Progress report

Yay progress! Technically, I finished this editing pass today, but I added new material to the Epilogue, so I want to go over that one more time before I really consider it done. I've got the kid tomorrow and Wednesday's kind of booked, but this should be totally done on Thursday. Then I think I'll take a few days to deal with the tax & house crap that's piling up, and then read through it again.

Lack-of-progress report

Yeah, no progress today. I was going to throw this chair out, and then I realized that I could fix it, and then I realized that they had designed it so that it was a total pain the ass to fix, because they want you to throw it away and buy a new one, so I fixed it anyway.

Then I ran some errands.

This was all stuff I was planning on doing...as soon as I was done with this editing pass. Upon reflection, I think it's nerves--they become a problem the closer I get to actually finishing something.

More funny numbers about bookselling

I should just stop reading The New York Times' coverage of the book industry, right?

But I read this story on Barnes & Noble and how it can't possibly go under because traditional publishers don't want it to.

Well, that sounds like a sound business plan.

Of course the article regurgitates the not-at-all made-up fact that Barnes & Noble controls 27% of the e-book market. And we know this isn't self-serving propaganda from Barnes & Noble, because all those traditional publishers--you know, the ones who will be totally screwed if Barnes & Noble goes under?--they swear up and down that it's so!

Yeah, that number is definitely not self-serving propaganda from Barnes & Noble, it's self-serving propaganda from Barnes & Noble and the traditional publishers. Good to know. (Even if you think that they're not just lying--and publishers do have a long and storied history of lying about book sales--then this would still indicate that Barnes & Noble's figures apply only to to e-books from large, traditional publishers.)

And of course despite the fact that Barnes & Noble has been plowing under indie bookstores since its inception, they have to trot out the poor, poor indie booksellers.

Did you know that, according to the article, "Since 2002, the United States has lost roughly 500 independent bookstores — nearly one out of five." Sounds awful, huh?

Of course, that's since 2002. Pick a different start date, like they did in this Washington Post article published last August, and the picture looks different, too:

The American Booksellers Association, the national trade organization for independently owned bookstores, counted a 7 percent growth last year and has gained 100 new members in the past six months. The association now counts 1,830 member stores across the country, up by 400 since 2005, according to Meg Smith, the association’s spokeswoman.

 

Hmm.... So there has been a big decline in independent bookstores, but it's a result of what was happening between 2002 and 2005. I'd guess it had something to do with the economic conditions following Sept. 11th. It's certainly got very little to do with what is driving Barnes & Noble under in 2012, which I would argue is the result of them adhering to a business strategy (large selection plus low prices) that Amazon does better.

Then we stop getting numbers, because that would involve the reporter actually having to do some work. Instead, we rely on weepy, unsupported generalizations straight from the mouths of traditional publishers. The backlist "would suffer terribly," which is exactly why so many writers are fighting to get the rights to their backlists returned to them. And the CEO of Macmillan (you know, one of the publishing houses currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Union, because traditional publishers would rather break the law than adapt to the new world of bookselling) assures us that "Anybody who is an author, a publisher, or makes their living from distributing intellectual property in book form is badly hurt...if Barnes & Noble does not prosper."

Wow. Tell that to Joe Konrath.

Don't fear the freebies

Buroker did a tweet I liked: "#promotip Stop whining about whether free ebooks frak up the marketplace and test this and other price points for yourself."

Her tweet was funny, but I've seen people fretting themselves into high blood pressure and an ulcer over the availability of free e-books. They're not worried about whether or not they should offer a freebie, they're worried that everyone else will offer everything for free, and the bottom will fall out of the market.

I think this is a misunderstanding of the supply/demand curve. You look at the demand half, and sure thing, demand goes up as the price goes down. Prices get too expensive? People switch to a substitute good.

There's no question that this happens. This is what destroyed the encyclopedia industry that once employed me. This is exactly why I am optimistic about self-publishing and e-books.

But there are several important things to keep in mind before freaking out because other people might offer their books for free (aside from the fact that it's almost never helpful to freak out about things you have absolutely no control over).

Thing #1 The supply/demand curve relies on several assumptions that don't actually exist in the real world. There are many of these (for example, in the magical world of classical economics, everyone knows every price available for every item), but the most important one for our purposes is that it assumes all the goods for sale are identical.

