fan, you’ll love this curmudgeon fantasy author talk about his self, his books, and the industry. He devotes a whole chapter to the writing process, to include avoiding writers block in Chapter 4: Ironies. I’m taking the priviledge of encouraging you to find a copy and reading this book. I’m going to list some of his observations and tips as a way of explaining why this is such a worthwhile book:

Writing a novel is like running a marathon. It takes steady endurance.

Writers block may be an excuse not to do what people don’t want to do–write.

Always have a variety of projects to work on (like my writing both a mystery and a fantasy every other day).

Use a bracket system so that when you come to a stumbling block, use a bracket and [write a short note to yourself as to what you think should go there and that you should come back to it later]. Then keep on going. I review these every day and write notes in a journal to myself before quitting for the day.

Keep a daily Work Record and track your progress. (He writes 3,000 words of text, 1,000 words of novel notes, and 1,000 of Personal file every day for a total of 5,000 words a day.) He’s 77 YO and still writing. When he wrote this autobiography he had written over 125 novels. Writers block? I don’t think so.

A real writer should generate his inspiration as a tool, ready whenever he needs it.

Have a working spouse to take off the stress of supporting a family, freeing you up to write. (Try it for a trial year like he did).

He goes on with many other writing realities in this chapter, which is why you should try to get a copy of this book. He has a blog at http://piersanthonyblog.blogspot.com/ His Twitter address is PiersAnthony.

Finally

These are Piers’ thoughts, not mine. Don’t shoot the messenger! On the other hand, take these suggestions seriously. Piers is one of the most successful genre writers in the past 50 years or so.

 

This is a reprint from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends blog.

How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application

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Phoster is a fantastic application for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, perfect to create posters, cards, invitations and, yes, ebook covers.

I’ve used the word “create” instead of “design” because it better describes what you’ll be doing.

You don’t need to design a layout, it’s already done by the developers of the application, folks from Bucket Labs – Phoster comes equipped with as much as 72 layout templates. All of them are top-level design. Thanks to that the application can be a very powerful tool to create professionally looking ebook covers.

Below I’ll show you how easy it is to create a cover. The general advise is to keep things simple and not to change the layouts too much. They are perfect as they are and there is no need to improve them.

4 steps of creating a cover with Phoster

I’ll create a cover for a book about mobile natives (I hope one day I’ll write this book).

1. Choose a template

I’m sure you’ll find a template which is closest to your needs. Layouts differ in selection of fonts, position of text boxes and a general style. For each of the template, in a next step you can add a picture. You can also leave a background as it is or just change its color – this would make a nice non-fiction book cover.

When you’ll be selecting a template just keep in mind that you can’t add any more text boxes. So, pick up the template, which is closest to what you want and has enough number of text fields positioned where you want them to be.

For my book I’ve chosen the template below. I like simple design and I want to use a picture which will work best with the title aligned to right. I also need only three text boxes – two for the title and one for the author.

After choosing a template, tap on a Next button at the bottom right.

 

 

2. Insert a photo or choose a color of the background

Use an icon of a camera to add a picture, either directly taken or from a photo library. You can make basic color adjustments within the application (brightness, contrast and saturation) by tapping on a slider icon.

Remember, you can always use one of the photo applications, which can give a stylish look to your picture. I’m sure you have one of them: Instagram, PictureShow, Camera+ or Hipstamatic.

Second option is not to add a picture, but only change a background’s color. To do that, tap again on a slider icon – you’ll see at the top a set of predefined colors to pick up from.

I’ll be using for my cover a photo previously edited in PictureShow (by the way, you can see a #1picstory made with it). As you see it’s dark enough to use against white letters and there is a lot of space in the upper right corner. That’s where I’ll place the title.

 

3. Type the text

To change text tap on a “T” icon. An edit box will appear, where you can replace the existing text with your own title. Use Previous and Next buttons to switch between text boxes. Alternatively you can open the edit box if you quickly tap on the text.

You can change the color, the size and the font style of the text. There is a plenty of typefaces to choose from, but I recommend to keep the predefined style. Any major change may break the original design idea of the template.

If you want to move a text box, tap and hold it until you see a shadow.

I moved the title a bit to the right and higher. As you see, I didn’t change anything else.

 

 

4. Choose the effect

After you’re finished with texts and pictures, tap Next to move to the last step – applying the effect.

This is the most enjoyable part of the work. There are 19 style available. You can select one of the vintage styles, including paper and dust textures, or you can decide to use color stripes or patterns (see picture below).

I’ve selected a simple pattern and the cover looks like this. What do you think?

Although Phoster is positioned as a tool to create posters, cards, invitations, I think it’s an awesome way to create professionally looking ebook covers. It’s one of those mobile applications which redefine our approach to creation. You can focus solely on finding a concept and big picture, leaving the craft to the application itself.

Phoster costs $1.99 (iTunes link). Consider it as a money spent for a professional cover artist, who gives you 72 proposals of the layout.

Remember to include credits to Phoster in your ebook. Write down a link to both the application at iTunes and the developer’s webpage: http://www.bucketlabs.net.

Read also about another great tool, Wordle. You can use it to create great-looking covers based on a word cloud from your book.

 

This is a reprint from Piotr Kowalczyk‘s Password Incorrect.

Five Good Grammar Habits Every Writer Should Adopt

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This post, by Melissa Donovan, originally appeared on Writing Forward on 7/21/11.

Can you imagine a nutritionist who eats exclusively at fast food restaurants? A personal trainer who never exercises? A writer who can’t be bothered with grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

In most professions, best practices and tools of the trade are mandatory. If you want to be a doctor, you have to have a PhD. If you want to land a job in accounting, you need math skills. But writers can easily finagle around best writing practices, especially with the increasing accessibility of web- and self-publishing.

Basic grammar skills used to be mandatory — not just for writers but for all high school graduates. These days, you can get out of college with a degree but no clue how to properly structure a sentence or differentiate between they’re, their, and there.

I’ve lamented about the fact that grammar is absent from education. But I’m even more saddened by the absence of good grammar among self-proclaimed writers.

Good Grammar Habits for Writers

I’m not going to rehash all the reasons writers should practice good grammar. It all boils down to being a professional and showing respect for the craft of writing and for your readers.


Read the rest of the post, which covers the promised 5 good grammar habits, on Writing Forward.