Books are not all identical. At all. Now, I would argue that if I'm asking you to pay $26 for Mystery A, and Mystery B, which is similar, is available for $4, you are fairly likely to choose Mystery B. But you could be a big fan of the author of Mystery A, in which case you might gladly pay $26, or even way more than that if it's a first edition or something.

Why are you being so economically irrational? That brings us to....

Thing #2 The cost of a book to the reader is only partially represented by its cost in dollars.

When I read The Fountainhead, it costs me nothing in dollar terms, because I got it from the library. It cost me hours and hours of my time, however, because that damned thing is 800 pages long. It also cost me a great deal of mental and emotional anguish, because it's a terrible, simple-minded book, littered with identical two-dimensional characters making the same point over and over again, and it was written by a mentally-defective, sexually-dysfunctional bore who thought she was the wisest person in all the land.

There are many more Ayn Rand books in the library, and they are free, but I swear to you, I will go to my grave without having read another.

Reading a bad book is a ghastly experience. A bad book makes you wonder why you even bother with humanity. If people invest their time and energy into a bad book, they are just as pissed if the book is cheap or free as they are if it is expensive.

If the cost of a bad book is $0 + your time + your frustration and rage, and the cost of a good book is $4 + your time + your joy and delight, the good book is actually less expensive. People do this math unconsciously all the time: Many people pick up free books and never read them. I strongly doubt that these people aren't reading at all. They just aren't reading the free books, because they'd rather spend their time and energy buying and reading books they know they're going to like.

(The problem traditional publishing faces is that they're offering a very similar book experience but trying to charge $10-$20 more for it. By and large, that math isn't going to work.)

Thing #3 The supply/demand curve has a whole other half to it, called the supply curve.

The demand curve is pretty easy for most people to understand, because most people have hunted a bargain or two in their lifetimes: If it's cheaper, more people will buy it.

But the supply curve sometimes takes a little thinking. Let's say you have a job offer from Firm A that pays $40,000 a year. Firm B offers you a job--identical in every way to Firm A's job--but it would pay you $80,000 a year.

Which job would you take? The one that pays more! Guess what? You're a supplier (supplying labor in that example). Suppliers want to be paid more. The more money that can be made by supplying something, the more people will supply it.

So you look at that supply curve again, and you look what happens when the sale price of the good reaches zero--the number of suppliers does the same thing.

In short, people are greedy, or at least they want to be able to make a living. Surprise! (And hey, it looks like traditional publishing is on the wrong side of that curve, too!)

But gee, there are a ton of free books out there, right? Sure. But I would argue that the majority of them are by people who are either 1. supplying a loss leader, or 2. not serious writers. The people in the first group are offering one free title in hopes that readers will try it, like it, and (this is key) buy more. These authors aren't training readers to get books for free; they're training reader to seek out their other titles. And I'd say they have a lot of evidence on their side that this works. They are your competition, I suppose, but it's not like you didn't have any before.

The people in the second group don't ever expect to make any money writing--they just feel it's important to get the word out about how the Martians have allied with Al Qaeda and Mossad and are remotely controlling President Obama via the ozone layer and Kindle readers. They tend not to work too hard on their craft.

Thing #4 There is nothing new with having a gazillion free books available to compete against yours. It's called the library, and it's been around a while.

Thieving thieves who thieve

Edittorrent (via PV) has a disturbing post on a bad new agency practice (she starts out thinking it might just be a rumor because it sounds so bad, but no, it's real). Some agencies are asking authors to sign away 15% on revenue earned by books the agency doesn't sell to a publisher. If you sign this sort of contract, and the agent fails to sell the book, and then you self-publish (completely on your own), you owe the agent 15% of what you make, even though they failed to provide any service of value.

An agent is an agent, guys. You don't pay random real-estate agents fees for houses you bought without their help. You don't pay headhunters fees for jobs you got without their help. You shouldn't have to pay literary agents fees for revenue you have earned without their help. "We only make money if you make money" does not mean "if you make money entirely by your own devices, with zero assistance from us," OK?

The recent changes in publishing have not be easy on agents, and as a result, sleazy contracts are becoming more common. Watch out and take care.

Progress report

I went over the new scene and edited the next scene so that it fit in. Then I edited the next chapter. Buuut I'm going to have to go over that sucker again--the new scene is rather dramatic, but because it didn't exist before, in the next chapter it's like everyone got bonked on the head and completely forgot about it! So there's going to have to be some more significant reworking of the final chapters for continuity's sake.

Writing about a book vs. writing a book

One of the things that I'm going to have to do after I finish this editing pass is to cook up jacket copy for Trust and polish the description.

Whether you self-publish or publish traditionally, you have to get the hang of writing about your book, which is a very different thing than writing the book itself. Basically you have to sort out who would want to read your book and why--which was something I struggled mightily with in my initial description.

My current description mentions things like, "Hey, this book is character driven," which I think falls in the same category as "Hey, this book has a language advisory" or "Hey, this book is erotica" or "Hey, this is a short story." Certain things you really need to be very up-front about, because there are readers who are really looking for it and others who will get extremely upset.

The New Podler quote serves double duty: It's a favorable review (you want to highlight any quality markers you have, which is why the first sentence is that review and the next sentence begins "Award-winning writer"), and it plays up the '60s social sci-fi thing, which some people really like.

You also have to show the reader in the description that you can actually write this sort of book. Wacky comedy? Your description had better not be dry and dull. Tender romance? Your description should make people cry.

In some ways, it's easier if you self-publish because it's clear what the description is--it's what people see when they click on your title on Amazon. Obviously, it's marketing copy written to sell the book.

In traditional publishing, it's a little confusing, because when you send off your book to an agent or editor, you include what's called a synopsis. We all wrote synopses in English class, right? It's a summary of the plot of the book. When I first started sending stuff out, I bought a book about selling novels, and it told me that it was very, VERY, VERY important that the entire plot get crammed into that synopsis.

You know what I found out? People who sell books about selling novels don't actually sell or buy novels. In other words, that was completely wrong advice. Actual agents and published novelists will tell you that a synopsis is a marketing document. The job of the "synopsis" is to do exactly what a description does--to sell your book. You're selling to an agent or editor, not to a reader, but the goal is the same--someone should read that puppy and say, "Oh my God! I've GOT to read that book!"

Progress report

I wrote more of the new chapter 25--it seemed to be taking kind of a long time, so I ran a word count on what I wrote yesterday and today (I don't remember exactly where I stopped yesterday). Anyway, it turns out that I've written 3,550 words, plus quite a bit of editing, so that explains that.

I should be able to finish out chapter 25 tomorrow (it's mostly chopping down the last scene, which now doesn't need to be nearly as long), and then the final chapters don't need that much work.

Then I think I'm going to take a few days off from it and work on some cover and marketing B projects (plus some tax crap). Then I'll read it over, print it out and read it over, and start laying it out.

Build that fort!

For whatever reason, I find the Web site Unclutterer to be surprisingly inspirational. (It also motivated me to organize my house a little better, although honestly, I think it's impossible to read that thing and not organize something.)

This is one of the more inspirational posts. Erin is writing about her toddler son, who likes to build forts and builds them all the time, everywhere she will let him.

 

My son’s obsession with forts has reminded me how truly simple it can be to pursue the life you desire. My son likes building forts, so he builds forts. He doesn’t talk about building forts or wish he were building forts or make excuses for why he can’t build forts, he simply builds forts. When he is tired of fort building, he will play with trains because he wants to play with trains or whatever interest is next on his agenda. Unless I tell him he can’t do something because it’s unsafe (like building a fort inside the stove), he’ll do whatever it is he wants to do.

 

When I was first considering moving into creative writing, I was really intimidated by it--I grew up reading and majored in English (going the hard-core honors route) and all that. And if you have basically worshipped writers your whole life, it's hard to think of little ole you actually writing, you know, real books.

The question I had for myself was, Would I produce anything any good? And one day, it occurred to me that, before she started writing, Flannery O'Connor did not know she was Flannery O'Connor, Legend of Literature. There was no hand coming out of the sky, writing with burning letters in the air, "GO, THOU, FLANNERY O'CONNOR, AND WRITE! YOU'D BE REALLY GOOD AT IT!"

No, Flannery O'Connor had to do it the hard way--she had to write, and then see if her writing was any good.

And you know, that was an important realization: Writers write. If you want to be a writer, then you have to write. You can talk about it until you're blue in the face, but you won't be a writer unless you get words onto paper. There's no intermediate step. (I mean, yes, Flannery O'Connor got into the Iowa Writers' Workshop, but she had to write first to make that happen.) No one can do it for you. You just have to make that leap and then see what you've got.

Progress report

Yes! There is progress to report!

Basically I'm adding a largish scene near the end, so chapter 24 became chapters 24 and 25, and the book is now 27 chapters plus an epilogue. There may be another chapter added, or I may stop there--we'll presumably find out tomorrow.

A couple of good links on marketing

Why yes, I do plan on working today. But first!

This is a neat post from Kristine Kathryn Rusch about why you should focus on writing instead of getting all caught up in marketing to the detriment of actually producing books.

And

This is a good post by Camille LaGuire (found via PV comments--seriously, read those things, they go off on the most interesting and useful tangents) about how Google ranks things and why you should really not run about spamming blogs.

I realize both these bits of advice happen to coincide with my own prejudices, but I still maintain that if someone's marketing advice makes you want to shoot yourself in the head, then don't follow it, because ultimately it will make you less eager to finish your book.

Reviewing reviewers

I didn't get enough sleep last night, so I went to work on a B project--soliciting more reviews for Trang from review blogs.

Oh my God. I mean, I realize that in this brave new world, review blogs are necessarily run by amateurs, doing this in their spare time. But seriously:

1. It is unethical to ask for payment in return for a review. I don't give a fuck if you think you are super-special and would never be swayed by money--that just proves what a deluded idiot you are. If you feel you need to be compensated for your time, sell your reviews to a reputable publication (you know, the kind that fires you if you take money from the people whose work you are reviewing) or run ads on your blog, OK?

2. It is pathetic to ask for an ass-licking in return for a review. I'm all in favor for a zero-tolerance policy regarding abusive and pestering e-mails, but I would hope that your review of my work would depend on the quality of that work, not on the fact that (per your suggestion!) I told you in my e-mail soliciting a review that I thought you were super-duper and I loved you and followed you everywhere because you are just! so! awesome! and now we are best friends!!! Honestly, what are you thinking? Why not be even more open about what you're actually reviewing, and title your blog "How Well Do You Lie and Suck Up?" Instead of stars, you could use [redacted for obscene imagery].

Also, it's nice if people actually write, you know, reviews. I really don't get it when people post the publishing information and something vague like, "Writing: Used words." You do realize you can get books for free from the library, right? There's no need to go through this "I'm a book reviewer!" charade.

Not that they're all like that, of course, but I'm amazed to see people openly doing what I would have gotten fired and blacklisted for back when I was a reporter (and, yes, I did occasionally write book reviews).

Taking a deep breath (I am calm, I am calm) and looking at this from the perspective of a writer: Just having the publishing information (you know--the book length, the description, a picture of the cover) posted on a Web site was of no use to me. And I have to question the credibility of a review site where your money or your ability to [redacted for obscene imagery] is of paramount importance. People may fool themselves that they aren't affected by payment or a good [redacted for obscene imagery], but I doubt they fool a lot of readers.

Which brings me to the larger point of why I don't see the point of gaming the system. I've written a niche book. It appeals to a certain audience. Positioning it as something else was a mistake.

I can't see how doing something like paying/performing [redacted for obscene imagery] in exchange for a "totally unbiased, really!!!" review would help me reach my target audience. I feel the same way about gaming Amazon by having all your friends buy your book on a particular day--one of the reasons that site sells so many self-published books is because of its suggest-to-sell features (you know, "People who bought THIS also bought THAT" and the like). If, say, my sister, who does not like sci-fi and prefers a cozy mystery, bought Trang off Amazon because I asked her to, that would simply trick the algorithm into suggesting the book to lovers of cozy mysteries. I have no idea what they would do with it, but I doubt it would fall in the category of "bought it/loved it/told all my friends."

What are publishers bringing to the party?

The Passive Voice has a bunch of stuff about the Digital Book World Conference today. (Apparently the conference motto is, "Learn Why You Aren't Profiting from Digital Ebook Publishing." Very up, guys, very up.) And it's all about how traditional publishers need to be more like self-publishers, what with getting books to market faster and building communities around books and lowering prices and selling short stories individually and not having crappy formatting.

And all that may be a good idea. But as traditional publishing becomes more and more like self-publishing, authors really, really need to ask themselves, Is it worth paying a premium to have a publishing house do what I can do myself for far less money? Because, hey, if the arrows in their quiver are labeled "sell short stories individually" or "toy with pricing" or "don't mess up the formatting," you have the exact same arrows in your quiver, and you don't have to pay for them.

It's not really any different than when some digital publisher asks your for half your royalties or $3,000 to do something that just isn't that complicated.

The problem isn't only that you're getting robbed blind (although that is definitely a problem), the larger problem is that you're getting locked into a business model where your books cost people an arm and a leg. Occasionally bringing the price down to 99 cents (and you really take the shaft) isn't going to help that much when the rest of the time, your book is $10 more than everyone else's.

One of the reasons why even writers who self-publish will take traditional-publishing contracts is because they perceive a value in the distribution networks and marketing programs traditional publishers have. But the vanishing of Borders and the downward spiral of Barnes & Noble means that that network is becoming less valuable (and apparently publishers are cutting sales forces, meaning they're not going to be in a good position to uncover new brick-and-mortar markets). Marketing of course costs money--the question is, can you do it yourself (or even hire someone to do it for you) for less than what a traditional publishing contract will cost you in royalties and lost sales? If you really, really think a particular publisher has excellent marketing, then you might want to go for it. But I think it would be wrong to assume a publisher has such excellent marketing that they can get people to buy $13 e-books, especially one written by someone who isn't a huge name, because evidence indicates otherwise.

Social media, blah-blah-blah

I'm not anywhere near focused enough today to edit. It's a rebound issue from being trapped in the house for a week--you want popcorn kittens, I got 'em big time. I went out to lunch today! Because I could! And I went for a walk! Because I could! (And saw two otters--wow, I wasn't expecting to be able to do that.) I'm going to go buy a pizza for dinner! Because I can! Maybe I'll invent an errand and run it later! Because I can!

Yeah, it's B project time, and Lindsay Buroker's many, many posts on using social media convinced me--well, they didn't convince me that I wasn't using social media to its full potential, because I already knew that, but they did convince me that I could better utilize social media without having it be this huge, time-consuming pain in the butt that distracts me from actually writing books.

One thing she recommended with Twitter was to use TweetDeck, because that way you can follow a gazillion people and still have a vague handle on the resulting flood of tweets. So I downloaded it, and promptly discovered that someone had put some of my blog posts in a newsletter--the person had very considerately notified me of this fact via Twitter, and Twitter never told me because I wasn't following them already! Oy, vey. I'm sure following them now!

What's also funny is that one reason Buroker thinks it's worthwhile to become something of a Twitter ho is that if someone with a lot more followers than you likes one of your tweets, they'll retweet it to all their followers. And I decided to follow Buroker, and she liked one of my tweets, and...let's just say she puts her money where her mouth is, and I'm getting more followers and retweets as a result. So that was nice--I don't think it's necessarily going to get me a ton of new fans of Trang or anything, but I do think it is important to get the word out about how self-publishing works and what to avoid.

I also set up a Facebook fan page (for myself. That's not egocentric or anything) and linked it to Twitter, so when I tweet my blog posts, the links should also show up there, too. (ETA: Argh. I thought it went from Twitter to the Facebook page, but it actually goes the other way. OK, I can make that work, too.) It's just another way that people can follow what's going on here (with, you know, the all-important minimal effort on my part).

OK--gotta go get some pizza! Because I can! (And I've got the kid tomorrow--this may shock you, but we're probably going to go out--so don't expect meaningful output until Wednesday....)

My point about the economics of self-publishing, made for me

This is a story in The Wall Street Journal about how traditional publishers are looking at the kind of sales self-publishers are having by selling low-priced books, and deciding to do that themselves.

How nice for them. But how does it affect the writer? George Pelecanos spills the beans (thank you, George):

 

"It's a gamble, but I want to be read," said Mr. Pelecanos, who stands to earn all of 17 cents on each 99-cent sale. By comparison, the digital edition of Mr. Pelecanos's most recent novel, "The Cut," a new series featuring a former Iraq war veteran turned investigator, retailed for $12.99. Mr. Pelecanos's cut was $2.27 on each sale.

 

OK, so on a 99-cent book, he's making 17 cents--which is half of what he'd make putting that sucker onto Amazon himself at that price, but that's not the scary bit.

The scary bit is that he gets $2.27 on a $13 e-book! !! !!!! !!!!! He could get that kind of money for a book he self-published on Amazon and priced at...wait for it...$3.25.

That's almost a TEN DOLLAR DIFFERENCE to the buyer! And a ZERO DOLLAR DIFFERENCE in profits to the author!

See, this gamble Pelecanos is making is unnecessary. He wants people to discover him, to realize that they are his fans--and obviously the much-vaunted marketing and distribution to bookstores provided by his publishers haven't really helped with that. So he's cutting prices and taking a hit. But by self-publishing he could drastically slash his prices and find new readers and all that good stuff without losing a dime.

There's a mini-hiatus going on

If you've noticed that I've gotten a lot less productive over the past couple of days, that's because it has thawed (yay!) and my time has been spent purchasing toilet paper, reuniting with long-lost relatives, washing the blood out of the carpet in front of the elevator doors, and the like. I should be back on track tomorrow...probably. I have power and not everybody does, so there may be some unanticipated demands on my time.

Is self-publishing like playing the lottery?

It's probably not going to shock you to hear that I think the answer to that question is no.

Traditional publishing, I would argue, is at this point very much like playing the lottery. I do not play the lottery, or roulette, or any game of chance that requires my money--or my time and effort, which also cost money--where the odds are stacked against me. (I like fire, so if I want to throw my money away to no purpose, I can always take it out back and light it up--I know I'll enjoy that.) My attitude towards lotteries is why I avoided creative writing for a long time and why I gave up on traditional publishing--any field where someone can write "I look forward to reading this as a published book.... It will be a welcome addition to the literature on slavery" in a rejection letter and not be hauled off to an insane asylum is a field I want to avoid.

Traditional publishing is not a meritocracy. It is a lottery.

Self-publishing--well, that, I feel is much less driven by luck. It seems like there really is a formula: Produce a large number of decent titles, actually put them on sale (crucial step!), and market them appropriately; see a payoff. You don't have to sell a ton of copies (because relying on writing a blockbuster is even dumber than relying on buying a winning lottery ticket).

You might notice that that is not at all what I'm doing--I'm slowly cranking out these loooong novels one at a time and not really marketing at all (although I'll market more once Trust is out. Probably). And I have the puny sales to prove it! It's all kind of academic to me, since my income comes from elsewhere--and yes, I used to hate people like me when I wrote for a living! God, they were all, blah-blah-blah never mind the market, don't you have a trust fund/fuck buddy who works on Wall Street to support you? I wanted to punch them in the face so bad!!!

Ahem. Anyway, I haven't lost an appreciation for being able to actually make a living just from your writing. So just because I'm not doing the things that would help you make a decent living self-publishing, that doesn't mean they aren't things you should be doing, if you want or need to make a decent living self-publishing.

Who is actually doing these things? Well, let's take a(nother) look at Lindsay Buroker's blog! She'd never been traditionally published. She did write for a living, but she wasn't writing fantasy fiction, so it's not like she had this built-in audience. She started in December 2010 with a novel and has been adding titles ever since. And hey, as she puts up new titles, the sales of her old titles grow, and while she's not a gazillionaire, she's doing pretty well. It helps that she's a savvy marketer, but she's more than happy to share her ideas, and they don't look like things that are impossible to replicate.

Under the old system, you could write a great book, and it just didn't matter. It would never see the light of day, and you wouldn't make a dime. Now it's definitely going to see the light of day, and while your sales might not be enough to interest traditional publishers, they may be plenty enough to satisfy you.

Progress report

Finished editing up to chapter 24, which is another problem chapter, so I figured I'd start fresh on it tomorrow. There are 26 chapters plus an epilogue, so I'm getting close to done with this editing pass, yay.

CreateSpace is changing

Oh, FYI, CreateSpace is discontinuing its "Pro Plan," which let you price your paper book more cheaply and distribute it to bookstores and libraries. Now everyone gets the cheaper price for free, which is nice, and Expanded Distribution is $25 a title, not $39. I don't know if there's an annual fee attached to Expanded Distribution now--there used to be a $10 annual fee to maintain Pro Plan after its first year.